“Right now, the best way for you to help Judge Wannamaker is to tell me everything you can remember about today.” Detective Daniels scratched the hairs of his graying mustache and flattened his nonexistent lips into a grim line. “We can’t change what happened, but we can find a way to put things right. I need your help to do that, okay?”
“Okay.” I took a handful of tissues from the box and swallowed a few times to slow my breathing.
“Rest assured. Bickerton P.D. has already booked Ms. Mulligan on your assault claims, so what we need to do is focus on the judge.” He placed his elbows on the table and leaned toward me. “Finish telling me about your meeting with Frederica Wannamaker. If you’d already revealed your history with the defendant and recused yourself from trial, why go meet her for tea?”
“We wanted to talk as friends. I’ve known Ms. Freddie since I was a kid. She knew there was more to the Langley story than what I told her on the bench.”
“You knew the deceased before you started working here?”
Deceased. I flinched and forced myself not to tear up again. “Yes. Ms. Freddie has been like a second mother to me. She and my mom went to college together.”
“You’ve known the judge your whole life?”
I nodded but didn’t respond. I’d observed enough testimony to know he wasn’t asking a real question. Detective Daniels didn’t want to lose momentum while he checked his mini-recorder and reached for the legal pad he’d shoved under his corduroy blazer during my recent crying jag.
“You said you are—how old?”
“Twenty-five.”
He clicked the top of his pen and scribbled down the number. “How long have you worked here?”
“Five years. Six if you count the year I interned for Judge Wannamaker while I was training online for stenography. Once I got my court reporter’s certification, I applied for a full-time state job.”
“In all that time, did the judge ever confide in you about feeling threatened at work?”
“No.”
The day had, however, revealed a number of people who didn’t like her, and that thought worried me.
“Do you know of anyone, personally or professionally, who wished to do her harm?”
“No. But if you guys are thinking this has something to do with—”
“If you’ve seen or heard something unusual, that’s the information I need to know. Don’t focus on the investigation, and don’t volunteer theories.”
“What do you want me to say?” I flapped my arms, exasperated, and shredded the tissue I had clutched in my hand. “She’s a judge. I imagine everyone she sentences wants to do her harm.”
“Ms. Justice, relax and take your time.” The detective put down his pen. The weathered lines of his olive skin grew deep as his voice took on a solemn tone.
“No one who actually knows Judge Wannamaker would do this.” The words came out more like a plea and less like a declaration because…I wasn’t quite sure.
Stevenson, Harriston, and Phyllis Dodd had disrespected her throughout the trial. I leaned back and started to link my hands at the top of my head so I could stare at the ceiling and think, but I stopped when the gesture exposed the skimpy camisole under my suit jacket.
Thanks for drenching my blouse, Langley.
Another sob erupted as I wondered how different things could have been if I’d gone straight to the bathroom to change—
Bathroom.
An image of Ms. Freddie’s mutilated form flashed across my mind. What kind of monster strangled a sixty-five-year-old woman with a tie?
An indigo tie.
I straightened my back and stared at the faded red tie around the detective’s leathery neck until the truth came to me.
“I think the purple tie I saw in the bathroom is the same one Mr. Stevenson wore during the trial. He slammed it down in front of the judge during an argument at sidebar, but Mr. Harriston picked it up.”
“I need you to think carefully before answering this next question.” Detective Daniels narrowed his droopy eyelids and ran a hand across his mouth. “We’re not a hundred percent sure about the cause of death at this point, but signs point to asphyxiation, either from drowning or from the restraint around her neck.” He inspected my face, probably to gauge whether or not I’d fall apart again. “Do you remember seeing Mr. Harriston or Mr. Stevenson or anyone else leave the courtroom with that tie?”
A sharp pain ran through my head as the day’s images sped through my brain.
Nothing.
“I didn’t see the tie again until I found Ms. Freddie.”
“Can you tell me who was in the courtroom the last time you saw that purple tie?”
“Harriston, Stevenson, Langley, Corporal North, Maggie the trial clerk, me, the judge, and Grace—actually, the bailiff had been asked to remove the jury, so Grace might not have been there. Phyllis Dodd, the state chemist, was in the gallery waiting to testify.”
“Did any of them know you planned to meet Judge Wannamaker in the kitchen?”
“Maybe.” I folded my hands in my lap unsure of how to answer. “We made the arrangements while she was leaving the bench. I suppose anyone in the courtroom could have overheard.”
He jotted down some notes and read them over before he spoke again. “Okay. Let’s establish a timeline.” He flipped to a blank page and drew a horizontal line across the center. “About what time did the judge leave the bench?”
“Eleven twenty-seven. I always write the judge’s departure and arrival times as part of the record. The trial clerk should be able to verify that. She usually writes down the time too.”
“How long did you hang around the courtroom after the judge left?”
“Fifteen or twenty minutes. I could give you a better answer if I had my laptop. I remember saving my trial notes right before Langley started harassing me.”
“That’s good enough for now. I’ll have you follow up on that when we finish.” He absentmindedly tapped his pen on the notepad in time with the tick of the wall clock. “Did you go straight outside after you left the courtroom, or did you make a stop first?”
“Straight outside. I didn’t want people seeing me cry. I went through the judges’ hallway and out the employee doors because that was the quickest way to my car. I sat there for five or ten minutes before I realized I was supposed to be in the kitchen.”
“That would put us at eleven fifty-seven. It’s lunchtime. I would think the courthouse would be busy. Did you see anyone on your way to the kitchen or after you arrived?”
“No.” My voice cracked at his reminder that I’d arrived too late, so I clenched my fists until the nails dug into my palm. The pain distracted me enough to continue.
“I wasn’t in the kind of physical state where I wanted to be seen. Besides, I came through the employee entrance, which dumped me out into a hallway a few feet from the kitchen. The hall and the kitchen were empty when I got there—although, Ms. Freddie must have waited around for at least ten minutes because the kettle had boiled and the stove was off.”
“Back up a second.” Detective Daniels squinted at the notepad and thumbed through his notes. “You mentioned a ‘judges’ hallway,’ what