Isolated Judgment Read online

  Now, standing in that moldy corner of the unfinished basement, he sighed and knew he was a coward.

  What was he going to do out on the Wailing Isle? Confront a legendary judge? A legendarily rich judge? Poke his nose into something that might have included a murder? Him? He was going to do that? Roy had meant well, had been far more kind than he needed to be. But he didn’t know Chief Fish. He didn’t know how absurd it was to suggest that Timothy Fish should charge out to a possible murder scene and start demanding answers, or else.

  The only answers he’d ever been interested in were the mundane sort that could be scribbled in a notebook nobody would ever care to read, the sort that got filed away in a drawer with all the other hallmarks of his career—tests on driver’s safety, uniform inspection sheets, mileage logs and other bits of “good police work.”

  From above him, the doorbell rang. He was grateful for it. It allowed him to close the lid on the stolen treasure and shut away the doubts that were plaguing him. He took the stairs two at a time, and when he got to the front foyer, he was breathing hard.

  He paused with one hand on the knob, suddenly aware of the darkness of evening outside the row of glass that ran up each side of the door. He peered through the peephole.

  The man standing on the broad porch was old and white-haired. He looked paunchy, and his snowy hair was swept back in a swooshing pompadour. Fish squinted through the two layers of glass, struck by the stranger’s clothing. He appeared to be purple from ankle to collar.

  He watched the man push the doorbell again, and it chimed around him.

  Fish opened the door and saw that the purple was a velour tracksuit, and was really more of a lilac than a true purple. The man smiled when he saw Fish. He had a rectangular face, heavily lined and sun-worn, which made him look older than he likely was. His white eyebrows were thick as caterpillars above his brown eyes, and they rose up on his forehead as he grinned disarmingly.

  “Oh,” the man said. “Hey. I wasn’t sure if I come too late. I thought maybe I missed you. That ferry you guys got, it ain’t exactly running like clockwork, you know? I’m standing around maybe half an hour with my dick in my hand, waiting on that damned thing, before it shows up like it’s supposed to. Anyway, good thing you’re in, right?”

  Chief Fish blinked several times at the pompadoured stranger, and found he didn’t know exactly what to say.

  He settled for a confused “Um, okay.”

  “Okay,” the man agreed, nodding like they’d reached some understanding. His smile broadened, revealing large, cigarette-stained teeth. “Anyhow, I’m here about that ivory seashell brooch. I rushed on out, soon as I saw it. You still have it, right?”

  Chief Fish managed a sympathetic grimace, but inwardly he was sick with a sudden fear. At the mention of the brooch, he knew that this was a complication to his plan of washing his hands of the whole stupid affair with the Bass Tackler and the treasure he’d secreted in his basement.

  “Gosh, I’m so sorry you came all the way out here,” he said. “But that item is gone. I really wish you’d...”

  His voice trailed away, as the obvious reality of the situation dawned on him. The pompadoured man continued to smile into his face, the growing alarm in the chief’s eyes doing nothing to dispel his enthusiasm.

  “Wished I called?” the man said. “Maybe I would have, if you’d listed your number on the website. Probably I wouldn’t have, though. Probably not. I’d probably have still just tracked you down, come on out here and held a gun on you.”

  Chief Fish glanced down. There was a pistol in the man’s hand, held low at his waist and pointed at Fish’s stomach.

  “Mister, I’m the chief of police,” he managed, though the indignation in his voice sounded every bit as wavering and uncertain as he felt. The stranger’s caterpillar eyebrows dipped down low over his eyes, and his smile turned mocking.

  “Hey, good for you, buddy. That’s a real nice thing to be, I bet. Okay, so you walk backwards so I can squeeze on in there and not shoot you on your fucking porch. Right? Right.”

  Fish did exactly that, without thinking. As he did, a familiar shame grew in the pit of his stomach, the same seasick lump he’d felt so many times—he was acquiescing, backing away, folding his cards without so much as a bluff.

  “That’s a good boy,” the stranger said, and pulled the door shut behind him. They were alone in the foyer, the silence of the big house suddenly like a presence hanging around them.

  Chief Fish watched helplessly as the stranger with the lilac tracksuit and the white pompadour reached behind him and turned the dead bolt. It clacked home, and they were locked inside together. Fish nudged his glasses up with his thumb, and tried to think of something to say that would forestall whatever was about to happen.

  The stranger beat him to it.

  “This is just to set the tone of things,” he said. “No hard feelings.”

  He hit Chief Fish in the side of his head with the butt of the pistol. Fish reeled, collapsed in a heap and found himself staring dumbly at the smooth, polished expanse of the hardwood floors his grandfather had laid with his own two hands.

  Then the pompadoured man drove the toe of his jogging shoe into Chief Fish’s crotch, and Fish went blind with pain.

  * * *

  As they strolled back on foot toward Tony’s rental house, Issabella realized that Darren had been waiting for the sun to go down before returning.

  “Is this going to be illegal? Because that requires a conversation.”

  “I don’t think so, no.”

  “I need a little more certitude.”

  The neighborhood in which Tony lived consisted of big, old two-story homes. The lawns were neglected, and there wasn’t much effort directed toward forestalling the signs of age upon the faces of the houses—their skins of paint were peeling and cracking, porch overhangs sagged and windows went unwashed. The bright-eyed and fashionably dressed university students who occupied them prevented the rows of homes from taking on the appearance of a ghetto, as if the lack of upkeep somehow added to the cultural cache that the well-to-do students lightly carried around with them.

  A generation or two ago, the scene would have been called bohemian.

  “Well,” he ventured as they strolled under the branches of elms that lined the sidewalk, his hand held lightly in hers, “you’re a more recent law school grad than me. So let’s do a pop quiz and find out what we know.”

  “Ugh. I get panicky about quizzes.”

  “I thought you were a four-point-oh gal.”

  “Was. School is done.”

  “Even so. A review.”

  “Fine.”

  “Issue one. Warrants and the definition of personal property.”

  They turned a corner in the neighborhood, and she noted that Darren made a point of staring up each driveway they passed. He was looking for something, but she had no idea what.

  “That’s a little vague,” she said. “Do you mean scope of the warrant? Are we talking about plain view and locked boxes and that sort of thing?”

  “Hold on,” he said, and pulled them up short.

  Issabella looked around, but there was nothing out of the ordinary. There were still people coming and going, but with increasingly less frequency. She looked at Darren with a question on her lips, and saw that he was staring intently down at her.

  “What?” she said.

  “It’s a nice night,” he answered, and bent down to kiss her gently. He put one hand on the small of her back and pulled her to him. When they parted, he smiled down at her and said, “We shouldn’t let nice nights go by without a kiss, kiddo.”

  “How many drinks did you have, exactly?”

  “You’re complaining?”

  “God, no.”

  They resumed their casual pace, a
nd his fingers found hers again.

  “Maybe we should invert the question,” he said. “When does the government not need a warrant to search your personal property?”

  Issabella rolled her eyes.

  “That hardly narrows it,” she said. “There are so many exceptions to the warrant requirement now that the Fourth Amendment looks like Swiss cheese. You’ve got search pursuant to a lawful arrest, anything that can remotely be called ‘officer safety,’ exigent circumstances, the Terry Search and on and on. And if you’re in a car? Forget it. They’re getting in your stuff and searching it. Why are we doing this?”

  She spied Tony’s house a few doors down. The living room light was still on, bathing out onto the front lawn. A car she didn’t remember from their first visit was parked in the driveway, and another one was on the curb directly in front of the house.

  “You forgot the easiest one of all,” Darren said.

  Still holding her hand in his, he drew them to a stop in front of a big blue garbage container sitting on the lawn of Tony’s house, near the curb. Darren flashed her a wink and a grin.

  “Abandoned property,” he whispered, and kicked the garbage container over on its side.

  The lid flapped open as the container crashed down onto the grass. A white plastic garbage bag rolled out, followed by a handful of empty cans of Tony’s reprehensible beer. Darren crouched down on his heels and began to tear a large hole in the garbage bag.

  “We are not doing this,” she whispered, her eyes darting to the lit living room window. “Darren. Darren, get up and let’s get out of here.”

  “Property in a garbage can on the curb is legally abandoned,” he said, working his fingers into the bag. “So this isn’t illegal. You probably don’t have a flashlight in your purse, do you? That would be amazingly handy right now.”

  “We are not doing this.”

  “Look around,” he whispered. “Do you see any other garbage cans on the curb? Even one?”

  Issabella peered up and down the street nervously. She realized that this was why Darren had been peering into driveways as they walked—Tony’s was the only garbage can in view. “Okay. So what?”

  “So that’s weird, right?”

  “Okay. So what?”

  “And I think the guy we’re looking for was here yesterday. I think that’s why Tony thought it was so strange that we happened to come by today. Yesterday, we drove home from the island. Probably so did Daniel’s killer, assuming he doesn’t live on Put-in-Bay—which I doubt, since he had to steal a boat to get to the Judge’s. And I think he stopped here at some point. And I think I maybe have a guess about why.”

  “Are you going to share that guess with me?”

  Darren didn’t answer. Seemingly having found nothing of note in the first bag, he dragged a second from the can and tore its plastic skin open. A ripe stink rose all around them as wadded lumps of paper and heaps of uneaten food scattered around Darren’s quickly probing fingers.

  “You are never touching me again,” she said, looking frantically in all directions.

  Behind her, the sound of the patio door banging open. Footfalls down the steps.

  “Hey, man! Hey!”

  Darren didn’t so much as pause in what he was doing. Three men were rushing across the lawn, and it was only after a moment of confusion that Issabella realized the one in front was Tony.

  The sinister goatee was gone, revealing a smooth, freshly shaved and rather weak chin on full view. His face was set in a grimace of anger and alarm.

  Oh my God. I was so right! Men are conformists!

  Her inner celebration died as the three of them bore down on her and Darren, who seemed oblivious to their existence. Tony was apoplectic.

  “Dude! What the fuck are you doing? This is so not cool.”

  Issabella instinctively took a step backwards. She saw balled fists and angry male faces, and she would have continued backpedaling if Darren wasn’t suddenly there. One moment he was still crouched down and picking through Tony’s trash. And then he wasn’t. He was standing, one arm extending across her, moving between the three men and her in one swift motion.

  “Tell your friends to go home, Tony,” he said.

  Tony looked baffled and panicky, eyeing the disgorged trash. The young man on his left took a step forward and shot a sneer at Darren. He was shorter than Tony, but very thick. He had a pug nose and small eyes, and none of Tony’s panic. The legend on his T-shirt read Property of U of M Wrestling.

  “We ain’t going anywhere, man,” the wrestler said. He was puffed up and jittery, like his body had primed itself for violence.

  Darren bent down and lifted the second bag of trash in one hand. It still had something in it, she could tell. She noted the way Tony’s eyes moved to the bag and stayed with it.

  “You’re not staying here,” Darren said to the wrestler. “We’re going to have a talk with Tony, and you aren’t invited.”

  The wrestler’s sneer deepened, and he took another step closer. He was within swinging distance of Darren.

  “You don’t know me, dude,” the wrestler said.

  Darren didn’t move. His left arm was still extended across Issabella, so that she was peeking around him to get a view of the wrestler, who seemed anxious to prove to Darren exactly who he was.

  “That’s true. I don’t have the faintest clue who you are, kid,” Darren admitted. “Are you the guy who assaults rich, sue-happy lawyers? Because I keep hoping to meet that guy.”

  “Dude—” the wrestler started, and Issabella had had enough. When the three of them had first burst out onto the lawn, she had reacted instinctively. Men were capable of violence. Strange men—unknown men—meant an equally unknown capacity for violence. You couldn’t know if it was just bluster, or fisticuffs, or something worse.

  But during the brief exchange between Darren and the wrestler, reality had solidified. The wrestler was a jock college kid with his adrenaline up. Tony was frozen, his eyes locked on the bag Darren held in his hand. And the third guy was just some tall, thin college kid who seemed content to stand in the background and not say anything.

  Issabella stepped around Darren’s shielding arm. She looked at the wrestler and he looked at her.

  “Just stop it,” she said.

  “Look—” he started again, but she cut him off.

  “Just stop. Okay? Nobody is going to fight. Not you. Not him. Just stop.”

  The wrestler’s face twisted up, and he looked ready to say something very ugly to her. Whatever precognitive or intuitive sense she might have had told Issabella she was about to hear the word bitch, or something even crueler, come out the wrestler’s mouth. At the same time, it registered that Darren had dropped the bag, and he was taking a step forward, ready to respond to that unuttered insult.

  She remembered him relating how he’d wound up in lockup this most recent time. As a rule, she knew Darren wasn’t a man who thought of violence as a desirable or particularly useful solution to problems. But there were exceptions to any rule, and she understood that Darren had carved one out around her honor.

  “Listen here,” the wrestler huffed at her, seemingly oblivious to the way Darren had changed beside her.

  Tony stepped forward, between the two lawyers and his puffed-up friend. His palms were in the air, diffusing.

  “Chill, Frank,” Tony said. “Okay? They’re right. I gotta have a talk with them.”

  Issabella could have kissed him, weak chin and all.

  It took a few more reassurances on Tony’s part, and the wrestler continued to shoot Darren challenging glares as the three college kids huddled together. But soon enough Frank and the other guy were climbing into their cars and pulling away, leaving Issabella and Darren alone with Tony.

  “Sorry about that,” Tony said. “Fran
k’s kind of an angry guy. I think his dad was rough on him, you know?”

  Darren bent down and plucked the garbage bag back up off the ground. He shrugged and smiled at Tony.

  “You almost got to see a jujitsu lesson,” he said, grinning wryly.

  Tony blinked.

  “You know jujitsu?”

  “God, no. I get exhausted watching kung fu movies. But Izzy here? She’s a killing machine. Let’s go inside for this.”

  Tony stared at the bag again.

  “I don’t even know what’s in there, man.”

  Darren reached into the bag with his other hand. He pulled out something soft and folded up. Issabella squinted in the darkness to see it. She heard Tony moan dejectedly, and then she recognized what it was.

  Darren was holding up a bloodstained hoodie.

  Chapter Eight

  Absurd as it was, when the pompadoured man kicked Chief Fish in the stomach the second time, Fish curled into a fetal ball and thought, This is right. This is how things should be.

  The man who was beating him stopped and ran both his palms up over his scalp, smoothing his white hair back. He was breathing hard, his paunch heaving under the lilac velour.

  “I guess you think this is about you,” the man growled between breaths, while Fish squirmed and ached on the floor at his feet. “You selfish little fucker.”

  He kicked Fish again, landing square on his thigh muscle, driving a spike of agony up through Fish’s spine.

  “You fucking bottom-feeder.”

  And again, this time right in the guts. Fish gagged, howled and vomited across the foyer floor.

  The man who was breaking him, blow by blow, crouched down. He tangled his thick, blunt fingers in Fish’s collar, and yanked at him so they were face-to-face. This close, the pompadoured man smelled like Old Spice cologne and stale cigarette smoke.

  “Now, I know you ain’t sold that brooch, Chief,” he said. “You ain’t had the time. Maybe sold it. Sure, maybe that. But you haven’t got rid of it yet. Have you?”