Ties That Bind (39 page)

“I have no idea. This just keeps getting more and more weird.”

“Yes.” Reese placed his hand on her neck. “But we’re close to solving this. I can feel it.” Then his fingers tightened and she saw determination in his gaze. And something cute…and sexy. “If you think for one second that mind-blowing sex against the cabinet is going to soothe ruffled feathers, think again. As soon as this is settled, and that could be any day now because of this” —he glanced at the file— “you’re going to have to commit. And I warn you, Katie, I’ll fight as dirty as you just did against the cabinet.”

As threats went, it was a pretty good one. But since her body was still humming from its earlier connection with his, she felt safe and secure as she leaned into him.

“THANKS FOR COMING in, Judge Renado.” Detective Pike nodded to Reese. “You, too, Bishop.”

“We want this solved.” Reese glanced to the room where Kate would meet with an investigator who did not know the identity of the accused. There, she’d be shown mug shots, one at a time, of possible perpetrators. The TV lineup concept of several suspects in a dark room, with height markers and lights shining on them, wasn’t used much anymore. All of these new methods were based on research for identifying suspects with the most accuracy.

“The police are anxious to catch this guy, too. We have a suspect in custody. If you ID him, you can watch us talk to him in an interrogation room with two-way glass.”

“How did you find him?”

“Actually, it was Chase Sanders who gave us the clue.”

“Really?” Kate was nervous, wrapping her arms around her waist. She wore a lightweight taupe suit that Reese thought made her eyes look almost hazel.

“Hell of a thing. Sanders went on the Internet. Seems Demming has a website in his own name, as a prison advocate.”

Ah, the connection to Bingham. “And I’ll bet he helped out our girl, Anna.”

“Yep. We tracked him down and subpoenaed his files. Seems he has a whole drawer full of women he helped. We’re stumped on the disguise thing. We might be able to get him for fraud on that, but if you identify him as your attacker, Judge, we’ll pile up the counts—blackmail, too, if we can nail him with the journal.”

The lights went on in the small room and Reese took Kate’s hand. It was warm and firm. “Scared, love?”

“Are you kidding? I’m pissed as hell that some guy did all this to us, and we don’t even know why.”

“That’s my girl.”

An older man wearing a suit approached the three of them. “Hello. I’m Detective Joe Johnson.”

Pike introduced everyone.

The detective escorted Kate into the room. Reese watched through the small window. Johnson smiled at her and they sat down at a table. One by one, he put out five-by-seven mug shots, taking back the previous one. Kate had her judge face on as she looked at each of them. After she was done, she said, “He’s number four.”

Johnson picked up the photo and nodded. “This is him?”

“Yes.”

“Are you sure?”

“No question, Detective. This is the man who attacked me.”

From beside Reese, Pike said, “Bingo!”

The investigator rose and called them in.

Reese put his hand on her shoulder. “You all right?”

“Fine.”

Pike said, “You’ve identified David L. Demming.”

“Well, good. It’s a match with our files.”

It only took ten minutes to set up the interrogation. Soon, Reese and Kate were watching Pike question Demming.

Standing over the seated suspect, Detective Pike asked, “Are you sure you don’t want a lawyer, Mr. Demming?”

“I got nothing to hide.”

“Is that a no?”

“For now.”

“Where were you two nights ago at seven p.m.?”

He made pretense of thinking. “Home with my girlfriend.”

“Will she testify to that?”

He laughed. “What do you think?”

Pike studied him. “Were did you get that cut on your right cheek?”

“A little sex play. You oughtta try it sometime, Detective.”

Pike ignored the comment and thrust still photos in front of the man. “Wanna tell us why you dressed in these getups to visit your clients at Longshore Federal Correctional Institution?”

The man’s face paled. Clearly he thought they’d only caught on to the assault. “I want my lawyer now,” Demming said abruptly.

“I thought you might.” Pike smiled. “You’re going down, Demming. And all the attorneys in the world aren’t gonna stop it.” He stood. “I’ll be back.”

o0o

“I AIN’T GOIN’ down alone.” This from Lena Parks, who fidgeted in the chair, tugging on the collar of her khakis.

Pike had requested a visit to Anna Bingham’s cellmate after their interview with Demming. The next day, Kate and Reese once again watched from behind the mirror. Warden Evans stood beside them fuming.

Pike towered over the accused. “Demming says you killed Bingham on your own. All he hired you to do was to get something on her for his blackmail scheme.”

“Yeah, man, that’s how it started out. He blackmails alotta the chicks he takes on as clients. That’s why he wears all those disguises, sometimes more than one per customer so the guards don’t take notice. The rich bitches, he called them. Like Bingham. She thought she was such hot shit.”

Casually, Pike asked, “What happened with the blackmail?”

“Bingham wouldn’t go along with it like the others did.”

“Can you give us names of others?”

“Uh-huh.” She swallowed hard. Her eyes looked slightly panicked. “For a deal, right?”

Warden Evans swore. “I hate this.”

“I don’t blame you,” Kate told her.

Reese’s hands fisted as Lena Parks listed the names of the women just in Longshore that Demming had connections with. “There are more in other prisons.”

“So, Lena,” Pike asked. “You kill Bingham?”

“Fuckin’ no. I didn’t kill nobody. My guess is Demming got to Ruiz.”

“Anita Ruiz?”

Kate and Reese had told the detective about the coincidence of Ruiz being in solitary confinement when Sanders visited the prison to talk to her, and how they thought her subsequent death was suspicious.

“Yeah, that’s her. I stopped cooperatin’ with Sorenson and Demming when they brought up murder. So they hit on Ruiz. Sorenson got the beef on her bad. Ruiz picked fights left and right with Bingham. I’d bet money that she put those pills in Bingham’s food.”

“How’d she get pills?”

“From Sorenson.”

Kate sat back and sighed. “This is all well and good. It’s evidence against Demming, though any judge will be suspect about a prisoner’s testimony. I still don’t know how it relates to us.”

Evans said, “They’re looking for Sorenson now. She’s on the run. And we can track Ruiz’s actions until she died. Now that we’ve got a probable scenario, I bet it’ll fall into place. But I don’t know how this concerns you two, either. Why did they implicate you, if Demming had her killed here by Ruiz or anyone, for that matter?”

“Maybe to set it up better as a suicide,” Kate suggested. “It still doesn’t explain why us.”

Evans sighed. “At least you’re off the hook on the suicide note. If it wasn’t suicide, the accusation’s invalid.”

“Still, our reputation will be sullied if we don’t get the connection and tie this all up.”

“It’s gotta come out,” Reese said, sounding confident.

“Not soon enough for me,” Kate told him. “I want to get on with our lives.

o0o

TWO NIGHTS LATER, the doorbell rang at Reese’s house. He and Kate were fixing dinner, still shell-shocked from the events of the last few days. Earlier, Chase Sanders had called and asked if he could come over. But Reese, with Kate at his elbow, was surprised to find Chase at the door with Eddie Wick, the newspaper reporter. Since the reporter’s account of the situation, in the paper this morning, was friendly to Kate and Reese, he was glad to see the man.

Reese asked them into the family room.

“What’s up?” Reese asked, standing behind Kate, when she sat in a chair.

“We think we got the connection,” Chase said without preamble. “Thanks to my good buddy here, we were able to piece it all together.”

Reese grasped Kate’s shoulders, encased in a thin blue T-shirt. “Tell me we’re free and clear.”

“You’re free and clear.” Chase smiled at Kate. “Good news, Kate.” He faced the reporter.

Wick pulled out a flip pad. “When I did the story on Demming’s arrest for today’s paper, something niggled at me. I knew I’d heard or seen something that involved him in the past. So I went back to my notes.” He held up the pad which looked worn. “It was in here, dated 2002, June 5.” He read from his pad: “‘Routine courthouse coverage duty today. The presiding judge, sick. The defense attorney’s mother died. Perp accused of fraud. It was like a circus. The judge was openmouthed to see her ex stride in as the defendant’s lawyer. Husband stopped dead in his tracks when he saw her on the bench. The animosity was so thick you could cut it with the proverbial knife. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the prosecution raised all kinds of hell, objecting loudly before either of them got their wits about them. Note: Stupid of the guy to embarrass those people. It was obvious this had a simple solution.’”

Kate looked over her shoulder at Reese. “It was so awful. I was embarrassed, and sad.” She grasped his hand where it still rested on her shoulder, as if to soothe the memory.

“My feelings exactly.”

Wick watched them with shrewd eyes. The last interview they had had with him, they had been estranged.

He said, “Maybe this’ll take the sting away. ‘Demming was an asshole. I eavesdropped at the drinking fountain, and heard him bitching to his girlfriend about the delay. Then he said, “‘Sure was a show in there. With those two in the limelight, a perp could get away with anything.’”

Kate gasped. Reese was circumspect.

Chase smiled. “We think that maybe he gave himself an idea. I’d bet my license he used you guys as red herrings to draw attention away from the fact that it might be a murder, not a suicide.”

“We thought maybe Bingham’s note—her suicide—might all be a ruse,” Kate commented, “But it’s hard to believe.”

Wick shrugged. “Not so hard. Because it worked, didn’t it? If it hadn’t been for your tenacity, which he obviously didn’t count on, because divorce doesn’t breed good partners, he might have gotten away with it.”

Reese shook his head. How ironic: falling back in love had saved their careers. “What a chain of events. It seems so far-fetched.”

Sanders shrugged. “Just because you’re the victims.”

“What should we do with all this?” Kate asked. “It’s not exactly hard evidence, and it would never stand up in court.”

“You don’t need hard evidence. You just need the connection. Take it to the police. It’ll help build their case. And it’ll give them the connection to you two that they need.”

They discussed who should do what, and afterward Reese called Pike. The detective asked Wick to meet him at the precinct. As the men were leaving, Chase turned to Kate. “Happy?” he asked, all too friendly.

She reached out and squeezed his arm. “I am,” she said. “Thanks to you.”

“I’ll be seeing you, I hope,” he added.

“Maybe.” Reese tugged her close and slid an arm around her waist. “Maybe not.”

Wick socked Sanders on the arm, and they left,

When Reese closed the door and turned to her, she placed her hands on his shoulders and his went naturally to her hips. “What was that all about?” she asked.

“He was hitting on you.”

“Hmm. You short-circuited it.”

“Damn right.”

She grinned broadly. His matched it. He picked her up and swirled her around. “Looks like it’s over, love, if this is the connection.”

“It’s enough of a reason for me,” she said smiling. “Come on…” He pulled her to the kitchen and found a bottle of champagne in the wine rack. Its pop was loud and the fizz spouted out; Reese poured them each some.

“Here’s to victory,” he said, clanking his glass with hers.

“How sweet it is.”

Reese drank, she drank and then he leaned over and kissed her. Her lips tasted like the dry bubbly. “Nothing compared to how sweet the future’s going to be. And before you stiffen up, remember what I said in my office the night we identified Demming. The gloves are off. I’m going to play dirty. Make no mistake, Katie. You’re going to be mine in no time.”

“Back off, hotshot. Let’s just savor one victory at a time.” She saluted him with her champagne.

“All right, “ After he drained his glass, he took hers out of her grasp, set it on the table and, bending over, slid one arm under her legs, one at her back and scooped her up into a carry.

“Hey, what are you doing?”

“Take a wild guess.”

“What about the champagne?”

“We’ll finish it later,” he said making his way to the staircase. “A lot later.”

o0o

REESE FILLED HIS father in on how the case with Anna Bingham had been unraveled as they drove up to get Sofie from Connor Prep. It was the end of May and the school year was over. Summer had come, and the sun was shining down brightly on the blacktop. Everything on the roadside was green and lush. They’d taken Pa’s van, so the boys and his dad could come along, and still fit his daughter’s belongings in its rear end.

Pa shook his head after Reese gave him a summary of the story. “Sounds like one of those TV shows. Hard to believe this Demming guy didn’t have it out for you.”

“It’s bizarre.” Reese put on his blinker and passed a car. “All those nights we spent reviewing our files, reading through material on Anna Bingham, when it had nothing to do someone we’d offended or pissed off in our practice or her courtroom.”

The case had busted wide open after Wick and Sanders had met with the police. It was a short journey from that conversation to the truth: Lena Parks’s testimony, as well as the investigation into Anita Ruiz’s prison life, involvement in the blackmail, and her death—which, ironically, was a suicide. The crowning glory came when the police found Nell Sorenson. She confirmed Demming’s plans and the reason for his false identities. When Sorenson had questioned him about Bishop and Renado, Demming had told her what he was up to. All of it led to Kate and Reese being exonerated.