Trial by Ambush (A Robin Starling Courtroom Mystery)

by Michael Monhollon

  “Oh, gee,” Brooke said in an awed voice.

  In the bathroom we discovered the reason for the water on the floor. Somebody had stuffed one of John’s suit coats in the toilet and flushed it multiple times. Slacks and shirts and ties lay on the floor, soaked with water.

  The galley-style kitchen smelled of stale beer. The refrigerator, which had been dumped forward, lay tilted against the oven opposite it. John’s beer had fallen out, and a couple of the bottles had broken. The cabinets were standing open. In the living room, furniture was overturned and the stuffing from the upholstered pieces scattered everywhere. In the bedroom the gutted mattress was on the floor, and the bed frame was broken and sagging.

  “This is just malicious,” John said.

  Not all of his clothes were ruined, though. In the closet there was still a dark gray suit hanging unmolested, a couple of ties, and a shirt still in plastic from the cleaners. A pair of brown dress shoes had also escaped intact.

  “Do you have renter’s insurance?” I asked John.

  “No. I don’t.”

  “I’d call the police and the landlord. But not from here, from the hotel. We don’t want to spend another evening with the police.”

  “No.”

  In the parking lot, John unlocked his car door, and I asked Brooke if she wanted to go by her place.

  She shook her head. “If they found John’s apartment, that means they found mine first,” she said. “I don’t want to know.”

  John got his own car and followed us to the hotel, where we walked through the lobby together and took an elevator up to our floor. I slid the cardkey into the lock and stepped back to let the others go in first. Under my arm I had the jeans I had stripped from the man at McCormack labs rolled up tight to keep anything from falling out of the pockets.

  “This is nice,” John said, as he was hanging up the few clothes he had salvaged from his apartment. “You’ve been here how long? It must be setting you back a nice piece of change.”

  “No,” Brooke said. “It hasn’t cost us a thing.”

  He looked at her questioningly.

  “I, uh, I have something for you,” I said, putting the rolled up jeans on the desk. I dug his wallet out of my suitcase and handed it to him. “I’ve been holding this for you, remember?”

  He looked down at the wallet in his hand, then back up at us. His expression was disbelieving.

  “They were looking for us,” Brooke said. “We didn’t want to use our own names.”

  “I signed the register as Mrs. John Parker so I could use your card,” I said.

  “And they didn’t question it?”

  I shook my head. “Though the card’s got your picture on it and everything.”

  “Well, great,” he said.

  “I was thinking of it as my legal fee, but I’ll reimburse you.”

  “Mrs. John Parker,” he said. “It’s like I got stuck with the expense of the wedding, but no honeymoon.”

  “Get over it. You had your honeymoon a long time ago.”

  There was a little awkwardness over the sleeping arrangements. When John was in the bathroom, I asked Brooke if she wanted to sleep with him.

  “Are you kidding?”

  “I mean share one of the beds. Somebody’s got to.”

  “Somebody’s got to share with John?”

  Of course no one did; we could share with each other. “You don’t find him attractive?”

  “It’s not that he’s unattractive,” she said. “It’s just that he’s not mine to sleep with.”

  “Oh, he’s every woman’s to sleep with. Trust me.”

  “Great. Potentially, he’s a walking cesspool of sexually transmitted diseases.”

  That was an unpleasant way of putting it, at least to someone who had herself splashed around in the pool. “Now that you put it that way,” I said. I got in bed with her.

  When John came out of the bathroom, we were lying side-by-side, with the covers pulled up to our necks. He stopped short and looked at us. I put my hand out of the covers far enough to waggle my fingers at him.

  “I don’t know whether this is sick or kind of exciting,” he said.

  “Shut up and get in bed.”

  The next morning I woke to the sound of water running. Brooke was still in bed, lying on her side, her face mashed into the pillow. I raised my head enough to see that John’s bed was empty. I lowered my head, and my eyes drifted nearly shut.

  When John came out of the bathroom, he had a towel wrapped around his waist. He glanced at us, but both of us were still apparently asleep. He turned on the light over the sink and started to shave — using, I imagined, one of the safety razors that Brooke or I had left on the side of the tub.

  I lay watching him through slitted eyes. He hadn’t dried himself very carefully, and there was moisture beaded at the small of his back. Today was Tuesday. Tomorrow was his preliminary hearing, where a magistrate would determine whether the Commonwealth of Virginia had probable cause to hold him for trial. Even if the judge found in our favor — and he wouldn’t, they never did — it wouldn’t put John in the clear. The grand jury could still indict him, and he could be rearrested and tried on the murder charge.

  He finished shaving and dried his face with a hand towel. He glanced in our direction, and I lowered my eyelids to cut him off from view. Brooke had rolled onto her back beside me.

  Careful not to let my eyebrows move, I opened my eyes again to see John holding the suit pants he had salvaged. Another glance at us, and he dropped the towel.

  I heard a small intake of breath beside me.

  “Are you two awake?” John said, trying to get his legs into his pants, but stepping on the inside of one pant leg and then the other in his hurry. “For heaven sake.” He sounded disgusted. His dangly bits were dangling at the top of his thighs.

  Beside me, Brooke sat up, and I pushed up on one arm. “Don’t you wear underwear?” I asked.

  He’d gotten his pants past his knees, turning and giving us both a good look at his buttocks before he got them up all the way. “I couldn’t find any underwear last night, if you’ll remember. I can’t believe this. If I’d been lying there watching you get dressed, you’d be horribly offended.”

  “Mortified,” Brooke said.

  I asked, “Are you telling me you wouldn’t have looked?”

  He just glared at me.

  “That’s a wool suit,” Brooke said. “That’s going to be awfully irritating to your skin down there. You’ll get a rash.”

  I said, “We can stop at Wal-Mart on the way into work so you can pick up a package of underwear.”

  John was putting on his shirt with quick, jerky movements.

  “Oh, don’t be mad,” I said. I pulled down my T-shirt enough to cover my panties, then threw back the covers and got out of bed. “We’re all three crammed into one hotel room together. We can’t be overly modest.” I walked past him into the bathroom and closed the door.

  Just to be on the safe side, I locked it, too.

  Chapter 33

  Having kicked her department head in the side of the head the night before, Brooke saw the wisdom of not going into work. We left her in the hotel room.

  “You want to ride with me?” I asked John when we got to the parking lot.

  “No, I want my own car. That was one of the reasons we went by my place last night.”

  “Your call.” I followed him out of the parking lot, but lost him when I turned into Burger King to pick up a breakfast sandwich. I had finished it by the time I got on I-64. Once downtown, I wound my way up into the parking garage next to our office building, passing John’s car a full level before I found an empty space. John evidently hadn’t stopped at Wal-Mart for a package of underwear.

  I took the parking garage elevator down to the lobby and started across it toward the main elevators. My cell phone rang, and I stopped to get it out of my purse.

  It was John.

  “There’s a cop waiting by the elev
ators,” he said.

  “What?”

  “There’s a cop by the elevators.”

  I saw him across the lobby. “What do you think he wants?” I asked.

  “I didn’t ask. He didn’t seem interested in me, and I didn’t want to push it. Where are you?”

  “Looking at the cop.” I took a step backward to put him out of sight.

  “You’re friendly with that policeman who arrested me, aren’t you? Jordan?”

  “Yesterday he tried to nail me on a murder charge, if you call that friendly.”

  “Can you give him a call to find out what this is about?”

  “Okay.”

  I punched off and looked around. There were a good many people filing through the lobby at that time of the morning, but I felt exposed nonetheless. I went into the coffee shop and ordered a latte to sip at one of the high, round tables near the back of the shop. When I’d arranged my briefcase and my purse satisfactorily, I called information and let them dial the number for the extra charge. I got put on hold once and transferred twice before I got Jordan.

  “This is Robin Starling,” I said when he’d identified himself. “What’s up?”

  “You tell me.”

  “There’s a policeman waiting for me at my office,” I said.

  “No there’s not.”

  “Then there’s a man here impersonating a policeman. He’s standing by the elevators. You can’t miss him.”

  “What makes you think he’s looking for you?”

  “Isn’t he?”

  Jordan sighed. “I don’t know. Just a minute, I’ll see what I can find out.”

  “Let me give you this number. You can call me back.”

  After five minutes I began to worry that Jordan might not call back, that he might decide to head me off at my car instead. I got my stuff together and went back to the parking garage. By the time the phone chirped again, I was out on the street and down to the cold dregs of my latte.

  “Tell me you didn’t barge into the accounting department at McCormack Labs yesterday and assault the controller of the company,” Jordan said.

  “Okay.”

  “Well, he came in last night and swore out a complaint.”

  “Son of a gun.” I saw a parking place along the curb and pulled into it so I could talk without having to mess with traffic.

  “Against you and a Brooke Marshall,” Jordan said. “Do you know her?”

  “Yeah. Do you want to know what really happened?”

  “Not particularly. You’ve been fixated on McCormack since this whole thing started.”

  “McCormack is bad people. The Brooke Marshall in the warrant — Martin Nolen had her trapped in his office yesterday, and, when I got there, he attacked me, him and one of his goons.” Though it was true, I realized immediately that it was a mistake to say so. I had admitted I was at McCormack just when Nolen said I was, providing one element of the case against me. Realizing it, I said, “Ah, forget it.”

  “There’s a photograph of Nolen attached to the complaint. Somebody beat the crap out of him.”

  “Okay.”

  “That was you?”

  “I guess I’d better plead the fifth.”

  “And there were two men? The complaint doesn’t say anything about another man being there.”

  “Possibly Marty Nolen wasn’t entirely forthcoming.”

  “What does this other man look like?”

  “Tall, medium build. Dark hair and fair skin. I think he may have killed Wendy Walters.”

  “I meant, did you beat the crap out of him, too? And what do you mean he may have killed Wendy Walters? What do you base that on?”

  “A hunch.”

  “Uh huh. What do you look like?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You beat the crap out of two men, and you look fine?”

  “I’m alleged to have beat the crap out of one man. As you’ve noticed yourself, the allegation isn’t all that credible.”

  “You want to come in and swear out your own complaint against Nolen?”

  I laughed, but it was a bitter laugh. “Heck, no,” I said. I tried to think of something else I could say that would help my case, but couldn’t come up with anything. I punched End and sat back, my head against the headrest, my eyes closed. After a couple of minutes, I opened them again and dialed Brooke at the Marriott.

  “Brooke, you need to get out of the hotel.” I told her about the warrant. “I think yesterday, when I was talking to Jordan, I told him where I was staying.”

  “Well, darn it,” Brooke said.

  “Yeah. Sorry.”

  “I feel like I’m being hunted.”

  “You are being hunted.”

  “What about John?”

  “Not named in the warrant.”

  There was a pause. “He’s beautiful, isn’t he?”

  “John? Yes, he is. That’s just what makes him dangerous to impressionable young women like you and me.”

  I was waiting for Brooke in the food court at Regency Square Mall when my phone chirped again. John Parker. I answered as I sat at one of the tables.

  “It’s about time,” I said. “For all you knew, I was in lockup.”

  “So it was you the cop was there for?”

  “It was me. Nolen swore out a complaint for criminal assault.”

  “Where are you now?”

  “I’m not sure this is a secure communication,” I said. “I’d better not say.”

  “That’s going to make things difficult.”

  It was. I had, of course, already arranged with Brooke to meet me here, and I’d done it by cell phone. That was going to have to stop.

  John said, “Larsen was looking for you. He was in my office for close to half-an-hour.”

  “What did he want?”

  “I don’t know. It sounded like that Baldridge guy was about to throw a chunk of business our way, but he up and died before he could do it.”

  “Larsen wanted to talk to me about it?”

  “Uh huh. He was pretty agitated.”

  Another reason to stay out of the office. “So what was he doing in your office?”

  “I guess he thought I’d know where you were.”

  “Why would he think that?”

  “Because you and I have been sleeping together.”

  “But no one at the office knows about that,” I said.

  John’s silence provided a complete explanation of the elevator ride I’d had with Steve and his buddies the previous week.

  “You blabbermouth,” I said.

  “So what are you going to do?”

  “About the complaint? Spend the day shopping. I don’t know.”

  “You don’t have any deadlines coming up, I take it.”

  “Your preliminary hearing tomorrow at ten.”

  “Don’t you need to prepare for that?”

  “Ideally.”

  “Great.”

  “It’ll be all right. I’ll meet you tomorrow at the courthouse.”

  “Wait. Where will you be until then?”

  “I can’t tell you. I thought we’d been over that.”

  “They’re not going to be triangulating your cell phone signal over an assault charge.”

  “No, probably not, but think just how much it would complicate things if they picked me up. You go back to the Marriott. You can have your own room tonight.”

  “I’d rather share a room with you two.”

  “Who wouldn’t?”

  I closed my phone and started to get up, but a hand fell on my shoulder. I yelped as I fell back into my seat.

  “Sorry. I didn’t want you to get away.” It was a good-looking man about my age, dressed in Levi’s and a cotton shirt. He pulled out the chair across from me and sat down.

  “You don’t remember me, do you?”

  He did look familiar, but he was right. I didn’t.

  “Dustin Steed. Steve and I helped you get into your apartment a while back.”

&n
bsp; “Your last name is Steed?” Of course it was.

  “I couldn’t find you in the phonebook.”

  “Robin Starling?” I said.

  “Ah. Steve said it was Carling, like the beer. Probably because he had a six-pack of it in the cooler out in his truck.”

  “I guess he had Carling on his mind.”

  “I guess he did.”

  “I appreciate your help the other day.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  We sat looking at each other. I was waiting for him to go. I don’t know what he was waiting for, but based on our previous encounter, he might have been waiting for me to disrobe.

  He said, “I tried dropping by your apartment one day after work, but you weren’t home.”

  “I moved.”

  “Where?”

  I saw Brooke coming toward me, walking briskly, her red hair swinging. “I gotta go,” I said. “Call me. It’ll give you the chance to practice your phonebook skills.”

  He laughed. “You’re on.”

  He turned and walked away, and I watched him go.

  “Who was that?” Brooke asked.

  “He’s one of the guys who helped me break into Wendy’s apartment the day I discovered her body.”

  “What’s he doing here?”

  “Shopping, I guess. I didn’t ask him.”

  “What did he want?”

  “My phone number. Evidently, he was impressed by the striptease I did on the balcony in Shockoe Bottom.”

  “You didn’t tell me about doing a striptease.”

  “Not one of my prouder moments.”

  We got coffees and Danishes from one of the vendors, and I told her about it.

  “It seems like all the guys you know are hunks,” she said, sounding wistful.

  “Actually, his friend Steve was the hunky one.”

  “Hunky and hunkier. It figures.”

  I balled up my napkin and stood up. “We can’t stay here,” I said. “I doubt they were monitoring my cell phone, but I don’t know. I’m far enough behind on technology to make me nervous.”

  “How about Chesterfield Town Center?” she suggested. “Switch our operations to the Southside.”

  I nodded. Another shopping mall seemed like a good place for two women at loose ends. “Okay,” I said.