Justice for None: Texas Justice Book #1 (13 page)

20

Victoria
and Val were quiet at breakfast, both lost in their own thoughts. The boys didn’t seem to notice. They were happy, almost bubbling over, wearing pull-up diapers for the very first time. Val made a big deal about how old they were getting, but he was careful not to put the pressure on. He had read Dr. Spock, though he preferred Dr. Seuss.

Victoria hugged her husband tight at the kitchen sink before she left, her bruised ribs screaming in protest - but her ribs were the least of it. It had taken an hour of skillful makeup application to cover the bruises on her face. The scrape on her forehead was beyond covering. She had used the last adult Band-Aid to conceal it. She’d have to stop and get more bandages tonight or she’d be wearing a kid’s Band-Aid decorated with grinning gorillas tomorrow.

Val patted her on the rump as she turned to the door.

“Watch that, mister,” she said, shooting him a look of annoyance, “or I’ll give
you
a smack somewhere.” She disappeared out the back door, leaving him alone with the boys.

“Poopy!” Max said from his highchair, his face red and straining. “Making poopy!”

Val rushed over and scooped him up.

“Hold it buddy!” he yelled as he raced down the hallway to the bathroom. “Hold it! Almost there!”

They didn’t make it.

21

Victoria
was crossing the Crowley Building’s cavernous lobby, heading for the elevators when Laroy Hockley emerged from the deputies’ duty office at the end of the corridor. It was almost 9:00, the courts were already in session upstairs, but the lobby was still crowded. Prospective jurors, attorneys, witnesses, defendants and their families milled around the elevators or clustered in groups, talking in low tones.

Laroy spotted her and lifted a hand, but she ignored the gesture, continuing on to the nearest elevator bank where she stabbed the up button and turned her back on him.

But Laroy wasn’t going to be ignored.

“Hey Victoria,” he called, detouring in her direction, his briefcase swinging at his side. He eyed the Band-Aid on her forehead and winced.

“I saw the news last night,” he said. “Pretty entertaining, I have to admit.”

Victoria said nothing. She kept her eyes pinned on the light above the elevator doors, willing it to descend faster.

“You still pissed about yesterday?” he asked. “That’s nothing personal, you know. I have my job, you have yours.”

Still she ignored him.

Laroy laughed. “Or is it still about that night twenty years ago?” he asked. “You ever thought of letting bygones be bygones? We had some good times too. That one night doesn’t change that.”

Victoria couldn’t believe that Laroy would bring up that ‘one night.’ She damn sure wasn’t going to let him get away with it.

“You tried to rape me,” she said as she turned on him, her voice rising, carrying down the hallway. People nearby, including the two deputies manning the metal detector, looked their way. 

Laroy lost the smile. “That’s bullshit,” he said, his voice dropping to an intense whisper as his eyes darted around the lobby, coming to rest briefly on the deputies. “Just because you got frigid at the last min—”

Laroy never saw the slap coming until it ‘whacked’ off his right cheekbone. His briefcase hit the floor and his right hand came up, balled tight. His knuckles were scarred, no stranger to rough use, but Victoria wasn’t afraid. She had gone toe-to-toe with him before.

Everyone was watching now. One of the deputies took a step in their direction, but Victoria shook her head, stopping him in his tracks. She looked back at Laroy. For a moment, she was certain that he
was
going to strike her, but then, suddenly, the fire died in his eyes and his hand unfurled. He touched the tip of his crooked nose with his index finger and forced a smile - a cold grin that complimented the frost in his eyes. Wordlessly, he stooped, picked up his briefcase, turned his back on her, and headed down the hallway.

But Victoria wasn’t done with him.

“Someone warned Axel Rankin that the police were coming,” she called at his back. “If I find out that it was you I’ll make sure you’re charged with Capital Murder.” Victoria had yet to see the records of Axel’s cell phone, and she still hesitated to believe that a cop, even a bastard like Laroy, would throw his fellow officers into a meat grinder, but, if he had, she’d be good for her word.

Laroy lurched to a stop. Slowly, he turned to face her, ignoring the eyes of the people surrounding them. The deputies, too, were still watching, still listening. The elevator doors opened in front of Victoria, but she made no move to enter. People moved around her, watching her from the corners of their eyes.

“That’s bullshit,” he said. “I warned Jack to wear a vest. He and Bastrop were sloppy.” He shrugged and his cold smile flashed on again like the light bulb in a refrigerator. “Sloppy cops get killed.”

“How did you even know where Axel was?” she demanded as the elevator doors slid closed and the car started its ascent.

Laroy didn’t reply to the question. “Offer Jack my condolences,” he said as he turned away and continued down the hallway. He passed by the deputies and was gone.

Victoria turned back to the elevator. Jesus, how could she ever have loved that man? The thought made her skin crawl, but she couldn’t waste time thinking about her wasted virginity. She was already ten minutes late for a meeting to discuss a plea agreement with the serial killer, Randall Rusk, and his attorney, Albert Pico. She stabbed the UP button again. She needed to get Rusk’s file and get over to the jail.

As she waited, her cell phone rang. She fished it out of her purse and checked the caller ID. Herby Lubbock. She made a face as she answered.

“Axel wants to meet with you,” Herby began without a greeting. He didn’t sound happy. “I’ve advised him against it, but he’s insistent. Meet us at the jail’s visitor area if you’re interested. If not, all the better. You’ve got ten minutes”

“I’ll be there,” she said and hung up before Herby could say another word. She spun on her heel and barreled down the corridor, almost creaming a janitor who was wheeling a trashcan across the lobby. It was the same guy she had almost run down yesterday outside her office after she had got the call that Phil Bastrop had been shot. Once again, he took one look at her face, ducked and scurried out of the way as she bolted past him.

22

Valentine
spent the early morning racing back and forth to the bathroom with one twin or the other. They seemed to think potty training was a game to see how close they could come to the toilet before they peed or pooped their pull-up diapers. Not exactly what he had had in mind, but they
did
make it a couple of times. And they seemed to get a kick out of flushing. That was a start. The upside of all that running was that it had helped keep his mind off Garland Sutton and Jasper Smith. Sort of.

At 10:30 Val took the boys’ playpen out onto the back porch. It was still cool enough to be outside, but that wouldn’t last, the high that day was supposed to be ninety-nine, and the back yard was starting to look like a jungle…

Val had fired the lawn service as a cost saving measure, but he was regretting that now. Forty bucks a week seemed cheap as he dragged the lawnmower out of the garage and pushed it around the side of the house. He was already dripping with sweat and he hadn’t even started yet.

He cranked the mower and, with one eye on the twins playing in their pen, started making long passes north to south.

One nice thing about raising twins was that the boys always had a play companion. The un-nice things about raising twins were too numerous to mention. Potty training came to mind. But Max and Kyle weren’t playing with each other at that moment; they were standing on the edge of the pen, their fingers knotted in the plastic links, eyes pinned on their father as he crossed back and forth like a duck in a shooting gallery.

“Watch and learn! One day I’ll make you do this!” he yelled at them over the roar of the mower. “And the dishes too!” He had been acting cheerful all morning for their sake, but he wasn’t feeling it. And being outside with the boys was making him even more paranoid. With Jasper Smith nosing around, Val’s instincts were to bolt the doors, bar the shutters and prowl the perimeter with a shotgun, but he couldn’t live his life that way. That’s why he had decided to lay it all out for Jack Birch.

He had gone a little crazy the day before. Charging around after the bad guys, busting heads and making threats. That wasn’t his job anymore. He wasn’t a cop; he was a househusband with only two priorities, Max and Kyle. It was time to let the professionals handle the Suttons. Until then, he’d hide out in the backyard.

Vicious Valentine my ass.

He was halfway through the yard, his shorts and T-shirt soaked in sweat, knees and shoulders complaining from the strain of shoving the mower through the overgrown grass, when three men came boiling over the back fence using the honeysuckle hedge as a ladder. They were dressed all in black and carrying shotguns. They hit the ground and ran toward him, screaming something that didn’t penetrate the mower’s roar, but the shotguns made their intentions pretty clear.

Val spun to face them, instinctively putting himself between the shotguns and the twins like a defensive tackle facing down a pass rush. The mower’s roar died off to a choking gurgle and he could make out what the men were screaming.

“Sheriff! Sheriff! Sheriff!” they bellowed as they raced across the yard. “On your knees! On your knees!” That’s when Val recognized the lead guy as deputy Erath from yesterday afternoon in Talty. The other two cops looked familiar too. Both were young, not much more than rookies.

Val was so relieved that he almost laughed. Cops! Not Confederate Syndicate killers! That didn’t mean that they wouldn’t kill him at the slightest provocation, but they wouldn’t harm Max or Kyle. Not on purpose, anyway. He dropped to his knees and put his hands up beside his head, palms out.

Deputy Erath stopped three feet out, aiming the huge bore of the shotgun straight into Val’s face.

“You Special Tactics guys sure like to make an entrance,” Val said, looking coolly up the shotgun’s barrel. He’d be easy, but he didn’t have to be nice.

But easy wasn’t enough for Erath. Val saw the butt of the shotgun coming too late. It clipped his jaw and set off starbursts behind his eyes. The next thing he knew he was lying face down in the freshly cut grass with the taste of blood in his mouth and Erath’s boot in the middle of his back.

“You’re under arrest, asshole,” the stocky deputy said as he jerked Val’s arms behind his back and snapped on the handcuffs.

23

Victoria’s
phone vibrated as she approached visitation room two, one of four rooms reserved for attorney-client and police-suspect interviews on the bottom level of the Lew Sterret Justice Center. She glanced at the caller ID. It was Jack Birch, but Jack was going to have to wait; the uniformed deputy was already leading her down the hallway, a ring of keys jangling in his hand.

“He’s right in here, Victoria,” the deputy, Sanford ‘Big Sandy’ Kaufman said with a smile. Big Sandy was as tall and broad as an ox, with a gut that was as bulbous as a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon. A very old balloon. His hair was white, his face a blizzard of wrinkles and his neck sagged down over his collar.

“How’s Maude?” Victoria asked as Sandy stopped outside the door to the visitation room.

“Middling,” Sandy replied as he slid the key into the lock. “‘Bout the same as me,” he added with a chuckle that revealed his yellowed dentures. “You know, I’m done with this next week?” he continued, cocking his head at her. “Mandatory retirement finally got me,” he added sadly. “You coming to the put-the-old-man-out-to-pasture party?”

“I wouldn’t miss it. It won’t be the same without you,” she said, an edge of genuine sadness in her voice. Sandy had been a fixture in her life since she had first began her career in the District Attorney’s Office. He was as close to family as you could get without sharing DNA.

“Be a dang sight less fun, that’s for sure,” Sandy laughed, but there was a quiver in his chin. He blushed and started to turn the knob. “You ready?” he asked, one white eyebrow raised.

Victoria got her jailhouse face on and nodded.

Sandy opened the door and stepped out of the way. “I’ll be right here if you need me,” he said as he gave Randall Rusk a warning glare. Big Sandy had a jailhouse face of his own. One of those glares was enough to put most prisoners in check. Randall Rusk just rolled his eyes.

Rusk’s bald head gleamed in the fluorescent lights. At well over six-feet and close to three hundred pounds, his shoulders and chest bulged his 2-X orange jump suit. Bushy eyebrows overhung deep-set eyes, casting them in shadows, lending them a feral quality. Shackled with ankle and waist chains that were looped through a steel ring set in the concrete floor, Rusk was seated beside his attorney, Albert Pico. Albert, dressed in a plain gray suit and black tie, was an okay guy for a defense attorney, but he had scraped the bottom of the barrel with Rusk as a client.

Victoria didn’t sit, but she could smell Rusk’s testosterone-sweat funk from across the room. God, she wished she could take this case to trial. One look at Rusk would be enough to convince any jury that the death penalty was the only solution. But closure for the victims’ families was a consideration she could not ignore. A body to bury was just about the only comfort she could offer them at this point.

Victoria didn’t waste time. She looked at Albert, nodded and shifted her gaze to Rusk. “We’ve got a deal, but the paperwork isn’t ready yet.”

Randall rolled his eyes again. “Aw, come on,” he said in a voice that was surprisingly high and girlish. “This place sucks.”

“Life, without?” Albert asked and Victoria nodded.

Albert leaned in close and whispered something in Randall’s ear. Randall laughed so hard the steel restraints around his waist rattled. Victoria had to bite back her desire to tell them to shove the deal, but pulling this plea arrangement in the eleventh hour would only enrage the families of Rusk’s victims.

Randall guessed what she was thinking. “Wanna strap me to a gurney, don’t you?” he said, grinning with tiny teeth that were the color of ground out cigarette butts.

“I’d tap the vein myself,” Victoria agreed. Albert sat up straight, a protest forming on his lips, but Randall kept talking.

“But you gotta bring the little dead sluts home to mommy and daddy,” he said, his lips forming a pout. “Let them bury what’s left. The bits and pieces.”

Victoria’s teeth clenched, but she kept her anger in check. Barely. She shifted her gaze to Pico. “I’ll need names and details. And locations of the bodies.
Maps of the locations,”
she corrected. “He’s not traipsing around the country on some half-assed archeological dig.” Randall snorted laughter but Albert nodded. She shifted her eyes back to Rusk. “And I want the name of your accomplice.”

Randall looked startled. He fired a look at Albert then turned back at Victoria. “Accomplice? I don’t have no accomplice,” he said, but Victoria felt sure he was lying. That pair of cigarette butts, two different brands with two different DNA profiles, under the victim in Oklahoma could be coincidental but she didn’t buy it. She turned toward the door and tapped on it with one knuckle.

“Then no deal,” she said. “Someone’s got to die for these murders, you or your partner. Make a decision.” Big Sandy opened the door, his bulk filling the doorframe from top to bottom. Victoria looked over her shoulder at Albert. “I’ve got another defendant down the hall,” she told Pico. “Let me know what your client decides.”

Albert nodded.

“This is bullshit,” Rusk whined. “I never killed anyone that mattered. Just a few whores.” He shrugged his massive shoulders. “I did them a favor, really,” he said. “Put them out of their misery.”

Victoria made no reply as she stepped past Sandy who quickly closed the door behind her, cutting off any further protests from Rusk. Victoria almost smiled. Making Rusk squirm was about the only pleasure she was going to get out of this case.

Now, on to Axel Rankin.

Sandy stayed by Rusk’s door as Victoria moved down the hallway to room three where an overweight female deputy with a pink barrette in her hair was leaning against the wall. She nodded at Victoria, turned and unlocked the door. Her name tag read Foster.

“None of this is privileged, so roll tape on it, Deputy Foster,” Victoria told the woman. She wanted an audio and video record of her meeting with Rankin. The deputy gave her a nod as she swung the door open. She’d call the front desk and have the interrogation room’s video recorder turned on.

Herby Lubbock and Axel Rankin sat on one side of a scarred metal table. Axel was shackled and bolted to the floor, his forearms resting on the table. Like Rusk, he was dressed in an orange jumpsuit, but his hung from his slender frame in loose folds, puddling around his waist.

Victoria nodded at Herby. The overweight defense attorney was sweating and breathing hard despite the chill in the basement air. She ditched her briefcase on the desk and sat down in the room’s only other chair, facing the two men.

“I don’t want him here,” Rankin said to Victoria, hooking a thumb at Herby, rattling his shackles.

“Axel, we spoke about this,” Herby said in exasperation. “I’m your legal guardian and you’re a juvenile.”

“I’m nineteen,” Axel said, looking at Victoria. “That birth certificate is a fake. A Social Security scam. My mom needs the money.”

“Axel,” Herby’s voice held a warning.

“I said I don’t want you here, fat man.”

“He’s your attorney, Axel. And you invoked your rights,” Victoria interjected, impatient with the back and forth.

“I take it back,” Axel said. “I don’t want an attorney. I’ll talk.”

“He’s not in his right mind,” Herby said, leaning forward, talking fast. “He’s invoked his rights. There’s no taking it back.”

Victoria shook her head. “You know better than that, Herby. If he wants to talk, I’ll listen.”

“Can I fire him?” Rankin asked.

Herby blanched. He started to sputter a protest, but Victoria headed him off.

“You have a right to choose your own counsel,” she said neutrally, loving every minute of it.

“Axel—” Herby began.

“I didn’t choose him,” Axel said.

“Your mother—”

“Don’t talk about my mother, fat man,” Rankin said, twisting around hard in his chair. “She ain’t got a thing to do with this.”

“This is collusion,” Herby said, shifting his anger to Victoria. He pointed a fat finger at her, the manicure fresh and gleaming. “You’re undermining my relationship with my client. That’s a clear violation of the ethics. I’ll have your license—”

“We’re rolling tape on this meeting, Herby,” Victoria cut him off, “And what you’re saying is slanderous. Watch your mouth or you’ll be defending yourself in civil court.”

“Rolling tape?” Herby came halfway out of his chair, his gaze jumping to the video camera mounted in the far corner of the ceiling. The camera’s green light was burning. “This is a private visitation room! Attorneys and their clients—”

Victoria shook her head. “I’m an officer of the court, Herby. There’s no attorney client privilege when I’m in the room.” Herby knew the law as well as she did; he was just grasping at straws, desperately trying to salvage his position at the table.

“You’re fired,” Rankin said. “And tell Garland he’s dead.”

“Garland?” Victoria said. “Garland Sutton?” She didn’t point out that the threat that Axel had just made was a crime in the State of Texas, and most other states.

Axel didn’t reply; he just kept looking malevolently at Herby.

Herby stood stiffly, stuffed a pile of papers into his briefcase, strode to the door and banged on it. The female deputy opened it and Herby hustled out without another word. The deputy closed the door again.

Rankin grimaced at Victoria. “That guy’s an asshole. A crooked asshole.”

Conscious of the videotape running, Victoria merely titled her head in agreement. She didn’t have a Miranda form with her, so she took a yellow legal pad and a pen from her briefcase and spoke the words as she wrote them down.

“You have the right to remain silent, Axel,” she began then went through the whole spiel before asking: “Do you understand those rights?”

Rankin nodded.

“Please acknowledge verbally, Mr. Rankin.”

“You mean say it out loud?”

“Yes.”

“I understand.”

Victoria slid the pad and the pen around to Axel’s side of the table. With his hands linked to his waist by steel chains, he could just barely reach the table, but he managed to sign. When he was done, Victoria ripped the sheet off the pad, folded it in thirds and stowed it in her briefcase. First hurdle cleared. Now for the hard part.

She knew that she should stop right there, call Jack Birch and get Rankin moved to an interview room at the DPD Headquarters in the Jack Evans Building. She was treading dangerous ground here. The law was clear, Rankin could talk to anyone he pleased, but this was a death penalty case. The scrutiny it would receive would extend to the highest levels of the judiciary.
And
she was stepping well out of her normal role as a prosecutor, not to mention the conflict of interest that would keep her from prosecuting the case herself, but Axel was ready to talk
right now.
She couldn’t take the chance that he’d change his mind.

“What did you want to see me about, Mr. Rankin?” She knew what she wanted to talk about: the phone call Rankin had received warning him of Bastrop and Jack Birch’s imminent arrival, but she had to let Rankin take the lead.

“Axel,” he said. “Call me Axel.”

Victoria shook her head. “Let’s keep this formal, Mr. Rankin.”

Axel shrugged. “Okay. What do I call you?”

“Mrs. Justice, will do,” Victoria said.

“No first name?” he smiled at her. The little creep was actually
flirting.

“What did you want to see me about, Mr. Rankin?” she repeated flatly.

“Come on.” Rankin wasn’t going to let it go. He kept smiling. “It’s just a
name.”
But Victoria wasn’t playing along. She opened her briefcase, tossed in the pad and the pen and stood.

“See you in court, Mr. Rankin,” she said as she swung the briefcase off the table.

“Hey, hey, hey,” Rankin said with an easy laugh, rocking back in the chair. “That’s okay, Mrs. Justice. It’s cool.”

Victoria sat back down. She had a sudden idea, one that crossed all sorts of boundaries of judicial process, but she didn’t care. She pulled her cell phone from her purse and punched up her recorded conversation with Laroy Hockley and Jack Birch from yesterday. She had to know if it was Laroy who had called Rankin and warned him about Jack and Phil.

“I want you to listen to something,” she said as she hit play. She let only the first couple of minutes roll. Axel listened, his head bowed over the table. When it was done, he looked up at her, a questioning look on his face.

“Do you recognize that voice?” she asked. Axel nodded and her heart rate surged.

“That’s the old asshole that arrested me yesterday,” he said. “The hillbilly.”

Victoria shook her head. “No, the other voice.” She rewound and hit play again. Axel listened then shook his head.

“No. Who is he?”

Victoria was surprised at the disappointment she felt. Did she really hate Laroy that much? Yes, it appeared she did. But all she said to Axel was, “It doesn’t matter.” She picked up her phone and tucked it back in her purse.

Axel shrugged and asked his own question.

“Is it true you won’t be able to prosecute me?” he asked as she retrieved her pen and pad. “That’s what Lubbock said.”