CHAPTER ELEVEN
Alison had stood in a judge’s chambers before, but it was not a regular occurrence.
Most of her work with correctional facilities had come before a trial had commenced or after a prisoner was incarcerated.
So, she found herself in a relatively unfamiliar position.
What made it more unfamiliar was the judge lying on the desk in the middle of the room, partly hacked in two.
She couldn’t take her else from him. It was unlike anything she’d ever seen before.
"Judge Greene," Moore said from beside her.
That didn’t matter at that moment. What mattered was that the killer had killed in a frenzy again, and in a similar but different manner compared to the previous ones. Alison had to assume that the same blade was used, but there was no way to confirm that.
Judge Greene lay on his back, atop the desk, his eyes open wide as if in surprise, both of them looking upward, but in slightly different directions.
The middle of his face had been hacked down the middle, but the killer lacked the strength, or the blade lacked the sharpness, to cut the head completely in two.
The result was a mangled mess where the skin had been cut through, and some bone was visible and cut in places.
It was macabre and also lacked any surgical skill.
Alison couldn’t think about it fully. This was different. All three had bloody brutality. The killer was sending a message. Another note was proof of that. The third note copied the first one: No more lies. No more excuses.
The note was bagged and lay to the side now after forensics had removed it to reveal a single wound to the chest. It was perhaps a small mercy. If he had been stabbed before he was hacked at, he would not have felt that pain. Alison could only hope.
"What do you make of this?" Moore asked.
"The note tells us it’s the same killer," Alison said.
"The M.O. is very similar. The hacking at the face is not surgical.
Whoever did it didn't really know what they were doing.
They started cutting, but it looked like they couldn't finish what they'd started.
Is that significant? Did they want to split the body in two for some reason? "
"You tell me," Moore said.
"It’s almost as if there were two separate phases to this one," Alison pointed out.
She moved around the body, taking in the surrounding area as well as the dead body on the desk.
She spoke to the forensic tech hovering in the room.
"The wound to the chest killed him, right?
And that happened before his face was cut open, right? "
"That’s correct," the tech said. "His heart wasn’t pumping when his face was cut open, or we would have seen more blood spatters."
"That’s what I thought," Alison said. "So, the killer came here with the intention of killing the judge," Alison continued.
"Judge Greene fits the profile of the previous victim. He will have been responsible for sending people to prison, and I would assume he’s presided over cases that both Langford and Holland were a part of.
The note left on his chest shows that the killer blames him.
So, we know that the killer came with the intention of killing him, likely late last night or sometime through the night. "
"And?" Moore asked.
"It was different this time," Alison said.
"The killer didn't go into a frenzy immediately. They killed Judge Greene with a single laceration to the chest, likely puncturing the heart, going by the location of the wound. That’s more precise than before, and if they left it at that, we’d be wondering if this was the same killer, despite the note.
But, they didn't stop there. They showcased the same frenzy as before, hacking at the body after he’d died.
There has to be a reason for that. Who takes the time and goes to that trouble unless you were sending a message? "
"Something about a split personality?" Moore suggested. "Maybe the killer is schizophrenic, and they wanted to remake Judge Greene in their own image? Or there’s some duality they wanted to point out. Good versus evil, night and day, incarceration versus insanity? It could be connected to the notes. No more lies and no more excuses. That’s two things. That could be the duality."
"That’s the problem," Alison said with a sigh. "There’s no real way to tell at the moment. Everything about the three murders so far seems unhinged. I mean, there’s a connection between all three victims, but there’s also the frenzy of the killing.
I don't know if we can know what the killer is feeling or experiencing. We can predict who they might kill next, and why they are killing them, but there’s more to this.
There’s something personal here, but still more than that, and I can't quite put my finger on it. "
"We can't warn everyone," Detective Moore moaned. "I mean, we can try, but if we are trying to protect anyone connected to criminal justice, then we might as well shut everything down."
"Maybe we get a hit now that we have three points of contact," Alison suggested. "A judge, an expert witness, and a forensic psychiatrist. This has to be connected to a specific trial, right?"
"That makes sense," Moore admitted. "Special Agent Sullivan is working on a link like that, but so far, there’s been nothing. There are trials where someone might be unhappy with the result, but we haven’t yet found anyone with the means, motive, and opportunity. This might narrow things down, but what if it’s not connected to a specific case, but to something unrelated to the three of them?
Or, what if the killer is targeting people in the same field?
You said there was something about the way the victims were killed in a frenzy that doesn’t make complete sense, so what if none of this makes sense? "
"It has to," Alison said. "We have the notes. We have someone who believes they have a motive, and we only need to find that."
"Excuse me," an officer said from the door. "Rebecca Walsh, the woman who found the body and called it in. She thinks she knows who did this."
"Take us to her," Moore said.
She and Alison were led out onto the hallway, where they walked a short distance to an office where Rebecca Walsh sat. Rebecca didn't look up when they entered, continuing to bite her fingernails. She stared straight ahead, shellshocked by what she’d seen.
"Rebecca," Moore said, sitting down in the chair opposite Rebecca’s. "My name is Detective Moore, and this is my colleague, Dr. Alison Payne. How are you doing, Rebecca?"
"He’s really dead, isn’t he?" Rebecca asked. "I keep praying that it isn’t real, but it is real. He’s really gone."
"I’m sorry," Alison said. "Were the two of you close?"
"Close?" Rebecca asked, looking up between Alison and Moore. "No, no, I don't think so. We weren’t friends. We were work colleagues. He was a brilliant man, an excellent judge. I had so much to learn from him. He taught me more in the past year than I’ve learned in my entire life. He would have made my whole career. I can’t…I can’t… "
"We need to know who you think killed him," Moore said. "That's what I told the officer, right? YOU said that you knew who killed him."
"My boyfriend," Rebecca said. She shook her head.
"My ex-boyfriend. We’ve been broken up for two months, but he won't stop calling me.
Texting me all the time, and this morning, when I was walking to work, he was there.
He was waiting on the street for me to talk to me.
He scared me." Rebecca trailed off and fell silent, still looking between the two women.
"What did he want to talk to you about?" Alison asked softly.
Rebecca looked at Alison as if she’d only just noticed her.
There was a moment of confusion before she replied.
"I wasn’t answering his calls or texts, so he came to talk to me in person, but he grabbed me when I turned the corner.
He put his hand over my mouth to silence me.
And then he started talking about Judge Greene. "
"What did he say about Judge Greene?" Moore asked.
"That he spoke to him last night. That he sorted things out, and that I wouldn’t have to work as much anymore.
I thought he was just running his mouth, but I was worried that he had just spoken to Judge Greene.
He can't be doing things like that. Then I arrived here, and I found…
I found…" Rebecca sobbed. Slow, gentle, shoulder-jerking sobs.
"We need to speak to Justin," Moore said. "How can we get in contact with him?"
"I can…give you…his number," Rebecca said through sobs. "He works at…a diner…Pato’s…He’ll be there for the breakfast rush."
"Give us the number and the address of Pato’s, and we’ll speak with him," Moore said.
Alison placed her hand on the young woman’s shoulder. "It’s going to be fine."
Alison believed that as much as she believed the same words when other people said them to her. Nothing in her life was fine. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
***
"Justin Brown," Alison said as she read the notes on her phone. "Derek sent a residential address, also, if we don't find him here."
Alison looked up at the large sign hanging on the front of the diner. It had seen better days, and the bottom of the ‘P’ was broken. The letters all had bulbs inside them, and the lights were on, even though the sun had already risen. At least four of the bulbs were out.
"Derek traced a call to the Judge’s chambers last night around seven from a cell phone matching the number Rebecca gave us," Alison continued. "That could mean he wasn’t in the office last night, or he called from his cell from somewhere outside the building to be let in?"
"Perhaps he thought it would give him an alibi," Moore suggested. "Or, he spoke to the judge on the phone and then went down to the courthouse to continue the conversation in person."
"There’s only one way to find out," Alison said.
They went up the four steps to the front door and entered.