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Chapter 53
I sat ina nearly empty sub shop a few blocks from Gold’s Gym. The half eaten turkey sub on my plate was evidence that my head hurt too much for me to eat. My remedy, for the moment, was to sit quietly with a bottle of cold water pressed against my temple. Almost the exact spot Beth Banks had kicked me. I thought I could reasonably say I was the only person ever kicked in the head by a Supreme Court justice’s chief of staff. I figured she’d kicked someone in the head before this. I just assumed it was before her tenure with the Supreme Court.
I recognized I was feeling a little sorry for myself. I’d just had my ass kicked by a woman 70 percent of my size. I wasn’t on the trail of a killer, nor did I have any decent leads. Most of all, as I sat there wallowing in self-pity, I missed my family.
My quick trip home had only made me realize how desperately I needed my family. And that was a joyous realization. Most people would be thrilled if they could actually say they enjoyed spending time with their family. But I really did love spending time with them. Yet I couldn’t do it. At least not now.
The three other people in the sub shop all had their own problems. The kid behind the counter clearly didn’t want to work here. A woman sitting near the front looked clinically depressed as she picked at a salad with brown lettuce and two whole tomatoes thrown on top. A guy in a delivery uniform didn’t have time to enjoy lunch, downing his six-inch sub in four bites. My problems seemed more manageable when I looked at the big picture.
I took a pen and my little notepad from my sport coat and started to make a few notes. I wrote down the names of my three best suspects.
Beth Banks, who was certainly physically capable, had a motive to protect her brother and was just plain mean.
The next name was Robert Steinberg. I knew it was far-fetched to think a Supreme Court justice might commit murder. But in the real world, almost 80 percent of women who disappear or are murdered are attacked by their husbands or boyfriends. Domestic violence is real. It doesn’t care what aggressors do for a living.
The last name I wrote down was Jeremy Pugh. He was strong, crazy, and apparently pretty smart. That’s a dangerous combination. If it weren’t for the fact that Emily had an open case on his group, The Burning Land, he wouldn’t even make the list. His aggressive behavior since I’d first met him kept him as a potential suspect.
I’d spoken to both Beth Banks and Jeremy Pugh. That left Justice Steinberg as the only one of my potential suspects I hadn’t spoken to face-to-face. If I wanted to do it, I had to plan. Clearly I wouldn’t get into his office again. Even if I did somehow manage to make it there, I doubted I would survive my next encounter with Beth Banks.
I couldn’t conduct an interview at Steinberg’s home. He’d call the cops so fast I wouldn’t even get out a greeting. And all the locals would need is some kind of criminal charge like trespassing or a beefed-up burglary charge to send me home. Permanently.
I took another bite of tasteless turkey, then drank my cold water. As I sat there, thinking about buying another bottle of water just to keep on my head, my phone rang.
I looked down and saw it was Bobby Patel. I wondered if Beth Banks had even bothered to report my lurking around her gym. There was no sense in putting off bad news. That seemed to be the only thing Bobby called me with.
I put on the most cheerful voice I could, answered the phone, and said, “Hey, Bobby, how’s it going?”
“Metropolitan Police Department just called me. They have someone in custody for Emily’s murder.”
