“Shit, what made you think to check that?” said a stunned White.
“No one could confirm that there ever were any real threats against the judge. She’d been threatened before, for real. What did she do when that happened? She notified the U.S. Marshals Service and they assigned her protection. What you don’t do is go out and hire your own protection. There would have been no need. So, another plausible reason for Draymont to be there was sexual. Doris Kline thought the same thing.”
White shook her head, looking confused. “But why go through that sort of subterfuge? She was single. Draymont was, too.”
“That’s what we have to find out. I also spoke with the Perlmans. They just got back from New York. They weren’t much help. They suggested Gamma to Cummins because Maya Perlman’s former legal client made threats against her. They weren’t around during the murders, so they didn’t see anything. But Maya Perlman was really upset. She and the judge were close.”
Next, he told her about his meeting with Kasimira Roe. “That’s why I was in Miami and then drove up to meet you at Lancer’s place.”
“So, she wantsyouto find out what happened to her father?”
“And if I have to in order to figure out what happened to Cummins, I will.”
“Do you really think there’s a connection?” she asked.
“But for the Slovakian money stuffed down Draymont’s throat I wouldn’t.”
“Did she mention anything about Lancer or Draymont? Or any records of threats?”
“I asked her and she passed the buck to ‘her people,’ and ‘legal counsel.’ But I hope to get some quid pro quo in return for looking into her father’s disappearance, which hopefully means we won’t have to go to court to get the info.”
“But Decker, if they were billing Judge Cummins for Draymont to be there, and I’m assuming they were, she must have given themsomereason why she needed protection. And how could they assure it would be Draymont doing the guarding?”
“The thing is, I don’t think he was there on behalf of Gamma at all. Doris Kline said he wasn’t there every night. And we haven’t found anyone to say he was there all night. I think Draymont was just there to have sex with Cummins. This wasn’t running through Gamma at all.”
“But when we met with them, why couldn’t they just tell us that?”
“I guess they were expecting Lancer to do the honors and we saw what happened there.”
“But wouldn’t Roe know if the judge was a client or not?”
“Maybe not—it’s a big organization.”
“But you said the Perlmans recommended Gamma to Cummins, so she must have been looking for some sort of protection.”
“I know. That’s the part that’s puzzling. And she might have talked to someone at Gamma about protection. But I don’t think Draymont was providing it. Or if he was, he was also providing the judge something extra. But the fact that he wasn’t there every night? And apparently no one else came to take his place on a rotation? Doesn’t sound like a standard protection detail to me. But we can confirm it with Gamma, and by an examination of the judge’s financial records. If she did hire them she had to be paying them.”
“So could Draymont have been wrong place wrong time, even with the money found in his throat?”
“No. I think Draymont and the judge were killed bytwodifferent people, at two slightly different times.”
White nearly came out of her seat. “What!”
He explained to her about the ME’s confirming that the blood on the wall and carpet was Draymont’s, not Cummins’s.
“She comes downstairs, maybe after hearing the shots, and then she goes back upstairs. Why not call the cops from downstairs?” Decker wondered.
“But it could still be the person who killed Draymont who then went after her and prevented her from sounding the alarm.”
Decker shook his head. “They were two totally different crimes. If you have a gun and want to silence a witness, you don’t pull out a knife and kill her slowly while she screams her head off and fights for her life. And for her to get Draymont’s blood on her means she had to touch him. As I said before, she probably heard the shots, went into the study, saw him lying there, touched the wound, maybe tried to perform CPR. Whoever shot Draymont wouldn’t have stayed around to watch that. And if they had meant to kill her, they would have gone to find her, not waited for her to come downstairs. For all they knew she would call the cops from her room.”
“That all makes sense. But the cut-up blindfold on her? And the legal phrase on the paper?”
“Could be something very personal to her, which would make sense if there were two separate killers. And but for the money in Draymont’s throat and the very different criminal elements, I might think he was killed in protecting the judge and then they went and finished her off. But that’snothow this played out. At least I don’t think it did.”
“And why not wait and fill in Andrews on this, too?” asked White.
“Because Roe knew about the Slovakian money in Draymont’s throat. She said it came from her ‘sources.’ I think hersourcewas Andrews.”