Read Online Cold Justice: A Judge Willa Carson Mystery (The Hunt for Justice) by Diane Capri - Free Book Online Page A

didn’t impress me. I was weary, too. George was missing and I couldn’t make it back to the cottage alone. I felt trapped physically, emotionally and intellectually and I struggled against the restraints.
    “When did you find out David was coming unraveled?”
    Trevor removed his hand from his pocket and wiped his face. “Three weeks ago. David became more and more frantic. Three weeks wouldn’t have been a problem, if this was the first time he’d been unable to pay his bills. People are neighborly here. Creditors would have let him slide.”
    But of course, it wasn’t the first time. Far from it, I’d bet.
    “People who had been burned before were unwilling to give him a chance. What could he do?” He actually looked at me with innocence in his eyes, as if his excuses for his brother-in-law’s criminal behavior were remotely acceptable.
    Now it was my turn to be incredulous. And pissed off. “Besides kill Leo Richards you mean?” I stood up and turned to stalk out.
    In a flash he was behind me. He grabbed my arm. “Wait,” he pleaded. “Please.”
    I looked at him. “For what?” He still held my arm. I looked down pointedly at the hand he’d placed to restrain me.
    He did not let go. “There is a snow sniper, Willa. The State Police will arrest him today. He killed three people already. He could have killed Leo Richards, too. The snow sniper is a more likely suspect than David. He’s killed three times before. Three times. He’ll be convicted. It won’t take long. He could have killed a fourth time. Maybe he did. I need your help, Willa. Will you help me?”
    No , I wanted to scream, I will not help you. And if you don’t do your job, I’ll make sure you pay for Richards’ murder, too. Remember Richard Nixon. It’s not the crime, it’s the cover up.
    But I didn’t say that.
    And because I said nothing, he continued, “David Mason is not a bad man, Willa, but he is a desperate one. I know you see desperate people in your courtroom all the time, because I do. Desperate people do desperate things.” Still he held my arm, restraining my freedom, making me angrier by the millisecond. “David has a wife. Small children. His family needs him.”
    As if that made David’s actions somehow less heinous, less destructive.
    “Leo Richards had a wife and a daughter, too. You took an oath to uphold the law just like I did, Randy,” I told him, shaking my arm so that he’d let me go. “Are you going to do that? Or do I have to do it for you?”
    If George and I hadn’t stumbled upon the crime scene, David might have escaped detection completely. By the time Kemp arrived at the Toyota this morning, most of the exterior forensic evidence had already been destroyed. Perhaps it would all have been gone, even the ballistics. Randy Trevor would have had his way.
    The mere idea heated up my anger like one of those steam tunnels under the old asylum. I was near ready to blow.
    What Randy and David had planned seemed like the perfect crime. Randy knew the snow sniper had been identified and would be arrested with just a little bit more evidence. He might have told David about it or maybe David just got lucky with the timing. Either way, David killed Leo thinking the snow sniper would be blamed. His insurance against prison was his brother in law, the one and only judge.
    In a town like Pleasant Harbor, Judge Randy Trevor would have enough clout to make something like this go away for David, if David was arrested at all. Trevor shouldn’t preside over a case involving his brother-in-law, but who would object? If no one challenged him, there were any number of ways he could have helped David avoid conviction. But if all those methods failed, Trevor could simply give David Mason a suspended sentence, too.
    Was my old colleague that corrupt? Would he do that? I could see in his eyes that he would.
    “Forget it, Randy. I was there. I saw Leo Richards’ brains blown all to hell. David brought the gun and set up