“Remember Margo Prescott? I sure do.” Stallings shook his head. “I’d been trying to get in her pants for half a semester, but Alvarez beat me to it. The night she bought it I saw her headed for her dorm. She was crying. I pretended to be sympathetic, and I gave her a shoulder to cry on.
“Poor Margo. Her folks didn’t like her dating a wetback, so they put a lot of pressure on her, and she caved and broke up with Jose. Now she was regretting it.
“I saw my chance, and I escorted her to her room. When I thought the time was right, I made my move, but I miscalculated, and she started to scream.” Stallings shrugged. “I couldn’t have that so I slugged her. That’s when she threatened to tell the cops. There was a picture of Mount Hood she was going to hang on her wall. There were nails and a hammer next to it. I grabbed the hammer and… Well, you know what happened next, because you read the medical examiner’s report.
“Then my luck almost ran out. I took off and got out of the room seconds before Alvarez came in. Those barrio boys can fight, and he probably would have kicked my ass if he’d caught me standing over his sweetie with that hammer in my hand.”
Stallings paused and considered that ancient situation. “The hammer might have evened things up, and I’d have had the element of surprise, but who knows.”
Stallings laughed. “Everything did come out okay, though. I’m living the good life, and Alvarez is on death row.”
Frank stared at his client. “Jose was innocent?”
“As the driven snow.”
“You’ve got to tell the authorities.”
Stallings threw his head back and laughed. “You’re kidding, right? I mean, why would I do that?”
The color drained from Frank’s face. “What kind of man are you?”
Stallings didn’t look offended. “I’m a superior man. If you need proof, consider the fact that I have done many things most people would consider to be very, very bad. And yet I have never been punished. That’s because I am so much smarter than most people. If I want something, I don’t worry. I don’t look at the pros and cons, I take it. Let’s face it, Frank, there are shepherds andsheep, mutts and alpha dogs.” Stallings shrugged. “God made me what I am, and I enjoy every minute.”
“I’m going to the DA.”
Stallings smiled and shook his head.
“No, you’re not. Do you think I would have made this little speech if I was worried that you’d tattle? You took a course in evidence in law school, right? I bet you got an A. Do you remember the lesson on the attorney-client privilege? In order to assure a client that he can be completely honest with his attorney, whatever a client tells his mouthpiece is confidential, and the lawyer is forbidden to tell anyone what his client told him; not the DA, not his wife, not his bridge partners, nobody.
“And, if you try anything, I’ll deny I confessed, and I’ll see that you are disbarred. Capisce?”
“Why are you telling me this?”
Stallings shrugged. Then he smiled. “I bet you think I’m a real jerk for making you feel guilty about Mr. Alvarez, and you’re probably right. I probably should have kept my mouth shut and not given you something to worry about. Especially after you won my trial. But I act without thinking sometimes, and this is one of them.” Stallings grinned. “My bad.”
Then he looked at his watch. “Oops, time flies. I’ve got to meet my folks at a very nice French restaurant. We’re celebrating your brilliant win. I was supposed to invite you, but something tells me you’d turn me down. I guess that right about now, you don’t have much of an appetite.”
Stallings left, and Frank stared at the wall. He felt as if he might throw up. He had to tell somebody that Jose Alvarez was innocent, but he had no way to prove it unless Archie Stallingsconfessed, and he knew that would never happen. Stallings was a monster, and Frank was going to have to spend the rest of his life knowing that a decent young man was rotting away on death row.
PART TWOWerewolves
THIRTY YEARS LATER
CHAPTER FOUR
Robin Lockwood and her fiancé, Jeff Hodges, were standing side by side in an elevator. Robin held up her hand and admired her engagement ring. She couldn’t help smiling every time she looked at it. Jeff laughed. He was six foot two with shaggy, reddish-blond hair that Robin ran her hand through when they made love.
“You are so silly,” Jeff said.
Robin leaned over and kissed Jeff just as the car stopped and the elevator door opened. The couple turned. A man was standing outside the car. He was holding a gun. Robin screamed, “No,” and held out the hand with the ring. That’s when the man fired, and Robin jerked up in bed, her heart pounding and her eyes wide open, drenched in sweat, and more tired than she’d been when she went to bed.
This was not the first night Robin had been dragged into a nightmare-filled sleep, but this evening her nightmare had been exceptionally vivid. That was probably because this was the two-yearanniversary of the day a grief-stricken husband had accidentally gunned down Jeff at the sentencing hearing of another man who’d raped his wife.
Ever since Jeff had been killed, Robin had experienced vivid flashbacks that forced her to relive the unbearable grief she’d suffered, leaving her torn between a desire to have the pain stop and the fear that Jeff would vanish if it did.
Robin was five-foot-eight with a wiry build, clear blue eyes, a straight nose, high cheekbones, and short blond hair. She’d been a nationally ranked, mixed martial arts fighter in college, and she’d had a brief star turn as “Rockin’ Robin” when she fought on TV in pay-per-view bouts, but she’d quit fighting professionally in her first year at Yale Law School after she had suffered a brutal knockout that resulted in a concussion and short-term memory loss.
After moving to Portland, Oregon, to join the firm that had become Barrister, Berman, and Lockwood, Robin stayed in shape by going to McGill’s gym every workday morning to spar or pump iron before going to her office.