State's Evidence: A Beverly Mendoza Legal Thriller (5 page)

“I thought you would agree.”

They watched as Detective O’Dell walked
toward them. He was pushing forty, tall, and had dark Rastafarian
locks.

“Hello, Joe,” Beverly greeted him.

He nodded politely. “Beverly. Nunez. You here
to interview the judge’s wife?”

Grant pursed his lips. “Not exactly. That’s
your department, isn’t it?”

O’Dell smiled slightly. “It is. I suppose
Judge Crawford has high friends in high places.”

“Not friends,” Beverly pointed out. And not
at high as the judge was before being brought down to earth. “Just
friendly observers.”

“I see.”

“So what have you got on this one?” Grant
asked.

O’Dell scratched his brow. “It appears that
Judge Crawford was shot to death at point blank range with what
looks to be a small caliber handgun. Half his face was blown away.”
He paused, glancing uneasily at Beverly and back again. “He and
Mrs. Crawford were in bed having sex at the time. Not sure if the
judge ever knew what hit him.”

Beverly swallowed. She had seen enough
horrific crime scenes to last her a lifetime. But the thought of
death occurring under such intimate, pleasurable circumstances sent
shivers up her spine.

“Did Maxine Crawford know what hit
her
?” she inquired.

O’Dell seemed to ponder the thought. “Haven’t
really had a chance to get a statement from her yet. At this point
it looks like she’s damned lucky to be alive.”

Grant bristled. “Yeah, right. You call
watching your husband’s head explode luck?”

The detective’s coal eyes shot him a nasty
look. “I do when you consider the alternative.”

Beverly felt obliged to step between the two,
as if they were about to come to blows. “Hopefully Mrs. Crawford
will be able to identify whoever did this,” she said wistfully.

“Yeah, that would be a big help,” O’Dell said
skeptically.

A doctor from the ER approached the
gathering. He was in his fifties, perspiring, and had sad blue
eyes. Beverly knew instinctively that he had just worked on Maxine
Crawford.

“How is she?” O’Dell asked in
confirmation.

Frowning, the doctor said, “Under the
circumstances, she could be a lot worse.” He sighed raggedly. “Mrs.
Crawford was raped and sodomized. Also suffered some bad bruises,
probably from trying to fight off her attacker. But...she’ll
live—”

“Can I talk to her now?” O’Dell asked
eagerly.

“Not tonight, I’m afraid. We’ve given Mrs.
Crawford a tranquilizer to calm her down...help her to sleep. She’s
resting now. We’ll keep her overnight to be on the safe side.”

Grant stepped forward. “Did she say anything
about who might have done this?”

“Not a thing,” the doctor said
unapologetically. “Sorry. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have other
patients to tend to.”

They watched as he walked away, stopping only
long enough to confer with a nurse.

“Looks like it’s going to be a long night,”
grumbled O’Dell, scratching his pate.

“I’m sure you’re used to it, O’Dell,” Grant
said coldly. “Isn’t that what you detectives live for?”

“Being used to long nights and enjoying them
are two different things,
Counselor
.” O’Dell glared at him,
then nodded at Beverly with a softer expression. “See you
around.”

“Bye, Joe.” She forced a tight smile at him.
After he left, Beverly turned to Grant with a hard look. “What’s
wrong with you?”

“Nothing.” He cast his eyes downward.

She wasn’t buying it. “Why were you so rude
to Joe?”

“Didn’t mean to be.” Grant took a
handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose loudly. “Guess I was
just reacting—or overreacting—to all the crap that goes on in this
town.”

“What crap is that?” She assumed it was
something other than the norm.

“Crime, criminals, courtrooms—everything we
have to go through to deal with all of it. Makes you wonder if
we’re fighting a losing battle.”

“Even the small victories count,” Beverly
responded. Was there more to this than he was letting on? She
decided not to press it. “I have to go,” she told him. She wanted
to get back to Jaime, reassure him that she would always love him
as her child, even if she loved a man.

It was still too soon to tell if that man was
Grant.

He brushed against her, causing Beverly’s
body to react unbidden.

“I should be leaving, too. Nothing more for
me to do here.”

At Beverly’s car—a white Subaru Impreza—Grant
kissed her softly on the lips.

“I’m glad I have you, Bev,” he said
affectionately.

“I feel the same way about you,” she told
him.

Grant’s eyes crinkled. “Say hi to Jaime for
me.”

“I will,” Beverly promised, though not sure
her son would be in any mood to receive it.

Grant was still waving when she drove off, as
seen through the rear view mirror. She could still feel the
tantalizing taste of his lips on hers.

Were they really meant to be together or was
this merely temporary fulfillment of their sexual and emotional
needs before they went their separate ways?

* * *

Grant watched Beverly’s car disappear from
sight. Already he missed being with her. And being inside her hot
Latina body. He hoped that they could get past any hang-ups her son
might have about them being together. Maybe if he’d had children,
he would be able to better relate to them having a conniption over
his ex wife dating someone else. But since she refused to have
children and he was in no position to make her, the best he could
do was give his ex the freedom she so craved and move on
himself.

He did and worked his ass off to get where he
was today.
I’m not about to let the judge’s bad luck interfere
with that.

Grant stared pensively into the night before
heading back into the hospital to make sure that all the bases were
covered. The last thing he wanted was some more surprises, even if
he had to keep Beverly in the dark for her own good.

CHAPTER SIX

The small television on the dresser served as
little more than background noise to the heavier sounds of grunts
and groans coming from the bed. Manuel buried his face in her large
breasts, practically suffocating as they pressed against his nose.
Sweat poured from her body like running water while she cradled
him, pinning his legs down with her thighs.

She pulled his face from between her breasts
and licked his lips, savoring the taste like fine wine. She slid up
and down his hard penis, constricting around him as her excitement
grew. He clutched her ass cheeks and began to lift her up and down
on him, his excitement building as the time neared to get off
inside her.

Only she got there first and came all over
him while her body quivered violently. She screamed into his ear
while climaxing, practically shattering his eardrum.

Now it was his turn. Manuel rolled his old
lady off him and moved on top. He clutched her breasts tightly and
started ramming his erection into her like a man possessed. He
muttered a couple of expletives as he ejaculated inside her tight
vagina, relishing the sensation, before collapsing atop her.

Kissing her mouth, he grinned sweetly. “Was
it good, baby?”

She flashed dreamy eyes at him. “Always,
Manuel,” she sighed. “Can’t get enough of you, hon.”

“I know,” he said confidently. He wished the
same could be said of her. But the truth was that she could only
satisfy him up to a point. The rest was left to others. She didn’t
have to know all his business, though.

They shared a cigarette while regaining their
equilibrium and playing footsies. Manuel glanced at the tube. An
Asian broad was reporting the news. She said a judge had been
executed this night, and his wife seriously injured. The suspect
was still at large.

This intrigued him.

He hated all judges. They were assholes. They
sat on benches, looking down at the rest of them like they were the
scum of the earth. He’d had his fair share of run-ins with them and
always felt they were damned lucky they didn’t meet under other
circumstances. On the streets he could do some serious damage to
the bastards and bitches that ruled the criminal courts like they
were their private property.

Which made it all the more rewarding that
this judge had gotten his but good. And the wife had, too...

The mere contemplation suddenly had his
libido working again. Manuel turned to his old lady and she knew
that it was time for a replay, whether she wanted it or not.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Detective Stone Palmer hand brushed his short
graying hair and shifted his lean body in the desk chair. He had
been a homicide detective for the Wilameta County Sheriff’s
Department for the last fifteen years, but was currently doing
double-duty for the Missing Persons Division due to budget cuts and
a reduced workforce. In his years on the force, Stone had seen it
all: serial killers, mass murderers, sexual psychopaths, domestic
violence turned deadly, runaways found murdered and buried in
shallow graves, and every other morbid homicide you could think
of.

No two cases were ever quite alike. He
supposed that was what made the job interesting, along with the
fact that he was damned good at what he did. That included
investigating missing persons, where he left no rock unturned to
get at the truth, no matter how painful. Even if other detectives
avoided that detail like the plague, considering it too inactive
and often lacking a real challenge.

At thirty-nine and still married to his high
school sweetheart for twenty years now, Stone had all the challenge
he needed at home. Two of the kids were still there and two others
were off in college. They were never too far away to call and ask
for money, which he usually gave them, admittedly a sucker when it
came to his children.

He trained his gray-blue eyes on the man
standing at the side of his desk. Caucasian with wavy black hair,
he guessed him to be in his early thirties, probably about his own
height of six-four, with the type of solid upper body that made
Stone believe that he lifted weights. His square-jawed face was
unshaven and bags beneath sloe colored eyes suggested a man too
long without sleep. He wore a wrinkled gray suit, as if thrown on
just for the occasion.

The man had identified himself as Chuck
Murray and stormed into the office worried about his wife’s
whereabouts.

“Why don’t you have a seat,” Stone urged
nicely, feeling uncomfortable looking up at the clearly agitated
man.

After a sigh, Chuck sat in one of two aging
chairs across the desk, stretching his long legs out.

“How long has your wife been missing, Mr.
Murray?” Stone asked routinely. He hoped the man didn’t say one or
two hours. Even three or four.

“She never came home last night,” he answered
tersely.

“What time does she normally come home?”

“Around seven o’clock.”

Stone glanced at his watch. It was ten a.m.
He did the arithmetic. Just over fourteen hours. They usually
needed at least twenty-four hours before a missing person case
became official. But there was something about this one that made
him suspicious. Call it instincts or a general mistrust of nervous
men who maybe had reason to fear the worst for a wife missing less
than a day.

“What’s your wife’s name, sir?” Stone looked
at him coolly.

“Adrienne.” Chuck’s lower lip twitched.

Stone took a mental note. “Where was Adrienne
supposed to be before she came home?”

“At work.”

“Where does she work?”

“At a telemarketing firm.”

Stone jotted this down. “Doing what?”

Chuck tilted his head. “She’s an
administrative assistant.”

“Adrienne never called to say she might be
late or was going to spend the night with a girlfriend or
something?”

“No!” Chuck snapped. “Adrienne would not have
just gone off for the hell of it without letting me know. That’s
not her style.”

I’ll take your word for that at the
moment
. Maybe she had a reason for not wanting to come home,
Stone mused. Or could be that something—or someone—really had
prevented her from doing so.

“Did you call her office?” he asked the
husband.

Chuck nodded. “Yeah, and they said she left
around six-thirty.”

“Alone?”

“I didn’t ask. Why?”

“Because it could tell us where she might
have gone, sir—and who with.”

“She doesn’t really socialize with the people
at work,” Chuck said.

“Things can change,” Stone suggested
thoughtfully. “Friendships form at work. Even sometimes a workplace
romance—”

Chuck glared at him. “What the hell are you
trying to say?”

Stone peered back. When a man got that
defensive over what was a legitimate question under the
circumstances, it usually meant that the prospect was not entirely
without merit. At least to him. But now was not the time to jump
too far into conclusions, although that was part of his job.

“I’m trying to say that there are any number
of reasons why your wife may not have come home last night. In my
line of work, you have to keep an open mind.”

“I’m open to anything that makes sense,”
Chuck said, rubbing his long nose. “But if you’re insinuating that
my wife was having an affair, you’re wrong. We’re in love and not
having any marital problems.”

So you say.
Stone looked at him with
misgiving. What couple in America doesn’t have
any
marital
problems?

“Could have been a miscommunication—” he told
the husband as a possibility. “Maybe you and your wife weren’t on
the same page when she left for work.”

Chuck dismissed this with a twist of his
head. “There was no miscommunication. Something’s happened to
Adrienne. I can feel it.”