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“Exactly,” she said, clearly pleased to have found an ally. “That power…well, it can be heady.”
“He took bribes. He used his position to blackmail,” Doyle said.
“He did, he did.” She looked positively miserable at the admission. “And he recognized the error of his ways and worked hard to overcome it.” She leaned forward, speaking earnestly to Tucker, whom she obviously saw as the more reasonable of the two. “And he did overcome it. He really did.”
“All that heady power,” Doyle said, “it push him toward anything other than blackmail?”
Her back stiffened. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Just thinking aloud,” Doyle said, but he was focused more on the girl—who’d become frozen in the act of sorting papers—than on his interviewee.
“Even rumors,” Tucker said. “We’re looking for a motive here. Maybe his killer got it wrong. Heard something untrue, but acted on it.”
“Well, I don’t know what,” she said, turning back to Tucker. “The judge was a good man at heart, and nobody says otherwise. Certainly not around here. He did some rousting in his youth—packs of were-creatures tearing through the nicer neighborhoods, stirring up the humans. It’s ridiculous, and of course it’s frowned upon. Frightens the humans something awful, but there’s no real harm. Of course he was sanctioned for it. But that was ages ago. Long before he was ever put up for the bench.”
“Even whispers,” Tucker pressed. “Irate phone calls. Anything.”
“Nothing,” she said. “Nothing.” She shook her head. “I can’t believe he’s dead. I simply can’t.”
“Anyone new in his life? Business associates? Girlfriends?”
“He was seeing a nice young woman,” she said, and though her voice was level, her hands twisted in her lap.
Doyle leaned back, casual as you please. “You didn’t approve?”
“What?” She sat up straighter, her hands now on her knees. “It’s not my place to approve or disapprove.”
“And yet?” Tucker pressed.
Her shoulders sagged, the bodily equivalent of a sigh. “She was too young for him, if you ask me, an elder statesman such that he was. But he seemed truly smitten.”
“Got a name?” Doyle asked.
“Oh, no. I don’t. He never brought her here. I heard about her, then saw her in his car once. Just a glimpse. Lovely girl, but young, as I said.”
“How about Lucius Dragos?”
“The vampire?” Her nose crinkled, and Doyle’s estimation of the woman rose a notch.
“Did Braddock have any business with Dragos? Any of the blackmail or bribery schemes touch on him?”
“Not that I’m aware.”
“Did the judge keep any papers here?” Doyle asked. “We’ll need to take them back to Division for review.”
“Just the file that the Order maintains on all the Therians.” She stood up, as if grateful for something to do. “I’ll run and get it for you.”
She slipped out, and Doyle started walking casually around the room, ending up at the table with the girl. “Got a pile of work there, kid.”
She nodded, but kept her eyes down.
“How old are you?”
She lifted her head. “Sixteen.”
“And you work here?”
She nodded. “My mother does. I’ve been coming with her all my life. They gave me a job last year. I do the filing.”
