Neither Garrett Holloway nor Brett Jennings, the party hosts of Sunday night, was in the phonebook. I could find them neither in the physical director nor online, so I called Rodney Burns.
“This is Rodney Burns,” he said as he picked up the phone.
“This is Robin Starling. I’m trying to get a couple of phone numbers—probably mobile numbers.”
“What are the names?”
I gave them to him. I waited. In about sixty seconds he read me off a number. In thirty more he had the other one.
“Some time you’re going to have to show me how you do that,” I said.
“No secret. I subscribe to a database.”
Ah. “Well, thanks a lot.”
I called Garrett Jennings first. He didn’t answer and had a voice mailbox that had not been set up yet. I tried Brett Holloway, who, as luck would have it, also had a voice mailbox that had not been set up. I thought about it a minute, then sent a text to each of them: “This is Robin Starling. I’m an attorney representing Natalie Stevens, who is in trouble and really needs your help. Call me.”
My phone rang ten seconds later.
“This is Garrett. You called about Natalie? I’m sorry I didn’t pick up a minute ago, but I didn’t recognize your number.”
“I understand.”
“What’s going on with Natalie?”
“Right now she’s in jail.”
“Jail?”
“You didn’t know?”
“No, how could I?”
It was in the paper, but I knew not many college students read the paper. “She’s accused of running over someone Sunday night and then leaving the scene.”
There was a silence. “She hit someone on the way home from our party?”
“I don’t know. What time did she leave your party?”
“Shortly after ten? It couldn’t have been later than ten-thirty.”
It’s what Natalie had said.
“Hit and run doesn’t sound like Natalie. Even if she’d been…”
“If she’d been drinking?” I prompted.
Another silence.
“Did the beer make her sick?” I asked. “Is that why she left the party early?”
“She did feel sick,” Garrett said.
I had the impression that he was leaving something out.
“What time did the accident happen?” he asked me.
“The police say between one and two o’clock.”
“Well, that couldn’t have been Natalie. She’d have been home by eleven anyway.”
“Are you home? Could I stop by and see you some time this afternoon?”
“I guess so. I’ll be here studying till six at least. I’m taking an online accounting class over the winter term, and it’s a bear.”
“I’ll be there early rather than late. Not long after lunch.”
“Okay. See ya.”
Brooke was in my doorway. “Did I hear you say something about lunch?”
“Yeah, but I’m going home for it. Paul gave me a puppy last night.”
“A what?”
“I was up at three a.m. to get him out of his crate and take him outside to do his business. You know how long it takes for a puppy to decide to do his business?”
“What kind of gift is a puppy? That’s like telling someone, here, I’ve chosen a whole new life for you. Hope you like it as well as you did your old one.”
“Well, he did. I left him in the backyard, but I’m beginning to worry about him.”
“You left Paul in the backyard?”
I gave her a look.
“I’m sorry. What’s his name?”
“Paul,” I said.
She laughed, came in and sat down. “You’re kidding, right? You didn’t name your puppy after your boyfriend.”
“He’s not exactly my boyfriend.”
“Whatever.”
“Paul wants to call him Deacon, but he’s such a little guy I’m thinking about calling him Deeks. You want to come meet him?”
She looked wistful. “Better not. I’ve got a potential client coming by about one-thirty.”
I’d been craving meat, so I picked up a burger on my way home. As an afterthought, I got another burger for Deacon—plain, none of the vegetables, just bread and meat. Probably I should just feed him more of the dog food Paul had left with him, but I was willing to bet Mr. Deeks wouldn’t turn down a hamburger.
I dropped my keys on the kitchen counter as I came in from the garage and walked through the living room to the French doors. I’d kind of expected Deeks to be there at the door with his nose pressed against the glass—certainly, the smudges all over the bottom panes suggested he’d spent some time doing just that—but he was evidently off in the yard somewhere exploring.
I unlocked the door and pulled it open. Cold air wafted in, and I felt a sudden pang of unease. Maybe it was too cold for a puppy to be outside all day.
“Deacon?” I stepped outside, holding the sack of burgers. “Deeks?”
He didn’t come running, and my uneasiness increased. “Deeks?” There were a few pine trees in the back corner, and somewhere in the middle a crab-apple tree and a tree I’d never been able to identify. A few steps into the yard, and I could pretty much see the whole thing. “Deacon!”
A mental image of him lying shivering and cold on the blanket of pine needles in the back corner caused me to run in that direction, but within a few strides I knew he wasn’t there. I went through the gate into the alley and called his name in both directions. I went back in the yard and walked along the fence line, looking for where he might have gotten out. There was no break in the chain link, no gaps, no space underneath the fence that even a squirrel could squeeze through.
Somebody stole him, I thought. Somebody saw the cute little guy all by himself in the yard, and they just reached over and got themselves a puppy.
I walked back through the house and out onto the front stoop. “Deacon!” I called, my eyes scanning. There was no movement anywhere.
I sat dispiritedly on the steps, the sack of burgers hanging between my knees, the top step cold even through my wool dress. As a teenager, I’d helped my dad in his veterinary clinic when basketball didn’t get in the way, and I’d been crazy about the dogs. Though at this point in my life I didn’t have time for a dog, let alone a puppy, I’d already begun to love the little brown mutt.
I sighed, got up and turned toward the door, then spun at the sound of a yap behind me. Deacon had his paws on the stoop, and his tail was a blur. I stepped down toward him and bent to gather him up.
“You rascal,” I said.
He yapped again and nosed the sack with the burgers.
“Yes, one of them’s for you.”
We ate, and Deeks piddled. Actually, I piddled, too, but it wasn’t such a milestone. For a while I sat on the couch, and Deeks climbed over me as he went from one end of the couch to the other, snuffling in the cracks between the cushions enough to make me wonder how much food I’d lost down there over the years.
“I hate to leave you, buddy,” I said, palming his head and ruffling his fur.
He backed out of my hand and panted up at me.
“You wanna go for a ride?” I said. Why not? I worked for myself; I was going to talk to a college kid. What would he care?
Garrett and Brett lived in a townhouse in Short Pump. There were lots of empty parking spaces in the early afternoon. As I got out of the car, Deeks bounded into the seat I had vacated and made a few tentative motions as if he wanted to jump down, but was a little uncertain about the distance. I had planned to leave him in the car, and probably I ought to. It was safe enough on a cloudy, forty-five degree afternoon.
“Come on,” I said. I swept him up and set him on the asphalt. He squatted immediately and pooped. I rolled my eyes, but squatted beside him immediately to rub his ears.
“Bathroom,” I said. “Good boy.”
The middle of a parking lot wasn’t the ideal place for him to do his busine
ss—I needed to remember it when I came out so I didn’t step in it—but it beat the heck out of the passenger seat of my VW Beetle.
“I need to start carrying plastic bags,” I cooed at him as I rubbed his head. “And get you some treats so you’ll always want to be a good boy.” I stood up. “Come on, then.”
He followed along beside me. Puppies were pretty good about staying with you, but I’d have to work to keep him doing it as he got older.
A guy opened the door as I came up the sidewalk. He looked from me to Deacon and back to me. “You wouldn’t be Robin Steering, would you?” he said.
“Starling.”
“I’m Garrett Jennings. I didn’t expect you to bring a dog.” He had neatly trimmed brown hair and a downy mustache that made him look like pictures I’d seen of the young Walt Disney.
“It came as a surprise to me, too,” I said. “Do you have a dog of your own that he might not get along with?”
Garrett shook his head. “No pets. Come on in.”
I followed him and Deacon followed me, the steps shallow enough for him to clamber up on his own.
It was a nice apartment, but typical college guy digs. A pizza box was on the coffee table. A backpack was on the floor directly in front of a 42-inch TV. A half-dozen water bottles lay and stood around in various stages of consumption. Deacon ran to the coffee table, tumbling over himself once in the process, and pointed his nose at the pizza box. When he put his feet on the side of the coffee table in an effort to reach it, I swept him up so his claws wouldn’t scratch the wood—which, though it wasn’t in great shape, wasn’t his to scratch.
I sat on the sofa, avoiding the biggest grease stain, Deacon on my lap. He immediately started trying to escape my clutches as Garrett took a seat in a bean-bag chair at the far end of the coffee table.
“Sorry about the dog,” I said. “I just got him yesterday. It’s occurs to me that pets probably aren’t allowed in these apartments.”
“Probably not,” he said. “I’m afraid I can’t let you move in with me.”
I cocked an eyebrow at him.
“A feeble joke. Sorry.”
“How late did your party run Sunday night?”
“Right to business. Okay.”
I waited.
“One or two o’clock,” he said.
“But Natalie was feeling sick and left at ten or ten-thirty.”
“Somewhere in there. I wanted to drive her home, but she wouldn’t let me. She said she felt like she was going to puke and it was the kind of thing she preferred to do in private. She is going to be all right, isn’t she? You can get the charges dropped?”
I moved my shoulders fractionally. “I’m working on it. Tell me about the party.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Whatever it is you don’t want to tell me. You had a keg, I take it?”
He shifted on his bean-bag chair, looking suddenly uncomfortable. He shrugged, nodded. “Brett, my roommate, is twenty-one.”
“But a lot of your guests weren’t, including Natalie.”
“I don’t think she had very much.”
“You say that, but I assume people were helping themselves, and you don’t really know?”
“I was keeping a pretty close eye on Natalie.”
I waited.
He gave me a defensive smile. “I guess I always keep a pretty close eye on Natalie.”
I nodded. “So what else don’t you want to tell me?”
“What makes you think—” He broke off. “Oh, hell. You get a bunch of college kids together, coming back to town from all over…” He broke off again, took a breath. “Someone brought edibles.”
He seemed to feel he had dropped his bombshell.
“Munchies?” I said.
“Space cakes.”
A light dawned, though the couple of times they’d shown up at parties I’d been to, they were called cosmic brownies.
“You know, hash brownies. Brownies laced with cannabis,” he explained unnecessarily.
“And Natalie had some.”
“She didn’t know what they were.”
“But she ate enough to make her sick. And you let her drive home.”
“I didn’t want to. And I told her to call me, let me know she made it.”
“Did she?”
“No.”
“Did you try to call her?”
He hesitated. “I guess I got distracted.”
“So we don’t know if she got home in twenty minutes, or if she was still driving around at two in the morning trying to find her way.”
He looked like he was going to cry. Finding myself not at all sympathetic to him, I waited to see if he would.
He recovered, wiped his hands on his pants legs. “No,” he said firmly. “No, I know. She went straight home.”
“How do you know?”
He swallowed, cleared his throat. “I followed her.”
“You followed her home,” I repeated.
“Sure. I’m half in love with her, like I said. When she won’t let me be with her, well, I guess I stalk her.”
I studied him.
“So Sunday night I followed her home. I must have sat outside her house for fifteen or twenty minutes, even after her car disappeared into the garage.”
“So she could have gone out again,” I said.
“No. I know she didn’t.” His eyes shifted, and his tongue appeared briefly between his lips. “Like I said, I stayed outside fifteen or twenty minutes, you know, nervous. Then I thought, what the heck. I went around to the front and rang the doorbell. When she answered, I grabbed her and I kissed her.”
“How did she take that?”
“Pretty well. Wonderfully well. She kissed me back. And things developed. You know. We ended up in her bedroom.”
“Where things continued to develop?”
His mouth twitched and his shoulder jerked in what was either a muscular spasm or a shrug. “I didn’t leave until six or seven the next morning. I woke up, suddenly alarmed about where I was. I mean, what would happen if her father found me there, right there in his own house?”
“He’s in China, I understand.”
“Sure, I knew that. I didn’t know when he was coming back, though. And what about her stepmother? Who knew where she was?”
“You’ve met Chloe?”
“Oh, yes. And she’s a piece of work.”
“Meaning what? Scary, quick to anger?”
“Well, no, nothing like that. I won’t say she comes on to me, nothing like that either. But her manner always seems, you know, seductive. Not just with me.”
Deeks escaped me as I studied Garrett, and he tumbled to the carpet. “Not bad,” I said to Garrett.
“What do you mean?”
“I assume you’re trying to give Natalie an alibi, and really it’s not a bad first effort.”
“You’re…are you calling me a liar?” His chest swelled as he inhaled.
“Indignation’s not your strong point. Better go easy on that.”
He deflated. “What gave me away?”
“Nothing in particular. As I say, it’s a good first effort. You’re talking to a skeptic, though.”
“Meaning if I practiced a bit…”
I shook my head, one corner of my mouth rising. “It’s not the way to go. Your story breaks down, and you’re in trouble, I’m in trouble, and Natalie’s in even worse trouble. She really can’t afford worse trouble. Deeks!”
He was at the door, squatting and piddling as he looked out through the sidelight at the bright outdoors. He was done by the time I reached him.
“I’m sorry,” I said as I picked him up.
“No problem. Mikey Dobbins vomited in almost exactly that spot Sunday night. He was trying to get outside and didn’t make it.”
“You did a good job cleaning up. I don’t smell anything. I mean, I didn’t. Now I smell piddle.”
Garrett lifted a half-full roll of paper towels from where it had rolled a
gainst the front of the couch. “Here’s part A of the solution.” He dog-legged over to a bookshelf on his way to the door to grab a spray bottle of something called Odoban. “Part B,” he said.
Chapter 8
I moved the passenger seat all the way forward so Deeks could stand with his front paws on the dash and see out. We were both keeping an eye on traffic as we headed for home. The difference was that Deeks saw a lot to wag his tail about, and I didn’t.
As I drove, I called the office to say I wouldn’t be in the rest of the day, but that I’d call before five to get my messages.
Carly said, “You’ve got one right now. A Mr. Rodney Burns called.”
“Okay, thanks.” Burns was on my Favorites list, just as my office was, so in moments I had him on the phone.
“This is Rodney Burns.”
I knew who he was. “This is Robin Starling. Let me give you my cell, so next time…”
“I’ve got your cell. I just didn’t want to interrupt in case you were in the middle of anything.”
“Oh. I had a message you called.”
“Yes. I thought you’d want to know that Natalie Stevens rented a motel room in south Richmond Sunday night.”
“This past Sunday night? The night…”
“Yes. The night of this alleged hit and run. It was the Best Western at the corner of Chippenham Parkway and the Midlothian Turnpike.”
“What would she be doing with a motel room?”
“You might ask her that. Whatever you do, though, you might want to do in a hurry. The Richmond Police have this, too.”
“How did they get it?”
“I think someone called them.”
“How did you get it? Another subscription service?”
He hesitated. “Sort of,” he said.
“That clears that up.”
Paul Soldano’s cell was on my Favorites list, too. I never called his office number at the Federal Reserve Bank, because bank examiners don’t answer the office phone at certain times of day—after four for example or anytime during the hour before they plan to go to lunch. There might not be much chance of getting caught with something that would extend into their personal time, but some chances just aren’t worth taking.
Dog Law (A Robin Starling Courtroom Mystery) Page 6