Michael McGarrity - The Judas judge

She took a quick look and pulled her head back. Inside against the far wall was a built-in soundboard on a long table, with green dials glowing on the control panel. She looked once more and saw two monitor speakers mounted on a side wall. White light coming from an interior window made the silver-colored soundproofing on the walls and ceiling glisten. She called out again, and the music continued uninterrupted without response.

She sank down on her knees and considered her options-go in alone or call for backup. As she reached for her handheld the music stopped and a hushed hissing sound began, followed by a repeat of the same melody playing again.

Staying low, she ducked inside, plastered herself against a wall, and scanned for movement. After visually clearing the room she looked through the interior glass window of the sound studio. What might have been Eric Langsford was sitting in a straight-back chair.

It was impossible to tell for sure. There was a shotgun on the floor, and the lower half of the man's face had been blown off. Above the closed door glowed a red warning light. She opened the door and almost stepped in a pool of sticky blood. On the ceiling were wads of flesh, clumps of hair, and what looked like fragments of bone and teeth.

Mary Margaret took a deep breath, finished a sweep of the trailer, keyed her handheld, and reported the death of an unknown subject-possibly Eric Langsford-to Lieutenant Sedillo.

"Is it Langsford?" Kerney asked, as he signed the crime scene log.

"Positively," Mary Margaret replied. "Major Hutchinson is flying in from Santa Fe. Lieutenant Sedillo is picking him up at the airport. ETA fifteen minutes."

Kerney figured Nate was probably coming down to pull the plug on the investigation. An onsite briefing was unnecessary, and no other reason for his visit made sense. He'd have to convince Hutch to give him more time.

"Was it a suicide?" he asked, as he entered the trailer.

"Without a doubt," Mary Margaret said, following along. "He's been dead for less than six hours. Langsford videotaped it, Chief, and left the time and date stamp running on the camcorder."

Crime scene technicians were photographing, vacuuming, and sketching inside the recording room. Kerney watched through the plate glass window. "Did he confess before he killed himself?"

"Just the opposite, Chief. He denied murdering anybody. That doesn't mean he wasn't lying."

"You did a good job finding him, Agent Lovato."

"Too little, too late, Chief."

"Take the compliment, Agent," Kerney said.

"Thank you, sir," Mary Margaret said, slightly jarred by Kerney's uncharacteristic gruff tone. "He recorded his statement for you, Chief. I have the tape ready to view in the small bedroom."

"Thanks. Let me know when Major Hutchinson arrives."

In the bedroom behind the closed door, Kerney played the videotape. It began with handheld shots of the soundboard and the recording room, then Eric Langsford's slurred speech broke the silence.

"I lied to you about why I ripped off my father, Kerney. This is what I spent the money on. Pretty neat, isn't it? After I bought the trailer, I soundproofed it, ordered the components from catalogs, and put everything together myself. Wait a minute."

The scene jiggled a bit and then froze. Eric came into view, sat at the soundboard, and swiveled to face the camera. He looked drugged, drunk, and exhausted. His two-day beard, the dark circles under his eyes, and the strands of hair plastered against his forehead gave him a demented appearance.

"I'm gonna play you some of my music and leave it on so you can listen to it when you get here. It's kinda like a funeral dirge, except it isn't very mournful. Wait a minute. I need to get something."

He rose on unsteady legs, came back with a whiskey bottle, took a long swallow, and plopped back down.

"Good stuff. Daddy's favorite single mash. I used to steal bottles of it from his liquor cabinet when I was a kid."

He giggled and put the bottle on the soundboard.

"I don't know when you'll get here, Kerney, so I'm gonna leave the music on for you. Hope you like it; it's from my Latin Suite. I call it "The Day of the Dead." The Mexicans make a big deal about death-they celebrate it every year with a special day. Isn't that nice?"

He turned to the soundboard and with a shaky hand punched a few buttons and fiddled with the controls. The bass tones swelled. Eric nodded his head in time with the music and took another long pull from the bottle.

"There. I did the rhythm, bass, and two lead guitars on this track back when I was trying to get straight. Took me a month to get the licks down the way I wanted them. It could've been my best work, but then I started getting stoned again and never finished it."

He took another swig from the bottle, threw it against a wall, and pulled himself out of the chair.

"Time to go, Grasshopper."

He stepped out of view and then the camera moved jerkily as it was carried into the recording room and positioned to face a straight back chair. Eric walked into camera range cradling an old shotgun.

"There are some really good riffs on this tape, but nobody listens to acoustic music anymore. It's all that techno and hip-hop crap."

He broke open the single-barrel shotgun, inserted a shell with a shaky hand, and snapped it shut.

"Like my new toy? I traded some pot for it. The guy threw in a box of shells for free. Who's that doctor that helps people die and films it?

Maybe I should have gotten him to assist me, 'cause I'm starting to get a little scared."

He composed himself, sat in the chair, and patted the stock of the weapon.

"Okay, time to get serious. I know you want my confession, so here it is: I didn't kill my father or any of those other people. I never killed anybody. Does that piss you off? I bet it does. But the Judas Judge's murder got me thinking. Now just Linda and me are left, and the world would be a better place if the whole family was dead. So I'm gonna make my contribution to the cause."

He placed the shotgun between his legs, locked it in place with his knees, and rested his chin on the barrel. His unblinking eyes stared into the camera.

"I saw this once on one of those dumb television movies about a bad cop. Why do they always show cops killing themselves with guns? Can't you guys do it any other way? Would you use a gun to kill yourself, Kerney?"

Eric smiled as his finger found the trigger.

"This is gonna be real messy."

He hesitated and took his chin off the barrel.

"Make sure my sister sees it-it should make her happy."

He nestled his chin on the barrel, and the smile exploded into a bloody ruin of shattered bone and mangled flesh that splattered against the camera lens.

Kerney played the videotape for Nate Hutchinson, who'd arrived looking serious and slightly uneasy. During the viewing, Hutch didn't speak.

Outside on the trailer's wooden deck, birds chirped and fluttered in the tall pines, and a breeze jingled some wind chimes that hung from a branch arching over the deck.

"I've never seen anything like that before," Nate finally said, his eyes fixed on a hummingbird darting by. "Do you believe him?"

"Yeah, I do," Kerney said.

Hutch leaned against the deck railing, furrowed his brow, and fell silent.

"You want to pull the plug on the investigation," Kerney said.

"I can't see any reason to keep it going. Not at the current level, anyway."

"I may have another target: a lifelong friend of Langsford's named Danny Hobeck, who's been feeding at Vernon's corporate trough big time for almost fifty years. He got his sister, Margie, out of town in a hurry after I talked to her. Aside from Eric, Margie was the only other person who seemed downright happy that Vernon was dead."