Clay tied off the strapping and turned to look at Grade. “No,” he said. “They never got round to that. Which begs the question—”
“Melanie Ledger,” Grade said. “That was her laptop, the one I took from her office. MacBook Pro, with a Bellarmine sticker on the front.”
Ezra worked his jaw from one side to the other, making the joint pop. Then he grimaced and turned to Clay.
“Deal with your fucking boyfriend,” he said, pointing at Grade with the bourbon bottle. “I would, but I’d fucking kill him.”
He slammed the bourbon down on the island and stalked over to the fridge to get another bag of frozen vegetables.
Grade held up both hands. “I was paid to stage a crime scene. I staged a crime scene,” he said. “None of the stipulations I was given involved a laptop. How was I supposed to know it was important?”
“Well, it obviously fucking was,” Ezra snapped. He sank down onto the floor and just stuck his hand into the freezer drawer. After a second, he tilted his head back against the door. “Could still be Fisher.”
“Fisher doesn’t need to hire heavies,” Clay said. “He’s got them on tap. Plus, why let us leave Lexington yesterday? His people were all over the place. If he wanted to know what we’d done with the laptop, he could have just hung us upside down in the pool.”
Ezra scowled and rubbed the back of his neck with his good hand.
“That leaves one fucking awkward candidate, then,” he said. “Goddamn it. She’s a sitting judge. We can’t touch the bitch.”
He pulled his hand out of the deep freeze and slammed the door shut with his elbow. Clay picked up the bourbon bottle, wiped the mouth of it on his T-shirt, and downed a swig.
“She killed two people at her own party,” he said. “Whatever is on that laptop, it can touch her. Somehow. Grade said he could get it back if we needed it. Now we need it.”
Grade hesitated. That was another departure from standard operating procedures, and that hadn’t paid off well for him so far. But Clay was right. If Parker had sent people to kill them, this was their only leverage.
“Give me a couple of hours,” he said. “Once it’s light.”
“And us?” Ezra asked. He held up his hand and grimaced. “I don’t think I could fit my thumb up my ass to sit on it right now, if that was your plan.”
“We’ll see if we can work out why Ledger and Collymore had to die.”
***
The red-and-blue flicker of the light bar in the rearview mirror made Grade’s shoulders tighten. Then the siren squawked once, and the driver stuck a hand out of the window to wave him over.
Grade pulled onto the side of the road, killed the engine, and sat back in the driver’s seat. He hung his hands over the steering wheel, fingers relaxed, as he watched the deputy’s patrol car swing in behind him.
The passenger side door opened, and a woman in an expensive suit got out. She closed the door behind her and stood for a second before she walked along the verge, unsteady in her heels, to tap on Grade’s window. When Grade didn’t immediately lower it, the woman smiled thinly and gestured back to the patrol car. The driver got out.
Shit.
Grade’s MO was to avoid the cops when he could. Nothing good ever came of talking to them, and he’d seen plenty of people end up in jail because they ran their mouth to the wrong cop, assuming they were too dumb to catch on. That didn’t mean he was worried about it. The van was clean, roadworthy, and Grade hadn’t been speeding. There was nothing a cop could pull him in on.
This was different. It wasn’t official, and that meant he didn’t know the rules of engagement. He’d just have to kick it off on the assumption that getting his windows broken in wouldn’t give him an advantage.
He leaned over and rolled the window down.
“Mr. Pulaski?” the woman said. “I’m Judge Charity Parker, and I want a word. Somewhere more comfortable.”
Grade absently rubbed his cheekbone. He could feel the raised, rough texture of the scabbed-over skin. “That doesn’t sound like a request,” he said.
“It is,” the woman assured him. “Until it isn’t.”
Of course. Grade pulled the keys out of the ignition and got out of the car.
“That’s the right call,” the woman said. “Come on.”
She walked back to the car. As they approached, the deputy opened the back seat door for Grade. He hesitated but didn’t see any other options, so he reluctantly climbed in. It smelled like Febreze and piss.
