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“Yep, plain as could be on the handrail,” Cole said. He’d already finished off his tacos, and I took one more out of the bag before the men devoured the rest of them. “Not only that, we’ve got scrapings on the ramp from a vehicle and tire tracks.”
“She was dumped three days ago,” Jack said. “Those could belong to anyone.”
“Yeah,” Cole said. “But maybe we’ll get lucky and get a match from one of your cars.”
“I need to check in with Cheney and see how it’s coming.”
“We’re still waiting on the warrant,” Cole said. “Judge Wallner still hasn’t signed off, so the private residences still haven’t been searched. Which means Cheney hasn’t even gotten started on the cars yet.”
Jack went to the phone on his desk and pressed the intercom button. “Betsy, can you get me Judge Wallner on the phone?”
“I can try,” she said. “You’ve got about a thousand messages out here from other judges and attorneys. And they were all so nice too, threatening to have me fired.”
“Ahh,” Jack said. “I guess that explains it. You know I make friends everywhere.”
She hmmphed and disconnected. Betsy Clement had been Jack’s secretary since he’d been elected. She’d also been the secretary for the last eight sheriffs before him. Betsy was about a hundred years old and she knew secrets that she would take to her grave. She had no idea how to use a computer, and there was a fifty percent chance she wouldn’t use the phone right, but she was a national treasure and the only way to get Betsy out of that job was for her to die in her chair.
The intercom buzzed a couple of minutes later and Jack answered.
“Judge Wallner on line one,” Betsy said and disconnected.
“What’s going on, Judge?” Jack asked.
“I was going to ask you the same question,” Judge Wallner said. He didn’t sound like he was in the best of moods. Everyone knew he suffered from gout, but he had a generally grumpy disposition even when he was in a good mood.
“I’ve had attorneys and federal judges calling my home phone since last night,” he said. “And on top of that, the staffer of a congressman. All night long. They didn’t care that I’m an old man and need my sleep, or that I had an eight o’clock tee time this morning. Something about illegal searches without a warrant, intimidation, assault, and verbal threats.”
“Uh-huh,” Jack said. “That doesn’t answer why I don’t have the warrant to search the house of a woman who was stabbed thirteen times and dumped in the river. Or why there’s a knife missing from the knife block in the kitchen of our upstanding law clerks who work for federal judges and one whose father is a congressman. Delaying only makes it harder.”
“Who said I was delaying,” Judge Wallner said. “Didn’t you hear me say I had an eight o’clock tee time? I’m signing the warrant now.”
There was another grunt just before he disconnected and Jack’s lips twitched in amusement.
“Well, I guess we have our warrant,” he said. “Cole, tell Cheney to focus on the cars and see if we can match what was found on the bridge. And let her know she can send forensics back out to the house to start going through the rest of it.”
“You got it, boss,” Cole said, getting up from the couch. “Thanks for the tacos.”
“How did he eat those without getting lettuce and cheese down the front of his shirt?” I asked, looking down at the front of my own shirt and the wreckage there. Again.
“Trade secret,” Cole said.
“Let’s see if Cami’s roommates arrived,” Jack said. “Want to go make their lives miserable?”
“Yeah, I guess,” I said, shaking out my shirt over the trash can. “It’s just a bad design. Why would someone invent an open-ended shell? They’re just setting us all up for failure.”
Jack opened the door to his office and waited for me to pass him before closing it behind him. “The taco makers are setting everyone up for failure? Like, our inability to eat tacos successfully is part of their diabolical plan to take over the world?”
“Maybe,” I said. “Stranger things have happened. I’m sure Sheldon could tell us all about them.”
“But why would you want to ask?”
“I don’t,” I said, following him down the corridor toward the conference rooms. “I’m just saying we could ask.”
“Kevin is still in lockup,” Jack said. “I’ll leave him for last. Let him keep a little longer in a holding cell. Thea is scheduled first in conference room A.”
The conference room was a comfortable space with a long conference table and eight black leather chairs that surrounded it. There was a screen on one wall and a whiteboard on the other, but they were both blank for the moment.
The blinds were open and we could see Thea through the window, sitting alone at the table. She was already dressed in her work uniform and she kept checking her watch.
