“Guys?”
“In my experience, if a woman’s gonna kill you, she’ll do it to your face.”
Andrea had found that to be true in her experience, too. “Are you reading anything into the dead rat? Like, that sounds like a Godfather kind of thing—you ratted us out.”
“I appreciate your taste in movies, but no. The Baltimore Crew is dead and gone and the judge don’t really work them cases anymore,” Bible said. “Now, so, you’re probably wondering why we ain’t in Baltimore right now. Lucky for us, it’s summer recess, otherwise the judge would still be going to work every day at the courthouse. No way she’d come running back home because of one dead rat. The lady likes a schedule. She’s been spending the summer months at the Longbill house since her confirmation. Her car drove them here this morning at the crack of dawn, which is exactly what the judge has been doing for two hundred years. What you gotta keep at the front of your mind at all times is, the judge is gonna do what the judge is gonna do.”
Andrea caught his meaning, not least of all because of the googling she’d already done. Every photograph of Judge Esther Vaughn showed a stern-looking woman staring down the camera, invariably wearing a beautifully colored scarf to accent a severe black suit. The descriptions in the articles were a stroll down #MeToo lane. Several articles from the nineties notably called Judge Vaughn a difficult woman. The early aughts saw her described in a far more squishy complicated woman. More recently, all the strong I adjectives were invoked: imposing, imperious, intelligent, and, most commonly, indomitable.
“Anyways, that’s your nutshell on the judge,” Bible said. “Don’t really matter at the end of the day who mailed what and why, whether or not it was the same person or multiple persons. The judicial inspector back at Baltimore HQ is tracking that rabbit. We’re not the investigators. Our only job is to keep the judge safe.”
Andrea felt her throat tighten. Everything was starting to feel very life and death, not least of all because she had a loaded gun on her hip. Would a crazy person really come after the judge? Did Andrea have the nerve to stand between an eighty-one-year-old woman and a potential assassin?
Bible said, “You and me, we drew the short straw since we got here later in the day. We’re on the night shift, keeping our peepers wide open in case the rat-mailer or the death-threatener shows up. Got it?”
Andrea could only focus on one part: night shift. She had been longing for a bed in a quiet hotel room since her flight had been delayed.
“First stop.” Bible pointed to a squat, yellow brick building a few yards away. “We’re gonna meet the chief of police. Marshal rule number twelve. As soon as you can, you gotta let the locals know we’re here, make ’em feel appreciated. I wanted to wait for you before I made the introductions. You got any questions so far?”
She shook her head as they climbed the stairs. “Nope.”
“Good deal. Here we go.”
Andrea caught the door with the edge of her duffel bag before it closed behind him. She shifted her backpack over her shoulder and walked inside. The lobby was the size of a prison cell. Immediately, she smelled Lysol competing with the pungent odor of urine cake. The toilets were directly across from the front desk. Less than ten feet of space separated them.
“Good evening, officer.” Bible gave a quick salute to the very tired-looking sergeant manning the desk. “I’m Deputy Bible. This is my partner, Deputy Oliver. We’re here to see the big boss.”
Andrea heard a groan come out of the cop’s mouth as he picked up the phone. She directed her attention to the wall around the toilets, which was plastered with photographs documenting the members of the Longbill Beach Police Department going back to 1935. Andrea followed the dates with her eyes, crossing from one side of the bathroom doors to the other until she found what she was looking for.
The 1980 photo showed a Lego-jawed police chief with three men on either side of him. The caption read: BOB STILTON AND THE SQUAD.
Her heart did an odd flip.
Chief Bob Stilton had been the investigating officer on the Emily Vaughn case.
Andrea felt her throat work again. The chief was exactly how she’d pictured him—beady-eyed and mean-looking with the bulbous red nose of an alcoholic. In every photo, his fists were clenched so tight that his hands were bleached of color. Judging by his reports, he wasn’t a fan of either grammar or punctuation. Or laying out his deductive reasoning. The statements and supporting documents and diagrams were all in order, but the man had excluded any field notes that might reveal his thoughts on the shape of the case. The only indication that Clayton Morrow was even a suspect appeared in two lines of text the chief had scribbled out at the bottom of the last page in the file, which happened to be the autopsy report—
MORROW KILLED HER. NO PROOF.
Andrea moved to the next photo on the wall, which was dated five years later. Then another five years passed to the next photo. She kept going down the line. The force grew from six to twelve men. Chief Bob Stilton became more bent with age until the 2010 photo showed a younger, less round version taking center stage:
CHIEF JACK STILTON AND THE SQUAD.
Andrea knew that name, too. Jack Stilton was the son of Chief Bob Stilton. Back in 1982, the younger Stilton had provided a witness statement in cramped, block handwriting, relaying the last time he’d seen Emily Vaughn alive.
At approximately 5:45 p.m. on April 17, 1982, I, Jack Martin Stilton, witnessed Emily Vaughn talking to Bernard “Nardo” Fontaine. They were standing outside the gym. This was prom night. Emily was wearing a green or blue dress and had a small purse. Nardo was in a black tux. They both seemed very angry, which concerned me, so I approached. I was at the bottom of the stairs when I heard Emily ask where Clayton Morrow was. Nardo said “F-k if I know.” Emily walked inside the gym. Nardo told me “That bitch better shut her f-ing mouth before someone shuts it for her.” I told him to shut up but I don’t think he heard me. I went around the back of the gym to smoke a cigarette. I didn’t see either of them again. I only stayed for half an hour, then I returned home and watched TV with my mom. One of the Boys with Dana Carvey, then Elton John was on Saturday Night Live. I did not see Clayton Morrow at the prom. I did not see Eric “Blake” Blakely or his twin sister Erica “Ricky” Blakely, though I assume they were all there because that is how they operate. I do not know who the father of Emily’s baby is. She does not deserve all the bad stuff that has happened to her. I wore a black suit once to my uncle Joe’s funeral but my mom rented it so it wasn’t technically mine. I swear the contents of my statement are true under penalty of law.
Andrea heard a door slam open behind her.
“Chief Stilton. Thanks for meeting with us so late in the day.” Bible was giving the real-life Jack Stilton a firm handshake when Andrea turned around. “I promise we won’t take up much of your time.”
Andrea tried to keep her composure as Bible made the introductions. Stilton’s left eyebrow was bisected by a scar, a white line sending a lightning bolt between the fine hairs, probably from a long-ago scuffle. His pinky finger had clearly been broken at some point and healed badly. Despite this, he didn’t look like the kind of guy who was spoiling for a fight. The extra weight he carried gave him a baby-face, though Andrea knew he was the same age as Clayton Morrow, the man who, three years after leaving Longbill Beach, would introduce himself to Laura as Nicholas Harp.