Gone Ballistic (A Robin Starling Courtroom Mystery)

by Michael Monhollon

  “But you didn’t put your own money into it, did you? Did you, Ms. Shilling?”

  “I didn’t have any to put.”

  “No,” I agreed. “What you had was youth and beauty.”

  I went back to the defense table to get the South of Main brochure, gave a photocopy of it to Aubrey Biggs, and took the original to the judge. “I’d like to show this to the witness.”

  Judge Cheatham nodded.

  “Ms. Shilling, have you ever seen this brochure before?”

  “Sure. I’ve seen it.”

  “Are you aware that of all the properties pictured here South of Main owns only one?”

  She stared at me.

  “It’s never owned any of the others. Are you aware of that?’

  “No.”

  “So what you did was perpetrate a fraud on Chris Woodruff, you and your brother. For sixty thousand dollars you sold him shares in a limited partnership that didn’t own the assets it purported to own.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  “In Chris Woodruff’s file cabinet I found copies of the most recent deeds to four of these properties that are pictured in the brochure, but which are not owned by South of Main and never have been. That means that Chris Woodruff found out about the fraud, didn’t he? Is that when he left you?”

  She shook her head. “He didn’t. . .We just. . .”

  “He left you and demanded the return of his money. He never got it, though, did he? Before he could take things further, he was shot through the head in his own house. Was it you who shot him, or was it your brother Carter Fox?”

  “I didn’t shoot him. Neither of us did.”

  “He was found in his boxer shorts. Chris might have let you into the house without his pants on, but he’d have hardly let in your brother.”

  “I didn’t do it.”

  “Did Carter Fox?”

  “I don’t know. How could I know?”

  “You testified that neither of you shot Chris Woodruff. Do you now wish to change your answer from ‘neither of us did’ to ‘I don’t know’?”

  “No, I. . .”

  “Did you have a key to the Woodruff residence?”

  “No.”

  “Did Chris Woodruff give you the key, or did you get hold of his keys at some point during your relationship and secretly make a copy of his house key?”

  “No.”

  “And did you give that copy of the key to your brother?”

  She came out of her seat in the witness box. “No!” she shouted at me. “No to all of it. I never had a key. I didn’t do anything wrong.” She looked at Aubrey Biggs, then up at the judge. Her face crumpled suddenly, and she sank back into her chair as she began to cry.

  I waited. The court waited. Even Biggs remained silent. “I didn’t do anything wrong,” she said finally. She lifted her head then and sniffed, her face wet with tears. “And I’m done answering your questions. I’m not going to say another word until I can talk to my lawyer.”

  Judge Cheatham leaned over her. “Are you saying that answering further questions may tend to incriminate you?” he asked. “Are you asserting your Fifth Amendment privilege?”

  “I am.”

  Chapter 13

  Peyton Shilling left the stand. She pushed through the rail and walked straight down the aisle and out of the courtroom. Brooke stood, her eyebrows raised, but I shook my head. Peyton Shilling was an athletic woman with a predilection for kicking people. Following her didn’t make sense from a risk-reward standpoint.

  “Your next witness, Ms. Starling.”

  “Your honor, I’ve prepared a subpoena commanding the appearance of Carter Fox, but so far I have been unable to serve it on him. I request a continuance to give me time to do so.”

  Biggs, predictably, objected. “Carter Fox is not on her witness list, your honor. This is the time and place set for this hearing, and counsel has had ample time to prepare her case.”

  “I’m inclined to agree with the prosecutor, Ms. Starling.”

  “I’d been looking into the withdrawals of sixty thousand dollars from the decedent’s brokerage and retirement accounts, your honor, and the checks written to South of Main. I’d become aware that the partnership didn’t seem to own the property listed in its brochures, but I didn’t find out about Carter Fox’s connection to the partnership until late yesterday.”

  “When did you become aware that he was related to Peyton Shilling?”

  “This morning when I got her on the stand. I’d known Peyton was connected to South of Main. I didn’t know about Mr. Fox’s connection to it until after court yesterday. The brother-sister thing took me completely by surprise.”

  “Your honor,” Biggs said. “What possible difference does it make who she’s related to? None of us ever heard of Carter Fox before this morning.”

  “We’ve heard evidence this morning that Carter Fox defrauded Chris Woodruff of sixty thousand dollars.”

  “No, we didn’t. We’ve heard your allegations to that effect.”

  The judge banged his gavel. “Please address your remarks to the court,” he said.

  Biggs said, “Your honor, even if she can show that South of Main doesn’t own the property pictured in that brochure, it doesn’t make any difference to the disposition of this case. After all, this is a preliminary hearing. Yes, maybe there was some kind of connection between the decedent and this Carter Fox. So what? So she speculates that the decedent was about to expose the man. That maybe it gave him a motive for murder, but what we’ve heard so far is that he had no opportunity. The defendant’s own witness has denied that either he or she had access to the murder weapon or to the house.”

  “That’s why I need to get him on the stand,” I said. “Counsel can hardly complain that my evidence is insufficient, then deny me the opportunity to produce more.”

  “You think you’re going to put him on the stand, and he’s just going to admit to everything you accuse him of?”

  The judge tapped his gavel as a reminder for Biggs to make his arguments to the court.

  “Sorry, your honor,” he said, “but this is a fantasy. At a preliminary hearing, the commonwealth has to show that a murder has been committed and that there’s probable cause to think that this defendant was responsible. We’ve done that. Christopher Woodruff died in his own bed of a gunshot wound. Trace amounts of gunshot residue was found on the defendant’s hands. The murder weapon came into the possession of defense counsel, who disposed of it in a gas station trashcan. If Christopher Woodruff had been having an affair, as counsel alleges, we have motive. What counsel proposes is that we stretch out this proceeding for no purpose other than for her to present conflicting evidence, which would be appropriate at trial, but not here. Conflicting evidence is a matter for a jury.”

  As a closing argument, it was a pretty good one, though he hadn’t actually introduced evidence of the gunshot residue: All McClane had told us was that Willow had been tested for it. Judge Cheatham looked at me for a response.

  “Your honor, there’s a reason we need to pursue this now. The district attorney has placed two police detectives directly behind me with instructions to arrest me as an accessory after the fact as soon as this hearing is concluded. It is at best disingenuous for him to deny me the opportunity to develop evidence here in this courtroom when he intends to deny me the opportunity to develop it afterwards.”

  “Mr. Biggs?”

  “That’s not my problem, your honor. You heard the evidence against her. An eyewitness picked her out of a lineup as the woman he saw throw something in the trashcan where the murder weapon was found.”

  “I heard the testimony. I agree it casts counsel in an unfortunate light.” He gave me a disapproving glance. “It was hardly conclusive, though. Can’t you pursue your cases one at a time? Present your evidence again at trial, and if it holds up, bring your charges against Ms. Starling at that time?”

  “I don’t feel I can, your honor. The demands of justice require
us to hold her to account for her actions.”

  “Justice delayed is justice denied?”

  “Exactly, your honor.”

  He had picked up his gavel. “Very well. Ms. Starling, I’m going to grant you your continuance.”

  Biggs threw out a hand. “Wait, your honor.”

  The judge waited, his eyebrows elevated.

  Biggs swallowed. “Suppose we charge her, but agree to release her on her own recognizance? She’ll be free to develop any evidence she wants.”

  The judge shook his head. “This is a serious matter, Mr. Biggs. I’m not going to force counsel to operate under that kind of cloud if things can be cleared up in this courtroom. How much time do you need, Ms. Starling?”

  I asked for a week. I got until the following Monday. Biggs gathered up his things and stuffed them violently into his briefcase. His hand on the handle, he gave me a dark look.

  “See you Monday,” I said.

  “You can’t dodge this forever. We’ll get you.”

  I gave him a smile.

  Willow was looking at me with what seemed to be an anxious expression. “Are trials always like this?”

  I shook my head. “I just have a knack for pissing off the prosecutor.”

  She leaned toward me so that our heads were touching. “Did you do it?” she asked. “Throw the gun away like they said?”

  I patted her hand, smiled. “That would be a crime,” I said.

  She took that as a no, but of course it wasn’t a denial.

  Jordan and Hernandez followed Brooke and me out of the courtroom. I glanced around at them as I went through the tall double doors, but didn’t say anything until we were on the elevator and it was just us.

  “To what do I owe the pleasure?” I said.

  “The pleasure’s ours,” Jordan said. “We have a couple of hours free that we’d expected to spend booking you and searching you. . .”

  “Having a female officer search you, actually,” Hernandez said. “Protocol frowns on us doing anything we might enjoy.”

  “. . .fingerprinting you and taking your mug shots,” Jordan continued.

  “Always following the proprieties, of course,” Hernandez said.

  “I would expect nothing less,” I said.

  “So, are you going to slip the noose again this time, do you think?”

  “It’ll be a near thing.”

  “We have confidence in you,” Jordan said, and I gave him a sour smile as the doors slid open on the ground floor.

  “There is something you could do for me, actually,” I said.

  “What is it?”

  “We’re always at the service of the defense bar,” Hernandez said.

  “That may be overstating it,” Jordan said.

  They nodded to the security guard, and we pushed out through the revolving door. Already it was turning into a hot, muggy day. We stopped, blinking in the morning sun. “Do you need a ride back to the office?” Brooke asked me.

  “We’ve got her covered,” Jordan said. “I’ve got a question for her.”

  She raised her eyebrows at me, and I nodded. Jordan, Hernandez, and I watched her walk off down the sidewalk until the building hid her from view.

  “Pretty girl,” Hernandez observed.

  “Engaged to be married,” I said.

  “Hey. I’m just looking.”

  “So what’s your question?” I asked Jordan.

  He glanced around us. “Let’s walk.”

  We did, Jordan on one side of me and Hernandez close on the other. Jordan said, “There’s one thing that bothers me, something that seems out of character.”

  “What?”

  His voice dropped almost to a murmur. “What made you think you could get away with throwing away a murder weapon? And if you were going to do it, why not a trash bin in an alley somewhere, preferably at night?”

  I glanced at him. “Just for the sake of argument, let’s say I did what the prosecutor accuses me of doing.”

  “Just for the sake of argument,” Hernandez echoed on the other side of me.

  I said, “I wouldn’t have had access to the comparison bullet or a comparison microscope. I couldn’t know it was the murder weapon.”

  “You could have a pretty strong suspicion,” Jordan said.

  “Yes, and if I guessed what I had was the murder weapon, I wouldn’t want to toss it in an alley trashcan somewhere. It might never be found, and, as you say, it’s a crucial piece of evidence.”

  “Evidence of your client’s guilt.”

  “Evidence of how the crime was committed. I myself don’t think Willow did it. Even if I did, I couldn’t just dispose of the gun. It wouldn’t be ethical.”

  “So why not turn it over to the police?”

  “If I turn it over to the police, then Biggs knows it came from me, and he assumes it came from my client. A jury’s likely to assume the same thing. If the gun didn’t come from my client, if it was planted in my desk drawer by a person or persons unknown, that wouldn’t be fair.”

  “It’s exactly the spot you’re in now.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “Only worse,” Hernandez said.

  “Only worse. Good police work, bad luck. . .in any case, the frame someone dropped around Willow Woodruff and me has stuck.”

  “Speaking hypothetically,” Hernandez said, opening the back door of their Explorer for me.

  “Speaking hypothetically.” I pushed in my briefcase and stepped in. Hernandez closed the door.

  We were halfway across downtown when Jordan turned in the shotgun seat and said, “So what’s the favor you wanted?”

  I told him.

  “That sounds like a pretty time-consuming proposition,” Hernandez said.

  “I said it was a favor.”

  “And you’re the one who told her we were always at the disposal of the defense bar,” Jordan told Hernandez.

  “It was just a way of talking, for heaven’s sake.”

  “Words have meaning,” I said.

  “Yeah,” Hernandez said. “I’ve heard that somewhere.”

  They dropped me in front of my office. I took the stairs up, then, rather than go through the double doors, walked down the long hall so I could enter the executive suites through the back door. It required a key, but of course I had one. I came to Carter Fox’s office before I got to mine, but his door was closed and no light shone under it. I stepped into the alcove to knock on his door, my subpoena at the ready.

  There was no answer. Possibly, he had heard from Peyton what happened in court and was in hiding. When I got to the lobby, I asked Carly if she’d seen Carter Fox.

  “No, not all day. He’s been going to court to watch you.”

  “Not today. I wonder if you could manufacture some excuse to knock on his door and, assuming he doesn’t answer it, open it and take a look inside.”

  She looked furtively around us. “You want another look?” she said.

  “Not necessarily. You could just tell me what his office looks like, if it’s been cleaned out or anything.” Or if his body was sprawled across his desk.

  She nodded, birdlike, and stood. “I’ll be just a minute.”

  Brooke wasn’t back yet—possibly she was still walking from the parking garage—and even Rodney’s door was closed. I let myself into my office, unslung my briefcase and sat to wait for Carly. She was gone only a couple of minutes, but I was feeling the stirrings of unease when she came back.

  “It all looks the same,” she said from my doorway. She came in and said in a lower voice, “That envelope with the keys is still in his drawer.”

  I nodded.

  “What’s going on, can you tell me?”

  “It’s too early to say.” We weren’t in court, and what I said was no longer covered by privilege. Telling Carter’s landlord that he was a crooked huckster and quite possibly a murdering psychopath would leave me open to a suit for defamation—unless of course it was all true. “I’ll let you know as soon as I
can.” I smiled at her. “I know you like a good story.”

  “If there’s something to know about someone, I like to get the goods,” she said, holding up her hands and rubbing her thumbs and fingers together.

  I had to laugh.

  “See you, Robin. You stay safe.”

  She turned out of my doorway and was gone. My cell phone began to vibrate, barely audible down in my briefcase. I dug it out. It was Paul.

  “Hey, Paul.”

  “Where are you?”

  “My office, where are you?”

  “Driving in from Roanoke. I’m almost there.”

  “It’ll be good to have you back.”

  “You’re not. . .you haven’t been. . .”

  “Arrested? You must have been talking to Brooke.”

  “She called me. She made it sound like a near thing.”

  “It’s been postponed. We’ll finish up the preliminary on Monday, and then they’ll arrest me.”

  “That’s not good.”

  I laughed. “Paul Soldano, master of the understatement,” I said.

  “Do you have a plan?”

  “Sure. Find Carter Fox, serve him with a subpoena. Turn him inside out once I’ve got him on the stand. He might be too clever for me, but it’s what I’ve got.”

  “Are you safe?”

  “Safe?”

  “The way Brooke tells it, Carter Fox may have already killed one person. I don’t think he’d scruple at two.”

  “But he loves me. He gave me roses.”

  Paul didn’t say anything.

  “I’m kidding. I’ll be careful. Did Brooke say where she was going? I thought she’d be here by now.”

  “She said something about getting a call from a client. I don’t know.”

  “Glad you were paying attention. Can I assume that your fellow bank examiners are in the car with you, listening to your side of the conversation?”

  There was a silence. “Maybe,” he said.

  “Who you got?”

  He gave me three names, two of which I recognized. I heard two or three hey-Robin’s in the background.

  “Call me before you leave your office this afternoon,” he said. “I’ll come over and walk with you.”