Devil in the Dock (A Robin Starling Courtroom Mystery) Page 3

  “You know, as amazing as it seems, I’ve never been in the position of representing someone who was actually guilty.”

  “I think you’re in it now,” Paul said.

  “That would be too bad. On the other hand, I’m just a lawyer. I don’t have to decide if Shorter goes to prison or faces execution. I just have to present facts to the jury and put the least incriminating interpretation I can on those facts.”

  “You won’t go down without a fight.”

  I shrugged. “No—but if the facts are truly incriminating, I’ll lose.”

  “I don’t know. Even if the facts are against you, you’ve got your courtroom skills and your grasp of legal technicalities.”

  “I haven’t been practicing criminal law that long. I’m not that strong on legal technicalities.”

  “Then we’re down to courtroom skills,” Paul said.

  There was a message from Shorter waiting for me when I got to work the next morning. “He said he’s been arrested,” Carly told me cheerily as she handed me the pink slip that was the record of his call. “And that it’s time for you to do your thing.”

  “My thing is what I do.” I rapped my knuckles on the counter and went back to my office to make a phone call to the DA’s office. Shorter had been searched and fingerprinted and photographed the day before, but he hadn’t yet been presented before a magistrate.

  “He spent the night in a cell here at the courthouse. We’ve been holding him until you can get here.”

  “That’ll put him in a good mood,” I said. I picked my briefcase up again and the drawstring shoe bag that still held my dress pumps. On my way out, I stopped to ask Carly, “When did Shorter call? There wasn’t a date or a time on the message you gave me.”

  “No, there wasn’t. That’s the best part.”

  “Well?”

  “Three thirty-eight yesterday afternoon.”

  “You know he spent the night in a cell.”

  “Oh!” She pushed out her lips in an exaggerated frown. “That’s just awful!”

  “You didn’t call me.”

  “You’d gone home. I didn’t want you to feel like you had to rush over to the courthouse to bail him out.”

  “He didn’t choose his enemies wisely when he picked on you, did he?”

  “I’m a community college dropout with nothing on the ball. I can’t be expected to relay a simple phone message, can I?”

  I grinned at her. “You cannot,” I said. “Good job.”

  It took me a bit under fifteen minutes to walk across downtown to the courthouse. Once I had changed out of my sneakers, which I did sitting on the courthouse steps, I went in to find Shorter.

  The Richmond Police Department had a station in the basement of the courthouse. An officer pulled open the heavy door of a cell to reveal Shorter lying on a bench attached to one wall. It wasn’t a long bench. Shorter lay on his back with his feet on the floor and his hands on his chest. He didn’t move until the cell door had closed behind me.

  “Robin Starling,” he said. “So good of you to come.”

  “I just got your message.”

  “That receptionist of yours has more spine than I gave her credit for.”

  “Evidently,” I said.

  He sat up with an effort. “So what happens now?”

  “They take you before a magistrate to charge you formally.”

  “Is that where they set bail? I’m ready to get out of this place. You know I have to bang on the door every time I need to go to the can? I don’t drink a whole lot, but still. I’m an old man. My bladder’s got about a one-cup capacity, and I can’t hardly empty it most times.”

  I put my briefcase on the floor at the end of his bench. “Too much information, Shorter. You’re in mixed company.”

  He snorted. “I’m in the company of my lawyer. If you’re that sensitive, you don’t have any business accepting checks for thirty thousand dollars.”

  “You ought to be more careful about forcing checks on thin-skinned, skinny-ass females.”

  His mouth spasmed in what might have been a smile, though he might have just had gas. “So, are we just going to keep trading shots in this cozy little hellhole, or do we go see this magistrate?”

  “I’ll let them know we’re ready.” I banged on the door with the palm of my hand.

  The presentation went as well as could be expected, which is to say not well. When the magistrate denied bail, I protested that Shorter was a longtime resident of Richmond who owned a home and paid his taxes. “He’s not a flight risk, Your Honor.”

  The magistrate was a thin, fiftyish woman with dark-framed glasses. I’d stood there in front of the desk in her tiny office once before. The bail she’d set on that occasion had been high, but she hadn’t denied it altogether. “He faces the possibility of the death penalty,” she said.

  “If convicted.”

  “He may conclude the risk of conviction is unacceptably high. And there’s the potential risk to his community. He did stab a neighbor.”

  “At this point, he’s presumed innocent of that charge, Your Honor.”

  Her mouth stretched in a thin-lipped smile. “I have to consider the possibility of his guilt, Counselor—don’t I? Otherwise all these presumably innocent defendants would be walking the streets.”

  It was her last word on the subject.

  “I’ll give you my findings of fact and the reasons for my decision in writing,” she said. “It’ll go out later today.”

  “I think maybe I overpaid for your legal skills,” Shorter said sourly when the hearing was over and we were out in the hall.

  “They often deny bail in murder cases,” I told him. “But this is just the presentation. We’ll get another shot at bail at the preliminary hearing.”

  “When’s that?”

  “Maybe sometime next week. I’ll have to talk to the prosecutor to set a date. In the meantime, I’d like the key to your house.”

  “Why? I don’t have anything you’d want.”

  “I wasn’t thinking of looting the place. I thought it would be helpful to look at the scene of this supposed frame-up.”

  “Supposed? So you don’t believe me?”

  “It doesn’t matter what I believe. Selling a frame-up to a jury isn’t going to be easy. I’m going to have to look at the facts from every angle I can think of.”

  “Listen. I know I’m not a pleasant man, but that doesn’t make me an idiot. If I’d killed Bill Hill and gotten blood on myself, I’d have washed my damn clothes, not left them shoved in the back of my closet for the police to find. Even if I didn’t have the sense that God gave a grapefruit, I’d have tossed them in the laundry basket to wash eventually, not tucked them into my closet like they were some kind of keepsake. What’s the point of that? Why would I go out of my way to preserve evidence that could convict me of murder?”

  “I may be making that very argument to the jury.”

  “Great. I pay you thirty thousand dollars, and now I’m doing your work for you.”

  “You’re the one who came in with a check already filled out. Do I get your keys or not?”

  “You think I’ve got them in my pocket? I had them on me when the police arrested me, but of course they took them along with everything else. What kind of lawyer are you?”

  “One who would like your permission to get your keys from the police and to enter your house.”

  “Sure. Of course. What difference is it going to make to me? I’ve got me some new accommodations until at least sometime next week.”

  The deputy sheriff took Shorter away, and I took a deep breath, feeling some of the tension wash out of me as I exhaled. I was going to earn Shorter’s $30,000 before all this was done, maybe earn it several times over. I shook my arms and went to find out what had happened to the man’s personal effects.

  In addition to the expected reasoning, the magistrate’s written decision included a reference to phone calls from neighbors, six of them, urging the police to k
eep Bob Shorter in jail because he was a threat to everyone in his community. When Shorter stalked through the neighborhood, he carried a big stick—literally, it seemed, not figuratively like Teddy Roosevelt. He made verbal threats. He had once been charged with cruelty to animals for beating a neighbor’s dog; the report didn’t say whose.

  When I finished reading, I pushed back from my desk to think about it, one foot propped on a partially open drawer. The only neighbors mentioned by name were Jennifer Entwistle, the woman who lived next door to Shorter, and one Valerie Shaw, so the denial of bail had been based in part on anonymous calls. That didn’t seem right.

  I was wondering if I could do something with that at the preliminary hearing when Brooke Marshall came in and sat in one of my client chairs, using a hand to smooth back her thick, red hair. “So,” she said.

  “So,” I agreed.

  “So you can see your panties from the doorway.”

  I took my foot off the drawer.

  “Where’d you get them?”

  “What, you want to get a pair?”

  “They’re not your usual style. Are you afraid of getting hit by a car, or are things heating up with Paul?”

  “Oh, come on. You couldn’t see them that well.”

  “Better than you’d think.”

  Brooke and I had roomed together a while back. She had stayed in my spare bedroom, so her familiarity with my lingerie wasn’t as strange as you might think.

  “I’ll be more careful.”

  “So how’s your stone-cold killer?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Everyone with a nasty disposition isn’t a stone-cold killer.”

  “So you think he’s innocent?”

  “Innocent is a strong word. Let’s say he might not have committed this specific crime.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  My shoulder twitched in a half shrug. “He says he didn’t do it.”

  “Ah. We have the word of a possible killer.”

  “He’s my client. For the moment I’m suspending judgment.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “I’m going to go out to his house this afternoon, walk through it, get a feel for things. Want to come?”

  She took a big breath and let it out. “I’d like to. I miss these little adventures of yours.”

  “Appointments all afternoon?”

  “Three of them, back-to-back.”

  “Your consulting business is taking off.” Brooke was an IT specialist who had gone into business shortly before I got fired from my job with a midsize law firm and hung out my shingle. I couldn’t help but be envious of her success sometimes.

  She nodded. “At some point I’m going to have to hire help.”

  “And then you’ll need more space, and I’ll lose you. I kind of have already. I hardly see you since your engagement.”

  She made a face.

  “What? Is that not going well?”

  “It’s going great in the sense that Mike’s a wonderful guy and he’s crazy about me.”

  “That seems like an important sense.” She didn’t say anything. I asked, “Are you not so crazy about him? Is the chemistry fading?”

  “No, the chemistry’s there.”

  “What then?”

  She sighed. “Why did he have to rush it? Engagement is just so . . . final.”

  “No, marriage is final. Engagement is a much more tentative arrangement.”

  “Tentative. ‘Will you marry me?’ ‘Yes. Yes, I will.’ That’s a commitment. I’m committed.”

  “And I guess he’s committed,” I said.

  “What? Of course he’s committed.”

  “He asked you for a commitment, and you gave it. Where’s his commitment? Did he promise to marry you?”

  “He . . .” She trailed off.

  “He asked you a question. You answered it. Did he go on to say, ‘And I promise to marry you’?”

  “I think he just kissed me.”

  I nodded sagely. “Isn’t that the way of it? You make a promise, and the man kisses you in return.”

  “He did give me a ring.”

  We looked at it. The diamond had a squarish sort of cut and looked to be well over a carat. “He did give you a ring,” I said. “And an expensive one.” When I was in law school, I’d read something about the custom of giving engagement rings. “If he backs out of the wedding, you keep the ring as liquidated damages, you know.”

  “What kind of damages?”

  “When you’re engaged to someone, you’re likely to engage in certain improprieties, which lessens your value on the marriage market.”

  Her face flushed. She was a pale-skinned redhead, and it didn’t take a lot to turn her cheeks pink. “Meaning I’m damaged goods.”

  “No need to take it personally. A hundred years ago, if a man broke off an engagement, the woman could sue him for breach of promise and collect damages for the costs she had incurred in preparing for the wedding, emotional distress, and, possibly, her diminished marriage prospects, especially if—”

  “If certain improprieties had occurred.”

  “Exactly. Anyway, the courts stopped allowing the lawsuits for breach of promise, and the custom of the engagement ring took its place. It provides financial security for the woman in case the man breaks it off.”

  “So Mike gave me this ring because he was about to sully me, and he wanted to be able to walk away without further consequences.”

  “It’s a beautiful ring. Don’t let me ruin it for you.”

  “Too late.” She got up and left the office without looking back.

  I hadn’t meant to ruin it for her. Really. I’d just thought that the origins of the engagement ring made for an interesting story.

  “I didn’t mean to ruin anything for anybody,” I said aloud, but there was no one to hear or offer absolution.

  Chapter 4

  Bob Shorter’s house didn’t look like the house of a man who could afford to write checks for $30,000. The living room had a worn area rug that was curling up at one corner. The rest of the house consisted of a small kitchen, three bedrooms, and a bathroom, all on one floor. In the master bedroom was a full-size bed and a particleboard dresser with a laminate top that was broken off at the corners.

  His bedroom closet had sliding doors, both of them pushed to one side to reveal shirts and pants all mixed together on the clothes rod. I pushed the doors to the other side and found more of the same. Squatting in the closet doorway, I pushed at the hanging clothes to see the floor all the way to the back. There were two pairs of shoes and one slipper lying on its side, nothing I’d call evidence. Whatever there had been, the police had taken it with them.

  The doorbell rang as I straightened, and it continued to ring as I went down the short hall to the living room. The three diamond-shaped windows in the door were covered with aluminum foil, so the only ways to see who was there were to peel it back or open the door.

  Jenn stood on the front stoop, her lank brown hair lying on the shoulders of an orange top that was a size too small. “I knew it was you,” she said. “I recognized that Volkswagen of yours.”

  “Guilty as charged,” I said. “I am indeed me.”

  Her upper lip rose, showing her teeth. “You think you’re funny, don’t you?”

  “Not very. Do you think you’re Jennifer Entwistle?”

  “How would you know my name?” she said, narrowing her eyes.

  “You gave it to me yourself the first time we met. Also, I saw it on some papers recently. Your phone calls worked, by the way. The magistrate denied bail, which is why Shorter’s still in jail.”

  Her nostrils flared. “Hallelujah,” she said. “Hallelujah.”

  I waited. “Would you like to come in? I haven’t inventoried the kitchen yet, but I can probably offer you a glass of water.”

  “Why would you want to do that?”

  I shrugged. “Social lubricant? We could sit here in the living room with our waters and talk a bit.” I gestured at th
e furniture—a sofa and matching love seat, both upholstered in a garish pattern, and a large, well-worn recliner. At the end of the room, a twenty-five-inch console TV stood like a museum piece, a bit of 1970s Americana.

  “I don’t have nothing to talk to you about,” she said.

  “And yet here you are.”

  “To tell you Bob Shorter is just where he needs to be, and you need to leave him there.”

  “It’s not up to me. If the prosecution proves its case, he’ll go to prison, maybe even be executed, but all that’s up to a jury.”

  “Suppose the prosecution can’t prove its case?”

  “Then we don’t know that prison’s where Shorter needs to be.”

  She exhaled with a sharp sound of disgust. “That’s just a bunch of lawyer double-talk.”

  I shrugged. Lawyer-talk was what I had. “It’s been nice seeing you.”

  She stuck out her chin, her lips compressed, then turned without speaking and stalked back across the weeds and dirt toward her own home. When I closed the door, I noticed an ax handle leaning in the corner behind it. I picked the ax handle up, and a chill began to work its way up my arm. I dropped it back into the corner and stood rubbing my arm as I looked at it. Either the ax handle emanated evil, or I was letting my imagination run away with me. Neither would be a good thing.

  Shorter’s other two bedrooms were small. One had a metal desk and a battered wood filing cabinet. The other bedroom was piled so full of boxes, chairs, box springs, and other discards that I couldn’t get the door all the way open. Rather than wedge myself through the narrow opening, I went back to the home office and pulled out the top drawer of the filing cabinet.

  It held books: a fat tome by Thomas Hobbes, smaller books by Michel Foucault and Machiavelli. All of them were philosophers of some sort, I thought, though I’d read only The Prince. On the bottom of the stack was a slim paperback by Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil. That book, in contrast to the pristine condition of the others, was well thumbed through, with a lot of underlining in red pencil and several dog-eared pages. One of the underlined sentences read: