Barely Legal

by Stuart Woods

  “What’s the address?”

  Chico gave it. Mookie hung up the phone and cursed his luck. When things went bad, they went really bad. He had to hold it together. He couldn’t afford to lose it, not on a job for a guy like Tommy Taperelli.

  Mookie went to the computer and traced the ownership of the property. The town house was owned by a Mr. Stone Barrington. Wasn’t that the lawyer who’d just showed up in court?

  Mookie Googled him. Stone Barrington was indeed a lawyer. And not just any lawyer. Stone appeared to be one of the wealthiest, most well-connected men in America. He was reputed to cruise around in custom-made cars of his own specifications. If that was his car and driver, the girl would be impossible to abduct while she was under his protection. They’d have to wait until she went home and roust her out of her apartment.

  Mookie bit the bullet and called Taperelli.

  58

  MELANIE HUGGED HERBIE in her arms. “You poor thing.”

  “I didn’t do it.”

  “As if you had to tell me that. What a horrible thing. I’m so sorry about your fiancée.”

  “Why? You don’t know me.”

  “True. I didn’t even know you had a fiancée.”

  “It didn’t come up.”

  “You must have loved her very much. I’m really sorry.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you want to talk about it? Do you want me to leave you alone? I just want to help, and I don’t know how.”

  “Nothing helps.”

  “Of course not.”

  “I’m so confused. I came home. We were having drinks. The next thing I know I wake up in jail and am told I’m being charged with her murder.”

  “You blacked out?”

  “I must have, but I don’t know how. I only had one drink.”

  “Could you have been drugged?”

  “That’s what it was like. But it couldn’t be.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “The only one who could have drugged me was her.”

  Melanie thought that over. “Does this have anything to do with the case?”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Your friend Stone sent his car just ten blocks to pick me up. I could easily have walked here. It got me wondering.”

  “He’s overprotective. He means well. Why are you here?”

  “I thought you might need a friend.”

  “I do,” Herbie said. A tear welled in his eye.

  Melanie held him again while he got control of himself. Then he pulled away and sat back.

  “Now they think it was all a big mistake, that Yvette was killed by someone robbing the apartment.”

  “A robbery?”

  “He took some jewelry and five thousand in cash. But why would he have to shoot her? Yvette wouldn’t have tried to stop him.”

  “Maybe she could identify him.”

  “The doorman identified him. He walked right in. Didn’t try to hide.” Herbie heaved a sigh. “Anyway, if you’re worried about your brother, I’ll be back in court.”

  “I’m not worried about my brother. I mean, I am worried about my brother, but that’s not why I’m here. Surely you know that.”

  “Well, he’s still your brother. Don’t worry, I will be in court tomorrow. And not just because of the bench warrant. I’ll be in court because that’s what lawyers do.”

  Melanie smiled and nodded, but she was hesitant.

  Herbie picked up on it. “You think I’ll be distracted. You think I won’t be able to concentrate.”

  “No, I—”

  Herbie put up his hand. “You’re right. It’ll be hard. I’m going to take Stone Barrington with me as second chair. He’ll keep me focused.”

  “He doesn’t know the case.”

  “He sent for the transcript. Tomorrow he’ll know more about it than I do.”

  “I’m not worried about the case. I’m worried about you.”

  “I’ll be fine,” Herbie said.

  But he didn’t mean it.

  59

  MELANIE CAME DOWNSTAIRS from Herbie’s room.

  “How’s he doing?” Stone asked.

  “Better. I’m going to go.”

  “Do you want a ride home?”

  “Is that necessary?”

  “No, I’m just offering.”

  “Why did you have me picked up at the hospital?”

  Stone started to give her a vague answer, but changed his mind. This wasn’t the type of girl to bullshit. “To keep you safe.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes.”

  She smiled. “Now that I’ve seen Herbie, you don’t care?”

  “No, I don’t think we need to anymore. When I sent the car, I thought this had to do with your brother’s case. Apparently I was wrong. It now appears Yvette was killed during a robbery. There’s a new suspect. I’m perfectly happy to offer you a ride, but if you want to get home on your own power, I won’t stop you.”

  “Thanks. I’d like to walk.”

  “Of course. Does he need anything?”

  “I don’t think so. Under the circumstances, he’s doing well. Will he be here tomorrow?”

  “He’ll be in court tomorrow. After that, I imagine he’ll be going home.”

  “Herb says you’ll be in court, too.”

  “That’s right. I’m already attorney of record. I was there this afternoon.”

  “Did you send for the transcripts?”

  “How did you know?”

  “He said you did.”

  “Herbie knows me well.”

  “Herbie?”

  “That’s what we used to call him. Before he got serious.”

  “Did you read the transcript?”

  “Yes.”

  “And?”

  “He made his point. The evidence indicates a police frame-up.”

  “Will the jury believe that?”

  Stone shrugged. “That’s another matter. Don’t worry. We won’t let you down.”

  Melanie nodded. “Okay. Thanks again.”

  60

  CHICO AND GUS were succumbing to boredom outside Stone Barrington’s town house. Neither was used to stakeouts, and they lacked the patience required. Gus was nearly asleep, while Chico fidgeted in his seat. When the front door finally opened and Melanie emerged, Chico jabbed Gus sharply in the ribs. “There she is.”

  Gus bolted upright “Alone?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Good. Let’s get her.”

  “Hang on. Don’t start the engine, don’t open the door. Let her walk away from the house. The place is a fucking fortress. We can’t give her the chance to run back in.”

  Melanie walked down the street.

  “Now?” Gus said.

  “Hang on. See if anyone else comes out of the house.”

  No one did.

  “All right, start it up. Follow me slowly.”

  Chico got out of the car and tailed Melanie down the street. He tried to catch up, but she was walking briskly and he didn’t want to attract attention. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Gus pushing ahead of him in the car. That was all he needed, for the guy to spook her. He picked up the pace.

  It wouldn’t do to let her reach the corner. She wouldn’t get away, he wasn’t worried about that, but there was a greater chance they’d be seen. With a hop and a skip, he grabbed her by the arm.

  Melanie whirled at his touch. She’d sensed his presence and was ready to act. Years of jujitsu didn’t hurt. Medical school had cut short her martial arts training before she got her black belt, but she had her brown, and she was agile and quick.

  She’d been prepared for some amorous drunk making a clumsy pass at her, so the sight of a large thug took her aback. So did his grip on her arm, which was rougher than that of your usual garden-variety creep.

  She pretended to slip and drop to the ground. When he shifted his grip, she rolled sideways, sprang to her feet, and ran.

  Gus, who’d followed them down the bloc
k, floored the accelerator and roared by. He threw the car into park and hopped out, blocking her escape.

  Melanie, caught in the middle, darted up the alley between two brownstones. A wire fence blocked the end. Melanie leaped onto a garbage can and grabbed the top of the fence.

  Chico caught her leg. He twisted and pulled down with all his weight. Gus grabbed her other leg. Chico shifted his grip to her arm and pried her fingers off the top of the fence.

  Melanie bit his hand.

  Chico howled in pain. He wrenched her free of the fence, slapped her across the face, and grabbed her in a bear hug even she couldn’t break.

  61

  CHICO CALLED MOOKIE from the car. “We got her.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “What do you mean, am I sure? She’s in the fucking car.”

  “Are you sure it’s her?”

  “It’s her. You showed me her picture.”

  Mookie had found the girl on Facebook and printed out her photo. He was more adept at a computer than he looked.

  “All right. Come by and pick me up.”

  “We’ll be there in five minutes.”

  Mookie was waiting at the corner when Gus pulled up.

  “How did it go? Did anyone see you?”

  “She’s a wildcat,” Chico said. “She bit my finger. But we weren’t seen.”

  Gus went through the Midtown Tunnel and took the Long Island Expressway to Forest Hills, Queens, where he pulled up in front of a two-story frame house on a residential block.

  “This is your cousin’s place?”

  “Yeah,” Chico said.

  “Take her in.”

  When Chico opened the trunk, Melanie kicked her tied-up legs and began yelling from behind the gag they’d put over her mouth. Hearing the commotion, Mookie came behind the car and looked down at her.

  “I don’t need you alive, sweetheart. Don’t make your life more inconvenient than it’s worth.”

  Cowed, Melanie fell limp as Chico and Gus lifted her out of the trunk and carried her up the front steps and in the front door. A couple of guys were hanging out in the living room. Mookie knew one of them. The other Chico introduced as his cousin Lou.

  “There’s your babysitters. There’s a room upstairs that locks.”

  “Does it have a window?”

  “It’s nailed shut with railroad spikes.”

  “It’s made of glass.”

  “She’d have to break a lot of small panes. The boys would hear her.”

  “Let’s see it.”

  They pushed Melanie ahead of them up the stairs, toward a room at the end of the hall.

  “In there,” Lou said.

  Mookie took a look around the room. It would do.

  “Where’s the bathroom?”

  “Down the hall.”

  “How’s she going to get there?”

  “I’ll take her.”

  “Let me see it.”

  Lou took them down the hall to the bathroom. The window was small. It would be tough to crawl out of open. Closed, with broken glass in the frame, it would be close to impossible.

  The bathroom door had a lock that twisted shut from the inside. From the outside it opened with a key, but there was no key.

  Mookie pointed to the door. “Take off the lock.”

  “Huh?”

  “The lock on the door. Take it off.”

  “Why?”

  “She smashes the window and calls for help, and you can’t stop her because she locked the door. Just take it off.”

  “Okay,” Lou said.

  His attitude said he thought it was stupid.

  62

  HERBIE WOKE UP to a knock on his door. He rolled over and saw Helene coming in with a breakfast tray.

  “Not hungry,” he said.

  She nodded. “That’s what Stone said you’d say.” She put the tray down on a side table. “He said to leave it anyway. You have to be in court at ten o’clock.”

  “What time is it?”

  “Seven.”

  “Seven,” Herbie muttered.

  “He said you might not want to wear a sweat suit.”

  In a rush it all came back to him.

  Herbie groaned. He sat up and groped for the coffeepot. He poured a cup, took a huge sip, and burned his tongue. He staggered into the bathroom and gulped some cold water.

  Herbie stood under the shower for a long time. He had trouble finding the motivation to get out.

  Eventually, he stumbled back into the bedroom and discovered he had no socks or underwear, or, if he did, he couldn’t find them.

  Herbie went downstairs and found Stone sitting at his desk.

  “You are reading the transcript.”

  “Well, I’m trying. It’s pretty boring, actually. Not your fault. Court transcripts are boring. But it’s clear from this your client was framed.”

  “It is?”

  “It is to me. You can’t count on the jurors to follow the logic. Are you going home to change?”

  “Yes, but I don’t have any money.”

  “Check the pocket of your sweatpants. You should have enough to get you through the day.”

  Herbie put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a wad of cash. “Thanks, Stone.”

  Herbie went out and got a cab back to his apartment. It was strange walking into the building. The doorman didn’t know what to say to him, and opted for saying nothing. That would have been fine with Herbie. Unfortunately, he needed a passkey. The doorman had to get it from the super, who wasn’t in his apartment, so Herbie had to stand in the lobby in his sweats while the other tenants walked by.

  Finally, he got the key, went upstairs, and opened the door.

  He was almost afraid to go in.

  He steeled himself, walked in, and went straight to the bedroom.

  The bed had been stripped, but all traces of the crime scene unit were gone, with the exception of the small hole in the headboard where they’d dug out the bullet.

  Herbie went into the living room to catch his breath.

  His cell phone was lying on the coffee table. He picked it up and clicked it on. The battery was almost dead, but he had a message from around midnight. He called voice mail and listened through the interminable mechanical voice droning the date and the time.

  Beep.

  “We have your girlfriend. Lose the case, and lose it today.”

  Herbie dropped the phone as if it were hot.

  63

  JULES KENWORTH WAS angry, even for him. “What the fuck do you guys think you’re doing?” he yelled through the phone.

  Taperelli was taken aback. “What’s the matter?”

  “What do you think is the matter? Jesus Christ, I ask you to do one simple thing.”

  “What simple thing?”

  “Pick up the girl. That’s all I said. Grab the girl.”

  “We did.”

  “Yeah. You did a slam-bang job.”

  Taperelli was becoming confused. “What do you mean?”

  “She’s dead! The headline’s in this morning’s New York Post! The girl is no good to me dead. You really fucked up this time.” Taperelli heard a bang as Kenworth slammed the phone down.

  Taperelli buzzed his secretary. “Drop what you’re doing and run out and get a copy of the New York Post.”

  Five minutes later she returned with the paper. The headline, LAWYER’S GIRLFRIEND MURDERED, jumped off the front page.

  Taperelli snatched up the phone and called Mookie. “Did you kill the girl?”

  “What?”

  “The lawyer’s girlfriend. I told you to pick her up, not kill her.”

  “I didn’t kill her.”

  “Then why’s she dead?”

  “She’s not dead. Chico’s holding her out in Queens.”

  “Oh, is that right?”

  “Yeah. I took her there myself.”

  “When?”

  “Last night.”

  “Alive?”

  “Alive and kickin
g.”

  “You see the New York Post?”

  “No, why?”

  “The paper says she’s dead.”

  “Bullshit. She’s in Queens.”

  “Yeah, well, then someone’s wrong. She can’t be dead and in Queens.”

  “Why not? They got a cemetery.”

  “Get out there. Make sure she’s alive.”

  “She’s alive, all right.”

  “You sure she’s the right girl?”

  “Absolutely. I saw her myself. It’s her, all right.”

  “Yeah, well, get out there and check on her. This fucking case is jinxed.”

  64

  THE MEDICAL EXAMINER called Commissioner Dino Bacchetti with the autopsy report. “You wanted a heads-up on Yvette Walker. It’s pretty straightforward. The girl was killed by a gunshot wound to the head. No contributing factors.”

  “She wasn’t drugged?”

  “No. Trace amounts of alcohol and that’s it. On the other hand, the toxicology report on the man she was found with is off the chart.”

  “What?”

  “You were right on the money with the knockout drops. Someone slipped your guy chloral hydrate, and a whacking dose of it. He’s lucky he’s not dead.”

  “Could you tell when it was administered?”

  “Not long before the sample was taken. He still had a lot in his system.”

  “But the decedent didn’t have any in her bloodstream?”

  “Like I said, trace amounts of alcohol and that’s it.”

  “What about the time of death?”

  “She was killed sometime between seven and nine o’clock.”

  “Based on what?”

  “Body temperature, largely.”

  “What about the stomach contents?”

  “Doesn’t narrow it down. She was killed five or six hours after eating what appears to be a Cobb salad.”

  “What about pizza?”

  “What about it?”

  “Was there any in the stomach contents?”

  “Nope. Just salad.”

  “There’s no chance she had a slice of pizza shortly before she died?”

  “No, there isn’t. I can’t speak for the gentleman involved. He only had a blood test.”

  Dino had barely hung up the phone when it rang again.

  It was Herbie.

  “Dino. Thank God. I went back to my apartment to get clothes for court.”

  “You’re still going to court?”

  “Yeah, yeah. Listen. I had a voice mail on my cell phone, came in about midnight last night. It said I better lose the court case because they had my girlfriend.”