Alex shot to her feet and cried, “He’s lying!”
Chapter 29
Frank Perkins said, “I’ve never heard anything so preposterous.” The lawyer motioned for Alex to stand. “Bobby Trimble is a lying, immoral thief who shamelessly exploited his half-sister in her youth, and is using her now to worm out of a rape charge. Make that a bogus rape charge, devised by you to encourage this fabrication. Such manipulation is beneath even you, Smilow. I’m taking my client home.”
Smilow said, “Please don’t leave the building.”
Perkins bristled. “Are you prepared to charge Dr. Ladd now?”
Smilow looked inquiringly at Steffi and Hammond. But when neither of them voiced an opinion, he said, “There are a few matters left for us to discuss. Please wait outside.”
Hammond took the coward’s way out and didn’t even glance at Alex before the solicitor escorted her from the room. His expression would have underscored the precariousness of her situation. The chips were definitely stacking up against her. It didn’t bode well that she and Trimble were former partners in crime, and they hadn’t been petty crimes. Except for a medical miracle, the stabbing victim would have died.
After years of separation, she and Trimble had reunited mere weeks before Lute Pettijohn was killed. Young Alex had been the lure that enabled Trimble to fleece their victims. Alex had a home safe full of cash. The implications were brutal.
Hammond’s pain medication had worn off hours ago. To keep a clearer head he had refrained from taking more. His discomfort must have been obvious, because as soon as Perkins showed Alex out, Steffi turned to him. “You look like you’re on the verge of collapse. Are you in pain?”
“It’s tolerable.”
“I’ll be happy to get you something.”
“I’m fine.”
He wasn’t fine. He dreaded hearing Smilow’s take on Bobby Trimble’s statement and what it meant to their case against Alex, but he had no choice except to give the homicide detective the floor and hear him out as he summarized the information.
“Here’s the way it went down. Last spring, Bobby Trimble got in a barroom fight in some hick town. He came out on top of the fracas. One of Pettijohn’s talent scouts, so to speak, witnessed the brawl and recommended Trimble for the job on Speckle Island where they needed a heavy.”
“To put the squeeze on landowners who didn’t wish to sell.”
“Right, Steffi. Pettijohn was trying to buy up the entire island, but he met with a resistance he didn’t expect. The landowners had inherited the real estate from slave ancestors who were deeded the property by their previous owners. Generations have worked that land. It’s all they know. It’s their legacy and heritage. It’s more important to them than money, which is a concept that Lute couldn’t grasp. Anyway, they didn’t want their island ‘developed.’ ”
“Pettijohn might not have developed it,” Steffi surmised. “He probably wanted only to acquire it, let it appreciate for a few years, then turn around and sell it for a nifty profit.” She turned to Hammond. “Do you have anything to contribute?”
“You two are doing fine. I haven’t heard anything yet that I disagree with. A cockroach like Trimble isn’t above strong-arming hardworking people who wish only to be left alone to live their lives. His tactics were probably much worse than he made them out to be.”
“They were,” Smilow said. “My investigator reported cross burnings, beatings, and other Klan-type activities. Trimble organized the thugs who did the deeds.”
“Jesus,” Hammond said with disgust.
Was it even conceivable that his own father had been involved in such atrocities? Preston had claimed to be unaware of Pettijohn’s terrorism. He had said that when he learned of it, he had sold his partnership. Hammond hoped to God that was true.
Referring back to Bobby Trimble, he sneered, “And this is our reliable character witness?”
Ignoring that editorial comment, Steffi said, “Trimble claims he realized the error of his ways and refused to do any more of Pettijohn’s dirty work. More likely he simply got tired of it. That island doesn’t offer many amenities. It couldn’t have been nearly as exciting as his emcee job at the strip club.”
“Lute was a stingy bastard,” Smilow said. “He wouldn’t have paid Trimble that much. Not too many places on Speckle for Bobby to wear his fancy clothes, either.”
Steffi referred to the handwritten notes she’d taken. “And didn’t he refer to the island people as being stubborn? Maybe he wasn’t very successful at arm-twisting. Pettijohn might have become dissatisfied with his performance and threatened to fire him.”
“In any case, Trimble was a disgruntled employee whose boss was bending the law and who coincidentally had a lot of money.”
“In other words, extortion waiting to happen.”
“Exactly. The blackmailing scheme made good economic sense,” Smilow observed with a wry smile. “Trimble figured he was working way too hard when he could get a lot more money out of Pettijohn by threatening to reveal what was happening over on Speckle.”
“Do you believe Pettijohn ordered Bobby to hurt those people? Beat them up? Set fires? Or was Bobby elaborating?”
“I’m sure some of it was exaggerated,” Smilow said. “But if you’re asking me if I think Lute was capable of nefarious tactics like that, the answer is yes. He would go to any lengths to get what he wanted.”