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“Believe me, Frank, I want this to go by the books. I don’t want a murderer to be set free on a technicality.” Looking pointedly at Alex, he switched off the recorder and left her alone with her solicitor.
“Can you believe it?” Steffi Mundell was outside in the narrow hall, staring through the two-way mirror into Smilow’s private office. “The artist was right on. What’s she like?”
“Don’t you have any other cases, Steffi? I thought all of you A.D.A.s were overworked and underpaid. At least that’s what you would have everyone believe.”
“With Mason’s sanction, I’ve lightened my caseload so I can concentrate on this one. He wants me to assist Hammond any way I can.”
“Where is the boy wonder?” He watched Alex Ladd adamantly shake her head to one of Frank Perkins’s inquiries.
“Barricaded inside his office. I haven’t seen him since we left the hospital this morning. I left him a message that I was coming over here to take a gander at our suspect. Good work on the capture, by the way.”
“Duck soup. Will Hammond be joining us?”
“Would you mind?”
Smilow shrugged. “I’d like to gauge his reaction.”
“To Dr. Ladd?”
“It might be interesting to see if Saint Hammond could demand the death penalty for a beautiful woman.”
Steffi reacted with a start. “You think she’s beautiful?”
Before Smilow could answer, Frank Perkins opened the door and, after giving Steffi a blunt greeting, waved them inside.
* * *
Bobby Trimble breathed deeply in an effort to bring his heart rate under control. It had been racing ever since he saw Alex talking to cops on her front door step.
That was bad. Very bad. Were the cops wise to his Pettijohn plot? Had Alex called them with the intention of turning him in to save herself?
He had cruised past her house at a moderate speed with studied indifference. What he saw in his peripheral vision, however, was cause for alarm—two uniforms, a plainclothesman, and a vindictive woman who made no secret of despising him. A foolproof recipe for disaster.
There was one positive sign. Alex hadn’t fingered him. She hadn’t pointed to him and shouted, “Get him!” But he wasn’t sure what that signified, or where it left him. It might mean only that she hadn’t seen him driving past.
Deliberating his next move, he aimlessly wove the convertible through downtown Charleston’s midday traffic. Last night he had thought he was home free. After a lot of arm-twisting, Alex had agreed to give him the money he demanded.
“If you think you can steal my idea and use it for your own gain, you’ve got another thing coming, missy!
” When agitated, his accent returned. Hating the sound of that hick whine, he had paused to modulate his voice. “Don’t even think about double-crossing me, Alex,” he told her in a softer, but no less threatening tone. “That money belongs to me, and I want it.”
Alex had cleaned up her act, too. She spoke better. Dressed better. Lived well. But for all her snooty high-and-mighty airs, she hadn’t really changed. No more than he had. Just as she knew his true nature, he knew hers. Did she think he was born yesterday? He saw what was happening. She had seized on his brainstorm and was trying to cheat him out of his half.
When he accused her of it, she had said, “For the last time, Bobby: I don’t have any money to give you. Leave me alone!”
“That’s simply not going to happen, Alex. I’m in your life until I get what I came for. If you want me to disappear, pay up.”
Her weary sigh had been as good as a waving white flag. “Be at my house at noon tomorrow.”
So he was at her house at noon, and guess what? She had cops for company. There might already be a warrant out for his arrest.
Although maybe not, he thought, forcing himself to calm down. If she and the police had been laying a trap for him, why was the patrol car parked in plain sight? And how could she rat on him without ratting out herself, too?
In any event, until he knew for certain what was going on, it would be wise for Bobby Trimble to lay low. Boring.
Stopping for a red light, he folded his hands over the steering wheel and contemplated his immediate future. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed another convertible pull up alongside his. He turned his head.
The two faces looking back at him were partially concealed by sunglasses with bright yellow lenses. The coeds were young and attractive. Their grins were saucy and challenging. Spoiled, rich daddy’s girls looking for mischief on a hot summer afternoon.
