Sedona Law 4 by Dave Daren (free ebook reader for ipad .txt) 📗

“She wants to plead not guilty,” I said. “They want to charge her with homicide, and her boyfriend Gabriel with aiding and abetting.”

“She’s got a boyfriend?” Vicki’s tone indicated she was glad to hear that.

I made a face. After the conversation I just had with Leonard, the insinuation bothered me.

“Yes,” I said, an edge to my voice. “His name is Gabriel Montego. She claims she wanted to leave the dance troupe, and she was going to run off in the middle of the night with him. That had been her plan for months to leave that night, so that’s what she did. She had no idea there was a murder in her absence.”

“What about the murder weapon?” AJ asked.

“Allegedly Beowulf tried to stop her, and he took her bag and locked it away in the dressing room to keep her from running away,” I told her. “He thought it had her wallet and money. Turns out, it mainly just had the dagger which she had bought for Gabriel. So, she ditched the bag and ran off with him anyway.”

“Well, why would he try so hard to stop her from leaving?” Vicki asked.

I smiled. “That’s the thing. They were all lovers. All of them.”

Vicki and AJ both smiled in shock.

“Oh. My. God,” Vicki said. “These people, Henry, where do you find these people?”

“They find me!” I protested. “I’ll just be minding my own business, and they show up with their dead bodies and pet tigers.” I was referring to our last big case that had to do with a dead copper mogul that lived in a mansion with his pet tigers and his two girlfriends.

“It makes the O’Briens look normal now,” AJ muttered.

“Eh,” Vicki said. “Nothing about tigers is normal.”

“True,” AJ said. “Okay, so these freaky-deak-kinky naked dancers somehow couldn’t leave the group?”

“Well,” I said, “They could. But, it’s quitting your job and breaking up with four people all at the same time. Not an easy feat.”

“So, he tries to stop her because he’s in love with her,” Vicki said.

“Presumably,” I said. “But I got the feeling that it’s less love, and more lust and control.”

“It’s an emotionally abusive five way relationship,” AJ said.

“Yeah,” Vicki agreed. “That’s why she wanted to leave.”

“And why she ran off without telling anyone,” I said. “And left her bag with an expensive dagger.”

“Then who would want him dead?” AJ asked.

“Well,” I said. “That’s what we’ve got to find out. There was a protester that night that Vicki and I ran into. She was dressed like a cheetah. Apparently she slipped backstage and was throwing paint on everyone. She had motive, opportunity, and if the dagger was backstage, she could have grabbed it.”

“But why would she have gone through a bag to find a murder weapon?” AJ asked.

“That’s a good question,” I said. “But right now, she’s our biggest suspect.”

“Who is this woman?” AJ asked.

“We’ll have to find out her name,” I said. “It shouldn’t be hard. I’m sure Marvin could track it down pretty fast.”

It occurred to me at that moment Marvin had probably hired her in the first place, for everything. Ratings, after all. I realized then, that could have stumbled into a scandal that brings down one of the most powerful men in the state.

Chapter 5

It took a couple of days for Julianna and Gabriel to post bail, mainly because Julianna had to track down her mother, who lived in a penthouse in Tucson.

Zondra Spencer-Redding was on her eighth marriage, if I wasn’t mistaken. Julianna’s dad had been her third. She had been a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader in the early 1990s, and he was an engineering nerd before being a nerd was cool. All it took was the mere fact that a hot girl even so much as spoke to him, and he was all but ready to put a ring on it. They were divorced before Julianna was born. Or so I was told.

The mother and daughter duo moved to Sedona at the behest of the fourth husband, a free spirited Zen hippie who thought the healing vortexes would be a way to cleanse out the spirit of the ex-husband or something of that nature. I met him a couple of times, and even I knew the marriage was doomed, and I was only eight at the time. God only knew where the poor chap was now, and what Zondra had done to his head.

Now she lived high off the collective wealth of her marital conquests, and she arrived to our office in a green Jaguar that she parked illegally in front of the door.

“Oh, my gawd,” her thick Texas drawl filled the room. “What have y’all done with her?”

“Hello, Zondra,” I said. “Good to see you after all these years.”

She was definitely attractive, but I don’t know what was bigger, the fingernails or the hair. She had her platinum blond extensions teased out to about three to four inches from all sides of her head, including the top. She had rhinestone studded acrylic fingernails in maroon that were so long they curved at the ends. Not that anyone would have noticed with the vault of bling adorning her fingers and wrists. She wore a simple black dress, but her face was caked in cosmetics, and between that and the Botox, she looked a good twenty years younger than I knew she was.

“Lordy, Lordy,” she approached me and shook my hand. “Henry Irving, you grown up all nice and pretty.”

I smiled faintly. I was beginning to tire of the whole, wee-little-tike-all-grown-up routine I was getting from all sides these days. I guess that was my punishment for leaving town at eighteen and not bothering to show back up for another ten years.

“What can we do for you, Zondra?”