After Dark (35 page)

Matthew put his cup down. Abbie snuggled against his chest.

"Very touching," Charlie Deems said from the living-room doorway.

Abbie jerked around and Matthew sprang to his feet. Deems gave them his goofy grin and ran his finger around his left ear to clean out some wax.

He wore a pressed shirt and ironed slacks.

His hair was slicked back. He looked like a farm boy at a 4-H meeting, except for the gun with the silencer that dangled from his right hand.

"Looks like you two are having a real good time," Deems said.

"What are you doing here?" Abbie asked, standing beside Matthew.

"I came to visit," Deems said, walking casually across the room until he was two arm lengths from them. "I'll bet I'm the last person you expected to see. Am I right?"

"I'd like you to leave."

"I bet you would. Then you and Mr. Smart Guy here could do the nasty thing. Course, if I was in your shoes, I'd want me out of this house, too. And I don't blame you. Me being a previously convicted murderer and all. What did you call me during my trial? An animal, devoid of feeling."

"What do you want, Mr. Deems?" Matthew asked.

"I might want revenge on the person responsible for putting me in that teensy-weensy cell on death row. I remember every minute on the row, Miss Prosecutor." Deems smiled wistfully, like a man recalling a sweet summer morning. "Did you know that the toilet in the cell above us leaked. Did you know we was double-bunked for a while. Man, was that cell crowded. I had to eat my dinner sitting on the crapper. That's quite an indignity.

Some people put in that situation, finding themselves with the person responsible for it, might be filled with rage and an uncontrollable impulse to do the responsible person some type of outrageous harm."

Deems paused for a heartbeat. Then he broke into a grin.

Abbie's mouth was dry and her senses were more alert than at any other time in her life., "Rape. Am I right? Bet it's what you thought of first. You're probably picturing it right now. Can you see yourself naked, tied up on the bed, screaming, with no one to help you? At my mercy?

That's not a pretty picture."

Deems let the thought linger. Then he took a step toward Abbie. She moved into Matthew.

Deems smiled again. "I was hoping to get you alone for a long weekend, Counselor. Unfortunately, I'm a little pressed for time, so I'm gonna have to do you now."

Matthew stepped in front of Abbie. "You will not hurt her."

Deems laughed. "What are you gonna do? Cross-examine me to death?" The smile disappeared. "I didn't appreciate the way you set me up so I'd look like a fool. In fact, I don't appreciate either of you. So, first, I'm gonna have my way with the little lady, while you watch.

Maybe you'll even learn a thing or two. Then I'm going to make sure you both die very slowly. And I'll watch."

Matthew lunged while Deems was speaking. The move surprised Deems.

Reynolds drove him into the wall, but this was the first fight he had been in since grade school and he had no idea what to do next. Deems brought a knee up between Matthew's legs. Matthew gasped and sagged.

His grip on Deems loosened.

Deems saw Abbie race out of the room and quickly head-butted Reynolds.

Matthew staggered backward. Deems heard Abbie pounding up the stairs and shot Reynolds in the side. Matthew looked dazed and crumpled to the floor.

"We're gonna get to the good part soon," Deems said, "so you stay right here. Any objection?"

Matthew gasped from pain. Deems kicked him hard in the ribs and Matthew fainted.

"Objection overruled."

Deems turned toward the stairs. He listened for a moment, then climbed them. At the top he shouted, "Come out, come out, wherever you are."

There was no response.

"The longer it takes me to find you, the longer it will take you and your boyfriend to die."

Deems paused for an answer, but there was only silence. He looked down the hall. There were two doors on one side and three on the other. He eased open the first door. It was an empty guest bathroom.

The next door opened into Abbie's bedroom. Deems liked it.

The bed had a headboard and a footboard to which he could tie Abbie's hands and feet. He smiled in anticipation. Then he dropped beside the bed and looked under it. Abbie wasn't there.

But, he thought, she might be in the closet. He stepped to the side and whipped open the door. A wall of dresses screened off the back wall.

Deems ripped the curtain apart and made certain Abbie was not hidden in the shadows. Then he stepped into the hall.

"You're pissing me off, bitch," he screamed. "Get out here now or I'll start cutting off your boyfriend's fingers."

Deems waited, hoping the loud threats would flush Abbie from hiding the way beaters flush lions for big-game hunters, but the hall stayed empty.

Deems smashed open the door to the guest room. He heard a whimper from the closet and smiled coldly. He heard another muffled sob and relaxed.

Deems put the gun on the guest bed. He did not want to risk shooting Abbie and spoiling his fun. Then he tiptoed to the closet door, counted to three silently and whipped the door open, screaming, "Surprise!"

But the surprise was all his. Abbie was sitting on the closet floor with her back braced against the wall. The handgun she carried in her purse was aimed at Deems. Her face was set and there were no tears on her cheeks. It dawned on Charlie that Abbie had lured him to the closet with phony sobs and whimpers.

He felt a momentary flash of fear, until he remembered his dark angel.

Charlie straightened slowly and raised his arms straight out from his sides as if they were angel wings. Suddenly he knew his angel was in the room, a shimmering presence, ready to protect him from all harm. He did not fear the gun, because nothing could hurt him while his angel stood sentry.

"What are you going to do, shoot me?" Deems asked with a smirk.

Abbie did not answer. She pulled the trigger instead. Deems's eyes widened in disbelief when the first bullet hit him and he died with a look of utter confusion on his face.

Chapter TWENTY-EIGHT

Judge Baldwin took Abbie off the electronic surveillance program at Jack Stamm's request the day after she killed Charlie Deems. She was at Matthew's side on the Thursday morning after the shooting, the day the doctors at St. Vincent's Hospital permitted him to have visitors for the first time.

Tracy waited until the end of visiting hours and convinced Abbie and the others to leave on the pretext that she had a confidential legal matter she had to discuss with her boss.

"How are you feeling?" Tracy asked when they were alone.

"Okay," Matthew managed.

"I brought these for you," she said, holding out a vase filled with roses. "Where should I put them?"

Matthew slowly lifted his right arm and pointed toward several other vases that decorated the window. The nurse had cranked his bed into a sitting position. There was an IV in his left arm and a breathing tube in his nose. He looked tired, but alert.

Tracy pulled a chair next to Matthew's bed.

"You don't have to worry anymore. I'm not going to tell anyone about the photograph. It would have been the hardest thing I've ever done, Mr. Reynolds. You have no idea how much I admire you."

Their eyes met and Reynolds nodded a silent thank-you. Even now, it was hard for Tracy to think about how close she had come to destroying this fine, decent man. "Why?" Matthew managed.

"I know Mrs. Griffen didn't kill her husband."

"Who killed him?" Matthew asked with effort. His voice was hoarse.

"Just rest. I'll tell you everything."

Tracy summarized her investigation and explained how the link between the cases Laura had written on her legal pad led her to the discovery that a Supreme Court justice was fixing decisions for Raoul Otero.

"What I couldn't figure out was how Laura had discovered the cases. They were spread out over several years, she wasn't on the court when most of them were decided and there didn't appear to be any reason for her to run across all four at once.

The more I thought about it, the more certain I was that the answer was in the transcript, but I came up blank every time I read it.

"After Charlie Deems was arrested for the Hollins murders, the police searched his apartment. On 9 to 1290 of the transcript, a detective explains the significance of several messages that were left on Deems's answering machine. One of the calls is from an Arthur Knowland. Knowland needed some shirts and wanted Deems to call as soon as possible. Detective Simon testified that people who deal in drugs rarely call the drugs by name. Instead, they talk about shirts or tires. That meant that Arthur Knowland was calling to buy cocaine from Charlie Deems.

"Remember when you sent Barry and me to the Overlook to see if we could discover the identity of the woman Justice Griffen was meeting there?"

Reynolds nodded weakly.

"Well, I checked the register at the motel for the day that Mrs. Griffen confronted her husband after receiving the anonymous call. Justice Griffen hadn't registered in his own name. I wrote down a list of the names in the register. An Arthur Knowland was registered at the Overlook on the day Justice Griffen had sex with Justice Kelly."

Reynolds's eyes widened as he saw immediately the significance of this information.

"As a result of Neil Christenson's investigation, we learned that the judge was also meeting Laura Rizzatti at the Overlook. I checked the register again and I found an Arthur Knowland registered on several occasions.

"I believe Laura found out that the judge was sleeping with Justice Kelly. I know she was infatuated with the judge from the way she acted when she talked about him to me. Finding out that the judge had another lover must have driven Laura to make the anonymous call to Mrs. Griffen.

She must have been racked with jealousy and furious with him, but she still loved him.

"Then Laura ran across Arthur Knowland's name in the transcript and remembered that the judge had used that name when he registered .at the Overlook. When Laura found out that the judge was buying drugs from Deems, she must have become suspicious of his reason for voting to reverse the Deems case. I think she checked to see if there had been other suspicious reversals since Justice Griffen came on the court. She found the other cases and realized that Griffen was on the take.

"Griffen needed money. He was using cocaine, and we know he was living beyond his means. I don't think he would have been able to resist a bribe in the amount Otero could offer. Who knows, Otero may have had evidence that Griffen was using drugs and blackmailed him with it."

"My God," Reynolds said. His voice sounded hoarse. There was a plastic pitcher next to the bed. Tracy filled a paper cup with water and helped Matthew drink it. Then she eased his head back onto the pillow.

"Laura called me the evening she was killed and left a message on my answering machine. She said she was in trouble and needed my help.

While she was talking, there was a knock on her door. That must have been Justice Griffen. Laura was so in love with him, I think she convinced herself that she was wrong to suspect him and told him everything she'd discovered. Then Justice Griffen killed her."

Reynolds looked stunned. He closed his eyes and rested for a moment.

When he spoke, it was with great effort. "Who killed Griffen?"

"Charlie Deems. Remember the attack on Mrs. Griffen at the coast? She the, ought the intruder was Deems. This is all speculation, of course, but I'm betting it was and that Justice Griffen paid Deems the hundred thousand dollars in the account Barry discovered at Washington Mutual for a hit. It would have been worth the price. If Mrs. Griffen died before the divorce became final, Justice Griffen would have inherited all of her money.

When Deems failed, Griffen would have wanted the money back.

Maybe he made the mistake of threatening Deems.

"Deems was insane. He was also highly intelligent. Killing the judge and framing the woman who put him on death row for the murder is a truly twisted idea. And it's just the type of plan a maniac like Deems would devise."

"I think you're right. You must go to Jack Stamm."

"I will. But I didn't want to go without your approval. You're still the boss."

Matthew tried to smile. Then, he started to cough. Tracy helped him drink some more water. Then she said, "I'm going to go now. You need to rest."

Matthew's eyelids fluttered. He was exhausted and medicated and staying awake was not easy. Just before Tracy turned for the door, she heard him whisper, "Thank you."

Barry Frame stood up when Tracy left Matthew's hospital room.

"How did he take it?" Barry asked.

Tracy took both of Barry's hands. "I think he's really relieved."

"The poor bastard. He's been through hell. First worrying about what you'd do. Then getting shot."

"You understand that I had no choice until I figured out that Abbie didn't kill her husband."

Barry looked ashamed. "I owe you an apology. You were always in the right. I just . . ."

Tracy squeezed his hands. "No apologies, okay? Sometimes right and wrong aren't black and white."

"What would you have done if you learned that Abbie was guilty?"

"I don't know and I'm glad I never had to make that decision."

Tracy picked up her attach case.

"Let's go to Jack Stamm's office and give him the evidence."

That evening Abbie was sitting next to Matthew's bed, holding his hand, when Jack Stamm entered the hospital room. "How is he doing?" Stamm asked Abbie.

"He's out of danger, but he'll have to stay here for a while. Is this a social call?"

"It is not. I wanted to tell Matt myself. I'm glad you're here. It saves me a trip out to your house."

Matthew and Abbie stared at Stamm expectantly. Stamm broke into a grin.

"Chuck Geddes and I just spent an hour with Tracy Cavanaugh and Barry Frame. I'm dismissing the indictment tomorrow."

"Does Geddes agree?" Matthew asked.