CHAPTER ELEVEN #2
"Hey!" a chipper voice called from the counter. The voice belonged to a young woman who was pouring coffee into a customer's cup at the counter, while having a conversation with another customer to her right and greeting people as they came through the door. "Sit wherever you like."
Moore and Alison didn't sit; instead, they approached the counter, circling to the end, where there was a gap for the servers to exit into the main dining area.
Moore didn't say anything, but took out her badge and held it so the server behind the counter could see it when she looked over.
She finished pouring coffee for the five people seated at the counter, then walked over to them and glanced at the badge.
Her tone became far less chipper and more professional. "What can I do for you, hun?"
"Justin Brown?" Moore asked. "Is he in this morning?"
"He’s in the kitchen," the server said without questioning why they wanted to speak with him. "You can go on through."
They did so, and Moore showed her badge when they reached the kitchen, where they were met by their line cooks and a dishwasher. They asked for Justin, and he led them out back, where he rolled himself a cigarette and looked happy to have a break.
Are you confident we have nothing on you, or are you innocent?
All they knew so far was that he had called the judge the previous evening and then accosted Rebecca on the street that morning, telling her about the call. If it were one single murderer, that would look suspicious, but could he have killed all three?
"You grabbed your ex-girlfriend on the street this morning," Moore stated. "Do you want to tell me about that, Justin?"
Juston took a drag of his cigarette before chuckling.
"She called the cops on me? That’s low, even for her.
I bet she even made it out like she was scared for her life or something.
" He held up both hands, the smoke from the cigarette creating a small cloud by his hand before it disappeared.
"I did her a favor. She would have screamed out and embarrassed herself on the street, and I knew that would happen, so I grabbed her to make her feel safe. "
"What a gentleman," Alison commented.
"So, you knew she would scream out on the street when she saw you, and you still went down there to…what? Talk to her?"
"She wasn’t answering my calls, and besides, we’re not broken up.
" He took another drag of the cigarette before tossing it away. "She talked about breaking up, but we never agreed to anything. I don't accept it. There’s still some talking to be done, and then we’ll be back together again. It’s happened before, and it’ll happen again. "
"So, you went down to her place of work to talk with her, and grabbed her on the street at what? Six am?" Moore asked. "What did you do before that? Did you go into her workplace to look for her?"
"I didn't have to," Justin said. "She’s as regular as clockwork. Every other morning, she goes in at six-thirty; on a Monday, she starts at six. That’s far too early, and she works far too hard, but what are you going to do about it?"
"What are you going to do about it?" Alison asked.
Justin furrowed his brows and stared at Alison.
"You did something about it, didn't you, Justin?" Moore asked. "You called Rebecca’s boss last night, didn't you?"
Justin’s nostrils flared quickly, and he showed a tight smile. "What?"
"You called Judge Greene last night, didn't you?" Moore asked. "We know you did because we have access to Judge Greene’s phone records, and he was called from your number at seven last night."
"Yeah, well…," Juston started. "See, the thing is, I was out with a busy last night, and I had a couple of drinks, and you know when you get that clarity, and you finally see the world for the way it is? And then I just couldn’t let it rest, you know. She does everything for him because she’s afraid of him. She even does things that he doesn’t ask her to do, because she’s worried that she’ll be fired if she doesn’t go above and beyond, and her baseline is above and beyond, so you can imagine what she does. I just wanted to help her out."
"And did you?" Alison asked. "Did you have a constructive conversation where you hashed out all of the details, and Judge Greene listened to your point of view and decided to change how he treated her?"
Justin grimaced and looked down at his fingers, expecting the cigarette to still be there. "No, not exactly."
"What does that mean?" Moore asked.
There was a slight breeze that whipped up the aroma of old grease from the blue plastic drums that sat out back of the diner.
Justin rubbed his forehead and then ran his hand down his face. "I might have made things worse."
"How did you make things worse?" Moore asked.
Justin groaned. "I only wanted to help. I love Rebecca, and I know she deserves much better than me, and I know that I can mess up at times, but no one's going to get her as I do.
She doesn't complain about anything, but I can see it in her.
She doesn't deserve to be treated the way he was treating her. "
"How did you make things worse?" Alison pushed.
"He talked about having a meeting with her this morning," Justin said, looking away.
"He said he would talk things through with her, but I could tell from his tone that it wouldn’t go the way I wanted it.
I mean, I still hoped, you know? I don't really know the guy, so maybe he’s just that gruff all the time. "
"What did you do after the call?" Moore asked.
"I couldn’t sleep," Justin admitted. "I lay awake most of the night, and then I got up this morning and went to see her before she got to work. Is she…okay?"
"Why wouldn’t she be?" Alison asked.
A bird flew down and pecked at some garbage in the back alley.
"That’s why she called you, right? I know I should have gone to see her this morning, and maybe I handled it all wrong. Has he fired her?"
"No, he hasn’t fired her," Alison said.
Juston placed his hand on his heart. "That’s good. It worked. It worked."
"Where were you after you made the call last night?" Moore asked. "Where were you when you made the call?"
"Oscar’s," he replied. "The bar on fourth. Well, like outside the bar. I stepped out to make the call."
"And after?" Moore asked.
"I don't know," Justin complained. "We had a few more drinks, and then we headed back to the apartment."
"You and…?" Moore pushed.
"Devon," Justin answered. "My housemate. One of them. "We had some drinks there, and then some at home. Maybe I went to bed at two, but I couldn’t sleep."
"We’ll need Devon’s number," Moore said. "They’re one of your housemates. You have others?"
"Yeah, two more," Justin admitted. "Shelley was pretty pissed."
"About what?" Moore asked.
"We were kinda making some noise last night. Maybe playing music a tad"—he held his forefinger and thumb close together—"too loud. She had to work this morning. I tried to apologize before she left."
"What time was that?" Alison asked.
"Maybe around four," Juston said. "That’s way too early to be going to work, but she works in some bakery or something. I don’t know."
"We’ll need her number, too," Moore said.
"Wait, for what?" Justin asked. "What did Rebecca say?"
"We’ll be in touch," Moore said as she turned for the door.
"Don't bother Rebecca right now," Alison said. "Please."
She left Justin standing outside and followed Moore from the alley into the kitchen and then back through to the main dining area, where Moore was ordering them two coffees to go.
Alison slumped down into the closest booth to rest a second as she tried not to be overly annoyed by the man they had just spoken to. She was confident he wasn’t the killer and didn't know that Judge Greene was dead.
When she pulled out her phone to check for any messages, she found one from Derek. He had sent her a link to a web article, along with the message: You should take a look.
Alison clicked on the link to open the article, noting two things at the very top. The second was the date the article was published: that morning. The first, which was made more important by the publication date, was the headline.
We’re going to make sure Judge Greene doesn’t get the chance to hurt anyone ever again.