Page 31 of 25 Alive

“When did this happen?” I asked.

“I’m waiting for the ME to say, but their bodies are coming out of rigor. I’d say early this morning.”

I had to ask. “Did the killer leave anything behind? A note, for instance.”

“No. But a connection occurs to me.”

I said, “The decapitated head Dario Garza left on the steps of the Hall.”

“Or a feint so we think the pattern is the same,” Brady said. “Let’s leave CSU to their work.”

I swear he looked as freaked out as I felt. A judge had been killed. A judge on an active murder trial that Brady’s wife was prosecuting.

We turned to leave the way we’d come. I wobbled once on the stairs and reached out for the wall out of reflex. Brady caught me before I landed a paw on it, and a minute later we were outside, walking toward the street.

CHAPTER50

I WAS BEHIND the wheel of a squad car, but I wasn’t going anywhere. My assigned job was to watch, answer questions, and radio Brady if a top-dog decision had to be made or if a person or group tried to breach number 1848.

My eyes were locked on that gingerbread house when I was startled by knocking on the car’s roof. I whipped my head around and saw Cappy. I’d never been happier to see him in my life.

I opened the car door as he said, “Boxer, consider yourself relieved of house-sitting duty.”

Cappy offered me a hand, and I exited the car. He handed me a paper cup of sweet black coffee, and I slurped it down while telling him between gulps, “Cappy. I don’t think I’ve seen a more horrific crime scene. Ever. Totally sadistic. Total overkill.”

“You know the names of the vics?”

“It’s Judge Orlofsky,” I said. “The bastard who killed him also killed the judge’s wife.”

“Anything else?”

I told him, “Well, all I’ve heard is that maximum security is mandatory for the reboot of the Dario trial.”

I wish I knew more. When would this new trial happen? Maximum security where? Cappy told me he’d call me if there was any news.

News couldn’t come soon enough.

CHAPTER51

IT WAS MIDDAY and I was at my desk in the squad room, with Alvarez to my right, Conklin to my left, and the remains of lunch spread around our pod. I gave my pickles to Alvarez, and she gave me access to her bag of chips baked in truffle oil. Conklin had nothing to swap but a small bag of M&M’s, which he emptied onto a paper plate.

I downloaded Hallows’s crime-scene photos to my computer, and Alvarez and Conklin wheeled their chairs closer to mine.

Then I pushed the remains of my sandwich aside, and to the background sounds of ringing phones, cops talking over one another, and twenty-four-hour news coming from the TV hanging on the wall over my head, I clicked the Enter key on my desktop computer and started this nightmare slideshow.

I began with photos from the incident last week, and related to them what I’d heard about that day in court, the first day of Dario Garza’s trial, when a box containing a smoke bomb had exploded outside Judge Orlofsky’s courtroom, disruptingthe trial just as Yuki was finishing her opening statement. The box with the smoke bomb had also held about two dozen colored cards, pictured in the next three photos, all inscribed with the numbers and addresses of the jurors, the judge, and the attorneys for both the prosecution and the defense.

It had been a warning. And now it was a fact.

I continued narrating as I shifted to the carousel of today’s crime-scene photos. The first photo on my screen showed the bloody bed and the beheaded body of Judge Martin Orlofsky. On the carpeted floor beside the bed was the headless body of the judge’s wife, Sandra Flynn Orlofsky.

I clicked next to shots of the CSIs working the living room, including a door from the yard to the ground level and a close-up of the jimmied lock. And finally, a series of horrific pictures of the severed heads in the bathtub.

Alvarez exhaled a loud, “Oh, my God,” and wheeled her chair away, back to behind her desk. Conklin cleared his throat and, after a moment, said, “When I was across the street at MacBain’s picking up lunch, I spoke with a depressed patrolman, Joe Greely, sitting at the bar. He said that he’d been one of the officers assigned to watch over the judge after that threat at the trial. And still this had happened.”

I nodded. “What’d he tell you?”

“He was slurring a little. Half sliding off the barstool,” said Conklin. “But I believed him when he told me that he might have talked to the killer.”

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