Page 87 of Deception

“What do you need?” she asked, taking her phone from her pocket and grimacing. “Sorry. My phone’s on silent.”

She listened, then said, “Hold on a minute. Can I put this on speaker so Clayton can hear this? I’ll tell him what you say, anyway.” Madison pressed the speaker button. “Go ahead.”

“Like I said, I owe you an apology, and I’m reopening your grandfather’s case.”

“Why?”

“The medical examiner called and gave me a preliminary report. He’s ruled it a homicide.”

“What?” She glanced at Clayton, her eyes wide and an I-knew-it expression on her face. “Based on...?”

“The angle of the bullet, for one thing, and the absence of tattooing at the wound site.”

Clayton nodded. It meant the gun had been at least three feet from the judge when it was fired.

“Direct muzzle contact leaves a speckled pattern around the entry wound from the soot and unburned powder,” the FBI agent continued. “There was no tattoo, meaning the muzzle of the gun wasn’t resting against his chest like you’d have in a suicide.”

“I see.” Madison pressed her lips together.

Hugh cleared his throat. “There was one other thing ... the suicide note wasn’t printed from the judge’s printer.”

“I knew he didn’t write that note, but how do you know it didn’t come from his printer?”

“Manufacturers put identifying marks on all color laser printers like the one the judge owns. These marks identify a specific printer model and unit, and the note didn’t have any marks.Which means it was either printed on a monochrome printer or one made before the 1990s.”

“If the person who wrote the note knows this information,” Clayton said, “they could have turned the color off, whether on their own printer or the judge’s.”

“That’s a possibility, but the judge’s printer is set to ‘use the last settings’ and that was color,” Hugh said. “Besides, I don’t think the shooter took the time to write and print out the note the night of the shooting.”

Clayton didn’t either.

“What’s the next step?” Madison asked.

“I have a search warrant, and my team will be there in the next couple of hours to go through the judge’s home files as well as his office files. Will someone be at the house?”

“I’ll be there,” Madison said. “But you didn’t need a search warrant.”

Clayton wasn’t surprised at the warrant. It made the court case so much cleaner once they caught the culprit. Once the call ended, she handed the phone back to him, and neither spoke while he drove to the judge’s house.

A text on Madison’s phone broke the silence as they pulled into the drive. “It’s from Deon Cox. He has more invoices he wants me to pick up at the supervisor’s office.” She blew out a breath. “Do you ever feel like you don’t know where to start?”

“Sometimes.” He pulled into the empty drive and parked. Evidently her father had left. “You want to talk about it?”

She nodded. “Before we go in, though. I don’t want to take a chance of my dad coming back and overhearing us.” Madison pressed her fingers to her eyes. “I just don’t know which case to start with.”

“I could pick up Cox’s files, saving you a trip.”

“That would be great, thank you. That way the files would be here, and I could work on the case after the funeral or when I need something to do.”

“I know you want to investigate your grandfather’s murder, but you know Hugh’s not going to let you get involved in it.” He turned to her. “If you’re asking my advice, I’d say we work on finding Dani’s shooter as well as investigate who might be out to get you—I have a feeling they’re one and the same.”

“You’re right, but it’ll take forever to go through my files.” She unfastened her seat belt.

“Maybe I can help you.”

Now that there was proof the judge’s death hadn’t been a suicide, Clayton needed to tell Hugh about seeing Judith Winslow at the coffee shop with the judge on Wednesday. Maybe he shouldn’t have held back, but he’d had no proof the meeting was anything out of the ordinary. He hadn’t wanted to send Hugh down a rabbit hole, especially since he could have imagined the judge’s irritation—appearances weren’t always what they seemed.

Clayton had to admit he hadn’t wanted to point a finger at the pregnancy center’s founder—she did a lot of good work in Natchez, and one word of scandal could do irreparable damage. He really couldn’t see Judith being the one who shot the judge.

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