“Perhaps you can make that point in his trial, Mr. Biggerstaff. Right now I want it understood that I will not tolerate false statements made under oath in my courtroom.” He turned back to Larkin, looming over him from the bench. “Is that understood, young man?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Yes, Your Honor,” the judge corrected. He was an old man, but he could still speak with thunder in his tone.
Larkin swallowed. “Yes, Your Honor.”
The judge said, “You claim to have seen Mr. Shorter leaving the decedent’s house on March 9. That statement is material to the issue being tried. Do you wish to retract that statement?”
Larkin’s tongue ran along his upper lip, and his gaze went out to the courtroom, where Jenn, his mother, was sitting. “No,” he said in a rough voice. He cleared his throat and tried again. “No.”
“Very well. Counselor.” The judge nodded sharply to me.
I said, “Based on this incident that began with you and your buddies sitting on my car, you filed a complaint against me with the Virginia State Bar. Isn’t that correct?”
“Yes.”
“Your Honor,” Biggs objected. “This is hardly the forum for addressing disciplinary charges against counsel for the defense.”
“Then you shouldn’t have introduced the matter. Proceed, Ms. Starbuck.”
That was really too much. He might as well call me Ms. Startlepuss and be done with it, but I let it go. To Larkin, I said, “Did you file your complaint after talking to Aubrey Biggs, the commonwealth’s attorney?”
“Yeah.”
“Did Mr. Biggs encourage you to file the complaint?”
Larkin looked at Biggs. “He mentioned it.”
“Did he help you draft it?”
“He helped me with some of the words.”
Judge Cooley cleared his throat. He’d given me some leeway, but it was time to move on.
“Back to March 9, the day you say you saw Bob Shorter leaving the house of Bill Hill. Are you going to stick with that testimony?”
His tongue brushed his upper lip again. “Yeah, I saw him,” he said finally.
“I believe you told Mr. Biggs he was covered in blood?”
“Not covered. He had it on his pants and shirt.”
“I think you said the sleeve of his shirt.”
“Yeah, on the sleeve.”
“Have you seen pictures of the bloody clothes that were found in the residence of Mr. Shorter?”
His eyes again cut to Biggs.
“Mr. Biggs showed you those pictures, didn’t he?”
“No.”
“No?”
“I didn’t see no pictures.”
“You didn’t see no pictures,” I repeated.
“Nah.”
“You didn’t see the pictures. You saw the clothes themselves—didn’t you? Mr. Biggs showed you the bloody clothes.”
He shrugged.
“Out loud, Larkin. He showed you the clothes—isn’t that right?”
“He gimme a peek at them.”
“And you saw the blood on the pants and the sleeve of the shirt.”
“I guess.”
I turned and looked at Aubrey Biggs, my elbow on the lectern. His face had reddened.
“Well, Larkin,” I said, my eyes still on Biggs. “It’s easy to see how you managed to describe the condition of the clothes so precisely.”
“That’s not a question,” Biggs said.
“No, it isn’t, is it?” I turned back to Larkin. “You say you’d just gotten back from school when you saw Mr. Shorter. Do you mean you were on the way home from school?”
“Yeah, home from the bus stop.”
“Your friend Nate walks home with you, doesn’t he? Warren’s house is in another direction, but Nate and you walk together.”
“Nate wasn’t with me.”
“He didn’t go to school that day? He does get off at your bus stop, doesn’t he?”
“Yeah, he . . . I think maybe he went home with Warren. I don’t remember. He wasn’t with me.”
“And if I call him to the stand, and he swears to tell the truth under penalty of perjury, he’ll tell us the same thing,” I said.
“I don’t know. How am I supposed to know what he’ll say?”
“He might tell us the truth.”
Larkin didn’t say anything.
“You pass by Melissa Stimmler’s house on the way home, don’t you? Mr. Hill’s next-door neighbor? Do you think she saw you and Nate together that afternoon?”
Light gleamed from a line of sweat that broke free of his hairline to run down his forehead.
“Do we really need to continue with this, Larkin?”
He shook his head.
“Nathan was with you that day, wasn’t he?”
Larkin didn’t answer, just sat with his head cocked back, and we could hear him breathing.
“I have no further questions of this witness, your honor. But Larkin . . .” I turned back toward him, and he froze, already halfway out of his seat. “If I learn you’ve bothered Melissa Stimmler for giving me that photograph, harassed her in any way . . .”
“This is outrageous,” came a voice from the gallery, interrupting me. Jenn Entwistle was on her feet.
“Your Honor,” Biggs objected. “Counsel is threatening the witness right here in open court.”
Judge Cooley stood. I’d never seen a judge stand to address counsel before.
“Mr. Biggs.” He got the name right, even overarticulated it. He waited.
“Yes, Your Honor?”
“If you don’t want to spend the night in jail for contempt of court, you will leave my courtroom now.”
“But—”
The judge raised a hand to silence him. “Bailiff!” There was not the hint of a quaver in the word.
Biggs hesitated, then turned abruptly, pushing through the rail and walking down the aisle through the gallery of spectators. He pushed at the big double doors, and when he passed through, they swung shut behind him.
Larkin, who’d been frozen in an awkward crouch half-in and half-out of the witness chair, got his feet under him and began moving toward the rail.
“Bailiff, stop that young man.”
Larkin stopped, and the bailiff moved to stand beside him.
“Mr. Max . . . whatever your name is. Mr. Prosecutor. Do you plan to file charges against this miscreant, or do I need to jail him for contempt?”
“I . . . I plan to prosecute,” Maxwell said.
The judge took a deep breath and let it out. “Very well.” He jerked his head at the bailiff. “Take him away.”
The bailiff exited with Larkin through a side door, and the judge fixed his gaze on the jury, moving his gaze from face to face. “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury. Do you need me to tell you what the testimony we’ve just heard is worth?”
“No,” said a voice. It was Andrew Hartman’s. “No, you don’t.”
The judge nodded. He took his seat and picked up his gavel. “Court is in recess until tomorrow morning at nine o’clock.” He let his gavel fall, then got up again and left the courtroom through the door behind his bench. After that, it seemed that everyone was talking at once.
I blew out a lungful of air through puffed cheeks and picked my legal pad up off the lectern. Shorter stood as I approached the table and extended a hand. I glanced at the jury, then took it. If Bob Shorter could act a part, then so could I.
Chapter 15
I walked over to Dr. McDermott’s house that evening to pick up Deeks as usual. Both dog and old man seemed glad to see me, though Dr. McDermott didn’t appear about to wriggle out of his skin. I squatted to rub Deeks’s ears, holding his head to avoid a tongue bath. I lost my grip, though, when he surged toward me and fell back on my keister, and Deeks got past my defenses with a cold nose and a warm wet tongue that left a trail of slobber from chin to eyebrows.
“Deeks!” I said in exasperation.
He surged forward again and kno
cked me onto my back. My dress seemed both tighter and shorter now that I had to wrestle a forty- to fifty-pound puppy just to roll to my hands and knees. Next time I’d change my clothes before walking over.
“How’d you do in court today?” Dr. McDermott asked me as I got to my feet.
“Better than I’m doing picking up my dog, fortunately.” I smoothed my skirt.
He smiled. “All I needed was a bag of popcorn.”
I gave him a look. Surely he was too old for that to be a lecherous remark.
He cleared his throat. “So, the trial’s going better?”
“It went well enough, but the day ended in another explosion. Fortunately, this time it wasn’t me who got blown up.”
It piqued his interest enough for him to urge me toward the kitchen, where Deeks was audibly slurping water. “I’ve got a bottle of Riesling in the fridge and a pitcher of tea.”
“Riesling.”
We sat at the table for me to recount the day in court, and Deeks settled on the floor by my chair with his head resting on my foot. When I got to Judge Cooley’s ejection of the commonwealth’s attorney from the courtroom, I said, “You should have seen him, standing in his black robes, his voice as hard and sharp as anything I’ve ever heard. Up to that point in the trial, he was an old man who couldn’t get anybody’s name right. Then he rose up, a veritable icon of justice. I got goose bumps.”
“It sounds like you may pull this one out.”
“Hah. It was Judge Cooley’s moment of greatness, not mine. I’ve got a long way to go to reasonable doubt.”
“You yourself had a lot to do with what happened today, sounds to me like.”
“I’ve got fingerprint and blood evidence to deal with and a client who brings unity to the masses in their hatred of him.”
“My money’s on you—or would be, if I could find anyone to bet me.”
“Well, thank you.”
“You haven’t lost a case yet.”
“Not a criminal case.” I gave him a smile. “I’ve never died, either. Do you think that means I’m immortal?”
“I don’t know. Sometimes I can’t help thinking of you as a force of nature.”
He smiled, and Deeks gave my ankle a lick. I leaned over to scratch the top of his head—Deeks’s head, not Dr. McDermott’s.
“I’ve got nothing on Deeks in the force-of-nature department,” I said.
Mike called while I was making dinner—which is to say I had dumped salad from a bag into a bowl and was tearing up deli turkey on it.
“Mike,” I said. “What’s up?”
“Brooke says you’re going to talk to Sarah tomorrow.”
“Yep.”
“Let me know how it goes, okay?”
“Will do.”
There was a pause. “Brooke’s thinking you and Paul might like to meet for dinner or something.”
“Not tonight. I’ve already started dinner, and I’ve got some thinking to do.”
“About the case? I’d be willing to serve as a sounding board.”
“Maybe tomorrow. Tonight I need to be alone.”
I ate my salad. I fed Deeks. I brooded about the case, mentally replaying bits of the recent courtroom action, thinking about what was coming. I got some of my best ideas walking with Deeks, but that night I had one as I was getting a jacket out of the front closet.
I stopped with my hand on the doorknob, Deeks’s eyes on my hand.
“Want to go for a ride?” I asked him.
For a moment he didn’t move, then he spun and disappeared into the house. In the kitchen I paused to hoist my briefcase to the top of the counter to get out a pen and a blank subpoena. Deeks, already sitting at the door to the garage, gave me a glance, then returned his gaze to the doorknob, his thick tail sweeping the floor.
“I’ll take that as a ‘Yes, Robin, I do want to go for a ride,’” I said over my shoulder.
As I opened the door, he came up off his front paws in an eager bounce and then was through it. The garage door began to rumble up, but he paid no attention. I opened my car door, and he leaped into my seat, then over the console. He sat looking through the front windshield as if there were something to see—there wasn’t, just a paneled wall with a light switch and the controls to the garage door.
I got into the car, and he gave the side of my face a lick. “Oh, come on. We go for rides all the time,” I said. “Remember going to Mike’s house?” Remember the hot tub? I might have said but didn’t. It would have been unkind to bring up unpleasant memories.
Deeks turned around on the seat and sat down again.
“You and I are living large,” I said, and I turned and backed out of the garage.
Shorter lived on the east side of town. I stroked Deeks’s fur absently as we rode, and he nosed occasionally at the passenger window. When he emitted a brief whine I gave in and opened the window a crack. He put his nose to the opening and breathed in the crisp, clean air of freedom. After we’d been on I-64 awhile, he started getting agitated again, and I unrolled the window enough for him to stick his head out.
“You’re not much of a conversationalist,” I said into the sound of the wind and the road noise.
His tail moved as much as the back of the seat would let it.
“Ah, the sweet scent of heaven,” I said.
The drive to Shorter’s neighborhood took twenty-five minutes, and by the time we got there it was starting to get dark. When I pulled up at the curb a block away from Shorter’s house, it occurred to me yet again that I should have brought a leash. I sat looking at Deeks, and he looked at me, encouraging me with little moves of his head to open the car door so we could get out.
“Can you heel?” I asked him.
He bobbed his head, which could have been a yes, but I was doubtful.
“See, what I’m worried about is protecting you from Larkin and company if they show up to harass us,” I said. “You’d go right up to them like they were our best friends in the world.”
His eyes on mine, he gave another little whine, and I sighed. I wished there was a place to park my car out of sight, but there was only the street. It wasn’t a fanfare of trumpets, but as a calling card my red bug was pretty unmistakable, even in the deepening twilight. Still, I hoped that since I wasn’t leaving it parked in front of Shorter’s house or Bill Hill’s, no one would associate it with me.
“Okay,” I said. I opened the door, and Deeks went right over me, taking no chances on getting left behind.
“You rascal.” I got out and closed the car door. To his credit, Deeks was waiting for me, ready to follow wherever I might lead—and in fact he stayed right with me as we walked along the bar ditch at the side of the road.
“Maybe I don’t give you enough credit,” I said. “Maybe you’re really a well-behaved dog.”
His tail thumped the side of my leg.
Still in my stealth mode, I let us into Bill Hill’s backyard on the side of the house opposite Melissa Stimmler’s. When we got to the chain-link fence that separated Bill’s backyard from Melissa’s, I said to Deeks, “You could jump this fence—couldn’t you, boy?”
He was getting enough size on him that he probably could, but maybe the dark in a strange neighborhood wasn’t the place to start. I fingered the twisted spikes that protruded above the fence’s top bar, looking down at him.
“Okay.” I bent next to him to put a forearm under his body just behind his front legs and another just in front of his back, then straightened, raising him like I was a human forklift. I had to hunch my shoulders and stand on tiptoes to get his legs over the fence; then I bent over the fence to lower him as much as I could. When the spikes started digging into my ribs, I had to let him go. He landed softly and did a quick circle to scout out the surroundings as I put a hand to the top bar of the fence and vaulted over, scissoring my right leg over, then my left.
Deeks joined me as I climbed the steps onto Melissa’s back porch. Her kitchen light was on, illuminating the curtained wi
ndow panes in the back door. I tapped on the glass. There was no response. I got out my phone. I’d used her phone to email myself her photos, so I had her number.
“Hey, Melissa. It’s me Robin,” I typed. I pushed “Send” and waited.
“Ms. Starling?” Her frightened voice sounded from just inside the door.
“Yes. Robin,” I said. “Sorry to approach you like this.”
The door opened a couple of inches.
“I didn’t want to get you in bad with your neighbors by coming and going through the front door.” Deeks, who was, if possible, less patient than I, put his nose in the crack and pushed. Melissa jumped back from the door with a small cry, one hand going to her throat. It looked as though she wore the same housecoat she’d been wearing the last time I saw her.
“Sorry,” I said. “I should have mentioned I brought company.” Deeks hadn’t stayed for introductions but had trotted past Melissa into her living room and disappeared. “It’s my dog, Deacon. I call him Deeks, mostly, because Deacon seemed like too big a name for the little puppy I started with a few months ago.”
Deeks reentered the kitchen, his tail wagging, and stopped in front of Melissa, looking up.
“If you wanted to scratch the top of his head, he’d like that,” I said. “But you don’t have to. Deeks!”
He didn’t even glance in my direction, just stayed where he was, his eyes on Melissa as he awaited his due.
Tentatively, she reached out a pale hand, ready to snatch it back. Deeks didn’t react when the tips of her fingers touched his head, but the cadence of his tail wagging did pick up a notch as she moved her fingers back and forth against his skull.
“Hello, Deeks,” she whispered.
Deeks gave her housecoat a lick and came back to me.
“Okay,” I told him. I looked up at Melissa. “Do you have more Sleepytime?”
“Of course.” She hesitated, then picked the kettle off the stove and took it to the sink.
“Larkin was on the witness stand today,” I told her. “I don’t guess he’s been by this evening.”
Devil in the Dock (A Robin Starling Courtroom Mystery) Page 15