Alex smiled. Not taking himself too seriously was part of the judge’s charm.
“Your message said that you remembered Joanie Sutherland.”
“Yes, but not at first. You mentioned something about Fresh Start, and later on, when I was telling my wife, she said that Joanie was probably one of the people whose treatment we had paid for over the years. I went back and checked our records, and, sure enough, that’s what happened.”
Alex arched her eyebrows. “You and your wife pay for other people’s treatment at Fresh Start?”
“Well, not personally. My parents were wealthy-quite wealthy, actually. That’s why I can afford to be a judge. They set up the Steele Family Foundation for their charitable work. I had an older brother who died of a drug overdose when he was only twenty-five. My parents blamed themselves for not recognizing what bad shape he was in and doing something to save him. So, they made prevention and treatment of substance abuse one of the foundation’s priorities, including paying for the treatment of low-income people who wouldn’t otherwise get the quality of care that Fresh Start provides.”
“How did Joanie Sutherland get on that list?”
“COMBAT, Jackson County’s drug abuse prevention program, referred her.”
“We’re you personally involved in approving payment for her?”
“I’m certain I was. Since my parents died, I’m in charge of the foundation, and those applications come across my desk for approval.”
Alex was deflated. She’d thought she’d gotten lucky with a long shot. Judge Steele’s explanation made sense, and since it was easily verifiable, he had no reason to lie. Still, she decided to press.
“Did you or the foundation provide any other financial support to Joanie?”
“Not that I’m aware of, at least not directly. We don’t make grants to people like Joanie because there’s too much risk that the money won’t be well spent. We support organizations and programs that help people like her and she may have benefited from one of those, though the foundation doesn’t keep records of the people who use those services.”
It was the answer Alex expected. “Well, that explains that. Thank you for your time, Your Honor.”
“If you don’t mind my asking, why were you so interested in knowing who paid her medical bills?”
“Because lending a helping hand can get pretty expensive if someone asks for too much help.”
“Ah, I see. And you think Ms. Sutherland may have been such a person and that may have gotten her killed.”
“It’s possible.”
He leaned back in his chair, hands clasped in his lap and smiled. “Which means you thought, to be blunt, that I might have killed her because she was blackmailing me.”
Alex blushed. “I’m sorry, Your Honor, I. .”
He waved her off. “You were just doing your job, and in a way, I’m flattered that anyone might think that someone as boring as I am could be caught up in something so dramatic. Thank you for helping me hold up my end of the dinner table conversation tonight when Sonia asks me about my day.”
Alex returned home, worn-out. She poured herself into her easy chair in the den and took a nap. After lunch she stayed at the kitchen table, using her laptop to catch up on her e-mail. Late in the afternoon, Grace Canfield called her.
“Where’ve you been all day?”
Alex didn’t want Grace worrying and asking too many questions.
“Home with a cold.”
“Drink plenty of liquids.”
“I promise.”
“I got Joanie’s records from Fresh Start.”
“Let me guess. The Steele Family Foundation paid for her treatment.”
“If you knew that, why did you run my butt around to get these records?”
Alex laughed. “I just found out this morning,” she said, filling Grace in on her conversation with Judge Steele.
“So you were well enough to go see the judge but too sick to tell me what he said so I wouldn’t spend my day hollering at some poor medical records clerk at Fresh Start?”
“Sorry, but we needed the records anyway to confirm what the judge said.”
“Those records may be more important than that. Didn’t you say that Charlotte was Bethany Sutherland’s daughter?”
“That’s what Bethany told me.”
“Well, according to these records, Joanie told the doctors at Fresh Start that she was Charlotte’s mother.”
“Really? Did she say who the father was?”
“Said she didn’t know, which I can believe, given her chosen occupation. Anyway, I checked the city’s birth records and Joanie is listed as the mother on Charlotte’s birth certificate. The father isn’t listed. She was born at Truman Medical Center. I’m going to subpoena the hospital’s records to see if there’s anything in them about the father and who paid the bill.”
“Lean on them like you did with Fresh Start. I wonder why Bethany told me that Charlotte was her daughter.”
“Probably because she’s the one that was raising her.”
“Okay, but here’s something else that doesn’t make sense. Bethany also told me that she didn’t know who paid for Joanie’s treatment at Fresh Start. Since Judge Steele’s foundation paid for it, Joanie would have had to jump through who knows how many hoops to get that free ride. There’s no way Bethany couldn’t have known about that.”
“And then there’s the money, the five thousand dollars. Where’s Bethany or Joanie gonna get that kind of money? Maybe it’s all tied together. Maybe they were blackmailing the judge and he was using his foundation to pay her off. We’d have to subpoena the foundation’s records to trace the five grand.”
“Yeah, and you can bet Steele would fight that subpoena to the death, and without more proof, Judge West will quash it.” Alex looked at her watch. “Bethany has to be at work in about an hour. If I leave now, I can catch her and get some answers.”
“I thought you were sick.”
“Not that sick. Get that subpoena over to Truman and ask Bonnie to help you cut through the red tape.”
Alex was relieved when she saw Bethany’s Impala parked in front of her trailer. She climbed the single step to the open door. The lights were off, strands of daylight leaking through the lowered blinds on the trailer’s windows, casting shadows and stirring dust mites. The television was playing in the background, Meredith Vieira asking Who wants to be a millionaire? Bethany was slumped over the dinette table as if she was dozing. Alex called to her.
“Bethany.”
When she didn’t wake up, Alex rapped on the side of the trailer.
“Bethany!”
Then Alex caught the rank, sickly-sweet scent of decomposing flesh and knew that Bethany was dead. She stepped inside. Charlotte wasn’t there. Back outside, she flung open the door to the storage shed. Not finding her, she ran around the trailer, shouting.
“Charlotte! Where are you?”
Chapter Fifty
Wednesday morning, Rossi and Kalena Greene sat in front of the computer on Rossi’s desk playing the airport security video over and over, using freeze-frame and slow motion to break the action down. Kalena drained her cup of coffee and pushed away from the screen.
“This is hopeless,” she said. “If you and I can’t identify Norris in the video, there’s no way a jury can.”
“What about having some video geek enhance it?”
Kalena shrugged. “We can try that, but your twenty-four-hour hold on Norris expired two hours ago. We’ve got to charge him or let him go.”
“So charge him. We know his car was used, and his alibi is for shit.”
“So is our case if we can’t put him in the car. You got a warrant to search his apartment last night and you didn’t find the duffel bag or anything else to link him to the murder. And your canvass of around Barry Road and I-29 didn’t turn up anything.”