“A cute spider, maybe right next to your—”
“I think we’ve talked enough about tattoos,” I said. “Back to the case.”
Paul took a breath, evidently pulling himself together. “Okay, so what you’re telling me is that you trust this David Stevens,” he said.
I considered. “No, I wouldn’t say that. I don’t like to make snap judgments.”
Brooke snorted.
“And I know you don’t like Chloe Stevens,” Paul said.
“She doesn’t like her because of her smoking hot body and her smoldering looks,” Brooke said.
“Man. I picked a bad week to be out of town.”
I was done talking about tattoos and silky legs and smoking hot bodies. “Let’s just say I don’t trust her to have Natalie’s best interests at heart. I think she’s helping because her husband’s going to be back some day, but wouldn’t stop at undermining her stepdaughter if she could get away with it.”
“That’s a lot of distrust.”
“As strange as it seems, the person I feel most inclined to trust is my client, except that Natalie…”
“…shot a man, dumped his body in the road, and ran over him a few times,” Brooke said. “At least, if the charges are true.”
“And had the murder weapon and the dead man’s wallet hidden in her room,” Paul added.
“If it was the dead man’s wallet,” I said. “And, remember, the one eyewitness to the hit-and-run part didn’t actually see her run over him.”
“There are some indications she likes to walk on the wild side,” Paul said. “But try this. Assume everything she’s told you is true. Where does that get you?”
“Somebody planted incriminating evidence in her room.”
“And—”
“If Natalie’s telling the truth, Chloe must be in it up to her eyeballs.”
“The woman with the silky legs.”
“I didn’t say she had silky legs. You’re the one…”
Brooke said, “Don’t forget that two witnesses identified her.”
We both looked at her.
“Not really,” I said after a few moments. “Kim Beecher couldn’t rule her out—couldn’t rule Natalie out either, for that matter, or you. The girl at the motel was so anxious to implicate my client she would have identified a female gorilla.”
Paul said, “That motel room is where it all went down. That’s where the crisis occurred, whatever it was.”
“I think we ought to go there,” Brooke said. “Right now.”
“To the motel? All of us?” I asked.
“I’m game,” Paul said.
I rolled my eyes, but really couldn’t see the harm. It’s not like I’d done so great out there on my own.
Chapter 16
It would have been nice if Michael Vasquez had been at the desk, or at least a stranger, but of course it was Devon. Her face lit up as we entered, and we were almost at the desk before she recognized me and her expression curdled.
“It’s you,” she said.
“And my little dog, too.” Though it was Brooke who held up Deeks for inspection.
“Michael’s not here.”
“Maybe you could help us.”
“What do you want?”
“Could you tell us exactly what time Sunday Natalie Stevens checked in?” Natalie had been at a party for several hours that evening. If Natalie Stevens had checked into the motel during that time, then it wasn’t my Natalie. My Natalie would have an alibi.
“Maybe,” Devon said.
I waited. Her eyes went from me to Brooke to Paul.
“Who are these people?”
“My investigative team. And my dog.”
“What kind of lawyer are you anyway?”
“The kind who has friends and a dog who loves her. We’re a rare breed.”
Devon rolled her eyes toward the ceiling.
“So you’ll help us?”
“I guess.”
“Thank you.”
She punched buttons on her computer, sighed deeply. “Stevens,” she said. She clicked her mouse as she said, “Natalie…”
“Is there another one?”
She blinked at me. “What?”
“Did another Stevens check in that night?”
“Do you think that’s any of your business?”
“Was it Chloe Stevens?”
“No, it wasn’t, for your information. It was a man.”
“David Stevens?”
“No.”
“Mark?”
Her eyes cut back to her computer screen. She didn’t answer.
“Mark Stevens checked into this motel Sunday night?” I said. “What room was he in?”
“Look, you can’t just come in here and…”
“What room?” I said, stepping toward her.
She stepped back from the desk, putting distance between us. “240.”
“Natalie was in 238, wasn’t she?”
“Let me check.” She extended her arm to lay a hand on her mouse, keeping her distance as if I might come over the counter at her. “Yes,” she said. “238.”
“Where is 240 in relation to 238?”
She gestured at the pad of maps of the hotel that was on the counter. “Right next to it. See?” She tapped on the map and stepped back.
Paul said, “Is there a connecting door?”
“I wouldn’t know,” Devon said.
“Can we go see? Is anyone in there?”
“I can’t leave the desk. And I don’t know if room 240 is rented or not.”
“We’ll do better if we come back when Michael’s here,” I said.
“Oh, let me check.” Devon typed something, waited. “It’s empty. Would you like to rent it?”
“We can’t just have a key? Five minutes.”
A man and a boy came through the door and stood waiting behind us. “Look, Daddy, a doggy,” the boy said in a loud whisper.
“It sure is a doggie. He’s a pretty dog, isn’t he?”
Deeks was straining his neck to sniff at them. Devon poked a cardkey into the gadget next to her computer and slapped it on the counter. She raised her eyebrows at me and gave me a nasty smile. “Five minutes.”
“Thank you,” I said. Brooke let the boy pat the dog, and then we got out of there.
There was a connecting door between room 240 and room 238. We could open it on our side, but all that revealed was another door, this one blank and knobless. We couldn’t get into 238 unless someone opened the door on their side.
“What does this tell us?” Brooke asked.
“We never did find out what time Natalie checked in,” Paul said.
“I don’t know what it tells us. It seems like too much of a coincidence that someone with the name of Natalie’s father happened to be in the room next to hers that night.”
“So you think it was her father?”
“Her father, coincidence, or someone using her father’s name.”
“Let’s say it was Natalie’s father,” Paul said. “Why would he be spying on her?”
“Suppose it wasn’t Natalie?” I countered.
“Who would it be?”
“Devon identified Chloe. Suppose he was spying on his wife?”
Brooke slapped my shoulder. “Because Chloe was having an affair!” I noticed she wasn’t holding Deeks and looked around just as he went out the door.
“Deeks!” I ran after him.
The man and boy we had seen in the lobby were just coming up the stairs, the man lugging a suitcase. He put it down as he reached the top of the steps and snagged Deeks.
“Almost got away,” he said as he handed Deeks to me.
The boy reached up a shy hand to pat the dog and seemed delighted when Deeks licked it.
The man pulled up the handle of the suitcase and started to roll it. “Come on, Martin.”
The boy gave me a quick smile and hurried after him, but they didn’t have far to go. They were in room 238. Devon was playing
with us. As Martin’s dad pushed open the door, I put Deeks down and then grabbed at him so that he scrambled away. Both hands reaching, I started after him.
He ran, delighted at the offer of a game of chase, and darted through the open door of room 238. “Sorry,” I said, following Deeks. “Sorry.” I managed to get past the man and his son without throwing elbows, but let Deeks get deep into the room before I caught him. “He’s a squirmy little thing,” I said. “Slipped right out of my arms.”
Not even his tail was squirming at that particular moment, but he was panting a little.
“There’s a connecting door to our room,” I said. “I can just go right through here.” I pulled it open, expecting to see Paul and Brooke on the other side, but the connecting door into 240 was closed.
“Maybe not,” the man said.
“Robin?” It was Brooke. She and Paul were on the walkway at the door of room 238.
“I’m sorry,” I said again to the man whose room I had invaded. This time I think I managed a bit more sincerity. “Hey, look. There’s a hole in your wall.” I reached up and poked my finger through it as I went past. It was on the same wall as the connecting door, which didn’t quite fit my theory of Mark Stevens coming through it with his gun blazing, but unless the connecting door had been open in room 238, it was hard to see how he’d have managed it anyway.
Both Paul and Brooke glanced at the hole, then backed out of the doorway.
I turned. “I really am sorry about busting in on you and your boy.”
“It’s quite all right,” the man said.
The boy said, “Do you like my daddy?”
“What? Yes, your father seems like a very nice man.”
The man put a restraining hand on his son’s shoulder.
“Do you want to marry him?” Martin asked me. “He’s thirty-four.”
I shot the man a glance. “I don’t know your father well enough to marry him.”
“You could get to know him.” Kids had an answer for everything.
“I’m sorry,” the man said. “He lost his mother a year ago.”
“Oh.” I felt a stab of sadness and tried to rally. “Well, you’ve got quite an agent working for you there.”
“Yes, he’s all of that.” The man patted the boy’s head.
“Bye bye now.” I pulled the door shut behind me. Took a deep breath. Jerked my head at Paul and Brooke and got out of there.
We went by my car on the way back to the motel office. Everything having to do with the case, I kept in my briefcase, which at the moment was in the car.
Devon wasn’t at the counter, but when we got closer we could see her in an office behind the counter and to one side.
“We’re returning the key,” I called, putting it on the counter.
She nodded, but didn’t come out.
“I had another question.”
Her eye-roll encompassed her whole head, but she did come out to the counter.
“We got sidetracked,” I said. “The whole reason I came tonight was to find out what time Natalie checked in.”
“Why do you need to know that?”
I shrugged and gave her what I hoped was a disarming smile. “I need to know everything.”
“Of course you do.”
She tapped at the computer. “Six-thirty-six,” she said.
“Six-thirty-six Sunday evening?”
She smiled, but didn’t answer.
“One last thing.” I set a framed photograph face-up on the counter. It was the one of Natalie and her father I had taken from the Stevens home. Devon glanced at it, then up at me.
“Recognize either of them?” I asked.
“Not the girl. I’ve seen the man before.”
“Is it Mark Stevens?”
“Mm, who knows, you know? I check in a lot of people in a week.”
“But this man has been a guest at this motel,” I said. “You think.”
She nodded. “I’m pretty sure.”
“How did Mark Stevens pay for his room Sunday night? Credit card?”
“I can't give you his financial information. That would be a breach of motel ethics.”
“I wouldn’t want you to breach motel ethics.” I tried hard not to sound sarcastic. “All I really need to know is cash or credit card.”
She looked. “Cash,” she said.
“Cash.” I was disappointed. “Would he have had to put down a deposit, present some sort of ID? You wouldn't have made a copy of his driver's license, would you?”
“No, we don't do that.”
“What if they trash the room, run off with the bedding, something like that?”
She shrugged. “It's a risk, I guess. As far as I know, we don't get stung very often.”
“How did Mark Stevens come to have the room next to Natalie Stevens? Did they check in together?”
“No, I’m pretty sure they didn’t. They paid separately anyway.”
“Who checked in first?”
She referred to her computer. “Mark checked in at nine-twenty-one.”
“Did he ask about Natalie, request the room next to hers? Ask for Room 240 specifically?”
She made a face, tilting her head. “I can’t remember.”
“Would you remember a man asking for a specific room?”
She shrugged. “Maybe? It might depend on how he broached the subject.”
“Uh huh,” I said.
Chapter 17
We went back to the car. Paul once again offered to take the back seat, Brooke once again demurred. “You’re taller than I am,” she said.
“Yes, you said that before. It’s not really true, you know. What I am is fatter than you. It does make me less agile when it comes to scrambling into the back of this Beetle, but I can do it.”
“I didn’t want to say you were fat,” Brooke said.
“Ouch.”
When we were underway, Brooke in the back seat holding Deeks, she observed, “That girl doesn’t like you.”
“I thought she was beginning to warm to me a little.”
Paul said, “There’re a lot of people who don’t like Robin. She has a knack for irritating the crap out of them somehow.”
“Thank you, Mr. Soldano. She may just be jealous, though,” I said. “She’s very possessive of the owner’s son, who’s a really good-looking guy. Nice, too.”
“Maybe I should be jealous,” Paul said.
“There’s nothing for her to be jealous about,” Brooke said. “She’s a really pretty girl—or she is when she smiles.”
“You have to look quick to catch her doing that,” I said.
Before I left for work on Monday, I walked Deeks over to Dr. McDermott’s house to save Dr. McDermott the trouble of walking over to get him.
“Come here, I’ve got something to show you.” The something was a forty-pound bag of chicken-flavored Evo. “I can’t wait for him to try it. Have you fed him breakfast?”
I nodded. “Some. I’m sure he’d be happy to eat a little more.”
“I got another bag for you. Deacon and I will walk it over in the wheelbarrow later on this morning.” To Deeks, he added, “Won’t we Deegy-weegy?”
Deegy-weegy wagged his tail. I tried not to wince. “How much do I owe you?”
“These first ones are on me. A thank-you for letting me choose the brand for your dog to eat.”
“I’m beginning to think he’s our dog.”
“All the more reason for me to chip in.”
I went into town on West Broad Street so I could make the stop I’d meant to make on Friday before the flat tire intervened. For once Rodney Burns wasn't in his outer office, but the coffee pot was, and it was half full.
“That you, Starling? Grab you a cuppa and come on back.”
I went to the door of his office without detouring by the coffee pot. Rodney was kicked back in his chair, his Edgar Allan Poe mug in one hand, the fingers of the other tucked into the waistband of his trousers. One foot was propped on the edge o
f an open drawer.
“Take a load off,” he told me. “Tell me what's up.”
“Maybe I should ask you that.”
“Maybe you should,” he said, ogling me with owlish solemnity.
“What do you have in that mug?” I asked.
“Good question.” He took a slurp. “What I have in this mug is some of the best damn coffee you'd ever want to drink.”
“Krispy Kreme?”
“Not just any Krispy Kreme. It's their signature dark roast, a rich Arabica blend of African, Indonesian, and Central American coffees.”
“And what do you have in it? Shot of Jack Daniels?”
“Huh. I wouldn't put anything in this coffee to adulterate it. It's a rocking hearty roast for the sophisticated sipper.”
I moved a stack of papers out of one of his client chairs and sat down. “They ought to put you on the payroll.”
“So,” he said. “You tell me what you’ve got for me, then I'll tell you what I’ve got for you.”
“My big news is that Mark Stevens occupied the room next to Natalie's Sunday night. Mark Stevens is the name of her father.”
“Okay.”
“Someone who gave the name of Mark Stevens, anyway,” I continued. “He paid cash, so I have my doubts. Not only does Mark Stevens seem like the sort of man who'd use a credit card, but he’s out of the country.”
“So you said. In China, heading deeper into the interior. I’ll try to track him for you. In the meantime, I found out something about Stevens Imports.” He reached for a folder and a legal pad. “I can email you a written report, but here’s the short version. Mark Stevens didn’t start out importing from China. He got his start importing windows from Austria. It was a style of window that opened like a door if you turned the handle one way and tilted inward if you turned it the other way. He evidently noticed them when he was on a celebratory trip abroad after finishing his MBA—which he got at UVA by the way, but he was there a number of years before you were.”
“How in the world do you know what he noticed during a celebratory trip abroad?”
Rodney hesitated. “I hate to reveal trade secrets, but that tidbit’s actually on the company website. After several years of importing windows from Austria, Mark Stevens decided to make his own windows, and he contracted with a factory in China because he didn’t want to have to deal with European labor laws. His brother David joined him about six years into it, and about that time they started importing other things, not just their own windows.”
Dog Law (A Robin Starling Courtroom Mystery) Page 13
