Hit and Run (Moreno & Hart Mysteries)

by Allison Brennan

He didn’t pick up so she was forced to get resourceful. She hustled her food-deprived self over to the Donuttery and stocked up on pastries before driving up to Burke, Bumble & Holland.

  New flower arrangement, same receptionist. Deirdre looked dazzling this morning in a coral halter dress.

  “Morning.” Krista set a box of doughnuts in front of her. “Time for a coffee break?”

  “Uh, I don’t really—” A call interrupted her and she switched to her phone voice. “Burke, Bumble, and Holland. How may I help you?”

  Deirdre eyed Krista’s bruise as she handled the call. When she finished, her gaze dropped to the doughnuts. Krista lifted the lid and the scent of sugary goodness wafted up from the box.

  “Blueberry’s the best.”

  Deirdre bit her lip. “I’m kind of on a diet.”

  “It’s worth it.”

  “I don’t know.” Perfectly manicured fingers hovered over the box. She selected the blueberry and darted a glance over her shoulder before taking a nibble. She closed her eyes and moaned.

  Krista chose a red velvet with cream-cheese icing. “So, you know, I’m working with Rob Holland’s defense team.”

  Deirdre’s expression soured. Must have hit a bad blueberry.

  “R.J. Flynn tells me you know everyone here at the firm. Did you know Brittany?”

  R.J.’s name seemed to have a better effect. Deirdre tilted her head to the side.

  “We overlapped some. She started not long after I did. Maybe a few months?” She sipped from her coffee mug.

  “And did you keep up after she left?”

  “A little.” She took another bite, then dabbed her mouth with a napkin. “I went to their wedding and everything. But after that...” She shook her head.

  “Had you talked to her at all around the time she died?”

  Another glance over her shoulder, and Krista couldn’t tell whether she was worried about being caught gossiping or eating.

  “We talked some.” She tore off a chunk of doughnut. “You know, R.J. asked me these exact same questions. Did he forget to write it down?”

  Krista had no idea. She’d been up half the night reading, but still hadn’t managed to get through all the files.

  “I’m just getting caught up,” Krista said. “I’m trying to understand if Brittany might have been seeing someone new.”

  “I don’t know. We weren’t that good of friends, really. Not after she quit. I mean, we had lunch a few times and went to the beach. But we didn’t spend every minute together or anything.”

  Krista munched on her doughnut, hoping she’d keep talking, but she threw another nervous glance over her shoulder.

  “I should probably get back to work,” Deirdre said.

  “I understand. Hey, is Liz Brown in yet? I had a question to ask her.”

  “I haven’t seen her today, but she usually doesn’t get in till nine.”

  “What about Mia Vallard?”

  “She’s here.” Deirdre looked wary. “Why, you want to talk to her?”

  “It’ll just take a minute.”

  She placed a call to Mia’s office and then smiled at Krista. “You can go on back.”

  “Thanks. Oh, and by the way—do you know anyone around here who drives a white Chevy Avalanche?”

  She shook her head.

  Krista retraced her steps from the day before, noting Liz’s name on a placard beside one of the offices. She stuck her head in. No Liz, but the briefcase and the bottle of water on her desk indicated that she might have arrived already. Krista walked down the hall and found Mia getting off the phone. She looked startled at the sight of Krista’s bruise.

  “Me again.” Krista smiled and Mia stared at her cheek. “I just had a quick question. Do you know a lawyer named Eric Newman? He was at Berkeley with you and Rob.”

  “He’s in Santa Barbara.” Mia glanced at her watch and stood. She was in another power suit today, this one navy blue. “He specializes in tax law. Why?”

  “I’m having trouble reaching him. You have his contact info by chance?”

  “He just changed firms, sent me something on LinkedIn.” She looked annoyed, but she set down her briefcase and tapped on her keyboard, bringing up her email. She grabbed a sticky note and jotted something down. “Here’s his info. Looks like he went out on his own.”

  Krista took the note. “I appreciate it.”

  She grabbed her briefcase again. “Anything else you need, get it from Liz. I’m scheduled to be in court all week.”

  ~ ~ ~

  Krista took Pacific Coast Highway and arrived in Santa Barbara right in time for lunch hour traffic. She exited Salinas Street and wended her way through town.

  Eric Newman worked in a two-story building on the southeast edge of the city. Instead of yachts and catamarans, his office had an unobstructed view of a strip center. On the plus side, there was an H&R Block on the corner, so maybe the location was good for business.

  Krista hadn’t called ahead. People too often found reasons to dodge a meeting. She studied the marquee at the base of the building and then hiked up a redbrick staircase to Suite 213, Eric P. Newman, Attorney-at-Law. She discovered the door unlocked and the office dark. The empty reception room smelled like mildew and cigarettes.

  “Hello?” She peered down a dim corridor lined with packing boxes. “Mr. Newman?”

  Shuffling in the back. A grunt. Krista put her hand on her messenger bag, giving her easy access to her Ruger. She didn’t always carry it, but last night had made her cautious.

  A door squeaked opened and a man stepped into the hallway. Short, stocky. He walked into the reception room with a look of guarded curiosity on his face.

  “Yes?”

  Krista introduced herself and handed him a business card. She watched him read it in the light streaming through the mini-blinds. Newman was middle-aged, balding, and had a ruddy complexion. He wore a button-down shirt and pants that were a size too small, as though he’d recently gained weight. She noticed the gin blossoms on his nose.

  “So you’re working for the Big Man, huh?” He glanced up at her, and she didn’t know whether he meant Rob Holland or Drake Walker. Both were legends in California legal circles.

  “The trial’s looming,” she told him. “We just need to nail down a couple last-minute details.”

  He was staring at her bruise.

  “Fender bender,” she explained.

  He nodded and glanced at her card again. “Well, come on back.” He led her down the corridor. “You’ll have to excuse the mess. I just moved in.”

  His office was crowded with cardboard boxes and discount furniture—the same stuff she and Scarlet had purchased when they’d first set up shop. Krista surveyed the room. No art, no Berkeley diploma on display. Instead of a towering floral arrangement, he had a ficus tree stuck in a corner.

  Newman and his law school chums might have started from the same point, but clearly his career had taken a different path.

  “Here, have a seat.” He cleared a stack of legal journals off a chair. “Get you something?” He gave a loud, phlegmy cough. “Water? Coffee?”

  “No, thank you.”

  Krista sat down and glanced around. A cheap oak credenza occupied the wall to her right. Binders and law books crowded the top two shelves, while the bottom was filled with framed photos. Krista saw a younger, thinner Newman photographed against various natural backdrops—a waterfall, a redwood tree, the Grand Canyon. Several the pictures featured two young boys with sandy blond hair and freckles.

  “So, what can I do for you?”

  She took a notebook from her bag. “I had a few questions about your phone call with Rob.”

  First name basis. Everyone was friends here.

  He opened a drawer and took out a pack of Marlboros and a cheap lighter. “Mind?” He lit up.

  “It’s your office.”

  He sucked in a drag, then blew out a stream of smoke. “Nasty habit.”

  Krista looked at him.
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br />   “So, my phone call with Rob,” he said. “What about it?”

  “You mind sharing what you talked about? Just giving me a rundown?”

  Whether he minded or not, it was going to come up at trial, so this was like a practice run.

  “Sure. Let’s see.” He leaned back in his chair, seeming to think about it. “I asked him about the Capstone suit. Was he ready, what was his strategy, yada, yada.”

  “You guys talk about strategy a lot?”

  He lifted a shoulder. “More lately. Past few years, I hadn’t exactly been paying attention. Last summer I entered AA and started ‘re-engaging.’” He made quotation marks with his fingers, and she wondered if he’d gotten the term from a therapist. “So, I asked him about him, how was his work, his life.”

  “And he mentioned Brittany?”

  “Said they’d just separated.” He reached over and tapped his cigarette into a chunky ashtray on his desk. Krista hadn’t seen anything like it in years. It looked like it weighed about five pounds.

  “He seemed depressed over it.”

  “Depressed.” She waited for him to elaborate. When he didn’t she asked, “Did he seem angry at all?”

  He took a drag and squinted at her. “I thought you were on Rob’s side?”

  “I’m just trying to get a sense of it. Did he mention whether there was another man in the picture? Anyone she was seeing?”

  “No.” He blew a gust of smoke, and Krista stifled a cough.

  “Did he allude to a boyfriend at all, even vaguely?”

  “Not that I remember. He said she’d been to visit her parents, I remember that. And that she was doing yoga and looking for a job. The job thing—that’s what really depressed him.”

  “He didn’t want her to work?”

  “I think it told him she was serious. About leaving.” He flicked his ash again. “You know, they had a prenup, so it wasn’t like she stood to get a big payday by divorcing him. But she wanted out anyway.”

  Krista jotted a note about the prenup. Gee, wonder why she wanted out? Could it be she was tired of being married to a philandering drunk with a violent temper?

  “I know what you’re thinking.”

  She glanced up.

  “Rob wasn’t always like that.”

  “Like what?”

  “The booze, the women,” he said. “It’s a lot of pressure, operating at his level.”

  Krista lifted an eyebrow.

  “I should know. I blew two marriages over it. Nearly lost my kids, my law license.” He shook his head. “This job—when you do it like Rob does—it’s a soul crusher.”

  Krista watched the key defense witness stub out his cigarette. Between this guy and Mia, Drake Walker had his work cut out for him.

  “Used to be so much simpler, back in the day.” He leaned back in his chair. “We got out of school so energized and idealistic. We were going to defend the planet, the falsely accused, the little guy up against greedy corporate Goliaths.” He smiled. “Rob, he was the worst of all of us. And charismatic, too. We knew just watching him in mock trial he was going to charm the socks off any jury he ever met.”

  “So, what happened?” She sensed there was a tragic turn to this story, something that threw everyone off course.

  “In a word? Money.” He sighed heavily. “Rob started making it. So did I. So did a lot of us. Just a taste and we were hooked. The little firm up in Cupertino—a place no one had even heard of back then—started to seem like small time. So a lot of us came down to SoCal, hoping to really light it up. And some of us did.”

  She watched him thoughtfully. Then she glanced down at her notes.

  “What did you think of Brittany?” she asked.

  He looked surprised by the question.

  “She was a beautiful girl. A knockout.”

  Krista gritted her teeth. The girl had been twenty-nine. “What about her personality?”

  “She seemed nice. I only met her maybe half a dozen times.”

  “Did you think she seemed in love with her husband?” It wasn’t Krista’s real question—Do you think she left him for another man?—but she had pretty much given up hope of getting that answered in this interview.

  “I didn’t actually know her that well. I knew Rob’s first wife Abby much better, if you want to know the truth.”

  Krista looked down at her notes. Not much there. This trip was going to burn most of her day, and she hadn’t really learned anything.

  She stood up. “Well. Thanks for your time.” She glanced at the credenza and spotted a picture of Newman and Holland standing beside a boat. Newman was proudly lifting up what had to be an eight-pound bass. They stood shoulder to shoulder with several other people, a man and three women, everyone holding fishing rods and smiling.

  “That’s Abby.”

  Krista looked at him.

  “Holland’s ex. And that’s my second wife, Candace.” He picked up the frame and handed it to her.

  Everyone seemed young, tan, healthy. Krista looked closely at Abby. The prosecution planned to put her on the stand, probably to tell the jury about her ex-husband’s temper.

  “Abby and Candace used to be close. We saw them a lot. Did trips together.”

  It seemed odd for Newman to keep a photo of his ex around. But maybe he was really proud of the fish.

  “Who are these other two people?” she asked.

  “Jake and Sandra McElroy. He was in the firm, too.”

  She glanced up. “The Cupertino firm?”

  “Yeah, all of us started there. Jake’s the only one who stayed. Somehow he managed to resist the lure of Southern California.”

  “He manage to stay married?”

  Newman winced.

  “I take it that’s a no?”

  “She died. Murdered, actually.” He stroked his chin. “Guess it’s been, what—six, seven years now?”

  Krista gazed down at the picture again. “They ever catch who did it?”

  “Boyfriend.”

  She looked up.

  “She was having an affair. They both were, actually. It was a messed-up marriage, but they were working on it.” He shook his head. “Up until she died, I thought they might actually put it back together.”

  Krista’s pulse raced as she studied the picture. “And how was she killed?”

  “Guy showed up when her husband was out of town, they got in an argument, he went into a rage and beat her with a hammer.”

  The hair on back of Krista’s neck stood up. “They convict him?”

  “He confessed, but ended up getting off on a technicality.” He shook his head. “The trial was hell. And the outcome... The whole thing cut Jake off at the knees.”

  Krista handed back the picture. She felt cold suddenly. And claustrophobic. She wanted out of this smoky office.

  Newman looked at her. “So, that’s it?”

  “I’ll call you if I think of anything else.”

  “No problem,” he said. “I’ll see you at trial.”

  “Not likely.”

  “Well, I’ll see Rob anyway. And Drake Walker. Tell him I said hi.”

  ~ ~ ~

  Krista’s brain felt scrambled, so she drove. And drove. And kept on driving. Finally, she pulled over at a roadside fruit stand where she bought a bag of apricots and then sat in her car, scribbling everything into her notebook while juice dripped down her arm. When she’d captured every detail she could remember from the conversation she stared at her notes.

  What were the odds?

  Two lawyers, both whose marriages were in trouble and whose wives had suddenly been murdered with a hammer... It was unthinkable.

  Krista pulled out her cell phone and started searching names. It didn’t take her long to find the story about Sandra McElroy. She read an article in the Mercury-News about the trial. It was just as Newman said. According to the prosecution, her husband was out of town, her boyfriend showed up… Krista zeroed in on the defendant’s name: Stephen Travino. Throughout
the trial, he’d maintained his innocence. He admitted to going to the victim’s house that day and arguing with her, but not hurting her, and he claimed the so-called “confession” he’d given police was coerced. Whether it was or not, the judge decided he hadn’t been properly Mirandized before the interview, so he tossed out the entire thing, leaving the prosecution with only circumstantial evidence.

  Krista’s heart thudded as she read the article. So what had Travino been up to since trial? She searched his name and quickly found more.

  Krista gazed down at her phone.

  Just last year Stephen Travino was convicted of gross vehicular manslaughter after smashing his car into a minivan while drunk. He was serving six years.

  She re-read the story. And re-read it again. She’d double check to make sure, but based on his sentencing there was no way he was getting out any time soon. Which meant he was behind bars. Which meant he couldn’t have murdered another woman down in Newport Beach...

  But what about Holland? What about Newman? And what about this husband, Jake McElroy, who’d supposedly been out of town? All three of them had known both victims. The ME’s findings showed Brittany had been hit from behind, suggesting she turned her back on her attacker. Police had found no signs of forced entry.

  Krista got back on the road, going over it in her mind. Two young women killed under similar circumstances, both intimately connected to the same group of men. The same thought kept repeating itself over and over in Krista’s head. What were the odds?

  ~ ~ ~

  Krista was all the way to Malibu when R.J. finally answered his phone.

  “Where have you been?” she demanded. “I’ve been calling.”

  “We’ve got problems.”

  “What?”

  “Holland’s gone.”

  Her heart lurched. “What do you mean ‘gone’?”

  “Gone. The son of a bitch skipped.”

  “Why?”

  “They recovered a murder weapon today,” R.J. said.

  “What?”

  “Landscape guy found it when he was pruning the rose bushes in Holland’s yard. Eight-inch icepick.”

  Krista was speechless.

  “It’s smeared with blood.”

  “It was just sitting there or—”