The Perfect Alibi (Robin Lockwood #2)(5)

Robin had been attracted to Jeff since she joined Regina’s firm. There was a moment during a recent case when she’d asked him to go to bed with her. It was in Atlanta, right after someone had tried to kill her. Jeff was enough of a gentleman to avoid taking advantage of the situation. Wary of an office romance, neither had ever mentioned what had happened. That didn’t stop Robin from finding Jeff attractive, and she was certain that he felt the same way but was as gun-shy as she was.

“We just got an interesting new case,” Robin said as she took a seat across the desk from Jeff.

“What do you want me to do?” Jeff asked when Robin finished filling him in.

“Find out who’s prosecuting and see if they’ll share, but it wouldn’t hurt to get some background on Blaine Hastings. See if you can find any other women who say that he molested them. And interview Annie Roche if you can do it quietly. We don’t want to give Hastings’s lawyer ammunition to argue that Randi is setting him up to make money with a lawsuit.”

“Gotcha, boss.”

Robin liked spending time with Jeff, and she was tempted to ask if he wanted to go to lunch, but Jeff’s intercom buzzed and Linda asked if Robin was with him.

“I’m here,” Robin said.

“Judge Wright phoned while you were in with your clients. He wants you to call him.”

“I’ll go back to my office. Get him on the line for me, will you?”

Robin liked Harold Wright and considered him to be one of the sharpest jurists on the Multnomah County Circuit Court, but she didn’t have any cases in the judge’s court right now. She wondered what he wanted to talk about. Moments after she was back in her office, she found out.

“Robin, I have a favor to ask,” the judge said when they were connected.

“Shoot.”

“A police officer was killed last night, and the DA has charged a man named Everett Henderson with aggravated murder. It’s going to be a controversial case. You’re next up on the capital murder court-appointment list. Do you have the time to handle it?”

“Yeah. My caseload isn’t too demanding right now.”

“Okay. Thanks, Robin.”

“Who’s the DA?”

“Rex Kellerman.”

Robin stifled the urge to swear. Rex Kellerman was a handsome runner of marathons, who dyed the gray strands mixed into his wavy black hair. He sported a well-groomed mustache, a year-round tan, and looked great smiling at juries with pearly white teeth and laughing blue eyes. Anyone who didn’t know him would take him for a gentleman. Within the bar, Kellerman had a reputation as a dishonest little shit who could never be trusted.

“I assume you waited until I agreed to take the case to tell me that Rex was prosecuting.”

Wright chuckled. “No backsies.”

“Yeah, well, you just lost my vote when you run for reelection.”

The judge laughed; then he said, “See you in court, Counselor.”





CHAPTER TWO


English majors were expected to read highbrow literature, and law school students were supposed to spend all their time slogging through legal minutiae, but Douglas Armstrong had a dirty little secret. As an undergraduate and a law student, he had spent an inordinate amount of time reading mystery novels. Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot was his favorite detective. That’s why the lawyer had fallen into the habit of using his “little grey cells” to deduce facts about potential clients as soon as they were ushered into his law office.

Blaine Hastings Sr. pushed his way past Armstrong’s secretary, and Armstrong decided Hastings was a take-charge type who was used to having his way. Hastings’s thinning blond hair was combed across his scalp to hide his bald spot, which the lawyer took for a sign of vanity. The broken corpuscles that crisscrossed his puffy nose, and the beefy man’s beet-red complexion, screamed alcoholic. His six-foot-plus size, thick chest and shoulders, and the paunch that strained the fabric of his buttoned suit coat were the physique of an athlete gone to seed. And he kept sucking his gut in, another indication that the man was vain. Armstrong also noted that Blaine’s suit was expensive—possibly hand-tailored—so the Hastingses had money.

These deductions were strengthened by a quick scan of Hastings’s wife. Gloria followed her husband into Armstrong’s office, her hands gripping her purse tightly and her shoulders bowed from tension. The expensively dressed bottle blonde looked like an aging cheerleader who had suffered through too many plastic surgeries and undergone way too many tanning studio appointments in a losing battle with Father Time. Cheerleaders dated football players, and people with money could afford plastic surgery and spa treatments.

Armstrong indicated the client chairs on the other side of his granite-topped desk and said, “Please, have a seat.”

Blaine accepted the offer grudgingly, which told the attorney that he was not in the habit of following orders even when they were benign. Gloria sat stiffly. Her stress radiated toward Armstrong like a laser.

“How can I help you?” Armstrong asked.

“It’s our son,” Gloria answered. “He was arrested this morning.”

“What is he charged with?”

“He said he was arrested for rape,” Gloria answered. She sounded bewildered.

“What’s your son’s name?”