With a sigh, he pressed a button hidden under the desk. The metal door next to his tiny office clicked and buzzed loudly. I pulled hard and almost toppled over backwards. The door was not nearly as heavy as it appeared. It swung wide, inviting me in.
Tiptoeing down the hallway, I wove past the drunks that stuck their hands through the bars, trying to cop a feelski. One even had the gall to whistle as I walked by, causing spit to fly everywhere. “Sorry,” he said with a sheepish shrug as I shook off my arm and glared at him.
“Who’s there?” I heard a quiet whisper at the end of the short hall. I have to admit, the overnight facilities, while barren, where much nicer than I had expected. What was more, there weren’t nearly as many cells as I’d suspected. In movies, the hallways go on forever. In reality, the hallway only had about ten holding cells, two of which looked like they were capable of handling larger groups. Granted, this was just the overnight accommodations, not a jailhouse. I shuddered to think of anyone who would get stuck in there.
“Addison?” I whispered back.
“Marian? Is that you?” I scrambled towards her cell. Once I was standing outside of it, I put my hands on the bars and leaned against their cold bumpy surface. Addison did the same. Our foreheads touched and I immediately felt my heartbeat begin to return to normal, knowing that she was safe. “How did you get back here?”
“I don’t have much time,” I said, ignoring her question. “Do you like Corbin? Do you think he can help you? If not, Addison, I will find you someone amazing. I don’t care how long it takes.”
“No, Corbin is wonderful,” she assured me. “It’s just-” I covered one of her hands in mine and waited for her to continue. Her breathing became labored and I could tell she was trying not to cry. After a few moments, she regained composure and continued. “I didn’t do it. And he believes me. I know he does.”
“But?” I asked gently, knowing her well enough to know that she had more to say.
“But he’s so high profile,” she said softly. “This case is already going to be all over the news. Corbin is just going to push it further into the spotlight. And Marian, the man is known for civil rights cases. Cases that are changing the course of history. What could he possibly see with a case like mine?”
“Since when do you not like the spotlight?” I teased. She laughed but I could tell it was forced. I decided to change the subject. After all, we hadn’t had to convince Corbin to take the case. He’d wanted it without question. Whatever his reasons were didn’t matter to me, as long as he helped free Addie. “What did Corbin say as far as next steps?”
“The preliminary hearing is set for Friday morning at ten. That’s two whole days from now. Prelim is with Judge Fishel. I’ve sat in her court before for stories. Marian? She’s really tough.”
“We’re all going to be there. We’ll support you.”
“Can you believe they’re making me wear this?” She looked down at her standard-issue gray shirt, pants and slippers.
“What happened to the velour?”
She shrugged. “I wore my regular clothes to the hospital and that hideous frog suit back here. Then they gave me these, because they said I was whining about the green too much. This whole thing is just ridiculous. At least let me wear a pantsuit. Not these scrubs like some common criminal.”
“You are a common criminal.”
“Innocent until proven guilty,” she sniffed. “Besides, it’s not like anyone else in here is dressed as if they’ve already been convicted.” She waved her arms as if proving a point. “I’m the only one not allowed to wear my own clothes.”
We stood quietly for a moment, unable to look at one another in the eye. “You know we’ll find out who really did this,” I finally said. “We’ll find them and we’ll clear you and this will all make a great story in some distant future.”
“I’ve decided that I’m going to write a book about the whole experience,” she declared. “About the ridiculousness that is the prison system in this country. About the shoddy police work that counts for a case these days. Thank God I can write well. When I get out of here, I’m going to rip this whole state apart, piece by piece. Then I’m going to set it on fire.”
She’d set her jaw and her eyes were narrow and focused. I knew that look and I knew better than to try to argue with her. At least, I wouldn’t be arguing right then. I only chuckled. Just then, I heard the door at the end of the hallway rip open. Addison and I turned to one another, our eyes as wide as saucers. It was Mildred. “You!” she bellowed, pointing a short, pudgy finger at me. She moved at an impressive pace down the hallway and stopped just short of Addison’s cell. “I told you visiting hours were over.”
“Technically, that’s not quite true,” I replied. “You only suggested it, but you didn’t actually speak the words, ‘Marian, I’m sorry but visiting hours are over.’” Mildred glared at me and I felt myself swallowing hard. “But I’ll still go,” I added quickly, shooting an apologetic glance as Addison. Mildred started to take my arm but I shook her off and began walking towards the exit on my own.
“See you soon,” Addison called after me quietly.
The others began applauding after my exit from the back of the jail. I curtseyed dramatically as Mildred stalked back to her egg salad and reruns. “Ballsy,” Corbin said appreciatively. “I like it. I hope Addison has just as much in terms of guts as you do.”
Smiling, I approached the group. I’d never thought of myself as ballsy, but I liked it. Perhaps the last few months, rough though they’d been, were helping me approach life more head-on.
Everyone looked completely wiped out. Not that I blamed them. I was feeling rather tired myself and, what was worse, I’m sure I looked it. “I take it you got the skinny from Addison?” Carly asked kindly.
I nodded. “Any ideas where we want to stay tonight?”
“What do you mean?” Corbin asked. I quickly explained about the media ambush at my studio and that we’d all decided to stay somewhere far away from home for the time being. “It’s on me,” Corbin replied, pulling a phone out of his pocket. He dialed a number quickly and smiled as soon as the other line picked up. “Aaron!” he said, joyfully walking away from us. “It’s Tom Corbin. Listen, I need a favor.”
An hour and a half later, Carly and I were standing in the middle of an incredibly large black and gray marble room. Whistling under her breath, Carly dropped her purse to the floor. “Nice favor.”
As it turned out, Corbin had defended and won the case of a hotel manager’s daughter back when Corbin was first starting out. Charlotte, the daughter, had been a bit of a partier and got in with the wrong crowd for a while. She wasn’t a bad kid; she just made poor choices for the majority of her teenage years. Last I heard, she’d joined a non-profit and was fighting malaria across Africa. The hotel that the manager owned, an incredibly upscale monstrosity, was located just a few blocks from the courthouse. In fact, we could see the building from our window high on the tenth floor.
None of us had wanted to risk racing home to pack a suitcase and having a reporter follow us back to our hideout. We had, however, made a stop through a corner store to purchase the essentials. “Sexy,” Mika had told me when I tossed a pair of white high cotton briefs into my basket.
“It’s all they have,” I’d fired back defensively. I’d never gone commando in my life, and the thought of doing it for several days in a row was enough to make me purchase the hideous panties, despite my hesitation at the checkout counter.
Once Carly and I arrived in our room, I debated taking a shower for only a few seconds before I collapsed into one of two king beds and promptly dozed off.
The next two days flew by with very few changes. Carly and I were unable to obtain anything decent from the Milwaukee Police Department. It was amazing what they’d block you from when they knew you were friends with a suspected killer. Sheesh. Such a lack of trust.
Mika, to his credit, did what he could to pull up additional information, as
well, by way of his rather impressive hacking skills. Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to get much further than Carly and I, the police having a rather spendy new security system in place that kept him from breaking into their system altogether for the time being. Our group wasn’t even allowed back into Carmen’s hotel, let alone the murder scene, though we had each tried several times. The MPD had truly thought of everything. I couldn’t help but take it just a wee bit personally.
The only person that was likely to have anything connected to the murder at all was James, as he was likely working with the prosecution. But prying anything out of him would be impossible and we knew it. I was still tempted to try but decided to wait for an opening.
Worst of all, I hadn’t been allowed to see Addison. My sneak attack had managed to ban me as her visitor. She’d been transferred out of temporary holding but that didn’t seem to matter. The new place had heard of me, too.
The night before the prelim, Rory, Mika and I sat glumly in the hotel restaurant, staring at our dinners, which had long since cooled. Defeat wasn’t really in our natures but we were feeling beat down and exhausted, having spent 48 hours searching with nothing to show for it. On the other hand, 48 hours was gold for the police, who had probably gathered enough evidence against Addison in that short time to send her away forever.
The bill finally arrived, our waiter realizing that we wouldn’t be eating, nor taking anything with us. I signed off, pushed back from the table without excusing myself and slowly shuffled my feet towards the elevator. The others didn’t follow.
Back upstairs in my room, I heard loud, joyful giggles. They sounded an awful lot like Carly’s. While she and I were rapidly becoming friends, I have to admit that her lack of seriousness the night before Addison’s prelim pissed me off. I’m not quite sure why but the irrational anger rose in my throat. Before I could control myself, I stalked around the corner and prepared to give her a piece of my mind. I’d just sucked in a sharp breath when I noticed that the television was on. One of my favorite comedians was explaining why women were clearly the stronger sex — one of his strongest skits, in my humble opinion. Carly was sprawled out on the floor. Three mini bottles of rum, two cans of soda and a case of Pringles were empty in front of her. Carly’s face was red enough to match her hair and her cheeks were tear-stained from laughing so hard. She was dressed in nothing more than a hotel bathrobe, her outfit from the day of Carmen’s death nearly three days old and heaped in an armchair. Her trademark bangle of gold bracelets were scattered across the bedside table.
“What in the world?” was all that I could muster.
Carly’s laugh stopped short but she looked up at me, grinning from ear to ear. Thrusting her half-filled glass at me, she said, “Here, just sip.”
I did. The concoction burned my throat and my eyes immediately began to tear. “How much alcohol is in this?” I asked, once I had regained taste in my taste buds.
Carly shrugged. Her words slightly slurred, she muttered, “After a while you can’t really tell a difference.”
“You realize we have to be at court in the morning. To represent a suspected killer who also happens to be a very good friend of mine.”
Carly shrugged. “Isn’t it weird that we haven’t been able to come up with a single shred of evidence that proves the police wrong? Doesn’t that bother you?”
“Yes it bothers me. No, I’m not surprised. I’m started to get used to being frozen out of cases. I think I need to find a new line of work.”
“I’m not used to it. I have a badge for crying out loud. I graduated from the academy. I worked my ass off and beat out the majority of the men and every single woman in our department in the fitness test last month. It should mean something, you know? It should mean something.”
“You really did that well?”
She took the glass back from me and slugged half of what was left. “Yup. I haven’t touched alcohol in months. Or sugar. Do you know how much junk I’ve eaten in the last 24 hours?” She eyed the Pringles. “Tastes good. Real good. Why do I care about being healthy for them or doing good work when they just freeze me out?” The remaining liquor sloshed about in her cup, spilling onto her robe and the carpet.
“We really should get you some water.”
“Care to join me?” Carly’s face was filled with hope. I thought hard but couldn’t remember the last time I’d really cut loose. If there was any excuse that qualified, I think your best friend being on trial for a murder she didn’t commit is pretty close to the top of the list. Carly clearly needed a friend right now. Plus, I was the reason she couldn’t do her job, despite her best efforts to be top of the class. I owed her.
“What the hell,” I said, taking her glass and slamming the remainder of the drink. I felt my face wrinkle in disgust and my body shudder as the beverage cooled my throat and began rolling around in my stomach. “Oh, that was bad.”
Carly smiled and patted the spot on the floor next to her. When I sat down, she methodically began to refill my glass with ice from the tumbler beside her. Then, unscrewing the cap of a mini rum bottle, she proceeded to dump the whole thing into my short, squat glass, adding a splash of soda for color. “Drink up,” she encouraged, wobbling to her feet, “I’m going to grab another glass.”
The next thing I knew, a blaring screech jolted me awake. It took me a few seconds to shake off the sleep and realize that our room phone was ringing. My headed pounded. My mouth felt dry and rough. I ran my tongue along the roof of my mouth and smacked my lips together a few times. I’d been dreaming. It had been something about Addison’s case — a clue, maybe? I couldn’t recall, but the ear-splitting ring cut through my thoughts again.
Sitting up, I reached for the earpiece. “Hello?” I asked sleepily, plopping back into my pillows.
“7 o’clock. Time to rise and shine, beautiful,” Mika purred through the receiver.
“Shop downstairs doesn’t open until eight,” I grumbled. We were purchasing court clothes this morning from the boutique. We’d meant to do it the last two days but our search and rescue efforts, combined with avoiding the media, had always gotten us back to the hotel just after the boutique’s closing time. None of us had dared venture home yet.
“But breakfast opened at six. And I know how you get when you’re hungry. Or hungover.”
“How did you-”
“I’m a private investigator, Love. I know everything.”
I smiled into the pillow. “Meet you downstairs in ten.”
“Meet you outside your door in three,” he said sternly. With that, he clicked off.
“Rats,” I muttered, reaching out to place the phone back into its cradle. I missed. “Dagnabit,” I said, trying again, my face still buried in the mountain of fluffy pillows. I missed again. Finally, I rolled over, sat up and replaced the receiver properly. Yawning quietly and stretching, trying hard not to move my pounding head too much, I looked around the room and attempted to orient myself.
I was just about to gently wake Carly when the bathroom door opened and steam came billowing out into our room. “Morning, Sunshine!” she chirped. She was dressed in the plain cotton shirt and shorts she’d purchased the same night I’d bought my hideous white briefs, a pair of fuzzy monogrammed hotel slippers on her feet. Her damp hair had been lightly fussed with and her complexion was totally makeup-free. While she was never the dolled-up type, I realized I’d also never seen her so casual looking. Her hair, while usually loose, was also ramrod straight. When it was wet, you could tell it tended to take on a slight wave and I found myself wondering how she’d managed to tame it over the last few days without her usual tools. My hair was a mess. Carly’s foundation, usually ever so light with just a fleck of pencil on her lids, was also missing. She was a natural beauty to be sure. “Who was on the phone?”
“How are you not hungover?” I groaned, ignoring her question. “And don’t tell me you’re a morning person on top of everything else.” I mumbled to myself as I pushed myself out of
the bed. I was realizing that Carly had always been awake and at breakfast by the time I’d roused. In fact, I’d never awoken to her being in the room. Somehow it was more annoying that she was this bubbly when I felt like throwing up alcohol and Pringles all over the bedspread.
Stumbling over to the vanity, I squinted at myself through my tiredness. I had eye boogers in the corners of both eyes, a pillow crease across the right side of my face, and a thin line of drool dried at the right corner of my lips. Frowning, I swiped my hand across my mouth, trying to clear away the crusties. Just then, there was a loud sharp knock on our door, which caused me to wince in pain.
Carly looked at me questioningly as I scrambled to fluff my hair and pinch some color into my cheeks. “Hey, strangers!” she said as soon as she opened the door and realized it was Mika and Rory.
“I gave you five minutes, Moyer,” Mika teased, glancing at his watch.
“I got you the extra two,” Rory told me proudly. “Told him there was no way you could be ready in three.”
“As it turns out, she also can’t be ready in five,” Carly laughed at me, giving her hair a final scrunch. I glared at the lot and noticed they were all in the cheap cotton outfits they’d also purchased from the corner drug store. They weren’t really appropriate for case hunting so up until now, they’d remained in their bags, tags on. However, we’d worn our street clothes a few days in a row and they had started to smell like it. In addition to the cheap but clean clothes, the boys were also scrubbed rosy from the shower.
“Are you all morning people?” I asked, pulling myself towards them glumly. I felt dirty, still wearing my day-of-arrest street clothes (though I did have on a pair of my new undies), my teeth not brushed, and my vision blurry from sleeping in my contacts.
“You’d better believe it, Sweet Cheeks,” Mika chuckled, slapping my butt as I walked past him towards the elevator.
Alllison Janda - Marian Moyer 03 - Scandal, Temptation & a Taste of Flan Page 8