“And you would never resort to underhanded tactics like that.”
“Of course not.”
“Right.”
Ken laughed. “I’ll let you prep for your expert.”
Ken left. When Robin finished her prep, she left for the hotel where her out-of-town expert was staying. As she walked, she had the feeling that something Ken had said was important, but she couldn’t remember what it was or why it was important.
Robin met the expert at his hotel and discussed his testimony over dinner. She got home a little after nine and watched the last quarter of a Trail Blazers basketball game before getting into bed. She tried to sleep, but she was still nagged by the thought that Ken had said something important. She tried to block out the thought by thinking about her plan for court the next day. And that’s when it hit her.
Robin sat up in bed, wide awake. The wordplanhad triggered the solution. Ken had told her that Corey Rockwell had devised a clever plan. Robin followed her train of thought to its destination. She felt sick because she knew who had the time to develop an ingenious plan. It was the only person who could have killed Nelly’s father and Justin Trent. What she couldn’t figure out was why the murders had been committed.
There was no way she was going to get back to sleep, so Robin walked into her living room. She sighed. She was going to be a wreck when court started. Fortunately, her expert would take up a good part of the morning, and she had all of his direct testimony blocked out.
Robin stared at the apartments across the way. She assumed that the residents were good people. From experience, she knew that good people could commit the most horrible crimes under the right circumstances and with the right motive. What had motivated a decent human being to murder two people? The answer eluded her for a while. Then she thought she’d figured it out, but she hoped she was wrong.
Robin had to be in court and didn’t have time to go to the office, so she phoned Loretta Washington as soon as the sun rose. Loretta sounded groggy when she answered.
“Did I wake you?” Robin asked.
“No. I was just making breakfast. What’s up?”
“You have a friend at Justin Trent’s law office, right?”
“Yeah. She gave me the background on Frank Melville.”
“Do you think she’d give you information about one of the firm’s lawyers?”
“What kind of information?” Loretta asked.
“I want to know what area of law Justin Trent specialized in.”
“That shouldn’t be a problem.”
“I also need to know why he was at Black Oaks when Frank Melville was murdered.”
When Loretta answered, Robin could tell that she was uncomfortable.
“Wouldn’t that involve confidential communications?”
“It could.”
“I’m not going to ask her to violate the attorney-client privilege, the code of ethics, and her duty to her firm.”
“Not even if it could help solve two murders?”
Loretta was waiting for Robin when Robin got back from court. Robin could see that her associate was upset.
“Don’t ever ask me to do something like this again,” Loretta said.
“I’m really sorry that I put you in this situation, but you can see why I had to.”
“Not really. There had to be some other way you could have found out.”
“We talked about that. Have you come up with another way?”
“No. If I had, I wouldn’t have approached my friend. And don’t ask me for her name.”