Full Release by Marshall Thornton (free novel 24 TXT) 📗

“And I went to see Sylvia Navarez.”

“I told you before this kind of thing looks bad for you. It looks like you’re running around trying to mess with witnesses.”

“She knows who attacked Eddie.”

“She knows who killed him?”

“She was the woman sitting outside my house in the black SUV,” I said, with a certainty I couldn’t back up.

“We don’t know for sure there was a woman outside your house.”

“You sent officers to Simon Willow’s house.”

“He was less than cooperative.”

I could have made a suggestion on how to gain Simon’s cooperation, but decided it was smarter not to. Instead, I said, “Look, just go talk to Sylvia Navarez. She knows who did it. I’m sure of it.” Then I added, in a bad imitation of a TV show, “Lean on her.”

He laughed. “Technically, we’re not supposed to lean on witnesses.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Hold on,” he said. The phone shuffled. It was obvious he was talking to someone in the background. When he came back on the line, he cleared his throat and said, “Look, I’m gonna be nice to you. You need get a lawyer. You need to make an appointment with the D.A. Your thing with Eddie got out of control and he died. That’s manslaughter. A good lawyer will have you in and out of prison in a year, maybe two.”

“I didn’t do it.”

“Every day you don’t confess, that’s like adding a year onto your sentence. Do you understand that?”

I hung up without even saying goodbye. It took another five minutes before I was calm enough to go in to my client.

Two hours later, I pulled in to my driveway. My client had been an older gentleman of about sixty. My first thought was that the experience would be unpleasant, but he was a really sweet man who told me stories about being gay in sixties Hollywood. He mentioned having sex with a couple of movie stars I remembered from a few of Jeremy’s favorite films.

I’d barely been home five minutes when the doorbell rang. I opened it to find a svelte, blond man of nearly fifty standing there. He was well dressed and had taken great care with his business casual outfit. His hair fell artfully over his forehead and was cut in a kind of modified wedge. I suspected he’d worn it this way since Dorothy Hamill made it popular the year I was born.

“Hi! I’m Rip Jones!” He held out a business card. I glanced at it to see that, next to his heavily retouched photo, it explained he was a real estate agent. “I have an amazing opportunity for you!”

“I’m really not interested,” I told him.

“You’re not?” He seemed surprised. Obviously, I was reading from a different script. “No, you don’t understand. I’m here to make an offer on your house.”

This stumped me. The market was terrible. From everything I read in the paper, it was completely dead and not expected to recover any time soon. So, a real estate agent at my door didn’t make any sense. Sure, I remember a real estate agent acquaintance telling me once about the good old days when business was booming and agents went door to door trying to find someone willing to sell, but that seemed unlikely today.

“Why don’t you let me come in and explain?”

My other option was to let him explain on my stoop, and given all that had happened recently, I thought it better to let him inside. The neighbors would see him and assume he was some police officer come to arrest me, or a journalist asking me why I killed Eddie.

I let him inside and offered him a glass of water. He accepted with a polite thank you. I filled him a glass of water from the filtered pitcher I kept in the refrigerator. I could tell he was surprised by the state of my kitchen.

“I was remodeling. It didn’t work out,” I half explained.

“I hate when that happens,” he said. I couldn’t tell if it was a joke or not, he’d said it so seriously. Did he know a lot of people with ripped out kitchens and partly-rehabbed houses?

“Let’s sit down and go through the offer.” He made himself comfortable at my dining table. Reluctantly, I sat down next to him. A folder came out of his briefcase, and he opened it. Before he could start to speak, I picked out the most important line. The offer on my house was not only more than a hundred and twenty-five thousand less than I’d paid for it, it was more than fifty thousand less than my mortgage.

I pointed at the number and said, “You’ve got to be kidding.”

“You don’t think you’re going to do better in this market, do you?”

“Wait a minute. You came to me. I’m not interested in selling. I’m planning to hold onto the house until the market improves.”

His smile was stiff, rigid even. “I’m confused.”

“You’re confused? Does that happen a lot?” I asked, losing patience.

“This is a short sale. I’ve already spoken to the bank. With a little coaxing, I think we can get them to go for it. We’re almost at the finish line.”

“We? Who is we? I just met you, and I certainly didn’t ask you to do any of this.” My blood pressure was starting to rise.

“Skye seemed to think you’d be receptive to the idea.”

Finally, the light bulb went off. That was why they’d been lurking around the house. They wanted to get their hands on it.

“Skye wants to buy my house?”

“Well, Skye and Jeremy, but given the situation, Jeremy’s name won’t be on that side of the paperwork.”

“Skye and Jeremy thought I’d be receptive to the idea of giving up my home, taking a ding on my credit so they could swoop in and get it on the cheap after Jeremy swiped forty-seven thousand nine hundred sixty four dollars and thirty-seven cents from me?”

Rip just smiled at me.

“Would you tell them that if they’ve got money for a