The Perfect Alibi (Robin Lockwood #2)(73)

At ten to eleven, Turnbull reappeared. Ivar closed his book and slipped out of his car. Turnbull turned the corner and was enveloped in shadows. Ivar walked up behind Norcross’s CEO and shot him with a silenced pistol. He was headed back to his car before Turnbull collapsed on the sidewalk. He was fairly certain that no nosy neighbor had seen him or his car, but he wasn’t worried if he was in error. He had worn a disguise, and the car was stolen. He would leave it at the airport tonight before boarding a flight to Madrid using a ticket he had obtained under the false name that matched the name in his forged passport.





CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE


Doug Armstrong smiled when his secretary ushered Robin into his office a little before five in the afternoon. “Hi, Robin. What’s up?”

“I haven’t seen you in a while, and I wanted to see how you’re feeling.”

“Thanks for asking. I’m about ninety percent.”

“Still having trouble remembering what happened on the evening Frank was murdered?”

Doug stopped smiling and shook his head. “That’s still a blank. I keep trying, but…” He shook his head again.

“I might be able to help you fill in the blanks.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. I know who killed Frank.”

“Really?”

Robin nodded.

“That’s great! Who killed him?”

“We both know the answer to that question.”

Doug looked puzzled, and Robin flashed a sad smile. “You can stop pretending. I know you murdered your best friend and I know why.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You were always the most likely suspect. You were alone with Frank when he was killed, and your blood was under his fingernail. But everyone knew you and Frank were best friends, and you’d been in a great mood when you got back from Seattle, so everyone gave you a pass because no one could think of a motive so strong that you would kill Frank.”

“That’s because I would never kill Frank. I owed him everything.”

“And he was going to take everything from you, wasn’t he? Quite by accident, Frank had discovered a horrible secret—something you’ve been hiding for years, something that would destroy your world.”

“I don’t know where you’re going with this, Robin. I don’t have any deep, dark secrets.”

“When did you graduate from law school, Doug?”

“Nineteen eighty-eight.”

“That’s not true, is it?”

“What do you mean?”

“Frank went to New York to negotiate the Voss case with Tyler Harrison. While he was in Harrison’s office, he noticed that Harrison had graduated from Sheffield University’s law school in 1988. You’re the only other person Frank knew who had gone to Sheffield, so he told Harrison that his law partner, Doug Armstrong, had been a classmate. And that’s when Harrison destroyed the myth you’d been promoting all these years. He told Frank the truth.”

Armstrong looked directly at Robin, his mouth set in a grim line. “And what is the truth, Robin?”

“You flunked out of law school, Doug. I know that for a fact. I checked with the law school alumni association. Your diploma is a forgery. I’m guessing that you moved to Oregon because you believed that no one in this state would know anything about Sheffield University. You lied when you said you passed the Oregon Bar exam. I’ve looked for your name on every list of applicants who applied to take or passed the bar exam from 1988 on. Your name isn’t on any of the lists. You never passed, because you never took it.

Doug stared at Robin in a way that made her recall the old cliché, “If looks could kill…”

“Aren’t you going to tell me I’m mistaken?” Robin asked.

“This is your story, Robin. Go on. It sounds interesting.”

“You know, it’s amazing. Once you start practicing, everyone assumes that you graduated from a law school and passed the bar exam. No one ever challenges you or is even interested. There have been any number of cases over the years of people who falsely claimed to be attorneys and fooled everyone for years.

“Frank believed you when you told him your tale of woe in that tavern the first time you met, and once you started appearing in court, everyone assumed you were a lawyer. But you’ve been pretending all this time.

“Practicing law without a license is a criminal offense. I’m betting that’s what Frank told you when you went to his office the night you returned from Seattle. I’m guessing that you begged him to keep your secret, but Frank is known for being very ethical and he must have told you that he couldn’t do that. You knew your world would end once the cat was out of the bag, so you grabbed that sculpture, smashed Frank’s head in, and killed your best friend.”

“Even if what you say is true,” Armstrong said. “I can never be prosecuted for Frank’s murder. Thanks to you, the murder charges have been dismissed with prejudice.”

“That’s true, but you can still be charged with Tyler Harrison’s murder.”

“What makes you think I killed Harrison?”

“I couldn’t figure out why you went through this charade of having amnesia. If you had gone to the party for your associate and said that Frank was coming later, you would never have been a suspect in Frank’s murder. You would have had the perfect alibi. Then I realized that you had to disappear so you could drive to New York in Frank’s car and kill Tyler Harrison.”