While they were presenting their cases, I scanned the judge’s mind and was surprised to find him agreeing with Chris. It wouldn’t serve his purposes if I was in jail, although it might make me a little more malleable to his plan. He needed me out where I could do the most damage. He could almost taste the sweet bliss of revenge, and couldn’t wait to put his final plan into action. Everything he’d done to this point was worth it. I looked scared enough to do whatever he wanted, and he couldn’t wait to twist the knife in Manetto’s black heart.
“Denied,” he said, banging his gavel. “I am satisfied with the bail amount that has been paid, but Ms. Nichols,” he looked down his long nose at me and drew his bushy eyebrows together in a scowl. “Be warned that if you so much as step one toe outside of this state, you will be hauled off to jail for the duration of your trial. And you, Mr. Nichols, will be held in contempt of this court and removed as her legal representation.”
Chris answered that he understood, and we were dismissed until my trial was to begin. We all arose and I stood on trembling legs. I leaned against the table until the judge was in his chambers. Once his door closed, it was a relief to have his menacing presence gone.
Chris steadied me with his arm, and his brows drew together in concern. “Shelby, what’s wrong? I know that was unpleasant, but…”
“It’s him,” I whispered. “He’s the judge behind all this. He hates me, and he’s out for revenge against Uncle Joey.”
Chris rubbed his forehead as the implications of my revelation set in. “Well that sucks.” He was thinking that getting anything from a judge who had decided you were guilty was an effort in futility. If a judge wanted you to be convicted of something, he had huge powers of persuasion and discrimination about what was included in a trial and what wasn’t. It would be next to impossible to win a trial with a biased judge. Besides all that, if he was out for revenge against Uncle Joey, why was he picking on me? It didn’t make sense.
“I know,” I said. “But he’s got something planned, and I’m sure he’ll make his move long before we ever go to trial. Hopefully we’ll find out what it is soon.”
Chris nodded, but his focus was a bit out of whack, kind of like he was in a state of shock. While he tried to gather his wits, I glanced toward the back where Ramos and Jackie were sitting, but they were long gone. Instead I caught Billie’s eye and motioned her toward me.
“What is it?” she asked.
“That’s the same judge who presided over Jim’s trial. He’s our connection. You need to find out all you can about him and put it together with everything Sam told you. There’s got to be a clue to the key in that somewhere, and once you figure it out, Jim and I will both be off the hook.”
“I’m on it,” she said, full of excitement and grabbing Dimples’ arm on her way out the door. I followed her progress and noticed Bates glaring at me with pursed lips. He was thinking I was up to something and he’d better figure out what it was before I ruined everything. He charged after Dimples, thinking that even if Dimples was off the case, he could threaten him with the fact that withholding information could get him suspended, or worse, fired.
Damn! His zeal made me a little nervous, but then I remembered how capable Billie was and knew she could handle a jerk like Bates. Plus, Dimples had helped me enough that I didn’t worry about him being intimidated by Bates either, so it was all good.
Everyone had filed out into the hall by now, and Chris and I followed them. My friends were all subdued and nervous and hugged me like the judge had sentenced me to death or something. “Thanks for your support,” I told them. “It really means a lot that you’d come.” One of them thought about saying, good luck, you’re going to need it, but she didn’t want to sound negative. The others were thinking they were sure glad it was me and not them. But on the bright side, at least no one thought I was guilty.
“You can count on me,” Holly said. “I can testify you were with me right before you went over there if it will help.”
“Thanks so much, I’ll let you know if we need you.”
We started to get on the elevator with them, but Chris pulled me back. “You go on ahead,” he said. “We’re going out a different way. You know, in case of reporters.” They all nodded, agreeing that was probably a good idea. Each one of them wondered if they’d get on TV and if they needed more lipstick. It brought a smile to my lips that I understood what they were thinking and, if the roles were reversed, I’d probably be thinking the same thing.
“We’ll take the stairs and go out the back,” Chris told me. “It’s less crowded that way.” He really didn’t want to get hounded by the news people.
“Sounds good. I don’t either.”
We made it back to his office without being accosted by anyone, and I wondered if maybe Chris hadn’t blown it out of proportion. As we walked in, his secretary handed him a stack of messages from various news agencies, and I changed my mind.
“Do you have to answer those?” I asked.
“No. But I should probably release a statement saying you’re innocent and a victim of police brutality or something.”
“Really?” That surprised me.
“Well, maybe not that last part,” he said with a smile. “So tell me everything the judge was thinking.”
I told him everything, even the part about not wanting me in jail so I could do the most damage.
“Sounds like he’s going to approach you about something,” Chris said. “I wonder what he has in mind.” He was hoping that it wasn’t to use me against Manetto, because he wasn’t sure Manetto could be bought by anyone. He’d probably rather let me go to prison than be blackmailed by the judge.
I wasn’t so sure of that, and it kind of hurt my feelings. “I don’t think Uncle Joey would throw me under the bus like you’re thinking,” I said. “I think he’d do anything he could to help me. In fact, I think I’d better tell Uncle Joey what’s going on right now. Maybe he’ll know what Dobson wants, and we can come up with a counter-plan.”
Chris pursed his lips, wishing for the thousandth time he could block his thoughts from me. He hated making me feel bad without saying a word. And what if he was right? “You’ve got a good point,” he conceded. “Sometimes I think the worst about people like him, but I’ll try harder to give him the benefit of the doubt.”
My heart softened, knowing how hard he was trying, especially with me reading his mind all the time. “You’ve got a good point too. Let me talk to him and we’ll go from there.”
I called Thrasher Development, and when Jackie answered, I thanked her for coming to court before asking if I could talk to Uncle Joey.
“He’s meeting with someone right now,” she said. “But why don’t you come on over. I think he and Ramos both want to chat with you.” I told her I would and disconnected.
“I’m going over to Thrasher,” I said to Chris. “It sounds like Uncle Joey has something for me.”
“Okay,” Chris agreed, even though he was thinking he didn’t want me going there alone. This whole thing had him on edge. A mob boss and a vengeful judge seemed like a formula for disaster. “Call me the minute after you’ve talked to him and let me know if he knows anything. I want to be prepared for whatever the judge has up his sleeve.”
“I will honey, and thanks for being so understanding.” After giving Chris a quick kiss, I hurried to my car, grateful for something to do and hoping Uncle Joey had good things to tell me.
I fastened my seat belt and put my stun flashlight back in my purse. I’d left it in the car since I knew it would never make it past security. It was fully charged and ready to go, which made me feel more secure. I started the engine and put my car in reverse, but hearing my phone ring, pushed it back into park, knowing the call might be important. I scanned the caller ID. It wasn’t a number I recognized, but I answered anyway.
“Hello?”
“Is this Shelby Nichols?”
My breath caught. Even over the phone I knew who it was, and dre
ad tightened my stomach. “Yes.”
“I think we need to meet and have a little chat,” Judge Dobson said. “Just the two of us, and it would be beneficial to you if you didn’t tell anyone, especially your husband.”
“Why should I talk to you?” I asked.
“I thought that was pretty evident,” he said. Silence followed, but I waited to hear him out before I said anything. “You don’t want to go to prison for a crime you didn’t commit, do you?”
“No,” I said.
“Then I think you’ll be interested in what I have to say.”
I hesitated. If he had a plan for me, he certainly didn’t want me dead yet, right? So it was probably okay to meet him. “Sure. When do you want to talk?”
“Now.”
My heart raced and I took a deep breath. “Fine. Where?”
“Let’s go back to the place where it all began,” he said. “Sam Killpack’s office. It’s unoccupied for the moment, and only a few minutes away from where you are. But just remember, this only works if you tell no one and come alone.”
Before I could respond, the line went dead.
Chapter 14
In a state of shock, I tried to gather my courage for the drive to Sam’s office. It was something I had to do, but just thinking about it curdled my stomach. At least the judge didn’t know I could read his mind. That was a plus.
I also had my stun gun, and my determination to beat Judge Dobson at his own game. I could do this. I’d been in worse situations. Well, maybe not quite like this, but once I knew what he wanted, I could get the help I needed. Until then, I could handle one judge.
As I backed out of my parking spot, I tuned the radio to a hard rock station and hoped that hearing a little Metallica would bolster my courage.
The music and my little pep talk worked until I exited the elevator on the second floor. As I stepped forward, the whole floor seemed empty of life, with not one sound in the hall except for that of my heels echoing on the hardwood floor. Sam’s office loomed before me like a death sentence at the end of the hall, and I realized my legs were trembling. My mouth went dry, making it hard to swallow past the fear in my throat.
At times like this I knew that if I didn’t get mad I would probably faint or something, so I changed my focus to determination that this jerk of a judge would not get away with ruining my life. How dare he? How could a judge who’s charged with the revered responsibility of upholding the law make an innocent person and her family suffer? It was wrong, and I wasn’t going to let him get away with it.
I grabbed the knob and turned it, pushing the door all the way open. Except for the secretary’s desk, the room was empty, and all that stood between me and the judge was the door to Sam’s office. I marched up to the door, and an unbidden image of Sam, dead and sprawled forward over his desk came to my mind. I almost wished I would find the judge the same way, but knew that would never happen.
Without knocking, I pushed the door open. No one sat at the desk in the center of the room, but movement by the window drew my gaze and I found the judge looking out over the street. He seemed even bigger in this small room, and I shrank back just a little. Turning at my entrance, his brows drew together in anger that I hadn’t knocked. It took him by surprise, but he quickly recovered and strode to the desk.
“Have a seat, Shelby,” he said, motioning to the chair in front of the desk. He took Sam’s place and was hoping it unsettled me that he could sit so easily in Sam’s chair at the desk where he had been murdered.
I left the door ajar in case I had to make a fast exit, and quickly sat, hoping he wouldn’t notice. I swallowed my apprehension, deciding to keep my cool and let him do all the talking. He openly studied me, hoping his scrutiny would throw me off my game and give him the advantage.
I studied him right back and kept my mouth shut. He kept waiting for me to ask him what he wanted, but he was going to be disappointed on that point. Then he was thinking I was probably a little tongue-tied in his presence and decided to draw it out as long as he could, just to upset me.
To prolong my discomfort, he moved the phone and fiddled with a square black box sitting next to the pen holder. It had a place for a key, and it dawned on me that the key Sam had given to Billie looked like it would fit. Was this the box? In plain sight?
Curious, Dobson opened the box, but there was nothing inside, so he quickly shut it with a smack and I jerked a little. That was just the response he wanted.
“I’m sure you’re wondering what I want from you.” He broke the silence and pinned me with a cold stare. “So I’ll spell it out. Before Sam died, he did quite a bit of spying on you.” He opened a briefcase on the desk and pulled out a file. “I’m sure you’ll agree that these pictures put you in a bad light.”
Spreading the pictures in front of me, I stifled a gasp to see that I was the center of them all. They went back to when I first started working for Uncle Joey, showing stills of me getting into his limo, me walking with Uncle Joey into his murdered colleague’s house, me flanking Uncle Joey inside the fight club along with Ramos and wearing my black security clothes. The last were of me exiting the plane with Ramos and greeting Uncle Joey before sliding into the limo. Those last few I’d already seen from the file that Uncle Joey got from his detective friend.
It looked like Sam had been following me for a long time, and I wondered how come I never heard his thoughts. Maybe he was too far away when he took those pictures, or my mind was so focused on other things that I didn’t pick them up.
“They don’t prove anything,” I said. “They’re just pictures.”
“Oh I think they do,” he said. “If Detective Bates had his hands on these, he’d have plenty of reasons for you to kill Sam. Photos that he took linking you to Joe “The Knife” Manetto seem like plenty of motivation to me. Even if they don’t “prove” you did anything wrong, it would put enough of a bad light on your case to convict you of murder.
“And don’t forget, I can subpoena your bank statements. It would probably show a significant amount of money going in and out of one of your accounts. A big deposit like five million dollars is kind of hard to miss.”
Crap! How did he know about that? “What do you want?” I asked.
“The way I see it, you have two choices. One, you take the blame for the murder of Sam Killpack and go to prison for the rest of your life, or, two, you turn state’s evidence and testify against Manetto and he takes the fall for Sam’s murder. Either way, one of you has to pay. Who, is up to you.”
The scope of his deceitful plot churned my stomach. There was no way I could win with either of his choices. I couldn’t turn against Uncle Joey, but I could see his point that it looked like Uncle Joey set me up since he arranged the appointment for me to meet with Sam in the first place.
“What have you got against me? What did I ever do to you?”
My directness brought him up short, but he was more than willing to answer. “Not a thing, except that Manetto seems to have a soft spot for you.” He was thinking that when I turned against Manetto, it would be like twisting a knife right into his heart. The pain of my betrayal would be lots worse than anything the judge could do to him. My testimony would send him to prison where he’d rot for years. It was the best type of revenge, and just thinking about it sent a rush of satisfaction through him.
“What have you got against Uncle Joey?” I asked.
He swallowed the anger that simmered just under his skin and sniffed. “You have to ask? He’s a crime boss. He’s done all kinds of terrible things. I wouldn’t put it past him to be holding something over your head right now. He needs to be stopped, and this is the best way to do it.” An unbidden image of his daughter lying dead and broken in a morgue sprang to his mind, but he pushed it away.
“Did he hurt someone close to you?” I asked.
Dobson’s eyes blazed in astonishment and the thought of course, why else would I do this? rushed through his mind, but he tamped it down, focusing on so
mething else instead. “You keep calling him ‘Uncle,’ but I know you’re not related, so why do you call him that?”
“Um…just to bug him mostly,” I said. “But I think he likes it now. You’re right, he is holding something over me, but I don’t know if I dare turn on him. It might get me killed before I could ever testify.” I was hoping to make him more sympathetic to me so I could find out if that was his whole plan or if there was more…like ending my life once this was all over.
“No you won’t. We have things like witness protection; you’d be fine.” He couldn’t guarantee they’d offer me that, but he didn’t care as long as I did what he wanted.
A whisper of sound reached my ears, and I heard a random thought coming from the other room. Someone had come inside, but they were keeping quiet and hiding behind the partially closed door. I caught a woman’s thoughts wondering what I was doing with the judge, and it was a good thing she’d been following him. She wondered what he was up to now. I thought for a moment it might be Billie, but the intonation wasn’t quite right. Even though I didn’t recognize her voice, there was still something familiar about it.
If she was spying on the judge that could be real helpful to me, so I needed to keep him talking about his plans while I could.
“So you want me to turn against Joey “The Knife” Manetto in return for my freedom, even though he’ll probably kill me for ratting him out, and I’m supposed to be grateful for that? Either way looks bad for me. And what about the real killer?” I asked, raising my voice. “I know Uncle Joey didn’t do it, so you’re just going to let that person get away with murder?”
I caught a flash from his mind of a woman with dark hair and nearly gasped out loud. Sam’s new secretary? She was the killer? Wow, I had no idea.
“Of course not,” he said. “This person will get caught at some point. Those kind always do. Maybe not for Sam’s murder, but when you’re a criminal, getting caught is a fact of life.” He was thinking that she’d outgrown her usefulness and it was time to end his association with her. She’d been in his debt, but the fact that she’d killed two people for him would probably make her think she was done and could go her own way. He couldn’t allow that because if she ever got caught and talked, it would be the end for him.