Laughing Heirs (A Robin Starling Courtroom Mystery) Read online

  When I left, Deeks went with me. Dr. McDermott kept him weekdays; evenings and weekends were mine, except when I had to go somewhere that Deeks couldn’t follow. Tonight, I was just going over to Paul’s, though, and it would do Paul good to deal with some dog hair along his baseboards. After all, he was the one responsible for my having a furry little roommate in the first place.

  Paul’s apartment was on the Southside, a good twenty minutes from my house even when traffic was good, which, at five-thirty on a Friday evening, it wasn’t.

  He opened the door of his ground-floor apartment. Deeks started when he saw him, clearly surprised, but he recovered and raced past him into the living room, circled the weight bench in front of the sofa where the coffee table should be, streaked back past us through the door, and, turning in another tight circle, came back at us again.

  “Whoa,” Paul said as Deeks pulled up short in front of him. “I’m glad to see you, too, little buddy.” He leaned over to pat him.

  “You don’t show it,” I said. “You didn’t run around in circles. I don’t see your tail wagging.”

  I guess you get what you ask for. Paul turned around and wiggled his butt at me.

  “What’s for dinner?” I asked, ignoring the gyrating glutes in front of me. “I’m starved.”

  Paul turned around. “How about you, Deacon, buddy? Are you starved, too?”

  Deeks panted at him, looking happy. It was impossible for him to look sad, really, with his mouth open and his tongue hanging out.

  “I’ve got some chicken for him,” Paul said as we followed him into the apartment. There was a barbell on the rack of the weight bench, two twenty-five-pound weights on each end of the bar—one hundred pounds, plus whatever the bar weighed.

  “He’s had some kibble,” I said, “but I’m sure he’ll be good with chicken, too.”

  “For us, I’ve got salad.”

  “Salad!” I eyed him critically. “What’s gotten into you? You’re losing weight, your coffee table’s disappeared, and now you’re eating salad.”

  “When I say salad, I don’t mean just any salad. In addition to sliced chicken breast, it has cranberries and gorgonzola and sliced almonds, all sprinkled with a little balsamic vinegar and some dark, fragrant pumpkin oil.”

  “Sounds pretty good.”

  “Oh, stop. You’re going to turn my head.” He held up a hand. “No, no. That’s all right. I’m sure there’ll be more accolades when you’ve tasted it. It’s all ready, and it’s on the table. Do you want to eat there, or eat while we watch TV?”

  “If we watch, we might miss some of the nuances of this divine salad.”

  “And we wouldn’t want that. Good point.” He led the way past the weight bench and around the corner to the small round table at one end of his galley-style kitchen. There was a white table cloth on the table, and a red candle in a pewter candlestick.

  “Hey, fancy,” I said.

  Paul pulled out a chair for me, and I sat. Then he lit the candle using a long-nosed lighter.

  “And for our canine friend,” he said. With a flourish he set a stainless steel bowl of chicken chunks on the floor in front of Deeks, who gave him a quick nod of appreciation and immediately started wolfing it.

  “You’ve thought of everything,” I said.

  “Have you ever seen American Horror Story?”

  “Is that our evening’s entertainment?”

  “It could be. Netflix has the first two seasons.”

  “I’ve heard it’s kind of twisted.”

  “Oh, yes,” Paul said.

  “You’ve seen it?”

  “No. I’ve heard the same thing.”

  “All right then.”

  For dinner I usually have salad greens mixed with no more than a little torn-up deli meat, and this was really good. “I could do this every night,” I said.

  “We can. I don’t think you’ve been to my place more than, what, a couple, three times? But my door is always open.”

  Deeks was sitting at attention now, his eyes on Paul. His head came forward as Paul reached for him, and Paul scratched him behind the ears. “You, too, Deacon, buddy. You’re always welcome.”

  “I was really just referring to the salad,” I said. “But your apartment’s nice, too.”

  “Thank you.”

  We ate, we made small talk. Afterwards, we turned out the lights and settled on the couch across the weight bench from the TV, Paul on one side of me and Deeks on the other, his chin resting on my thigh—Deeks’ chin, not Paul’s, though I don’t think Paul would have needed much encouragement. Paul did his magic with the button-studded wand, and the opening images of “American Horror Story” flickered across the screen. When his arm brushed mine, I noted its unexpected tone and squeezed his biceps to confirm.

  “It’s the weight bench,” he said. “And a little change in diet.”

  “It looks good on you.” I settled in next to him, putting my socked feet on the weight bench beside his, thinking life didn’t get much better than this. That was when my phone went off, playing some majestic strains from “The Return of the King” soundtrack, my default ringtone. I silenced the phone and looked at its screen. Paul paused the TV.

  “Brian Marshall,” I said. “Brooke’s brother.”

  “You better get it, hadn’t you?”

  I sighed. “I suppose. Surely it will just take a minute.” I swept my finger across the screen.

  “This is Robin Starling.”

  I heard only a heavy breath or two, not something I would have associated with Brooke’s brother.

  “Hello?” I said.

  “Macy…” He was gone.

  “Hello, are you there? Can you hear me?” I was standing, moving toward the sliding glass doors where the reception might be a little better, but I looked at the screen again and saw the call had ended rather than failed. I switched to the screen of my recent calls and touched Brian’s name.

  “Who is it?” Paul asked, but I held up a hand. The call went to Brian’s voice mail.

  “Hi, Brian. This is Robin. I lost you.” I thought for a moment, but couldn’t think what else to say. I ended the call.

  “What did he say?” Paul asked. He was still on the couch, but Deeks was on his feet watching me, ready to follow wherever I might go.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “It was weird.” I told him about the heavy breathing and about the one word Brian had spoken.

  “Macy. That is weird.”

  “Let me try Whitney,” I said.

  Whitney Foster picked up on the first ring. “Hello?”

  “Hi, Whitney, this is Robin Starling. Is Brian with you?”

  She hesitated. “Didn’t he call you?”

  “We got disconnected. Do you know where he is?”

  “I…know where he was.”

  I waited.

  “He went to Macy Buck’s house.”

  “Yes?”

  “She seemed to be dead.”

  “What do you mean, she seemed to be dead?” I realized I sounded shrill. I glanced at Paul, who was standing now, his hands gripping the barbell that lay across the rack of his weight bench. “How do you seem to be dead?” I said, making an effort to bring my voice down half-an-octave.

  “There was blood all over her. Brian didn’t tell you?”

  I closed my eyes.

  “I told him to call you and tell you everything.”

  “Didn’t he call the police?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Tell me everything he told you.”

  “There wasn’t much. He went to see her, and her front door was open. He went in and…just found her.”

  “Was the door unlocked or actually standing open?”

  “Standing open, I think.”

  “Wide open, or open just a crack?”

  She was silent, which I took to mean she didn’t know.

  “Where does Macy live, do you know?”

  “Somewhere on Patterson in the near West End,
I think.”

  “Where was Brian when he called you? Back at his apartment, or still at Macy’s house?”

  “At Macy’s, I think. I had the idea he was sitting in his car in front of the house.”

  “Why sitting in front of the house? Could he have been waiting for an ambulance?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Why did he go to Macy’s in the first place, did he mention that?”

  “He’s calling in. I’ve got to go.” She ended the call.

  I shook the phone in exasperation, and Paul said, “Macy Buck is dead, and Brian found her?”

  “Evidently.”

  “Murdered, or just dead?”

  “I don’t know.” I looked down at my phone, thinking about trying to get Whitney back, or Brian. Instead I went to Favorites and touched Brooke Marshall’s photograph.

  “Hey, Robin. Are you and Paul having fun?”

  “Where does Brian live, do you know?”

  “My brother Brian? Malvern Manor. Why? Are you not with Paul?”

  The Malvern Manor apartments wouldn’t be far from Macy Buck. “I need to see Brian.”

  “Why? What’s going on?”

  I put my phone on the weight bench and filled her in as I pulled my shoes on and tied them. “I’ve got a bad feeling, like he might be about to do something stupid. You don’t know where he keeps his spare key, do you, in case we get there and can’t get in?”

  “I have a spare.”

  “Bring it. It’ll probably take us close to fifteen minutes, but we’re leaving now.”

  When I’d punched off, Paul said, “I’m going with you? Deacon, too?”

  I’d spoken without considering Deeks, who wouldn’t do well if left alone in an unfamiliar apartment—and who seemed to know it. His eyes were glued to my face, his expression anxious.

  “Deacon, too,” I said. “Let’s go.”

  Marvin Manor consisted of a series of massive three-story buildings of red brick with rows of dormers protruding from the planes of the high, sloping roofs. I turned onto Malvern Avenue and pulled into a space along the curb. As Paul opened his door, Deeks leaped from the back seat into the seat Paul had vacated and from there out the door.

  “Stay close,” I called to him as I got out on the driver’s side. Brooke’s Honda was angling into the curb a few cars in front of me. Paul and I walked down to meet her, Deeks running ahead of us, then circling back.

  When we met on the side walk, Deeks licked the leg of Brooke’s pants in greeting. “Brian’s in this first building,” she said, pointing. “Third floor.” As we started toward it, she added, “I’m pretty sure they don’t allow pets.”

  “He’s a brown dog in the dark,” Paul said.

  “Oh in that case I’m sure it’s fine.”

  We followed her into the stairwell and up the stairs. No one answered the bell, and Brooke dug in her purse for the key. When she found it, she unlocked the deadbolt, then the knob. As the door opened, Deeks streamed past us into the apartment, bumping door and jamb as he snaked through.

  “Deeks,” I hissed. Paul shouldered past me and went in next. “Hey!”

  “Brian?” Paul called. “It’s Paul Soldano. I’m with your sister.”

  I moved into the apartment behind him. “We need to talk to you,” I said.

  There were sounds coming from the bathroom. As I started toward it, Deeks came out dragging a pair of jeans by the pant leg. I bent to take them from him, and he yapped once and wagged his tail, looking up at me.

  “The leg’s wet,” I said. “Looks like Brian was trying to get a stain out.” I sniffed at the darker splotch in the midst of the wetness. “It smells kind of like raw meat.”

  “Let me smell,” Brooke said.

  I let her and Paul sniff.

  “I think it may be blood,” Paul said.

  “You know what blood smells like?”

  “I think kind of like this.”

  “This is awful,” Brooke said. “Where could he be?”

  My phone played a bar from “The Bridge of Khazadum.” “It’s him,” I said, swiping the screen. “We can ask him. Brian?”

  “Don’t try to find me.”

  “Don’t be an idiot,” I said. “You can’t run away from this.”

  “You don’t understand.”

  “I’m standing in the middle of your apartment. I understand more than you think.”

  He was silent.

  “Brian?”

  “What have you found?”

  “A pair of jeans with a wet pants-leg.”

  “I didn’t do it.”

  “Kill Macy? I know you didn’t.”

  “No. I mean I didn’t get blood on those jeans. They were thrown across my bed when I got home, a smear of something dark on the front of one thigh. I tried to get it out.”

  “They’re not your jeans?”

  “They are my jeans. That’s what I don’t get.”

  Brooke put a hand on my arm. “Let me talk to him.”

  I held up a finger. “You’re saying you’re being framed, and the frame’s too good to beat, is that the size of it?” When he didn’t answer, I said, “Who knew you were going to see Macy tonight?”

  “Nobody. That’s just the point.”

  “Whitney?”

  “No.” An immediate response, almost vehement.

  “So somebody must have seen you there. Did you see anyone?”

  “I didn’t. It was getting dark, and…there was no one to see.”

  “A neighbor, looking out a window,” I suggested.

  He seemed to be thinking it over. “There may have been someone in the yard across the street, some kind of movement. I don’t know.”

  “Movement as you drove away?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “When you left Macy’s house, did you go straight to your apartment?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Did you see anyone pull away from the curb while you were sitting there, someone who might have beat you to your apartment to plant evidence?” I sat on the edge of a camelback sofa with a worn floral print. There was a glasses case on the end table, a black case with cat-eye frames embossed in white on one side. I picked them up. “Does Whitney have a key to your apartment?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Who else?”

  “Brooke.”

  “She’s the one who let me in. Who else?”

  “Nobody. There’s a key under the potted plant by the back door.”

  “That’s the door off the kitchen?” Tucking the glasses case into the pocket of my jacket, I moved toward it, a solid wood door painted white. I turned the thumb latch and pulled it open. Deeks went through the door ahead of me, turning back on the landing to wait.

  Behind me Paul said, “She says the alpha dog always goes through the door first. I think she’s confused about who that is.”

  I ignored him. The back stairwell wasn’t as nice as the one in front: Linoleum on the landing instead of tile, and it was peeling along one edge. I saw the potted plant, a clay-colored plastic pot with a dead twig sticking out of the dirt. I put Brian on speaker and set my phone on the floor as I squatted beside the pot and picked it up.

  “The key’s not there now,” I said. “I mean, the pot is, but there’s nothing under it.” The circular plate that had stuck to the bottom of the pot fell off and thumped on the floor. There was no key on the plate either—nor, I saw when I lifted the pot higher, was a key stuck to the bottom of the pot itself. Deeks sniffed at the pot, then gave my face a lick. I straightened.

  “It was there,” Brian said. “I think it was. It’s been awhile since I’ve used it.”

  “Why so many keys?”

  “I tend to misplace things. I’ve got one in my glove box, too.”

  “You had extras made? Where?”

  “I don’t know. It’s been a couple of years.”

  Even if I’d found a key, of course, it might have been hard to prove anyone had used it, bu
t at least I could have shown that other people had access to the apartment. “You’re getting yourself into a mess,” I told Brian as I examined the kitchen door for signs of forced entry.

  “I’m in a mess.”

  “And you’re getting deeper. Flight can be used to show consciousness of guilt. What you should have done was call the police from Macy's house and wait for them there. At this point, the best you can do is put in a call to the police and go back to the house to meet them.” There were some scratches on the doorknob, but that was about it. No one had applied a crowbar to the door or kicked it in. “Call from a convenience store somewhere. You’d misplaced your cell…” That wasn’t going to work. They’d get his phone records.

  “It would be better if the police didn’t know I was ever there.”

  “If you’ve been framed, then somebody knew you were there. Were you wearing gloves, or did you leave fingerprints?”

  No answer.

  “We need to meet,” I said.

  “I’ll call you in a day or two.”

  “You can’t disappear. It won’t work. The second you withdraw money, or…”

  He was gone.

  “Crap,” I said.

  “What did he say?” Brooke asked.

  I summarized as I went to my recent calls and pushed Brian’s number. “He hung up on me,” I said as Brian’s number rang.

  “What are you going to tell him?”

  “The same stuff, but more convincingly. He can’t run. The police will catch him.” Somewhere in the distance, a siren wailed prophetically. My call to Brian went to voice mail, and I punched off rather than leave a message.

  “What makes you think they’ll be looking for him?” Brooke asked. “They may never connect him with Macy Buck’s death at all.”

  “If this is her blood on his pants…”

  “He said he wasn’t wearing those pants.”

  “They’ve been worn.” I took two steps to retrieve the jeans and held them up so they could see the creases at the hips and the poochy knees.

  “Whoever framed him got them out of the laundry basket,” Brooke said. “Or even hanging up. A lot of guys don’t wash their jeans every time they wear them.”

  We looked at Paul.