All Rise

by Rosemarie Aquilina

  “Uh-uh, whoever you are.” Carlye punctuated each syllable with a jerk of her head that made me fear for her neck. “That there’s a bona fide working woman’s station. And it’s all mine. Hand’s off.”

  “Settle down. No one’s taking your station. There’s an empty station next to you.” I wanted to avoid a Technicolor cat-fight.

  “Thank you, Honey. That’s awesome.” His voice flowed like warm cream rinse. He and his bag boogied to the station.

  Carlye pointed a long finger at Dinkie-Do. “No, you did not. No one calls our Judge Honey. Least of all you.”

  Dinkie-Do stepped between stations and stood within Carlye’s space. Eye-to-eye, he kept pace with her. The dual head bobs were impressive.

  “We’ll work out your employment terms—” I called over.

  Dinkie-Do and Carlye were facing each other in eye-dueling mode and ignored me. I decided the new station-mates would have to work it out and was confident they would when I heard Dinkie-Do exclaim. “My working with you is all set.” He snapped his fingers, twirled, and opened his bag before Carlye could breathe out a vowel.

  It was useless to give direction. The magic of the black robe was gone. Considering flying drawers and staff hiring themselves, my control was sketchy at best.

  Chapter Twenty

  “Welcome, Dinkie-Do.” I handed him a contract I’d quickly asked Trisha to print, then grinned. “Where are you staying?”

  “I don’t have me a place yet.” Dinkie-Do batted his lashes and puckered his lips, then placed the paper across his heart.

  I gripped the back of my stylist chair, where Hunter relaxed. “You let me know if I can help you find a place or if you need help with anything else to get settled.”

  “You are too kind.” Dinkie-Do not only brightened, I swore he grew two inches.

  “Carlye, you’ll assist Dinkie-Do.”

  She harrumphed, and he smiled at her. “You have space,” Dinkie-Do said. “I have time, know-how, and need. Win-win-win-win. Love-it.” He clapped his hands, unleashed his black bag, signed the contract, and handed me his framed license.

  “Dinkie-Do?” Carlye faced him, one finger on her right hip, head-to-toe in leopard print. “I heard a lot of names on the street, but there ain’t no one who’d survive a day wit that name.”

  He didn’t look at her.

  Dinkie-Do curtseyed to me. “Everyone in style in New York wants a Dinkie-Do.”

  “That’s just silly—a grown man going around with a name where everybody thinks he ain’t got a package to play with.” Carlye shook her head. “Now that just ain’t right.”

  Hmm. It’s all about perspective. The world saw me as a killer. I studied the room. And right on time Margo, red gum a-crackling, returned a freshly shampooed Hunter to my station.

  “Think of Dinkie-Do as one more person for Shazam to love,” I said, then returned to the towel-headed Hunter.

  Carlye mumbled toward Dinkie-Do, who was already fully engaged in decorating his station with all the elegance of a ballerina.

  Time to focus on Hunter’s hair and work my magic. I combed through it.

  “I know you have a plan,” Hunter said.

  I snipped, combed, snipped some more.

  My brain curled. “I have a plan to become a free woman.” Finally, I could get to the real business of the day. “The records I—” But Detective Grayson suddenly loomed large in my airspace—and I dropped my shears and stooped to retrieve them.

  “Which records would those be?” Grayson fist-bumped Hunter. Since my arrest, the arrival of Detective-anyone was a bad-hair day walking.

  Hunter spoke up. “I like my ears where they are.” He took the shears away from me.

  Like new-found brothers, Hunter and Detective Grayson aimed their collective boldness at me. Their bond electrified my tether. Damn.

  Carlye swirled a hip at me. “No fair keepin’ alla those men to yourself.” She pouted red lips at two silent officers hovering behind Grayson.

  “Dropped something.” Detective Grayson reached under the edge of the floor cabinet, picked up a rolled paper tied with ribbon, and handed it to me.

  It reminded me of a graduation diploma. I was just thrilled to be handed any paper that wasn’t another damn warrant. It must’ve popped out of my workstation drawer with the rest of the mess.

  “Thank you—” But as I spoke, my throat seized.

  “What brings you here?” Hunter asked.

  Grayson avoided Hunter and honed in on me, leaning forward like he could get me to confess something by his sheer intensity. “Strange activity on your GPS.”

  Before I could reopen my mouth, Hunter answered, “Can’t be. I’m on guard duty, and I can show you a log of where she’s been.”

  Detective Grayson squinted and scanned me head-to-toe and back. “Really?” He still didn’t look away from me to Hunter. “Our transmission and the report suddenly had cyber-brain farts.”

  “Her ex hired me to watch her.” Hunter mirrored Grayson’s tone. “And, I can testify to every minute if you want to challenge her moves.”

  I needed to get into protective mode with an anti-crazy-male-banter cloud. I grabbed my hairspray and sprayed a cloud over me.

  “You’ve been here all day?” Grayson pointed at me and twirled his finger to indicate the general area.

  Ugh, I needed a hot shower to erase his over-obvious have you had sex with her, tone. I sprayed more hairspray.

  Grayson coughed and finally focused on Hunter. “She hasn’t been anywhere but here?” He removed his yellow sports coat, revealing a white muscle shirt. He draped the jacket over his left arm, coughed again, and covered his nose.

  Hairspray fumes. Good for evacuating vermin—I hoped.

  Grayson reached into his inner jacket pocket and slapped a folded paper into Hunter’s hand. “GPS printout.”

  “So what? You spot checked and found an inconclusive time period.” Hunter returned the paper. “That error is on the tracker, not Nic.”

  “My job is to warn her.” Grayson turned to me and spoke slowly. “Consider yourself warned.”

  “I was meaning to ask you, Detective, isn’t it a tad convenient that only my DNA was found on Donnettelli’s gun?” But I buckled my lips before more spurted out.

  “Negative. As expected, Donnettelli and his assistant’s DNA were also found. We know assistants touch everything. You are a suspect, so confirmation of your DNA on the gun wasn’t any surprise.”

  Inside behind my grown-up poker face, I was making a mocking ugly-face at him.

  He headed toward the front door but stopped and turned back to me. “You wouldn’t know anything about exploding garbage behind Peter Dune’s house—I mean the same night Donnettelli was killed?”

  I told Hunter that Peter Dune was Donnettelli’s Law Clerk and bar-hopping sidekick, and the objectionable detective got only: “Negative.”

  He looked at me like a fed-up dad looks at a misbehaving teen and left.

  I pointed Hunter’s butt back into the stylist chair. “You two are friends?” I asked.

  “Promise you’ll shear a straight line?” Hunter got comfortable. “Grayson and I have worked together some, and he drives a mean golf ball.”

  “I can live without him and his cronies.” I untied then unrolled the paper Grayson had handed me. Two documents. I set them on Hunter’s lap.

  “By Jove, I spy a clue,” he said.

  I peered at the papers and lifted the top one. “Looks like a copy of Donnettelli’s docket. A list of cases he would’ve heard that day.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Law clerks use the docket list to note the final decision on each case to ensure the day’s outcome is properly input into the Register of Actions, which becomes a public record.” I took a closer look at the paper. “That’s why the page is marked-up.�
�� I pointed to the handwritten notes.

  Hunter peered closer at it. “There are marks like the paper has been crumbled. But who pulled it?”

  I shook my head and pointed to the corner with the date.

  “It’s from a few weeks before he was killed. Looks like there were no criminal cases before him that day,” Hunter said.

  “Exactly right.” I frowned. “This list is weird. Every one of these cases are big money or high-profile.”

  “Doesn’t sound weird. Rich people like to sue,” Hunter said.

  “But cases are assigned randomly,” I explained. “On any given day, you’d expect to see a variety of kinds of cases. I don’t think this many big corporate-money cases landing on one judicial docket could happen by accident.”

  “So Donnettelli’s mess with the Manville case wasn’t just him trying to bully you.”

  “Donnettelli’s bullying, like his gruffness, allowed him to maneuver almost anything without further question by anyone.” I grabbed the paper underneath. A copy of a bank deposit with my name on it. “One-hundred-thousand dollars?”

  Hunter reviewed the slip, and his brows did something complicated. “That bank deposit with your name on it could point to motive—yours or someone else’s. The docket could, too—if you were upset about it in any way—or maybe there is something that calls you into question.”

  “Not my motive—not my account.”

  “Maybe the bank slip was planted here to goad you into action?”

  “Goad me into cleaning my drawer?”

  “Maybe to upset you so much you’d do something to incriminate yourself,” Hunter said.

  I tossed the papers back onto Hunter’s lap.

  “I want to be clear.” Hunter studied the pages. “You’ve never seen either document before today?”

  “Never.”

  “You’ve said Donnettelli wasn’t the brightest candle on the cake.” Hunter waited.

  “Even so, he wouldn’t leave a bank slip around for anyone to pick out of the trash,” I said. “We have a main shredder—budget didn’t allow judges to have their own, but it’s on next year’s budget list to have one for every suite of offices. I know because I’ve asked for one every year and was denied.” None of this made sense.

  “Who has access to the shredding pile?”

  “Just about everyone in the Courthouse,” I said, but decided to contemplate that answer more fully later.

  “So, Your Honor, what does this tell you?”

  “Multiple cases link Donnettelli and me together because they were assigned to one of us and then reassigned to the other. Essentially that means we both touched the file and it’s likely we each made rulings, but that depends on the file. The bank deposit slip is ominous because it fits into ‘follow the money,’ but the money isn’t mine.” My head shook, my stomach turned, my mind wandered. I was anxious to compare the docket with the copies of the files I’d made. I needed to get inside Donnettelli’s Chambers to tear it apart.

  Hunter leaned forward and whispered so only I could hear, “If this slip ties to you in any way, it’s evidence that leads back to you being the murderer. It will look like you are part of a scheme to silence Donnettelli, so you could continue to profit from whatever he was into.”

  “That slip says nothing to me, means nothing to me, and it’s not mine.”

  “It says payoff. It’s circumstantial. And, it has your name on it, which speaks to ownership.”

  As soon as Hunter’s haircut was done, I told Trisha where I was going and swore her to secrecy. Without interruption, Hunter and I would study the evidence until Sebastian joined us.

  I had asked for evidence. Note to self: must be more specific. Damn it. Find evidence that leads away from me, not back to me.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Four city blocks from my salon, I slid into a booth in the Dublin Square Diner, and Hunter sat across from me. It was almost three, and the lunch crowd had dispersed, leaving the place quiet and private. We needed to scrutinize every possible way to interpret “follow the money” and where money and Donnettelli and I intersected.

  The docket and deposit slip looked damming; could they have come from a friend? I had to figure out which money the mystery-clue-leaver meant for me to follow and whether it would lead to the real murderer. Sebastian had promised to text me as soon as his morning trial concluded, and I intended to have a plan in place before we next spoke.

  Ever powerful, Hunter aimed a spoon at me. “You have a knack for trouble.”

  I bugged my eyes at him, and the waitress sauntered over, pad and pen in hand. We ordered food, she ogled Hunter, and he settled all his male boldness back in the booth. One nod from him dismissed her.

  Back to me, he asked, “With Donnettelli—exactly what did you exchange?”

  “A few ugly words—regularly, but nothing else—ever.”

  “His staff is still employed by the Court?”

  “They’re assisting visiting judges with Donnettelli’s docket until the election in November. The County will fill his position then.” I made a mental reminder to charm Donnettelli’s former judicial assistant. We’d always gotten along. I’d ask her about enemies, stalkers, and threats. And I’d try to get a copy of his schedule book. But I knew she was loyal to him, even dead. To get her to help me I was going to need some serious chocolate.

  “About this exploding candy and confetti,” I asked, “was this docket and deposit slip a real clue from someone trying to help me?”

  “If it were an enemy, Toots, it wouldn’t have been flying Skittles. You’re a pariah. Nobody but me is willing to get close to you,” he said.

  I gazed past him and smiled at solid muscle under Australian leather, my Sebastian, in rapid approach. He slid in next to me, kissed me, and said, “Good to see you.”

  Hunter gave me the grown-up equivalent of the teenage-whatever look.

  Sebastian tossed his briefcase onto the seat, then placed a curious manila envelope in front of me. He pointed to the envelope. “Doll, that’s a gift from the Prosecutor in my current trial.” His Australian accent warmed me in every situation. I introduced the men, chugged ice water, and focused on the envelope.

  After Sebastian tipped his Crocodile Dundee hat toward Hunter, and the men conducted a brief male-bonding ritual, Sebastian looked at me. “I’ve got good oil.”

  “How good is this information?” I lifted the envelope.

  “Buffet first?” Sebastian grinned.

  So not that good. I set the envelope down.

  “I’m hungry,” Hunter said and spoke pointedly to Sebastian. “There’s a free parking space out front where you can park that hat.” He stood and headed for the buffet.

  Sebastian made his eyes big at me. “A hat hater?” He removed it and tossed it atop his briefcase.

  Sebastian’s Australian accent and musky Dior scent soothed me; still, I needed a little ice water, not necessarily in the glass.

  As we walked toward the buffet, I whispered, “You didn’t text. How’d you find me? Slip my staff truth serum?”

  “Trisha caved like a newborn joey.” Sebastian grinned.

  We filled plates and bowls, and back at the table, we all arranged our plates around the envelope.

  Sebastian dipped his head at it. “Open it.”

  I picked it up, reversed the metal prongs, flipped the flap, pulled out a smaller envelope with a stack of papers, and thumbed through them. Bank accounts. Bank deposits. All in my name. All opened in the six months before Donnettelli was killed.

  Just then the server clattered in with drinks, Sebastian helped distribute them, and the server melted over him with giggles.

  Hunter crushed a bag of oyster crackers and dumped it atop his bowl of broccoli soup. “Crocodile’s staying?” Hunter jabbed a fork into his salad.

  “We’ve
attorney-client business to discuss.” Sebastian popped a grape in his mouth.

  When Hunter’s wandering Nike pressed up from my ankle to my knee, I crossed my legs, and the shoe disappeared. He wasn’t playing fair; he’d said he didn’t mix business and pleasure, so why the sudden touching? But I was so hungry I wanted to dive into my soup and cry yippee, while someone shredded the obnoxious paper in front of me. All mouths but mine were filled, and all eyes were focused on the papers in my hands.

  Sebastian donned his take-charge lawyer face and asked Hunter, “Think you could rack off for a bit? I need a moment with my client.”

  Hunter leaned back and stretched his long arms across the back of the booth. “Relax, chew, practice wearing a real man’s hat.”

  Sebastian tossed a grape onto Hunter’s salad plate.

  Before Sebastian could toss another, Hunter pulled up a one-hundred-dollar bill and slapped it in front of Sebastian. “Count me into the attorney-client relationship.”

  I was witnessing a boy version of a girl-fight, but I felt more like turf than girl.

  Sebastian squeezed my knee under the table, and I relaxed some. His steady gaze triggered me to check my clothing to ensure it hadn’t evaporated. His voice was low. “Any conflict I should know about?”

  Between me and Hunter? “Nary a discouraging word.” I looked back and forth between the men, our booth a fog of pheromones.

  Sebastian pocketed the bill. “Consider this lunch meeting a confidential chinwag.”

  “Excuse me?” Hunter asked.

  “Aussie slang for a chat.” I shifted uncomfortably, and it wasn’t because my interpreter skills were getting their usual workout. “As for these bogus bank accounts, I have no explanation.” I thwacked the pages onto the table. “These were invented.” I picked out the tossed-in grape from Hunter’s salad and popped it into my mouth, and I prayed.

  My man friend didn’t miss a beat. “Your name, address, and Social Security number appear on each account.”

  “One-hundred-thousand dollars?” Hunter reached into his pocket for the marked-up docket we’d found. He held it so Sebastian and I could see it.