Hit and Run (Moreno & Hart Mysteries)

by Allison Brennan

  Krista scrolled down and found a picture of the Hollands on their honeymoon. The smiling newlyweds had purple leis around their necks as they leaned close and mugged for the camera.

  The next picture was a blurry shot of a covered gurney being loaded into an ME’s van—a shot likely taken with a zoom lens from behind a police barricade. Days after the picture was taken, the ME himself stepped up to a podium to tell a gaggle of reporters that Brittany Holland’s death had been ruled a homicide—although by that time news of the icepick had leaked, so the announcement was less about the ME’s ruling and more about media outlets getting fresh footage to alternate with the gurney.

  Bile rose in Krista’s throat as she remembered Holland’s tongue in her mouth and his hands all over her. She had the sudden urge to take a scalding shower and burn the dress she had on.

  “No place like home! No place like home!”

  Krista glanced at Spencer. Then she glanced at the front door. She heard something scratching against it and got up to check the peephole.

  The porch was empty. Ditto the rain-drenched street in front of her house.

  More scratching. A yelp.

  She pulled open the door to find a waterlogged poodle staring up at her.

  “What are you doing out?” She scooped him up, and he scrabbled against her dress with his muddy paws. “You could have been hit by a car.”

  She trekked across the street and rapped on Mrs. Ruman’s front door. The porch light was out, and Krista checked her watch. Almost eleven. She was probably asleep. Leo squirmed in her arms and gave a little yap.

  “Hold your horses.”

  More squirming. A whimper. Then the door swung open and Krista felt a warm gush flow down her side.

  “Damn it, Leo.”

  That did it. The dress was getting torched.

  ~ ~ ~

  Saturday morning was clear and sunny after the rain chased much of the smog from the valley. Krista found R.J. on the Huntington Beach boardwalk jogging with the rest of the fitness nuts. She leaned against a palm tree and waited, and she could tell when he saw her because he picked up his pace. He stopped in front of her and his sweat-slicked pecs gleamed in the sunlight.

  “I need to talk to you,” she said.

  “How’d you find me?”

  “Stopped by your office, bumped into Carrot Top.”

  He peeled off his shades and gazed down at her with those too-blue eyes. “Uh-oh. Here we go.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “I know why you’re here—my client’s a dirtbag and you don’t want to work for him. I’m disappointed, Hart. Thought you were a professional.”

  “I am.”

  “That’s the problem with all you cops-turned-PIs.” He tugged a T-shirt from the waist of his running shorts and mopped his forehead. “You’re never good for trial work. And I hate to break it to you, but that’s where all the money is.”

  “I do trial work.”

  “Not really.”

  She crossed her arms. “I do plenty of trial work. But I happen to have some issues with this particular case.” When he just looked at her she continued. “Your client has a documented history of violence against women. He trashed his wife’s car. He slammed her head into a wall just three weeks before he killed her.”

  “Allegedly killed her.”

  “Statistics show that when women are murdered it’s more likely by a current or former partner than anyone else.”

  “Innocent until proven guilty.”

  Krista rolled her eyes.

  “The accused has a Constitutional right to a fair trial, and Drake Walker is helping him get one. So am I. So are you.”

  “Not yet I’m not.”

  He rested his hands on his hips and stared at her, and she tried not to notice his perfectly sculpted abs. “The job we do plays a role in the world’s greatest justice system,” he said. “I take pride in that. You should, too.”

  “You take pride in your fat fees.”

  He smiled and eased closer. She stepped away.

  “Come back to my place,” he said in a low voice. “I have something to show you.”

  “No thanks.”

  “You’ll like it, I promise.”

  “I’m being serious here, R.J.”

  “I am, too.” He stepped around her. “Come on.”

  She hesitated a moment, then gave in. They walked in silence for the few short blocks between the beach and his one-story house. Krista had seen it before but never been inside. She eyed the chipping white stucco, the red tile roof, the overgrown oleanders. The house was utterly unremarkable—except for its location just three blocks off the ocean and the Porsche turbo parked in the carport behind a wrought iron gate.

  Krista’s stomach fluttered as she followed him up the front steps. He pressed his thumb against a small black panel and the door unlocked with a quiet snick. He didn’t say a word as he led her into the cool dimness of a Saltillo tile foyer. She stood still for a moment, letting her eyes adjust.

  “Gimme a minute.” He tossed his T-shirt on a black leather sofa and disappeared down a hallway.

  R.J.’s place screamed bachelor pad, from the leather-glass-and-steel furniture to the gargantuan flat-screen television that dominated the living room. She glanced around, searching for oversized speakers, too, but spotted only a pair of almost invisible mesh panels in the ceiling.

  To her right was a kitchen where the surfaces were black or stainless steel. She thought of her own refrigerator, circa 1980, and the scarred linoleum flooring that Grandma Dot had laid down in a do-it-yourself frenzy before Krista was even born.

  A pair of barstools stood beside the granite island. Krista examined the crisp white dishtowels hanging neatly on the rack. She attributed them to whatever cleaning service R.J. hired to mop his floors and polish his counters and keep the place smelling like sandalwood instead of sweaty running shoes.

  Pipes hummed in the back of the house, and Krista darted a glance down the hallway. She turned to the front room that seemed to serve as R.J.’s home office. Sleek glass desk, dustless black keyboard. A trio of monitors faced the leather desk chair. What Krista didn’t see were file cabinets. Not a one. Maybe he kept everything at his office or digital. The sole paperwork in the room was a thick manila folder perched beside a wireless mouse.

  Krista glanced down the hallway again, unsettled by the image of R.J. under one of those deluxe showerheads that practically sand-blasted your skin off. She stepped into the office and read the label on the file: HOLLAND.

  She flipped it open to find notes jotted on yellow legal paper. She didn’t recognize the handwriting—not that she would have. The notes were mostly a list of people, with check marks and question marks scrawled in the margins. None of the names rang a bell, and she guessed they were witnesses. She thumbed through to some type-written pages held together by a binder clip. Several passages had been highlighted in yellow, more scrawl in the margins. It looked like the transcript of Holland’s initial police interview. Krista was amazed he’d talked to them. She would have expected a seasoned attorney to immediately take the Fifth. She read the highlighted sections, which focused on Holland’s alibi the night of his wife’s murder.

  Behind the transcript were printouts of several newspaper articles. Most were stories she’d read on her computer late last night after polishing off an entire tub of cashews with Spencer. She flipped back to the transcript and re-read a few sections.

  The water shut off. Krista slipped out of the office and moments later R.J. padded down the hallway in bare feet and surf shorts, a towel slung over his shoulder.

  “Coffee?” He crossed the kitchen to an espresso machine.

  “I’m good. So, what did you want to show me?”

  He leaned back against the counter and rested his palms on the granite. “The file you read.”

  “How do you know I read it?”

  “You’re a detective. I sure as hell hope you read it.”

 
; She folded her arms, even though she knew it made her look defensive. Once again, he was a step ahead of her and she didn’t like it.

  “So what’d you notice?” he asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Yeah, you do.” He crossed his arms over his bare chest and she stifled a whimper. He was, and had always been, a sight to behold. But he was hell to work with. “Come on, spit it out.”

  “His alibi’s weak.”

  He nodded. “Exactly.”

  “But that doesn’t mean anything.”

  “It means everything. Holland’s a lawyer. If he planned to kill his wife, don’t you think he’d have concocted something better than sitting home alone, working on the night of the murder?”

  “Maybe he didn’t plan it. The murder has all the hallmarks of a crime of passion.”

  “Even after the fact, he didn’t come up with anything decent. The alibi sucks, and it’s driving Walker crazy because he can’t corroborate it, but Holland won’t budge.” R.J. pushed away from the counter and stepped closer, probably trying to distract her from her purpose here with his half-naked body. But it wasn’t going to work.

  “Trial starts in three weeks, and Walker’s not ready,” he said. “You’re a solid investigator and we could use the help.”

  He’d said “solid” not “good” just to piss her off.

  She looked away, and the words from that 911 call echoed through her head.

  It would be great money, but money wasn’t everything. She didn’t want it to be. Men like Drake Walker didn’t care. Neither did Rob Holland. But she cared and Scarlet cared. And she’d hoped R.J. would care, at least a little.

  She wanted to believe something good about R.J., that he was more than just a carefree playboy. She wanted to believe that was only a persona and deep down he gave a damn about people. She’d seen a glimpse of that side of him before, or at least, she thought she had. Maybe she was wrong.

  She looked at him, so comfortable in his house, in his job, in his life.

  “I don’t know how you do it,” she told him.

  “It pays the bills.” He shrugged. “And I’m good at it.”

  Well, that was true. He was a talented investigator, and maybe that was what bothered her. With Walker and R.J. working for him, Holland stood a fair chance of getting away with murder.

  “Plus I happen to think he’s innocent,” R.J. added.

  “No, you don’t.”

  “I do.” He was adamant. “Read the full case file and you will, too.”

  “Okay, tell me this. What was last night about? Why did you need Holland’s phone?”

  “Walker’s worried about client flight. If Holland skips, Walker loses a huge fee.”

  “He surrendered his passport to the judge.” She’d read an article about his bail hearing.

  “Passports can be bought. And Holland has a private plane. Walker wants to keep tabs on his phone so I installed an app for him.”

  So was Walker using the phone to track Holland? To eavesdrop on his calls? Probably both.

  “Krista, time’s ticking here. The trial’s in three weeks, and things don’t look good right now. We need to kick it into gear.”

  “I haven’t said I’d do it yet,” she reminded him.

  He smiled at her and had the nerve to look smug. “Yeah, but you will.”

  ~ ~ ~

  Krista drove home and spent the next few hours cleaning. And blaming R.J. Her visit to his house had unnerved her on many levels, and she took her anxiety out on Dot’s linoleum floor.

  R.J. wasn’t revealing much, as usual, but it seemed like the problems with the case went beyond a weak alibi. Maybe a new witness had popped up. Or maybe the D.A. had leaked damaging information about Holland, trying to poison the jury pool just before trial. Neither side was above using dirty tactics.

  It was all so sleazy—the lies, the maneuvering, the manipulation. Krista didn’t want to get involved, and yet... what if R.J. was right? What if Holland hadn’t done it? The guy was a dickhead, but did he deserve to spend the rest of his life in prison for something he didn’t do?

  Even more troubling to Krista was fact that investigators considered Brittany Holland’s case closed. The cops were done. A wrongful conviction for Holland meant there was a brutal killer still out there, free to strike again against some innocent woman.

  Krista scrubbed the floor until her arms ached, and it still looked like dingy old linoleum. She moved on to Spencer’s cage, cleaning and sweeping and scrubbing some more as he flapped and squawked. When she was finished, she glanced up at the clock. Four-fifteen.

  “Damn you, R.J.”

  She showered and threw on her typical PI uniform of faded jeans, T-shirt, and sandals. Then she jumped into her rented Honda and zipped down to Newport Beach. It was a balmy day and she opened the sunroof, which she planned to enjoy the hell out of until she was forced to face reality. She arrived at her destination and did a slow loop around the block before lucking into an empty parking space near the end of the street.

  Brittany Holland’s townhome was nice by most standards, but a major step down from the Laguna Beach mansion she’d occupied with her husband. That she was willing to take such a step told Krista a lot about how badly she’d wanted out of the marriage.

  Brittany’s place was at the north end of row seventies-era townhomes with weathered wooden siding. Each yard was neatly landscaped and had a cement sidewalk leading up to a covered two-story entrance. Residents parked in back, where each unit had a double-wide carport and fenced patio.

  Krista spent the first few minutes simply watching, getting a vibe for the place. Meadowlark Lane was a quiet street lined with date palms. Not the sort of place where a blood-curdling scream would go unnoticed. The next block up was a bit livelier, boasting a bakery, a pet-groomer, and a Mexican café, all of which Krista would check out later if she ended up taking the case.

  She still hadn’t decided yet. She wanted to scope out a few things for herself first. R.J. at least pretended to believe Holland was innocent of murder. She wanted to know why.

  Krista was a firm believer in neighborhood investigations. She believed in knocking on doors, interviewing locals, jotting down license plates and checking out cars. Most people live by routine, so visiting a place at the same day and time a crime occurred could yield important clues. Neighborhood investigations were useful but they required resources, and many cash-strapped police departments didn’t take the time.

  Krista had no doubt Drake Walker had taken the time, especially since every last hour of it was billable to the client.

  She climbed out of her car and strolled up the sidewalk, covering ground she felt certain that R.J. or another defense investigator had already covered months ago. But Krista didn’t like to rely on other people’s legwork. She liked to see things for herself. Plus—and she didn’t know whether it was because of her petite stature or her wispy blond hair—people didn’t find her threatening and were often willing to talk to her.

  Something was off today, though, because the first eight doors went unanswered, even at the homes where she’d noted vehicles in the carports. Krista finally managed to get one of Brittany’s neighbors to open up, but she’d barely stated her name when the woman slammed the door in her face.

  Krista stopped in front of Brittany’s house and went over the facts of the case in her head. Investigators believed Brittany had been killed in her kitchen sometime between five and nine on a Saturday night. They’d found no sign of forced entry, no footprints, and no DNA that pointed to a suspect. They’d found no sign of sexual assault. Also, no witness accounts of noise or arguing or even so much as a dog barking in the vicinity of Brittany’s home on the night of the murder.

  What they had found was blood. A lot of it, all belonging to Brittany.

  Krista looked up and down the street. She didn’t see any dog-walkers or cyclists to interview. She noticed the beer truck parked behind the cafe at the end of the block. She mosey
ed on over, observing the uniformed delivery man stacking kegs onto a pushcart. He was short and well-muscled and managed to balance three kegs on a cart designed for two.

  “Afternoon,” Krista said, handing him a business card. He stopped what he was doing long enough to wipe his brow with the back of his arm and give her his name: Arturo.

  “You been in this job awhile?” she asked.

  “Three years.” He planted his hands on his hips and looked her up and down. He wore blue shorts and a matching blue golf shirt with a beer logo on it, and the front of his uniform was soaked with sweat.

  “Was this your route a year ago?”

  A dark eyebrow lifted. “You mean when that girl got killed?”

  “Yeah.”

  He nodded. “I already talked to some cop about it. But like I told him—Saturdays I clock out by six. It happened at night, after my shift.”

  “What about before your shift? You notice anything unusual in the neighborhood that day? Any unusual people hanging around?”

  He gazed down Brittany’s street and seemed to think about it. “Think they asked me that, too.” He looked at Krista. “This was what, a year ago? It’s hard to remember.”

  She waited.

  “I remember the girl. You know, the victim?” He tugged a bandana from his pocket and mopped his neck. “Used to see her coming and going sometimes. She had a red convertible. A Mustang.” He flushed slightly, making his face even redder than it already was. “I’m into cars, so.”

  So he hadn’t noticed her because she was six feet tall and gorgeous. Right.

  “Anyways, I didn’t see her that Saturday. Or even that week, I don’t think. Like I say, it’s hard to remember.”

  “What about anything else that week? Maybe an unusual car or person on the street that didn’t belong there?”

  “Nope.”

  “What about one street over? That’s where she parked, behind the townhomes there.”

  Arturo huffed out another breath and stared at her and Krista felt like something shifted.

  “You know, they didn’t ask me that,” he said.