Page 72 of The Devil's Advocate

Until she came across the case of Darius Robinson. He was convicted under the state party laws, which say that if you participate in a crime, you are liable for the entirety of the crime, even if you only played a minor part. Darius was convicted of robbery-homicide. He was the getaway driver for an ex-felon named Porter who took some money from a used car lot and shot the owner in the process. Darius maintained he didn’t know Porter had a gun, and he was just giving him a lift to pick up a car he’d bought. And when Porter came back to the car, running, with a gun in his hand and a bag of cash, he threatened to shoot Darius if he didn’t drive them away.

Porter was later shot and killed by police, and Darius was tracked down because two people saw his license plate.

That was what aroused Bloch’s attention.

If you’re going to commit an armed robbery, it’s a bad idea to use your own car. In fact, you have to be pretty stupid to do that. And Darius Robinson didn’t seem the stupid type.

Jane opened the trunk of the Lincoln, Bloch grabbed a box, took it to the rear passenger seat, got in and started flicking through the papers. She was done with one box in ten minutes. Jane handed her the second box.

Nineteen minutes later, Bloch took a single page from the second box, said, ‘I’m done. Come with me.’

They left the car, and Jane followed Bloch out of the lot and across the street to the candy store.

‘We spoke to the owner, Dorothy Majors. She just confirmed what she told the police. She didn’t hear or see anything. She’s quite deaf,’ said Jane.

When the door to the candy store opened, the top of the frame rung a bell.

Almost instantly, a woman appeared behind the counter from a back room, wearing a blue apron over a white blouse. She had icing sugar on her cheek, and more on her hands and apron. When she moved, there was a small white cloud of sweet-smelling dust. Her hair was white, and it was difficult to tell how much of the stuff was in there too.

‘Good morning,’ said the lady.

‘Good morning,’ said Bloch. ‘I’m from the district attorney’s office. I want to talk to Dorothy Majors about the Darius Robinson case.’

‘Oh, well I’m Dorothy. I thought that was all over and done with. He’s … wasn’t he …’

‘He was executed last year,’ said Bloch. ‘We’re just tidying a few details before we close our files, I hope you don’t mind.’

Dorothy waved a hand and said, ‘No, not at all. What do you need from me?’

Bloch handed her the statement. It was the only statement from Dorothy on the file, and it was one prepared by the attorney who handled Robinson’s appeal.

‘You made a statement to these attorneys that you didn’t hear anything that day.’

She took the document, glanced at it. There were only a few lines, confirmed who Dorothy was, her address, and that she didn’t hear the shot because she was hard of hearing, and she didn’t see anything either.

‘Yeah, I remember signing this. I didn’t hear the shot, so I had no reason to go out and look at what was happening,’ she said, but she could not resist a glance, over Bloch’s shoulder, at the doorbell.

Dorothy had heard the bell when Bloch and Jane came in.

‘Good,’ said Bloch. ‘So you didn’t tell them that you reallydidhear the shot, and that you went outside, and youdidsee what happened.’

Dorothy smiled, less sweetly than before, and said, ‘Remind me where you’re from?’

‘The district attorney’s office. It’s okay, ma’am, you can speak freely.’

Dorothy was silent for a time. She used a cloth to wipe down the counter as she thought about the question.

‘Who told you I heard the shot?’ she asked.

‘Stands to reason, ma’am. Your little bell above the front door rings at around forty decibels. A jet engine burning one gallon of fuel per second is one hundred forty decibels. Porter used a nine-millimeter Beretta to fire a parabellum, hollow-point round. He did this outside, one hundred and five feet from you. The resulting sonic boom would break the sound barrier atone hundred sixtydecibels. You heard that tiny bell just now. So you heard the shot.’

‘I went out, like I told the sheriff, after I heard it and I saw the guy with the bag. He was standing on the street, pointing the gun at the driver of the car, yelling that if he didn’t unlock the door, he was going to kill him. That’s what I told Sheriff Lomax. He said I should keep that to myself. He didn’t get me to sign nothing. Is that still alright?’

‘That’s fine, ma’am. Did you have a similar conversation with the district attorney?’

‘No, I only spoke to the sheriff. Did I do something wrong?’

‘Don’t worry, thank you for your co-operation. If we need anything else, we’ll be in touch.’