“That’s his face,” McClane said. “It looks like the tires spun against it as the car went over him. Peeled it right off.”
I felt my gorge rising.
He lifted the photograph and several more under it and pushed them over to me. “You want to spend some time with them?”
I shook my head. “Do we know who he is yet?”
“Not yet. Haven’t heard back from iafis yet. Probably today.”
“Iafis?”
“Integrated, automated, ah, fingerprint…It’s the FBI database.”
“And that will tell you who the victim is if he has a criminal record?”
“It may help identify him even if he doesn’t. There’re a lot more civil records in the system than criminal, millions of them—firearms purchases in Maryland and a few other states, not Virginia, employment background checks for certain kinds of jobs, and so on. You’re a lawyer. Didn’t you get fingerprinted when you got your license?”
I nodded. “Right here in this building.”
“So you’re in the system.”
“Let’s hope this one doesn’t come back as me.”
He gave me a look. “Funny,” he said gravely.
“Well.” I shrugged in self-deprecation.
He pushed the photographs to one side with stubby fingers. A class ring with a red stone dominated his right hand. There was an indentation on the ring finger of his left hand where another ring had recently been, probably a wedding band.
“I assume you’ve got a copy of the complaint,” he said.
“Yes. Is there an autopsy report?”
He pushed at the papers. “Not yet. Got a copy of the 9-1-1 call.”
“From Kim Beecher?”
“You know Kim Beecher?”
“The name was in the complaint.”
“Ah.” He pushed the transcript toward me, and I picked it up, scanning past the date and time, the name of the dispatcher, Kim Beecher’s name and phone number, and other preliminaries.
Dispatcher: 9-1-1. How can I help you?
Caller: License plate GBX 118. I think. The last digit could be a six.
Dispatcher: Can I help you?
Caller: I’m on Everglades Drive. Someone’s been hit. I think you’d better send an ambulance.
Dispatcher: What is your address?
Caller: 1610 Everglades, just north of the Midlothian Turnpike. You’d better hurry. I think it’s bad.
Dispatcher: You say a person was hit by a car?
Caller: Yes. I’m going back to him now. It’s a man. He’s…oh crap.
Dispatcher: Is he alive?
Caller: No. I don’t know. I don’t see how he could be.
Dispatcher: Is the car there? Is the driver injured?
Caller: The car just drove away. It was a little one. I read you the license plate.
Dispatcher: GBX 118 or 116.
Caller: Yes. Is an ambulance on its way? This is bad.
Dispatcher: Yes, an ambulance is in route.
Caller: The body must have caught on her bumper and gotten dragged a good way. His head…
Dispatcher: What was that? Are you all right?
Caller: Sorry. I just threw up.
Dispatcher: You said ‘her.’ Did you see the driver?
Caller: Yes. When I got to my window, she was out of her car, walking back toward what looked like a bundle of clothes. There’s a streetlight just a couple of houses down, but it casts a lot of shadows, and I really couldn’t see that well. This woman bent over him, bent over the clothes, and I think she had a flashlight. At least, I think I saw a light just for a few seconds. Then the light went out, and the woman went back to her car. I’m going back to my porch. I can’t stand this.
Dispatcher: Can you describe the woman you saw?
Caller: I don’t know. Young, I think. Well dressed. I think I hear the ambulance. Yes, it’s coming. Thank the Lord.
I flipped the page, but the last page was blank. There wasn’t anything else.
“Have you interviewed him?” I asked.
“Yes. I’ve typed up my notes, just haven’t printed them yet to put them in the file.”
“Can I see them?”
McClane shook his head. “I don’t think so, not yet. I haven’t done my proof-reading.”
“Will you email me a copy when they’re ready?”
“You don’t want a lot, do you?”
“Just whatever I can get.”
“Well, you’re looking at it. Right now, this is all there is.”
I closed the folder and held it out to him. “Don’t think I don’t appreciate it,” I said.
“You ought to. It’s not every attorney who can waltz in here and flip through an open police file.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Why me then?”
The corner of his mouth twitched. “Jordan’s told us about you. I was actually looking forward to meeting you.”
Unfortunately, I could imagine all too well the stories Jordan might have told.
“Well, it’s good to meet you.” I held out a hand, and he took it with a calloused, short-fingered hand that felt like sandpaper.
“It’s very good to meet you,” he said. He let go of my hand before I had to take it away from him, but only just.
“Thanks again,” I said. I picked up my portfolio and turned toward the door.
“Starling.”
I turned back.
“Maybe we can do lunch sometime. Coffee.”
I hesitated. “How about some coffee right now?”
He looked surprised. “Okay.”
“Maybe we can stop by the impound lot and look at my client’s car on the way.”
It was his turn to hesitate. “It’s not exactly on the way.”
“My car’s here. I’ll drive.”
His gaze swept downward all the way to my shoes, then came back to my face. “Sure, why not?” he said. “I’ll drive, though. It’s just a few blocks.”
Evidently, long legs are good for more than getting a person from here to there. I felt a little sick, but I smiled and showed him my dimple.
“I’ll get my coat,” he said.
Chapter 6
McClane’s coat was a cashmere topcoat, and it was hanging on a rack near the door. His car evidently belonged to the city; it was a dark Impala with a whipcord antenna, a police radio under the dash, and a backseat full of trash. We got in, and he turned to look at me with bright eyes and a half-smile that said, “Yeah, baby. I’m Batman.”
He put the car in reverse, then twisted to brace his hand on the back of my seat so he could steer the car out of its parking space. The suspension squealed as he started forward. Was he masterful or a bit crazy? The jury was out.
The impound lot was in a warehouse district north of Broad Street. We hit all the traffic lights, so, close as the lot was, it took us ten minutes to get there. More time for small talk. Yippee.
McClane pulled up to the security shed at the gate and flashed his badge. Natalie’s car, a white Lexus, was about halfway back on the right between a late model BMW and an eighties-era pickup. We got out. McClane looked comfortable with both hands in the pockets of his topcoat, and the wind left his flat-top undisturbed. For my part, I was holding onto my skirt with one hand while my hair whipped around my face like the hair of a Medusa. I deeply regretted having left my coat in my car.
“Broken headlight, see?” McClane said.
I bent to look at it. “Is that blood?”
“Appears to be. I haven’t heard back from forensics yet. All this just happened yesterday, you know. You’re really on the ball.”
It’s what came of having only one case to work on. “It’s this or Spider Solitaire,” I said. The only damage to the car that I could see was the broken headlight. “Not all of the glass fragments are here. Were they recovered at the scene?”
“I don’t think so. Probably fell out on her way home.”
“Huh.” I peered through the tinted windows. “Can we look insi
de?”
“Uh, no. I didn’t bring the key.”
I straightened. “Okay. I’m done here.”
“Coffee then?”
I’d forgotten about the quid pro quo. “Sure,” I said brightly.
There was a Starbucks not far away. (Is a Starbucks ever far away?) But he took me to the Krispy Kreme on Broad, probably the same one where Rodney Burns got his coffee. We sat on stools at the counter and watched doughnuts being fried and moved along on a conveyer belt.
The waitress put down our coffee, which was served in ceramic mugs.
“Doughnut?” McClane said.
I shook my head. “Just the coffee.”
McClane ordered a glazed and a chocolate-covered. “I work out, so I eat what I want,” he said as he poured cream into his coffee from a little metal jug. He held up the jug as evidence.
I shook my head again, pulled my coffee closer.
“You like your coffee like your men?”
I tried not to groan. He went on to tell me all about the workouts that let him eat whatever he wanted. They involved one-arm barbell lifts, running with a backpack full of rocks, moving a tractor tire back and forth across his back yard…Maybe I should have been taking notes, but I lost track. I did get to feel his bicep, which I suppose was the highlight of the longest coffee date I could ever remember. At last he took me back to the police station, laughing and talking and rolling his shoulders all the way, and he stopped behind my car.
“This was really fun,” he said.
“It really was.”
“We’ll have to do it again sometime.”
I smiled at him and tilted my head in equivocation—an unfortunate gesture in that he seemed to think I was being coquettish. He reached over and patted my forearm with one of his blunt-fingered hands.
“See you,” I said. I got out of the car and went to mine. He waited, watching me, and I tried not to hurry as I opened the door and tossed my briefcase across. I glanced back at him just before I got in, and he winked at me.
It’s good to have friends, but sometimes I think there are too many people in my life who are way too familiar with me. I got to the Ironfronts, nodded at Carly, who was on the phone, and went back to my office, where, lo and behold, a man was sitting at my desk looking at my computer monitor—not just any man, but one John Parker, with whom I had worked at the law firm of Northcutt, Hambrick and Larsen. I’d also had a rocky romantic relationship with him, which hardly made his presumption any more palatable.
“How did you get in here?” I demanded from the doorway.
“The door was open.”
Brooke Marshall came out of her office next to mine. “I’m sorry. I unlocked them both when I came in. I didn’t think…”
I finished the sentence for her. “…about some man waltzing in and taking a seat as calm as you please at the desk where I might have any number of confidential materials.”
“I didn’t hear him come in,” Brooke said meekly. John Parker turned the computer monitor toward us to show my most recent game of spider solitaire, still in progress.
“You seem to have gotten stuck,” he said. “I was backing up, trying to work your way out of your difficulties. For the sake of security, you really ought to log off your computer before you go home in the evenings. You can always save your game, you know.”
Rolling my eyes, I put my purse and briefcase on the floor next to the desk and shrugged out of my coat.
“Carly tells me you’ve got a case,” John said.
“Does she now?” I hung my coat over the hook on the back of my door and opened the door wide again. Carly was there, just behind Brooke.
“John Parker’s here,” she announced. “He said he knew the way.”
“He certainly seems to,” I said.
“I told him the good news about your first big case. I guess I shouldn’t talk about those things. It’s just so exciting. And he told me how you two used to, you know…” She tapped the ends of her index fingers together.
I turned, throwing up a hand, and dropped into one of the client chairs. Brooke took the other one, and Carly remained standing in the doorway.
“You could really use another chair in here,” Carly said. “I could squeeze in another one for you, if you want.”
The phone rang, and we all looked at it through a second ring before I stood and gestured for John to get out of my chair.
“Maybe it’s another case,” Carly said.
I maneuvered past John to get around my desk, then paused with my hand on the phone to observe all their expectant faces.
“Maybe it’s something highly confidential,” I said.
Carly pursed her lips and raised her eyebrows as she turned away.
“We’re family,” Brooke said. “Oh, okay. Come on, John.”
I picked up the phone as they went through the door.
“Robin Starling,” I said.
“Hello, Ms. Starling, Mark Stevens here.”
I sat and grabbed a pen. “Hello, Mr. Stevens. I saw your daughter yesterday.”
“That, of course, is what I’m calling you about. How is she holding up?”
“Surprisingly well. Being in custody is hard on her, but she’s a tough kid.”
“Are you going to be able to help her?”
“Bail is set at seventy-five thousand dollars. I’m waiting to hear from Chloe.”
“I mean long-term. Can you get the charges dismissed, or get her acquitted or whatever?”
Or whatever. “Dismissed, no. Acquitted, I can do my best, though when you go to court the outcome is never certain.”
“But it looks good.”
“It’s too early to know how it looks.”
“That’s not encouraging.”
“I got the case yesterday. The police don’t even have the autopsy report yet, and their investigation is ongoing. For my part, I hired a private investigator this morning and am finding out what I can. Making bail is my immediate concern. It doesn’t have to be cash. You can put up securities or real estate, or we can use a bail bondsman.”
There was a silence on the line, the clean silence of a perfect connection. It occurred to me that we’d been speaking without noticeable delays—none of the second-long pauses you’d see on TV when the news anchor was asking questions of an overseas correspondent.
“Where are you, Mr. Stevens?” I asked.
“Guangzhou, China. I hope to leave for the States in a few days, but there’re some things I have to finish up here first.”
“I’m surprised at how instant our communication is. I would have expected delays while the signal traveled.”
“We did have delays when I got started in this business. They had to bounce the signal off a satellite. Now it’s all fiber optics. Cables link the continents, and the distance is much shorter now that the signal doesn’t have to go out into space and come in again.”
“Ah.” You learn something new every day.
“I understand Chloe’s written you a check? You have the resources you need going forward?”
“For my fees and expenses, at least for now. When this case is over, I’ll send you a statement, letting you know the total charges and either remitting the difference or billing you for it.”
“Fair enough. You work with Chloe until I get back. She’s told me good things about you. You’ve got my complete confidence.”
“Will she be able to help with…”
But Mr. Stevens had hung up the phone.
“…bail,” I finished lamely. I put the receiver back into its cradle. “Well, that was strange.”
“What was strange?” John and Brooke were crowded together in my doorway.
“I guess you heard all that?” I said.
“Just your side of it,” Brooke said. “We couldn’t help overhearing, what with your door open and my door open.”
“And both of us staying very quiet,” John said.
“Was that Natalie’s father? What did he say?” Brooke
said again.
I shrugged. “Not much. ‘Carry on. You have my complete confidence. I’ll be back in the States someday.’”
“What was strange?” John asked.
“That doesn’t sound strange to you? This was Natalie’s father. He should have been agitated, worried sick, trying to keep me on the line to milk me for every little bit of information there was to get. Instead it was, ‘Hello, this is Mark Stevens. Natalie holding up? I hear great things about you. Keep up the good work.’ I couldn’t get in a word edgewise about posting bail.”
John came back in and sat down.
“Shouldn’t you be at work?” I said. “How are you billing anyone for this?”
“I’m on my way to court in Dinwiddie. The traffic is terrible.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“I am, I am. I’ll have to work late tonight to make up for it. I wanted to see you in your new digs, though. I’ve been worried about you.”
“I’ll get by.”
“Babe, there’s not a doubt in my mind.”
I looked over his head at Brooke, who was still in the doorway. She raised her eyebrows at me, tilting her chin.
“So what were you worried about?” I asked John.
“It’s just a manner of speaking. I wanted to see you, okay?” He gave me a little-boy smile that once would have melted me like butter. Even now, I was glad to be sitting down.
Chapter 7
Thirty minutes later, John was on his way to Dinwiddie. Brooke was back in her own office optimizing Salesforce software for the particular needs of a client—unlike me, she had more than one. I was looking at the not quite finished game of spider solitaire. I couldn’t see how John had done me any good.
I exited the game and pulled over a yellow pad to jot some notes. I didn’t have enough thoughts to fill the page. Pulling over my keyboard, I clicked LinkedIn on my favorites bar, then did a search for Kim Beecher. There weren’t as many as you’d think: a few Kimberly Beechers, a K Beecher, one Kim Beecher. I clicked on it and found myself looking at a picture of a long-faced man with a full head of thick, somewhat oily hair, the same man I’d seen the evening before. According to his profile, he lived in Richmond, had a B.B.A. from the University of Richmond, and was a licensed C.P.A. So his story checked out.
Dog Law (A Robin Starling Courtroom Mystery) Page 5
