Devil in the Dock (A Robin Starling Courtroom Mystery) Read Free

garage downtown.
    The door of the house next door opened, and a woman came out to stand on her front stoop, her arms folded across her chest. She didn’t say anything until I started across the lawn to Shorter’s door.
    “He ain’t there.”
    I stopped.
    “The police was waiting for him when he drove in about half an hour ago.”
    “They arrested him?”
    She was too far away for me to be sure, but she appeared to be grinning like a maniac. I started toward her, and she watched me come.
    I stopped when I got to her lawn. She was indeed grinning like a maniac.
    “I’m Robin Starling,” I said.
    “A friend of Mr. Shorter’s?”
    “No.”
    “No,” she repeated. “Bob Shorter don’t got no friends.”
    “He does seem singularly unlikable. I just met him this afternoon.”
    “So what you want with him?” She was staying on her porch, arms crossed. I took a step closer.
    “To talk to him. He thought the police might arrest him. I wanted to talk about why.”
    “Huh. Why the police might arrest him is he killed poor Mr. Hill.”
    “You think he did kill him?”
    She sniffed. “You’re a lawyer, ain’t cha?”
    “Well,” I said vaguely. In some places, lawyers were less well regarded than politicians and sex offenders.
    “You don’t want to go taking Bob Shorter’s case. He’s guilty, just as guilty as sin. He killed poor old Bill, sure as I’m standing here.”
    “You are standing there,” I acknowledged.
    “And he killed Bill Hill.”
    “Why would he do that? Do you know?”
    “Because he’s evil. That Bob Shorter would kill a man just for the pleasure of watching him die.”
    “Has he ever killed a man before?”
    She pressed her lips together, which I took as a no.
    “What makes him evil?” I asked.
    “What makes any man evil? The blackness of his soul, damn it to hell.”
    “What’s he done, though? How has the evil manifested itself?” I was trying to sound less like a lawyer, more blue-collar. You could see how that was working out.
    “What hasn’t he done?” the woman retorted.
    I waited. When she didn’t say anything, I said, “You can’t actually see the color of his soul.”
    “Oh, can’t I?” She smirked with the satisfaction of having delivered the perfect refutation.
    “Well, his soul doesn’t have to be black, does it? It could be puke green and covered with pimples and sores. The point you’re making is he’s a bad man.”
    “Yes, he is. That’s my point exactly.”
    “He’s a bad man who’s done bad things,” I prompted.
    “Oh, yes. Bad things.”
    “What’s your name, anyway?” I’d been moving closer as we talked. Now I put a foot on the step leading up to her porch and held out a hand. She didn’t take it—her arms remained folded across her chest—but she did tell me her name.
    “Jenn. Jenn Entwistle.”
    “Glad to meet you, Jenn. You know about some of these bad things he’s done. I don’t, but I’d like to.”
    She raised her eyebrows. “And how long you say you known him?”
    “A couple of hours. He did make my receptionist cry, but that’s all I know about so far.”
    “You know he killed Bill Hill.”
    “Well, no. What I know is that the police have charged him with killing Bill Hill.”
    “And why would they charge him if he ain’t done it?” Her tone was richly patronizing. “You tell me that, Ms. Lawyer.”
    “Because there’s evidence that points to him,” I suggested.
    “Exactly.”
    “But maybe there’s another explanation for the evidence that seems to point to him.”
    “What kind of explanation?”
    “I don’t know. I haven’t seen the evidence yet.”
    “Yet? You gonna to take his case, then?”
    “I guess I already have.”
    “You gonna to help that monster get away with murder.”
    “No, I hope not. If he committed murder, I wouldn’t want him to get away with it.” My expression was as mild as I could make it as I met her glare.
    “So what you gonna do?”
    “Examine the evidence to see if