Free Choppy Water by Stuart Woods Page A

twice as rich as he otherwise would have been. Then, because she had not updated her will, he had inherited the house and property that had belonged to her father, where he now lived and ran his group.
    “What do you do? Something in government, I would imagine.”
    “You have a good imagination,” she had replied. “I’m assistant to the deputy director for criminal investigations.”
    Oh, good, he had thought.

17
    Colonel Sykes didn’t broach political views on that first occasion, and neither did Bess. By the time he had gotten around to that they had had three or four dinners. He had not made a move of any kind, but he had done his research. He knew what she earned at Justice, that she shared a small apartment with an older woman, and best of all, that she felt her job was a dead end, and she had another fifteen years before she could retire on her pension.
    Then one evening she seemed a little depressed, and he gently asked her why.
    “My boss won a case today, one that should have never been prosecuted.”
    “What sort of case?”
    “You’ve probably read about it in the Post ,” she said. “Akid was stopped for a broken taillight, the police found an illegal gun and white-supremacist pamphlets in his car.”
    “I don’t read the Post ,” he replied. “I like my news unfiltered by the liberal press.”
    “So do I, but I have to read it for work.”
    “What did this kid get?”
    “He hasn’t been sentenced yet, but my boss is recommending eight to twelve, out in six, if he keeps his nose clean and his mouth shut.”
    “Who is he?”
    “Willard Simmons.”
    He slid his card across the table. “I may be able to help. Can you get me a copy of his file and his presentencing investigation and the name of the judge?”
    She looked at him closely. “You? How could you help?”
    “You didn’t answer my question.”
    “Yes, I’ll get you the file. A thumb drive okay?”
    “Fine.”
    “You didn’t answer my question, either.”
    “It’s better if you don’t know now. Maybe later.”
    She reached into her purse and came up with a thumb drive. “I was taking this home for myself, but you can have it. The judge is Stanton Rutledge.”
    Sykes slipped the drive into his pocket.
    She seemed to look at him with new interest.
----
    —
    Sykes went home and plugged the thumb drive into his computer. The boy was Willard Simmons—he knew thatfrom Bess. He was twenty-four, had two years of college at Georgetown, had been kicked out over an incident involving a racial slur, followed by a fistfight.
    He knew something about the judge, too: from an old Virginia family, once considered for a slot on the federal bench, until the newspapers had published a college yearbook with a photograph of him in blackface at a frat party. He and Sykes belonged to the same club in D.C. and had met a couple of times. There was something else, too. He fished a copy of the club’s monthly newsletter out of a pigeonhole in his desk and scanned it. Yes, there it was.
----
    —
    It was not hard to find Judge Rutledge in the early evenings, since each day he devoted an hour to relaxation in the club’s bar, followed by dinner in the dining room. The judge was a widower and had no one to go home to.
    Sykes got a drink from the bar and turned to find the judge at a nearby table. He strolled over. “Good evening, Judge,” he said.
    “Hello there, Sykes. Join me?”
    “Thank you, I will.” He sat down. “Can I get you the other half of that?” He nodded at the judge’s nearly empty glass.
    “Don’t mind if you do. It’s bourbon. Doesn’t matter what kind.”
    Sykes raised a finger to a waiter. “A Knob Creek on the rocks for the judge, please.”
    The drink was there in a flash, and the judge took a sip. “Why, that’s remarkable. What is it again?”
    Sykes told him, and the judge made a note.
    There was a copy of the club newsletter on the table between them. Sykes picked it up and pretended to scan it. “I see