“I picked Elise out of the chair and carried her from the room. I stepped over the pistol, which was on the floor just inside the study door, as she said. I left it there and didn’t touch the body again or anything else in the room. I deposited Elise here in the living room and used that telephone to call 911.” He pointed out a cordless phone on an end table. “No one went into the study until the officers arrived.”

“While you were waiting on them, did you ask her what had happened?”

“Of course. She explained in stops and starts, but I got the gist of it. In any case, it was rather obvious that she’d interrupted an attempted burglary.”

Not so obvious from where I sit, Judge. Duncan didn’t speak his thought aloud because there was no point in riling the judge unnecessarily. However, there were some details that needed further investigation and explanation before he was ready to rubber-stamp this a matter of self-defense and close the books on it. Getting an identity on the dead man would be the first step. That could shed some light on why he was in the Lairds’ home study.

Duncan smiled at the couple. “I think that’s all we need to go over tonight. There may be some loose ends to clear up tomorrow.” He stood up, essentially putting an end to the interview. “Thank you. I know this wasn’t easy. I apologize for the need to put you through it.”

“You were only doing your job, Detective.” The judge extended his hand and Duncan shook it.

“Yes. I was.” Releasing the judge’s hand, he added, “For the time being, the study is still a crime scene. I’m sorry if this poses an inconvenience, but please don’t remove anything from it.”

“Of course.”

“I have one more question,” DeeDee said. “Did either of you recognize the man?”

“I didn’t,” Elise said.

“Nor I,” said the judge.

“You’re sure? Because Mrs. Laird said she’d turned on the wrong light. The room would have been semi-dark. Did you turn on the overhead light in the study, Judge?”

“Yes, I did. I explained to Officer Crofton that on my way into the room, I switched on the light.”

“So, with the overhead light on, you got a good look at the man?”

“A very good look. As stated, he was a stranger to us, Detective Bowen.” He softened the edge in his voice by politely offering to see them out. Before leaving Elise, he bent down to where she had remained seated on the sofa. “I’ll be right back, darling, then I’ll take you up.”

She nodded and gave him a weak smile.

Duncan and DeeDee walked from the room with him. When they reached the foyer, DeeDee said, “Judge, before we leave, I’d like to measure the height of that bullet hole in the wall. It’ll only take a sec.”

He looked annoyed by the request, but said, “Certainly,” and motioned her to follow him toward the study.

Duncan stayed where he was in a deceptively relaxed stance, hands in his pants pockets, staring after his partner and the judge as they moved down the foyer out of earshot.

Beale and Crofton were talking together at the front door. From the snatches of conversation Duncan could overhear, they were discussing the pros and cons of various barbecue joints and ignoring the reporters and curiosity seekers still loitering in the street, waiting for something exciting to happen.

He looked into the living room. Elise was still on the sofa. She had picked up her cup of tea, but left the saucer on the coffee table. Both her hands were folded around the cup. They looked as delicate as the china. She was staring down into the tea.

Quietly Duncan said, “I was drunk.”

She didn’t move or show any reaction whatsoever, although he knew she had heard him.

“I was also pissed off at your husband.”

Her fingers contracted a little more tightly around the cup.

“Neither excuses what I said to you. But I, uh…” He glanced toward both ends of the foyer. Still empty. He was safe to speak. “I want you to know…what I said? It wasn’t about you.”

She raised her head and turned toward him. Her face was still wan, her lips colorless, making her eyes look exceptionally large. Large enough for a man to fall into and become immersed in the green depths of them. “Wasn’t it?”

Chapter 5

UPON SEEING ROBERT SAVICH FOR THE FIRST TIME, PEOPLE were initially struck by his unusual coloring.

His skin tone was that of café au lait, a legacy from his maternal grandmother, a Jamaican who’d come to the United States seeking a better life. At age thirty-four she had given up the quest by slashing her wrists in a bathtub in the brothel where she lived and worked. Her leached body was discovered by another of the whores, her fifteen-year-old daughter, baby Robert’s mother.

His blue eyes had been passed down through generations of Saviches, a disreputable lineage no more promising than his maternal one.

Superficially, he was accepted for what he was. But he knew that neither pure blacks nor pure whites would ever wholly accept his mingled blood and embrace him as one of their own. Prejudice found fertile ground in every race. It recognized no borders. It permeated every society on earth, no matter how vociferously it was denounced.

So from the time he could reason, Savich had understood that he must create a dominion that was solely his. A man didn’t achieve an egotistic goal of that caliber by being a nice guy, but rather by being tougher, smarter, meaner than his peers. A man could do it only by evoking fear in anyone he met.

Young Robert had taken the dire experiences of his childhood and youth and turned them to his advantage. Each year of poverty, abuse, and alienation was like an additional application of varnish, which became harder and more protective, until now, he was impenetrable. This was particularly true of his soul.

He had directed his intelligence and entrepreneurial instincts toward commerce-of a sort. He was dealing crack cocaine by the time he was twelve. At age twenty-five, in a coup that included slit-ting the throat of his mentor in front of awed competitors, he established himself as the lord of a criminal fiefdom. Those who hadn’t known his name up to that point soon did. Rivals began showing up dead by gruesome means. His well-earned reputation for ruthlessness rapidly spread, effectively quelling any dreamed-of mutinies.

His reign of terror had continued for a decade. It had made him wealthy beyond even his expectations. Minor rebellions staged by those reckless or stupid enough to cross him were immediately snuffed. Betrayal spelled death to the betrayer.

Ask Freddy Morris. Not that he could answer you.

As Savich wheeled into the parking lot of the warehouse from which he ran his legitimate machine shop, he chuckled yet again, imagining Duncan Hatcher’s reaction upon finding the little gift that had been left in his refrigerator.

Duncan Hatcher had started as a pebble in his shoe, nothing more than a nuisance. Initially his crusade to destroy Savich’s empire had been somewhat amusing. But Hatcher’s determination hadn’t waned. Each defeat seemed only to strengthen his resolve. Savich was no longer amused. The detective had become an increasingly dangerous threat who must be dealt with. Soon.

The gradual introduction of methamphetamine into the Southeastern states had opened up a new and vigorous market. It was an ever-expanding profit center for Savich’s business. But it was a demanding taskmaster, requiring constant vigilance. He had his hands full controlling those who manufactured and marketed meth for him. He was equally busy keeping independents from poaching on his territory.

Any idiot with a box of cold remedy and a can of fuel thought he could go into business for himself. Fortunately, most of the amateurs blew themselves and their makeshift labs to smithereens without any help from him. But as relatively easy as it was to produce, meth was even easier to market. Because of its various forms of ingestion-snorting, smoking, injecting, and simply swallowing-there was something to suit every user.