BETWEEN SINS

by Robert S. Levinson

EQMM regular Robert Levinson came to mystery writing after concluding several other successful careers, first as a newspaperman, then as a public relations executive, and finally as a writer-producer of more than three dozen television specials. His PR company, Levinson Associates, pioneered independent PR support services in the music industry, so it should not be any surprise that his latest book-length thriller, In the Key of Death (Five Star) is set in the music world.

“A lot of people would like to see me dead,” Judge Gillian Armstrong said. “I have no interest whatsoever in satisfying their desire.”

“Walter Farnum, in particular.”

“Currently, yes, Detective. Farnum’s the latest in a long line of criminals that started forming even before I graduated from the D.A.’s office to Superior Court, but this is the first time I’m bothered. Enough to call on our police de-partment’s new Priority Protection Squad.”

“The squad’s not so new anymore,” Detective Jack Reno said, adding a half-smile that seemed to apologize to the judge for correcting her. “It’s been a year-plus and so far, so good. Haven’t dropped the ball and lost a VIP yet.”

“Would that statistic have the law of averages working against me?”

“Not when the law is working for you, Your Honor.”

Reno watched while Judge Armstrong absorbed his latest grain of logic, her stylishly maintained fingernails tapping out a nervous melody on the highly polished redwood surface of her desk. Her ocean-blue eyes wandered the office walls; periodically stopping to examine his face, pry inside his mind, satisfy herself that his words reflected his true feelings about the situation.

He recognized that he was seeing a side of the judge that wasn’t part of any public record and added it to what he did know: She was among the most popular jurists occupying the bench in Los Angeles Superior Court, especially with the law-and-order crowd that routinely hailed Judge Armstrong as a tough cookie who meted out tough justice exclusively. Prosecutors and defense attorneys understood that the only way a convicted defendant might get a break in her courtroom was to trip and fracture a bone.

“You’re staring at me,” she said, abruptly putting an end to her finger-tapping, pushing her chair back from the desk, and adjusting herself into a more judicial pose. “Tell me, why is that, Detective?”

Reno considered the consequences of an honest answer before deciding to—what the hell—give it to her; some of it, anyway. It wasn’t a punishable offense. But for now, don’t let on he saw the frightened little girl inside the steel-plated woman.

He said, “Only confirming what I always saw and thought two months ago when I was testifying in the Keating murder trial, Your Honor, how your pictures in the newspapers and on television, they never once did you justice.” He laughed. His pun, if that’s what it was, had not been intentional.

The curiosity on Judge Armstrong’s face briefly crossed over into concern, her sleek eyebrows drawn together at the rise of her perfectly sculpted nose, her sensual lips pulling tight, giving greater accent to her high cheekbones, then falling into a frown, as if flattery was not the kind of testimony she encouraged.

Reno knew instinctively that the judge was playacting.

He’d never known a woman who didn’t appreciate a kind word, from the lowest of the street hooks pumping their wares on Sunset Boulevard, back when he was working vice with Scotty Brinkman, to his ex, especially when she got to moaning and groaning about some new wrinkle signaling to the world how she was about to turn forty, making even worse noise than that in those last weeks before Jackie Junior and then Jenny were born.

After a moment, staring at the ceiling as if it were a memory screen, Judge Armstrong said, “Yes, I’m reminded now of how you spent much of your time on the witness stand with your eyes trained on me. I admonished you several times to address your answers to the jury or the district attorney.”

“The D.A. wasn’t as pretty as you, Your Honor.” She swatted away his words. Reno grinned. “Besides, I was only returning the favor,” he said. “You did your own fair share of undressing me with those big baby blues of yours.”

“Your ego is misinforming you, Detective. Any looks you received from me were of absolute and utter disdain for your testimony in Keating’s trial for murder. You permitted the defense to break you down on the stand and single-handedly turned a certain conviction into a not-guilty verdict.”

“The truth did that, not me. It was a weak case going in, strictly circumstantial. All I did was tell the truth, especially when the D.A. tried to steer my testimony his way. Perjury wasn’t a game I was prepared to play, Judge. Would ever play.”

“And because of that, the jury sent that killer back on the street to kill again, as he did last month. Is it any wonder then that I consider you and people like you disrupters of justice whom I cannot dismiss from my mind and my life fast enough?”

“That and worse you said about me to the media hounds after the trial. Yet, here I am. Here we are. So, why’s that, Your Honor? You have some explaining to do, don’t you think?” He aimed a finger at her. “Nice necklace, by the way.”

She reached up and covered the necklace’s centerpiece, a carved ivory lion in repose that seemed to be using as its den the gulf between her oversized breasts, erect as pyramids inside a midnight-black cashmere sweater a size too small for her athletic frame. She was in her early fifties, a decade older than him, but not to look at her now, free of the staid judicial robes that hid a sensuous woman. She smelled good, too; not any perfume she’d ever worn in court, or he would have remembered.

She seemed to welcome his lingering gaze for another moment or two, then abruptly turned her back on Reno, saying, “Any explaining I have to do I’ve already done, to Assistant Chief Grace, before him to the chairman of the Board of Police Commissioners, Tommy Dix. I told them about the threats on my life. Both agreed Walter Farnum was the likely source and insisted on involving the Priority Protection Squad. And you, Detective, convincing me Jack Reno was the best man to supervise my safety and well-being, so—” whirling around to face him again, with a finger like an arrow aimed at his heart— “here you are, Detective, over my strong personal feelings.”

“And my own,” he said.

She leaned forward, palms on the desk surface, using it as a pulpit while declaring in words dripping with sarcasm, “At least we have that in common, Detective.”

That look in her eyes suggested to Reno it was more than that—like a spider sizing up a fly. He said, “If we’re going to be hanging together for the duration, please call me Jack.”

“Call me ‘Judge Armstrong.’ Or ‘Judge.’ Or ‘Your Honor’ ... Any one of those will do, Detective Reno.”

* * * *

Judge Armstrong lived in Beachwood Canyon, about a mile up from Franklin Avenue, in a modest bungalow sandwiched between a lavish Craftsman cottage and another of those ultra-glitzy three-story condominiums that were sucking the history out of the hills below the Hollywood sign.

Reno’s original protection blueprint called for exterior surveillance on a twenty-four-seven basis, with a pair of uniforms on-site even when the judge was not around, guarding against unlawful entry by persons unknown in an area given to a high incidence of burglaries and break-ins.

He put himself on the day shift, glued to the judge’s side from the time he met her at her front door until whatever time he dropped her off and said goodnight; always discreetly out of sight but within shooting range, if it came to that.

The blueprint worked for three days, until the morning Judge Armstrong didn’t answer the doorbell.

Or his hammering on the door after a couple of minutes.

Or Reno calling out her name after he broke open a window and climbed inside, his calls growing from a cautious question into an anxious shout as he methodically hunted after the judge, a two-handed grip on his Glock 23; using the weapon like a divining rod.

She had to be in here somewhere, damn it.

Reno had escorted her safely into the bungalow shortly after nine last night, after she’d hoisted more than a few at a retirement party for the Honorable Thurston Hale, who was stepping down from the Superior Court bench after forty-seven years because he was no longer able to stay reasonably awake or control his bladder during a trial.

Judge Armstrong had imbibed one bubbly too many, or two or three or four, and was rubber-legged. No way she was going to make it past the front door without Reno’s help. He propped her up, one arm around her waist, the other supporting her elbow, and guided her one careful step at a time down the central hallway to her bedroom, smiling at the discovery that it was furnished and decorated like a little girl’s room.

Lots of pink and powder-puff blue.

Stuffed teddy bears all over the place.

Display shelves on two of the walls full of Barbie dolls and other types he could not put a name to, in a variety of sizes and shapes, all elegantly costumed.

Nothing he could reconcile with the tough-minded judge he was trying to maneuver onto the floral-patterned bedspread, only—

She wasn’t making the job easy.

Crooning an incoherent song, Judge Armstrong locked her hands behind Reno’s neck and pulled him down. He landed on his knees alongside the bed, but her tugging brought his face close enough for her to reach his lips with hers.

“Um,” she said, a kittenish purr emanating from the base of her throat. She found his tongue. A growl replaced the purr and quickly was overshadowed by a moan.

Reno realized the moan was his.

“You bit my damn lower lip,” he shouted at her. “I’m tasting blood.”

“Mm, yummy. Me, too,” she said.

He broke free of the judge, turned, and fled the room, ignoring her mush-mouthed calls for him to come back, help her get ready for beddy-bye, share her goodnight prayers, tuck her in, but the name she was signaling him with sounded nothing like “Jack” or “Reno.” Nowhere close. Not that it made a difference. He knew to get the hell out of there, knew better than to get caught up in her emerging demons. He was attracted to her, yeah, but years of experience had taught him never to mix business with pleasure. Not an easy lesson to learn.

The first time he did, it had cost him his marriage.

The second time, a promotion.

The time after that—

Oh, hell.

He’d take his chances.

Reno wheeled around and headed back into the bedroom.

Judge Armstrong was dead to the world.

Snoring loud enough to bring in the hogs.

He threw a blanket over her and retreated, this time for keeps, quietly inching the door shut.

Now, this morning, at the bedroom again, Reno assumed the usual cop-cautious, gun-ready approach to entering, flat against the wall to the side of the closed door. He called for her and after several seconds of silence angled around and kicked the door open. Overnight, the room had become a disaster area. The bears and the dolls were scattered. Dresser drawers had been pulled open and their contents tossed. There was a diagonal crack in the vanity table mirror. Her clothing had been moved from the closet and piled bonfire-style in the middle of the room, and Judge Armstrong—

Reno discovered her after busting through the connecting door to the bathroom. She was sitting in the tub, still in the outfit she’d worn last night at the Hale retirement party, her face set in an indifferent expression that suggested neither fear nor relief.

“What the hell happened?” he said, holstering his Glock and offering her his hand.

She looked up as if she was seeing him for the first time and waved him away. “You’ll find a tall bottle of aspirin in the medicine cabinet,” she said. “Get me three.”

That was it for conversation until they were settled at the kitchen table over coffees he’d had a uniform bring in from the Beachwood Village Coffee Shop.

“You asked what happened,” she said. “Middle of the night, a noise startled me awake. Not sure what had caused it, not sure where I was or how I had gotten here, only certain I was not alone. I grasped the likelihood it was one or more of Walter Farnum’s killer minions come after me and somehow—” turning especially sarcastic—”had penetrated your impenetrable system for ensuring my safety. I knew better than to inspire a confrontation. I hurried to the bathroom and locked the door and strangled on my breath while hearing my bedroom being torn apart. That’s what happened to me, Detective. Now you tell me what happened that made it possible for this attack on my person to happen.”

“It wasn’t necessarily Farnum’s people, Judge Armstrong. Maybe a burglar. Wouldn’t be the first burglary in this neighborhood.”

“Don’t go dumb-ass on me, Detective. Nobody was supposed to get inside, past your eagle-eyed Priority Protection Squad, but last night somebody did. It happened, and I don’t propose allowing it to happen again. Can you take care of it or must I go over your head?”

“I don’t respond well to threats, Judge Armstrong.”

“A threat? I’d call it a statement of fact, Detective. Can you or must I?”

He held his temper. “Matt Rubio’s my second-in-command, too many sharp-shooting medals to fit on his chest the same time. I’ll put him outside your bedroom door nights, with my personal guarantee no one will get to you through him. Good enough, Your Honor?”

The judge didn’t even think about it, her head at once dancing left and right. “No. Not good enough. This Matt Rubio can join your friends standing guard outside if he’s as good as you say, day or night, I don’t care which. It’s you I want protecting me in here, under my roof, your trigger finger on the gun nearest me, should Farnum again come after me in the middle of the night.”

Reno wondered if he was imagining that the judge’s expression said she wanted more than his trigger finger near her. Or was it thoughts of playing humpety-hump with her ratcheting up again, although she wasn’t his type? He’d been pretty much off women since the divorce and the period immediately afterward, when he was mixing his booze and his broads in equal proportion. That was a long time ago. There hadn’t been many women since, except for the occasional hook picked off the boulevard to help him confirm he could still get it up and a fling that got too serious too soon with Liza Marie, who looked and sounded a lot like his ex, what attracted him to her originally, until he realized that was all they had in common, and helped her pack and went back to sharing his blues with a bottle.

“Your Honor, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Reno said.

“I don’t recall asking for your opinion,” Judge Armstrong said. “You can bunk in my home office for the duration. The sofa opens into a bed.” She pointed a direction. “Through there. The office connects to my bedroom through the bathroom, keeping you seconds away from me in any emergency.” Making it sound like she wouldn’t mind having him closer than that. Or was it only his mind stoking his imagination again?

“Anything else I should know?”

A sly smile inched up one side of her face. “The closer you are, the safer I feel, but you know that by now if you’re any detective at all.” She reached across the table and touched the spot on his lower lip where she had bitten him last night. “Nasty, that,” she said. “Cut yourself shaving?”

* * * *

Reno called in Matt Rubio to look after her while he headed home to throw together a couple changes of clothes and a dap kit, but that’s not all he had in mind for the two or three hours he’d be gone. First on the travel agenda was a quick trip downtown to county jail and a visit with Walter Farnum, whose cuffs, leg irons, and striped orange jumpsuit marked him as an inmate unlikely to become a trustee while waiting out the weeks before his murder trial in Judge Armstrong’s courtroom.

To look at Farnum was to see a supermarket clerk or an accountant, an impression fortified by a shy demeanor and a speaking voice that rarely climbed above a smoker’s hoarse whisper. He was small of stature, maybe five-two or five-three, with a ferret-shaped face half hidden inside a neatly trimmed salt-and-pepper beard, but carried a giant reputation. Reading his jacket revealed a killer-for-hire who’d murdered his way to the top of the crime syndicate running the drug, sex, and protection rackets in L.A. twenty-something years ago, before his fortieth birthday.

Nothing ever proven, however.

Dozens of court appearances and a few trials that ended in a hung jury.

The difference this time was evidence tying Farnum directly to three mob murders dating back to the early nineties. The evidence turned up out of nowhere after he reportedly tried to partner himself in for a chunk of Indian reservation gambling revenues.

He laughed when Reno raised the rumor with him in one of the jail’s private meeting rooms meant for lawyers consulting with their clients, instantly comfortable with someone he remembered from their encounters in the days Reno was working vice detail.

“Heard the same thing myself, Jack, that cockamamie Injuns-on-the-warpath story,” Farnum said. “For it to be true, you’d first have to believe I had any interest in their damn casinos. Not so, any more than it’s true I was behind those old hits I’m now accused of, on Big Sid, Polish Joe, or Artie G.”

“Not how the D.A. is reading the evidence he’ll be presenting to a jury, Walter.”

“When and if it ever gets that far, Jack. I have a streak going, or don’t you remember?”

“This third time might be the charm for the D.A.”

“Don’t bet on it, my friend. A lot can happen between now and whenever.”

“As long as it doesn’t happen to Judge Armstrong, Walter.”

Farnum’s easy smile dropped off his face. “Judge Armstrong, huh? I was wondering why this sudden interest, what brought you over here.”

“Seems someone got by my Priority Protection Squad guys last night, broke into her home bent on killing her. Made a real mess of the place, but she managed to turn hiding into an art form.”

“And I’m the designated big bad wolf.”

“You’re the one who threatened her with bodily harm after she denied your lawyer’s bail motion.”

“Like I ever thought it would be granted? Give me a friggin’ break, Jack. When have you ever known me not to shoot off threats in the courtroom? You’ve seen it happen before. It’s me blowing off steam, plain and simple.”

“I’m thinking about some other judges you’ve crossed swords with in the past. Broken kneecaps for two or three of them. One lucky to escape a car bomb. A sniper’s bullet that put another judge in the hospital in critical condition and hanging on by a heartbeat ... How do you explain any of that?”

“Coincidence? Life’s funny that way.”

“I don’t want it to be funny for Judge Armstrong, Walter.”

Farnum thought about it. His smile eased back. “I liked seeing how I made her shake and bake in her courtroom, given the holier-than-thou act she’s always put on, even when she was just starting out in the D.A.’s office, making her reputation on more than her good looks. A saint she ain’t, my friend. A saint she ain’t.”

“A saint she ain’t. What’s that supposed to mean?”

Farnum shrugged. “Just making small talk.”

“Why do I sense it’s more than that?”

“You’re a cop, why else? The last cop who ever believed me, I was five years old and swiping apples and oranges off old man Bernstein’s pushcarts in the Heights. No, Mr. Officer, sir, they fell off Mr. Bernstein’s cart and I was picking them up from the street for him. You nosy enough, put it to the judge. Six’ll get you sixty if she doesn’t tell you the same. Small talk, Jack. Just making small talk.”

* * * *

Reno caught up with Judge Armstrong at the courthouse and watched her mete out her usual brand of hard-nosed jurisprudence as if last night’s supposed attack on her life had never happened, except for the several times her eyes sought him out and seemed to offer appreciation for his protective presence. She turned his estimate into action later, after they were back at her place, and by morning she had him calling her “Gilly-girl,” and he was the judge’s “Jackie-boy.”

It was a seduction that began with calculated subtlety, the judge cooing over the bottle of Chateau Latour she served with a meal she’d pulled together like a French chef overseeing a three-star Michelin restaurant—a perfectly cooked steak, sculpted fries, baby asparagus in a rich cream sauce, a mixed green salad, a vanilla custard topped with a caramel sauce to die for—expounding on the history of the wines as if she were reciting legal precedents.

He was a beer-can kind of guy, but every swallow tasted like he was robbing the U.S. Mint, and Reno didn’t resist when she proffered a second bottle, then another.

Judge Armstrong matched him glass for glass, often pushing up from her chair to toast him for making her feel safe from harm, increasingly with an outsized gesture that dramatized her voluptuousness, always held in suspended animation until she was certain he had noticed.

Halfway through the third bottle, her words lost their sheen, tumbling beyond comprehension one into the next, her mush-mouth English as indecipherable as the French expressions she’d been dropping all over the dining room table during the meal.

When the judge rose this time, it was to take a long swallow from the bottle and sing to the beamed ceiling, “Adieu, mon cher. Beddy-bye time.” Hugging the bottle to her bosom, she twirled around and marched an unsteady line out of the room.

In that moment Reno found her curiously endearing.

She was human after all, he decided, or—

—was it his own one too many?

Reno cleared the table, helped himself to a brew from a half-gone six-pack in the fridge, and headed for the home office she had designated as his bedroom, a mirror to the judge’s professional life. Along with her desk and filing cabinets, there were shelves heavy with law books and orderly stacks of legal-size manila folders encased in blue plastic.

The walls were loaded with meticulously arranged framed diplomas, certificates of appreciation, commendation and award citations; photographs that cataloged her years in law school, the district attorney’s office, and superior court, often paired with recognizable faces from the worlds of politics, show business, and big business; tracking her as she aged with an angel’s grace, growing increasingly attractive with the passage of time.

One color photo gave Reno pause, a young Gillian Armstrong on a boat deck, wearing a string bikini that left little to the imagination and a smile as broad as the sky. With her were a similarly clad young woman of exceptional dimensions and an older guy sporting a mop-top hairpiece that made him look more like Moe of the Three Stooges than one of the Beatles. He stood between them, wearing swim trunks disguised as a jock strap, arms around their waists and pulling them nearer to him while they toasted the camera lens with their martini glasses.

Although the photo was a bit blurred, maybe caused by shifting waters as the shutter snapped, something familiar about the guy made Reno move in for closer study. After a few minutes, he had mentally subtracted the mop-top, added a beard to the ferret-shaped face, and had convinced himself he was looking at an early edition of Walter Farnum.

What was it Farnum had said about a holier-than-thou act when she was starting out in the D.A.’s office and making her rep on more than her good looks?

A saint she ain’t, Farnum had said.

Was the photo evidence to his declaration?

If so—

—would the judge give it this kind of display if there were something, anything about it that could ever come back to bite her on her well-toned ass, or—

—did the photo hold some other significance?

Reno tossed the beer can in the round file for two points and headed for the bathroom and the shower, where he always did some of his best thinking. He was working the questions when the stall door clicked open behind him. He turned and confirmed he’d been joined by the judge. She let him study her nakedness long enough for him to appreciate it was as appetizing as the gourmet meal she’d made for them tonight, then took the bar of soap from him, ran her arms behind him, and began a gentle scrubbing across his shoulder blades and up and down his spine.

“Tell me, Detective, you have anything against older women?” she said, not sounding as drunk as she had made herself out to be earlier.

“Not until now, Your Honor.”

“Yes, your Gilly-girl can tell,” she said

* * * *

A week passed before Reno put the question to her.

By now, he was sharing her bed on a nightly basis, the sex fantastic, ranging from the missionary sweetness he preferred to the roughhouse madness where she shouted commands and demands that by morning left him a jungle of aches, bruises, bites, and claw marks.

He freed himself from her wrestler’s grip, rolled into a sitting position on the edge of the bed, and, rubbing his arm where she’d last imprinted her teeth, said, “Do you plan to ever tell me the whole story about you and Walter Farnum?”

“Come back to bed,” she said, tugging at his shoulder. “I’m not through with my Jackie-boy yet.” He shrugged her off, answered her growl and hiss with silence. “You know all there is to know,” she said. “Walter Farnum is why you’re here protecting me, damn it. Come on back. I need more of your protecting.”

“I don’t know about the photo in your office.”

“There are many photographs in my office.”

“The one on the boat. You and some other gal and Farnum. I don’t know about that photograph. It is Farnum under that stupid hairpiece, right?”

She sighed, pushed herself into a sitting position, reached for a teddy bear, and hugged it to her chest. “Do you know what I would give to have that marvelous bikini body again?” Reno didn’t answer. She feigned a pout. “You’re supposed to tell me I’m doing just fine with the body I have now.”

She was.

Oh, was she ever.

But that’s not why Reno had fallen for this damned overbearing boss of a woman he was certain was playing him for reasons he was yet to figure. He didn’t know why, only that he had. Maybe because love is blind? Also deaf? And dumb? And so what?

What he did know: He was desperate to hear the truth about Gilly and Walter Farnum. The whole truth and nothing but.

Why?

Jealousy, maybe?

Jealousy, definitely.

And something else.

He turned and answered her impatient eyes, saying, “I hear tell you’re no saint, Your Honor.”

“Who told you that?”

“Walter Farnum. When I visited him in county jail.”

“You visited him in county jail?”

“Put him on notice about you. A saint she ain’t, that’s what he said. His exact words.”

She thought about it. “Between sins, I am. Everybody is. Even you, Jackie-boy.”

“Even Walter Farnum?”

She flashed him a melancholy smile. “What else did he have to say about me?”

Reno shook his head. “All right then, it’s time for you to know the rest anyway. The photograph. I could have taken it down, hidden it in a drawer, but I left it on the wall because I wanted you to discover it. I was certain you’d recognize him: Walter. I needed you to challenge me about him, knowing I could never volunteer the story behind the picture because of where it might lead.”

“That being?”

She eluded his stare, focusing her attention on the teddy bear, finger-combing its plush brown synthetic fur for several moments before attacking his eyes again and asking, “Are you sure you want to know?”

Reno motioned for her to continue. “First come on back into Mama’s arms, Jackie-boy. Then we’ll talk.” Her smile fired the room.

Reno said, “First we talk, then we f—.”

“Ooh, I love it when you talk dirty,” she said, licking her lips.

* * * *

Gilly made the bedroom a courtroom, the bed her witness stand, calmly giving quiet, well-articulated testimony to a jury of one, him, her memory pitch-perfect on a train of events going back to when she was a freshman jockeying for position and prominence in the district attorney’s office.

“The other girl in the picture, Kim, was my best friend from high school, and we were sharing an apartment in the mid-Wilshire district,” she said. “Kim was your typical struggling actress, who had me believing she earned her share of the rent working as a waitress, when in fact it was with the tip money from her job pole dancing at a strip joint in the Marina. That’s where Walter Farnum scored her, passing himself off as somebody who could help further her career. A few weeks into the relationship, she mentioned that her gorgeous roomie worked for the D.A., and Walter suggested we both join him for a day’s outing on his yacht.”

“The day the photograph was taken.”

“Taken while it was still all sunshine and smiles, before the three of us got drunk, got high on quality grass and Colombian and Lord knows what else, got down and dirty, and—I passed out. Kim screaming startled me awake. She slapped Walter across the face, once, then again, before she turned and stumbled up the stairs and out of the bedroom suite. He chased after her, calling her a two-bit whore, worse, saying Kim had to be punished—he would show her—for daring to lay a hand on him. I was frightened out of my wits for her. I managed to get onto my feet and struggled upstairs after them, and—”

Gilly’s voice failed her.

Her eyes moistened, then froze on empty space.

“It’s okay, take your time,” Reno said. He reached over and stroked her cheek, allowed her to capture his hand long enough to plant kisses on his knuckles.

Finally, she began again. “When I reached the deck, only Walter was there. No sign of Kim. Not then, not ever again. Walter propped my chin between his thumb and forefinger and told me in a voice as murderous as the act itself, Not one word about today to anybody, like it never happened. You don’t know me. I don’t know you. Tell me you understand. Do you? Do you understand?” Her labored breathing evolved into a whine as she grabbed after Reno and showered his back with her tears, confessing, “I understood, yes. Nothing was going to bring Kim back, but I could stay alive by keeping my mouth shut about what had happened on the yacht. I suppose it’s what made me so tough as a judge, the need to make up for the biggest crime of all, my own sin in not going to the police.”

“You never thought about blowing the whistle on Farnum?”

“Of course. For days and weeks. Often. Even after I’d learned who and what Walter Farnum really was, a killer without a conscience. Even after one of his minions delivered the photograph to me in that expensive sterling-silver frame, telling me it was a gift from Walter, a reminder that silence was golden and to keep on doing the smart thing. The smart thing...” Her voice had sunk to a sad whisper.

“Yet here you are spilling your guts,” Reno said. “Why? Why now, when you could have hidden the photograph instead of dragging it out for me to notice?”

“Because I’m tired of living the lie, Jack. When Walter showed up as a defendant in my courtroom, my first thought was to recuse myself, take myself out of harm’s way, but the way he seemed to mock me with his every expression, his eyes daring me to do anything that upset him or worked against his favor, it was enough. It was too much. I denied his lawyer’s motion for dismissal and motions to suppress evidence. I denied his lawyer’s motion for bail. Walter exploded and made his open threats on my life. The rest you know. Why you’re here. The one good thing to come out of this so far. You and me, Jackie-boy.” She reached for Reno, sandpaper noises like a bitch in heat rising from the base of her throat. “You’re everything I suspected the first time I set eyes on you in my courtroom.”

“And what was that?” Her hands were on the move and driving him nuts.

“You don’t know by now, you’re not as smart as I gave you credit for being. Help me, Jackie-boy? Help your Gilly-girl get Walter Farnum out of our life forever?”

“Forever? How?”

“You tell me, lover. I know you’ll figure out something, but first—I’m desperate for you to satisfy something else.”

* * * *

Sunrise was illuminating the bedroom curtains when Reno pulled her closer to him, pampered her awake, and whispered, “I need you to put Farnum back on the street, Gilly-girl.”

She unlocked herself from his arms, scrambled out of bed, and toured the room panic-stricken by the idea, demanding reasons he wasn’t anxious to share with her.

He said, “You want him out of your life forever, that’s what I need you to do if my plan’s going to work. Let it go at that.”

“Plan? What plan? Turn that animal free and make it easier for him to come after me? Is that your plan?”

“You’re better off not knowing.”

“Why do I have to go on faith alone?”

“And love,” he said. “Faith and love. Beyond that, you don’t want to know. Trust me on this.”

She drained the room of air and pushed it back in.

“With my life,” she said, making it a declaration.

“As I trust you with mine,” he said, matching her sincerity.

“But can either of us trust Walter Farnum?”

“It won’t make any difference,” Reno said, and told her as much as she had to know.

Farnum was out on bail three days later, based on what Judge Armstrong explained was a reevaluation of his lawyer’s request once Farnum apologized in court for his earlier malicious outburst, which he did with all the sincerity of a snake. In fact, she had taken direction from Reno, whose idea it also was to set Farnum’s bail high enough—a cool million dollars—to reinforce her reputation as a no-nonsense judge from the School of Guilty Until Proven Innocent.

Next, with the judge’s nervous approval, Reno called off the Priority Protection Squad and spirited her away for a lust-satisfying weekend at the Hotel Del Coronado in San Diego, where they tracked after landmarks left behind by Marilyn Monroe when she filmed Some Like It Hot there, when they weren’t creating their own heat in an oceanfront suite.

* * * *

Farnum was settled in her den watching a Lakers game when they returned from San Diego. “Good evening!” he called to them, clicking off the set. “Expected you here an hour ago, Jack. Was beginning to get worried.”

“Traffic, Walter. Murder on any Sunday.”

“Murder on any Sunday, the man says. Good one, Jack. Good one. Hey, Judge, how they hanging?”

The judge broke away from Reno’s hold around her waist. “You knew he was going to be here? What’s going on, Jack?” Her voice was demanding, but her eyes betrayed her alarm.

Reno sent Farnum a hand gesture that invited him to speak.

“Come to set the record straight now that I’m breathing free air again and there’s none of Jack’s buddies in blue blocking the way,” Farnum said.

Her eyes narrowed, causing a series of ridges and furrows to form across her forehead. “The record straight?”

“The way you said what happened that time to your girlfriend, Kim, not like that at all, sweetheart.” Farnum tucked himself into a corner of the sofa, hands in a schoolboy lock on his lap, and flicked a smile at the judge. “You were my girl back then, from the night we ignited at that strip joint where you hustled for bikini bucks all through your turning high-end tricks for me with selected VIPs who could, incidentally, further your daytime gig with the D.A. You brought Kim onto the yacht for a road test by me, but she balked when she figured out what I had in mind for her future and scrammed topside. You took it personally. Chased after her screaming and threatening. I dragged my drugged-out sorry ass after you, got there in time to see you give Kim a slap and a shove that sailed her over the railing and into the drink, where we left her to drown, locked into the fog halfway to Catalina.”

“No, Jack, no. The bastard is lying. It was him,” she said, spitting out the words like a personal declaration of innocence.

Farnum pitched his eyes to the ceiling. “I owned her after that, y’know? She did favors for me, I did favors for her. Her favors worked for me and any member of my crew whenever they stepped in it. When she decided she wanted to be a judge, I helped out there, too; money and cashing in on favors owed me by certain people who know how to swing an election. We could have gone on like that forever, except for the stupid thing she did in court, refusing me bail, leaving me no choice but to make good on my threat. Anything else and my guys would see it as a sign of weakness and maybe get some nasty ideas of their own, y’know? Ambition trumps loyalty every time.”

“Not true, Jack. Not any of it,” she said, as if delivering a verdict from the bench.

Reno held out a palm to quiet her. “Tell Judge Armstrong the rest, Walter.”

Farnum smiled agreeably. He got up from the sofa, adjusted his camel’s hair sports coat, and strutted across the room like a bantam cock who owned the barnyard. Settled on a stool at the bar counter and threw open his arms. “Here’s the rest of the deal your boy toy cooked up for us the last time he came calling on me, Gilly-girl. Our next court date, my shyster moves that all the charges against me get tossed. You go into your usual holier-than-thou dance, then grant the motion. I walk out a free man and you can quit looking over your shoulder. I’m out of your life for good, and it’s happily-ever-after time for you and Jack here, y’know?”

Gilly stopped patrolling the den and sank into an armchair.

What color hadn’t drained from her face when she first saw Farnum was gone now.

She picked at her nails, scraped off polish while buried in thought.

After two or three minutes, she said, “And if I refuse?”

Farnum smiled. “Just like a lawyer, right, Gilly-girl? Don’t ever ask a question where you don’t already know the answer.” He withdrew a .38 caliber automatic from the shoulder holster under his jacket and held it up for inspection. “Our deal goes south—I gotta keep my crew’s respect, y’know what I mean?”

“Jack, you’d let that happen?”

His eyes roamed between the two of them and settled on her. “Walter called you Gilly-girl.”

“What?”

“Twice,” Reno said. “He called you Gilly-girl, and I know first-hand what that means. It means him ... you ... him and you. It means he, not you, was talking truth about you and how Kim died, Your Honor. What other lies did you feed me after you steered me into falling hard for you, steered me into believing you were in love with me, steered me to the idea of getting Walter out of your life forever, you said, but killing him is what you really meant?”

She averted his hard stare and searched the room indiscriminately, nervously pushing back her hair and exposing gray roots under the bottle red, the sweat beads lining her forehead toning the scent of her perfume with fear. “Leading you to fall for me, maybe it was my idea at first, Jack, and about Walter, but—”

Farnum cackled. “I told you she was some piece of work, Jack.”

They were his last words before Reno marched at him demanding, “Oh, shut up, damn you,” firing the Glock he had pulled from his belt holster.

The bullet caught Farnum in the chest, flung him backward into the bar counter, arms flailing madly, then forward onto the floor facedown.

Reno twisted around and straight-armed the Glock at the judge.

This time she answered his eyes with a look that begged understanding.

“I did fall in love with you, Jack. I do love you. Please. I need you to believe that, no matter what else. So help me God.”

“God help me, even if I wanted to, it’s too late for me to believe anything else,” Reno said, lowering his weapon.

Her shoulders relaxed. She smiled approvingly. “I recognize now what you did, your plan.... You needed Farnum out on bail so you could get him here on some pretext, kill him in a way that made it look like you got him before he could make good his courtroom threat and shoot me, am I right, Detective Reno of the Priority Protection Squad?”

“He’s dead. You’re not. He’s where you wanted him, out of your life forever.”

She embraced Reno, smothered his mouth with a lingering kiss that promised more and better to come, and stepped over to Farnum. She kneeled and tested his neck for a pulse, as if the pool of blood inching out from under him wasn’t proof enough that Farnum was dead.

She said, “Two problems, Jack.” Her declaration caught Reno off guard. “First, as an officer of the court and a strict advocate of law-and-order, I would be uncomfortable knowing I let you get away with murder.”

“Very funny,” he said, tossing off a laugh.

“Second, I have a problem with you knowing about Kim and me, something you might decide one day to hold over my head the way Walter did.”

“You’re not joking, are you?”

“I’m not,” she said, rising, revealing her hold on Farnum’s .38. She said, “Thank you and goodbye, Jackie-boy,” and got off two quick shots before he could raise the Glock again. Her first shot caught Reno in the neck, the second in the chest.

He fought to sustain the light, watching Gilly catch her breath, bent forward with her hands on her knees, like a runner after a race. She looked down at him, nodded satisfaction, then nonchalantly fixed Farnum’s .38 back in his grip, found her handbag and dug out her cell phone. She was saying, “Yes, this is an emergency,” as her voice blurred and the smell of her perfume evaporated and Reno stopped hurting so much.