“He’s a longtime client who enjoys role-playing. What I have here on my computer is a video of His Honor doling out some punishment to a lovely felon, who apparently showed up in his chambers wearing nothing but a pair of handcuffs. It’s only a three-minute clip, apparently just a trailer for the feature presentation. Would you like to see it? Spoiler alert: Rafferty is, like, a hundred years old, and as ugly as he can be in court, he’s even more grotesque without his robes on.”
“Spare us,” I said. “Just tell us what we can do.”
“The flash drive with the video was delivered to Rafferty anonymously with a note—‘$100,000 or it goes public.’ He immediately rushed to judgment and accused me of being the blackmailer.”
“That’s not your style,” I said.
“That is precisely what I told His Honor. In addition, the woman in the video is not one of my girls. I didn’t know who she was, and I didn’t care who she was. Until this morning when I picked up the Post. I know you don’t want to screen the video, but I do have to subject you to a single screenshot.”
He tapped a key on the laptop, and a picture popped onto the screen. It was definitely not the kind of porn anyone would pay for. It was a naked couple going at it doggy-style. The man, his chalk-white skin wrinkled, sagging, and liver-spotted, had rear-mounted a much younger woman.
“Holy shit,” Kylie said. Not because she recognized Michael J. Rafferty. We’d been prepared for that. What we hadn’t expected was the woman bent over the judge’s desk, cuffs around her wrists.
“I take it you recognize her,” Q said.
“Hell, yeah,” Kylie said. “We met her a few nights ago on Roosevelt Island. Her name is Aubrey Davenport.”
CHAPTER 29
“Men and their dicks,” Kylie said after we’d screened a dupe of the Rafferty-Davenport sex video.
“Yeah, well, women and their…” I groped for a passable retort.
“Evil, scheming, blackmailing ways?” Kylie said, helping me out.
“Technically, Aubrey’s not the blackmailer,” I said. “She was probably going to use it as leverage against the judge, but he didn’t get the extortion demands until a full day after she was found tied up in knots.”
“So Janek killed her, took her computer, found the video, and saw an opportunity to cash in.”
“No,” I said. “His brain is too fried to pull this off. Plus Q told us that the judge got a phone call late last night with instructions for delivering the money. By that time, Janek was already in lockup.”
Kylie took a few seconds to let it sink in. “So either Janek is our killer, and somebody else is our blackmailer, or…someone else is behind it all, and we arrested the wrong man.”
“Let’s not take all the credit,” I said. “Mayor Sykes and ADA Kaplan helped.”
“We better take this to Cates. I’ll grab the video. Why don’t you make us some popcorn?”
“Shit floats up,” Cates said as soon as we stuck our heads into her office. “And from the looks on your faces, you’re here with a lapful.”
“Have you got a couple of minutes to screen a short film?” Kylie asked.
“What’s the subject?”
“Geriatric porn.”
We filled her in on our meeting with Q and then ran the video.
“Good Lord,” Cates said when it was over. “If that old buzzard won’t pay the hundred thousand, we should pass the hat around the department just to keep young people from ever seeing it. If I were a teenager, I think it would scare me into a lifetime of abstinence.”
“He’s pretty scary from the bench, too,” Kylie said. “I’ve testified in front of him more than a few times. He’s got this lecherous stare that creeps women out. He’s smarmy, and he doesn’t try to hide it.”
“It looks like he doesn’t care about hiding anything,” Cates said. “He was right there in his chambers, going to town on that woman like a rutting pig.”
“According to Q,” I said, “Rafferty confines all of his sexual dalliances to the courthouse after hours. It’s not as crazy as you might think. A hotel is public, very high-risk. His office is safe. At least that’s what he thought.”
“So clearly he had no idea he was being recorded,” Cates said.
“None. Aubrey must have hidden a minicam in her purse.”
“And we know she didn’t shoot it so she could post it on Instagram,” Cates said. “This has classic extortion racket written all over it.”
“Except that in this case, somebody murdered Aubrey before she could ask for hush money,” Kylie said, “and either the killer or someone else saw the value of the video and decided to cash in.”
“Worst-case scenario, this may be the tip of the iceberg,” Cates said. “If Davenport made one hidden-camera video of her having sex with an unsuspecting man, there may be more. And whoever is doing the blackmailing is going to go after every one of them. Have you looked at all her video files?”
“Yes and no,” I said. “Her computer is missing. Her assistant told us that she uploaded everything to the cloud, and he gave us total access. But there were no sex videos. Not even the one we just saw of the judge.”
“Then you better come up with that computer in a big hurry.”
“We’ve got people looking for it,” Kylie said, “but maybe the best way to find the computer is to find the blackmailer who’s using it.”
“And how do you propose doing that?”
“The plan the blackmailer laid out for the drop is smart,” I said. “We won’t be able to pay him off in phony money or dye packs. So first we have to get the DA to sign off on fronting the hundred thousand.”
“I’ll give Mick Wilson a call,” Cates said. “He wouldn’t put up that kind of cash for Joe Citizen, but what prosecutor doesn’t want a sitting judge to owe him one?”
“Thanks. Once we know we’ve got the money, all we have to do is convince Judge Rafferty to deliver it. Then we surround the drop zone with undercover cops and wait for someone to make the pickup.”
“Do it,” Cates said.
We started to leave.
“One more thing,” Cates said. “How old is this old coot, anyway?”
“Seventy-five and change.”
“I thought the retirement age is seventy.”
“It is,” I said. “But Rafferty is a supreme court justice, and he can get three separate two-year extensions if a panel of appellate judges decides his services are needed and a doctor thinks he can still do the job.”
“It wasn’t pretty,” Cates said, “but it looked to me like His Honor was getting the job done.”
“Another testimony to the miracle of performance-enhancing drugs,” I said.
“Well, somebody should warn him that Viagra can play fast and loose with his blood pressure,” Cates said. “At his age, the only performance-enhancing drug he should be using is Metamucil.”
CHAPTER 30
“So you’re telling me she’s not from the escort service?”
“No, Your Honor,” I said. “She’s not.”
“Conniving bitch. She said she was my Christmas present.”
We were in Judge Rafferty’s chambers. He was sitting behind his desk in a leather armchair that looked to be at least as ancient as he was. Kylie and I were standing. Once again she’d asked me to do the talking.
“I’m not sure I understand, Your Honor. What do you mean she was your Christmas present?”
He tipped back in his chair and rested a pair of large, craggy hands on the substantial paunch that hung over his belt. “It was Christmas Eve last year. The courthouse was cleared out for the holiday. I was just sitting here, nursing a twenty-five-year-old single malt when she knocked on my door.”
“How did she get through security?”
“How the fuck should I know, Detective? She could have come in with the rest of the Great Unwashed anytime during the day. What difference does that make? Because if you’re trying to hang my court officers out to dry—”
“I apologize, Your Honor,” I said. “It was a stupid question.”
It was especially stupid since I knew that an attractive woman paying an after-hours call to Judge Rafferty would be quietly waved through security. Even if the guards had noticed a camera in her bag, they wouldn’t have asked questions. It was just another play toy for His Honor’s evening merriment.
“Anyway, she comes in, shuts the door behind her, and she stands there. Not a bad looker—a solid seven, maybe an eight. She’s wearing a trench coat, and there’s this little tiny red bow on the belt. And she says, ‘I’ve got a gift from your secret Santa. He wants to know if you’ve been naughty or nice.’”