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      FATAL JUDGMENT

      ANDY HAYES MYSTERIES

      by Andrew Welsh-Huggins

       Fourth Down and Out

       Slow Burn

       Capitol Punishment

       The Hunt

       The Third Brother

       Fatal Judgment

       FATAL JUDGMENT

      AN ANDY HAYES MYSTERY

      ANDREW WELSH-HUGGINS

      SWALLOW PRESS

      OHIO UNIVERSITY PRESS

      ATHENS

      Swallow Press

      An imprint of Ohio University Press, Athens, Ohio 45701

       ohioswallow.com

      © 2019 by Andrew Welsh-Huggins

      All rights reserved

      To obtain permission to quote, reprint, or otherwise reproduce or distribute material from Swallow Press / Ohio University Press publications, please contact our rights and permissions department at (740) 593-1154 or (740) 593-4536 (fax).

      This is a work of fiction. The resemblance of any characters to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

      Printed in the United States of America

      Swallow Press / Ohio University Press books are printed on acid-free paper ™

      28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 5 4 3 2 1

       Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Names: Welsh-Huggins, Andrew, author.

      Title: Fatal judgment : an Andy Hayes mystery / Andrew Welsh-Huggins.

      Description: Athens, Ohio : Swallow Press, 2019. | Series: Andy Hayes mysteries

      Identifiers: LCCN 2018056388| ISBN 9780804012119 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780804041027 (pdf)

      Subjects: LCSH: Private investigators--Fiction. | Missing persons--Investigation--Fiction. | BISAC: FICTION / Mystery & Detective / General. | GSAFD: Mystery fiction.

      Classification: LCC PS3623.E4824 F38 2019 | DDC 813/.6--dc23

      LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018056388

      For the real Pete Henderson, who always guessed the Encyclopedia Brown clues first.

      “I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

      —HAL 9000, from 2001: A Space Odyssey

      “Make Google Do It.”

      —Television ad for the Google Assistant

      1

      A BIRD WHOSE SONG I didn’t recognize was singing high in the tree beside me when the car pulled up to the curb. Black Lexus sedan, newer model, semi-tinted windows. I stepped forward, hearing the click of the passenger door unlocking. I opened the door, glanced at the driver, and slid inside.

      “Sure you don’t want to come in?”

      “I’m sure,” Laura Porter said, staring straight ahead.

      I shut the door. “It’s good to see you.”

      She nodded but didn’t respond. It was early evening on a Monday in mid-August, shadows stretching across the street toward my house as dusk descended. I heard laughter down the way at Schiller Park as dog walkers gathered, and the sound of a car engine cutting off as someone scored a lucky parking space behind us. Inside, Laura’s Lexus smelled of coffee, Armor All, and above all her perfume.

      “So,” I said.

      Seconds that might have been centuries passed in silence as she studied her windshield. Her hands remained on the steering wheel, knuckles as white as if she were navigating a hairpin curve on a southern Ohio country road instead of sitting parked on a neighborhood street in Columbus. She was dressed professionally, in a lightweight gray jacket and skirt with a white blouse. As if she’d ditched her robe and come directly from chambers.

      At last she said, “I need your help.”

      “OK. With what?”

      “I’m in trouble.”

      “I’m sorry to hear that. What kind?”

      “It’s . . .”

      “Is it the campaign?”

      She didn’t respond right away. Eons passed as one-celled organisms floating in primordial soup evolved, took to the land, built civilizations, made love and war, invented streaming TV, declined, and went extinct. The bird in the tree stopped singing.

      “It’s not the campaign,” she said. “At least not directly. But I’m in a bind and I didn’t know who else to call. I hope you don’t mind.”

      “Why would I mind?”

      A nervous laugh. “We didn’t exactly part on the best of terms, if you recall.”

      I studied her profile, the set of her jaw and the look of concentration as she stared down my street in German Village. Smelled her perfume. Realized she was wearing contacts, not the glasses I was accustomed to. But that’s what happens when the only time you spend with someone is Sunday mornings in a condo with the curtains drawn and it’s next stop: bedroom.

      “I’ll take the blame for that,” I said. “I was the one who broke things off. Remember?”

      “Oh, I remember. You blindsided me, that’s for sure. Bringing back such lovely memories of Paul. But maybe it was for the best, in the long run.”

      “I’m sorry—”

      “Skip it, Andy. That’s not why I’m here. I’m a big girl. That’s in the past now.”

      “Is it?”

      A shadow fell over her face as she wrestled with her thoughts. I’d seen that look before, but not in the bedroom. “The Velvet Fist,” they called her at the courthouse, though not to her face. Fair but tough. A judge who called them like she saw them. It was on the strength of that reputation she was running for a seat on the Ohio Supreme Court, and, according to everything I’d heard and read, had a decent shot at winning this fall.

      “Laura—”

      “I said skip it. I’m in trouble, real trouble, and I need your help.”

      “I’m listening.”

      “Please do, for both our sakes.”

      In hindsight, Laura’s and my time together marked one of the stranger episodes in my life. She was a judge on the county common pleas court who earned her nickname handing down long prison sentences, especially to defendants convicted of violent offenses. I’m a private investigator who does a little security on the side. We met at a Christmas party hosted by my sometime boss, defense attorney Burke Cunningham, almost seven years ago. Two days after the party, Laura called me out of the blue with a job offer. She needed a bodyguard. She’d had threats from the brother of a gangbanger she put behind bars for life plus fifty years. The pay was good and the assignment simple enough: drive her to the courthouse each morning and back to her condo each afternoon. She preferred a private guy like me as opposed to the sheriff’s office security detail because she didn’t want hints of her vulnerability bandied around the gossipy legal community. Two weeks passed without incident. Then one cold January afternoon she asked me inside on the pretense of checking the alarm system. In a matter of minutes my assignment evolved into bodyguard with benefits. She canceled my contract and

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