Chapter Thirty-Two
"Ms. Danniher and Mr. Paycik of KWMT to see you, Judge Claustel."
His assistant's announcement was formal and strained. She'd answered the first call we'd made from the car, and had been so uncooperative that we'd called Ames Hunt, asked him to set it up, and sidestepped specifics.
"And then I'll be leaving," she added.
She did that well, with the faintly aggrieved note clearly exempting her boss and aimed squarely at Mike and me for keeping her into the evening.
"Of course, of course. And thank you." It was Hunt playing host. "Come in, Elizabeth. We were just having an after-hours drink. Since this is, as you told me, a strictly informal gathering to clear up mistaken impressions about this case."
That was a quarter turn from what I'd actually told him. And what I'd told him had been another quarter turn from the truth. That brought us all the way around to face away from where we were actually heading, enough misdirection to keep everyone at ease. For now.
Hunt waved us to the guest chairs, now facing the couch, and settled back into the chair pulled around from behind the desk. His sports jacket, neatly hung on a hanger, joined Claustel's wrinkled robe and shapeless jacket on the antler-topped coat tree.
"You know Judge Claustel and Sheriff Widcuff, of course," Hunt added with a nod to the men seated on the couch, Claustel with one arm spread across the back with a studied air of ease.
"I believe you know Michael Paycik." Nods all around.
Claustel lifted his glass, revealing amber liquid. "Would you care for one?"
We declined.
I felt suddenly edgier than I had when anticipating this meeting. And then, almost as quickly as I recognized the reaction, I recognized its cause. Just the faintest scent, like a whisper in passing. But it was definitely the remnants of Mona's strong perfume.
A surge of adrenaline tingled out to my fingers. Mona's scent clung to one of the men in this room, woven into the fabric of his clothes so deeply he probably no longer smelled it. From their last encounter, when he shot her at the trailer?
A noise at the door caught my attention. Mike opened it, revealing Diana, who'd been trying to bump it open with the camera because she had both hands on the strap of her gear bag. She'd been the second call we made from the car.
I'd asked her if she could get her hands on a camera from the station. She'd said no. But she did have one of her own, even older and bigger than the station's antiques, that she'd bought on eBay and kept running herself.
Of course she did.
"This is Diana Stendahl," I added. "She's going to record this. I'm sure you don't mind, since I'm sure you all are as eager as everyone else in Cottonwood County to straighten out the murders of Foster Redus and Mona Burrell, even if it is done informally."
"Always glad to get any unpleasantness with the media straightened out informally," Claustel said, political smile intact, as he set down his glass on a side table, out of view of the camera. "That's what's so wonderful about this part of the country. We don't have to stand on ceremony, Ms. Danniher. Or do you think we know each other well enough to use Elizabeth and Ambrose?"
"I'd feel more comfortable with Judge Claustel."
I nodded to Diana. She dropped the equipment bag and started taping-and I do mean taping. I hadn't seen one of those behemoth cameras, complete with attached tape deck, since early in my career.
"Ah, journalistic integrity."
I ignored that, instead opening with a softball question about his working relationship with Foster Redus. I listened with every appearance of great interest as he rolled on about that, then segued to his terrific working relationships with everyone in the courthouse, including County Attorney Ames Hunt and Sheriff Tom Widcuff.
He truly was a political pro. Not only had he shared the limelight, but he timed it perfectly to allow Diana to focus on each of the other men-briefly-before he called the camera back to himself by concluding, "Which adds to our determination to bring to justice the murderer of Deputy Redus."
"You would agree, then, that it is in the best interests of the community to ensure that someone who had motive, means and opportunity to murder Deputy Redus answers questions concerning the murder?"
My peripheral vision caught a small motion from Hunt's hand to my right. It was quickly stilled, and he made no sound. But I suspected the county attorney had just hit the accelerator on his brain to come up to speed.
"Absolutely, Ms. Danniher. We owe it to this fine community as well as to that young man and his family-and the law enforcement family, too."
I nodded, not quite able to bring myself to thank him. "So, the first question to clear up is if you knew Redus was taking bribes to falsify arrest reports before he used that ploy to blackmail you into giving him the job here at the courthouse?"
"I did not give him the job or arrange . . ." He'd started with the automatic denial of political wrong-doing, then he spotted the criminal wallop within the question.
He gobbled. Sounds came out, but no words.
"Redus had you where he wanted you. And he was not discreet or subtle. You had to get rid of this blackmailer-there's the motive, Judge Claustel.
"Opportunity? That's easy. You arranged to meet him on Three-Day Pass Road to make a payment.
"Means? Redus' own shotgun. You probably casually asked to take a look at it, he handed it over, then you used it to crush his skull.
"After that, it was simply a matter of pushing his truck over the edge. Problem solved."
"This is-you can't . . ." Words were coming now, though nothing coherent.
"Except it wasn't problem solved, was it? Not when Redus' truck was found. Did Mona Burrell call and tell you she'd put together the pieces and knew what you'd done? Did she try to cash in, just as Redus had? Leaving you right back where you were before.
"That must have been a bad moment. But now you knew how to handle a blackmailer, and you acted quickly. At the trailer. With Redus' gun."
"Wait a minute," Widcuff said, a plea rather than a command. The sheriff definitely wasn't up to speed yet.
But Judge Claustel was getting there fast.
"Are you-you can't be accusing me?" He gave it the full judicial treatment.
"I am."
"That is outrageous! You cannot make such accusations with impunity, reporter or no reporter." Not bad. That almost sounded genuine.
"Of course you will say that." I nodded understandingly, then hit him fast. "Do you also say you didn't attack me in the KWMT tape library?"
"I have no idea what you're talking about." Weak-the weakness of a guilty man.
"I suppose it was Thurston Fine who told you I was looking up the arrests Redus had made. You wanted to prevent me from finding out-"
"You are making totally unfounded accusations."
"Would you care to show us your shins, Judge Claustel? Whoever attacked me will have spectacular bruises from crashing into the file cabinet drawers."
"You're crazy." That sounded as if his lips had gone stiff.
"It was little things, including the attack on me in the library. A scattering of chips that only formed a mosaic after a good bit of moving the colors around. One of the last pieces came an hour ago. The morning he died, Redus met with you in your office, didn't he? That's when he told you about his plan to confront Burrell. He was sure you'd protect him from any consequences of a run-in with Burrell. That's probably when you saw your opportunity."
"That proves you're crazy. Redus was in my office that morning, but just to bring me papers from Ames, here. Ask him, ask my assistant."
Moving only my eyes, I saw Hunt, staring at the judge, give a short, jerky nod. "I did ask Redus to drop off some papers after he said he was going to the judge's office next. I don't know how long he stayed."
That still left the door wide open, yet Claustel seemed to take energy from it.
"Redus never mentioned Burrell," he said strongly. "And you will regret this absurd grandstanding. I've given you enough rope, and now you've hanged yourself, just as I knew you would. You went too far back east-I knew that must be why they drove you out. And now you've done it here. This is the end of your career."
I didn't let him throw me off my narrative.
"You were patient. Careful. Never greedy. You didn't want money to throw around. You wanted the control. For your career. For your prestige. You never made anyone feel pressured. Just a political ally repaying a favor.
"I'm talking about the selected, subtle manipulation of the law that you practiced in order to have important people in the county owe you big favors, so you were sure to continue as political kingmaker. Maybe add a little extra income to your judge's pay. Help pay college tuition for Frank. The trip to Europe."
"More accusations with no proof. I hope you are getting all this on tape, young woman," he said to Diana, "because it will make a defamation case laughably easy."
I cocked an eyebrow. "I'll agree, you were very careful. But Foster Redus wasn't. That's why I can't believe you voluntarily took him in as a partner. No, he must have caught on to what you'd been doing, yet lacked the proof. Then, once he came across your son and poor Rog Johnson, he had you. And he was going to ruin it all, wasn't he? Because he didn't want just a little power among political allies, he wanted money. A lot of money. So you shut him up. Permanently."
"I did no such thing!" Claustel turned to the man beside him. "Bob, I demand you do something about this."
"Before you do, Sheriff," I said, "answer one question. Did Ambrose Claustel order you to burn Foster Redus' files?"
Widcuff's mouth closed, then opened again. It remained that way for a full three seconds before a sound came out. "He said . . ." The sheriff swallowed. "He said it'd be better politically to bury those ashes."
Now Widcuff was staring at Claustel, too.
I added more pressure on the judge. "Redus squeezed you for all he was worth, didn't he? And he used the one pressure point you couldn't withstand-your son's homosexuality."
"You shut up! You shut your damn mouth, you bitch!"
Wheezing, he started to rise, but Sheriff Widcuff put a beefy arm across his chest like a bar. The judge seemed to shrink, but the sound of his labored breathing remained. The same sound I'd heard in the KWMT library.
"Turn that thing off!" He stabbed a finger toward the camera.
I nodded to Diana. She nodded back, as arranged.
She turned off the camera, took it down off her shoulder, then fiddled with her bag on the table, switching on the small camcorder she'd carefully arranged inside. The quality wouldn't be much, but the content might make up for that. Even if we couldn't ever use it on air.
"I know you've been asking questions about my son." No political smile now. "Asking your dirty questions. Trying to dig up dirt. You have no right to bring your sleazy muckraking here. My boy's done nothing wrong."
"I agree he's done nothing wrong, but you were afraid other people wouldn't agree if they knew Frank is gay, so you did something wrong. Very wrong. Redus came across Frank and Rog Johnson. When he brought Frank home that night and said he'd tell the world that your son was gay unless you danced to his tune, you agreed."
Claustel stared at his hands, clenched hard on his knees. He said nothing.
"Rog Johnson's father couldn't offer Foster Redus anything he thought was worth taking except money. Rather than have his family be blackmailed and fearing they'd be shamed if Redus talked, Rog killed himself. He thought it was the only way to keep from hurting his parents."
I leaned forward, trying to see the man's face. "I don't believe the Johnsons would agree that that was a secret worth their son's dying for. Was it a secret worth killing for, Judge?
"The secret Redus discovered and used to blackmail you into taking him in as a partner. Until you killed him up at Three-Day Pass in November. You thought that was the end of it, but it wasn't, was it?
"Mona was out looking for Redus that night. She'd have driven right by Three-Day Pass Road at least twice. She saw something-saw you. Not enough to realize right away. But then, when Redus' body was found, it was enough, wasn't it? Just enough to try blackmailing you, and there you were, right back the way you'd been with Redus. So you used the same solution. Scheduled her right in after your appearance at O'Hara Hill, and killed her, too."
His hands opened from fists and he straightened his back. He'd been near the breaking point, but now he was backing away from it, gathering himself.
"All to hide your son's secret."
Damn. Damn, damn, damn. I'd counted on hitting him between the eyes and having him go down for the count.
"I won't stay here and listen to this."
He stood, and so did I, then everyone else. I took a step closer to the door. I couldn't stop him from leaving, but I could slow him long enough to take one last swing.
"Bank accounts will show the money trail. And there'll be physical evidence. Nature took away a lot of the evidence at Three-Day Pass, but there's a lot for the forensics guys to work with on Mona's murder."
Just the words conjured up the image. The blood stiffening in the blonde hair, the spattering across the spider web, the reddened reflection in the glass of the open window. And that scent of her perfume. Stronger now.
His face was pale, except for his bulbous nose. But Judge Ambrose Claustel hadn't given up. "This would be laughable if it weren't so serious. But it is crazy. You're crazy. You have no proof."
"There'll be proof. You know what they say-that no murderer can help leaving something of himself at the scene or taking something away. And you were stuck there longer than you'd expected, weren't you? Because you had to hide when Mike and I showed up, hoping we'd leave so you could get away. Were you planning how you'd kill us, too, if we found your hiding spot? After two murders, what's two more? But every second you stayed there added to the evidence the experts are going to find. Fibers and threads and dirt and fingerprints and residue from-"
"I have never killed anyone in my life."
It stopped me for an instant, that judicial voice ringing out in the small room.
"Yet you're not denying the official misconduct or-"
"You will never make that stick." His gaze swept the room in an echo of his magisterial command. "You don't think I'd survive this long as a politician if I didn't take precautions, do you?"
He strode to the door, then faltered at the sight of Deputy Richard Alvaro on the other side of the threshold. "You need to come with me, sir."
Claustel spun back to face us. "Hunt?" he demanded.
Ames spread his hands. "We can't just ignore this, Judge."
Claustel squared his shoulders and marched off, with Alvaro just off his shoulder.
As I turned back, I caught a speculative gleam in Ames Hunt's expression as he gazed around the room, following the same path Claustel's gaze had.
Possibly sensing my attention, Ames met my look. He tilted up one eyebrow, and I was certain he was wondering the same thing I was-what precautions might the judge have taken?
"I'll be damned," Widcuff told the room. "I'll be damned to hell and back."