The Zen Man Read Online Free PDF Page B

Wicked’s body onto a gurney. After covering her with a blanket, they began transporting her over the uneven ground, the gurney rattling and clattering its way past the voyeurs. The blanket didn’t quite cover her feet, and I noticed her toes had been painted a bright crimson, like her nails. Struck me how both were the same color as the stab wound in her chest.
    Sam crossed himself.
    I murmured a few words of El Maleh.
    Loud, staccato bursts suddenly split the air. One of the deputy sheriffs standing guard at the crime tape dove for cover, another reached for his gun. When a heavy bass rift kicked in, I recognized the opening for the old Knack tune “My Sharona.”
    Nervous laughter rippled through the crowd as others recognized the vintage rock song, except for the deputy sheriffs who looked uniformly pissed. Didn’t blame them. For all they knew that opening drum solo could’ve been the crazed killer shooting at the group, although they probably wouldn’t have minded a few more lawyers passing into the ever-after.
    “Christ.” Sam looked down the hill at the dining hall. “What asshole pulled that stunt?”
    “Some drunk CrimDef who couldn’t handle this scene.”
    Muttering something about nobody respecting the fucking dead, he took a step as though ready to head down there and bust some heads when Iris-Irene bustled past, her skinny arms pumping furiously like wind turbines feeding energy to her strident walk.
    “I’ll take care of this,” she barked, and I believed her.
    Ma-ma-ma-my Sharona.
    “What’s her name?” I asked, watching the gray frizz on her head bouncing fiercely as she strode away.
    “Iris DaCosta. Up for a judgeship.”
    Despite those leather pumps, Her Almost-Honor made it in record time over the bumpy, rocky ground to the front door. Within moments after disappearing inside, The Knack’s driving bassline abruptly stopped.
    I thought about the last time I’d seen Iris this evening, when she’d escorted the sobbing, much-maligned Wicked out of the kitchen. That had to be around eight-forty or so. Where had they gone after that?
    Now that The Knack had been stilled, the night air began filling again with the buzz of voices, Benning’s snarled commands, and the distant hush of traffic along highway 285. I caught the scents of juniper and pine, a sad reminder of the natural simplicity this locale was supposed to be about.
    Farther up the pebbled path, next to one of the other pools, I noticed a buffed Hispanic dude in a Jefferson County deputy uniform talking to Laura. She stood erect, her hands clutched together. Nervous, but professional.
    “They’re interviewing Laura.”
    Sam followed my line of vision. “She all right?”
    “Yeah.” She was nodding affirmatively to something the deputy had said. I felt a stab of guilt about what this was doing to her, might do to the lodge. The inevitable press could attract the ghoulish variety of customers, but more likely it’d scare people away. She shouldn’t have sunk everything she had into this place, but the price had been slashed for a quick sale, she’d been losing her mind being jobless for the first time in years, and running a business that required both her people and management skills had seemed a perfect fit.
    A couple of CrimDefs walked by, paused.
    “Rick, how you doin’, man?”
    “Fine.”
    “Still a Nuggets fan, eh?”
    I looked down at my jacket, back up. “Gotta love a team that’s working its way back from the gutter.”
    In the following awkward pause, Sam bit back a smile.
    “Well,” my questioner continued, “you’re lookin’ good.”
    “Helps to not be drinking and doing drugs.”
    One of them did a bad job suppressing a grin. The one talking, Dan Steiner, a former classmate at D.U., gave me a hard sizing-up, seemed to believe me.
    “Need help, give a call, okay?” he said.
    “Sure thing.”
    Sam watched them leave, his arms crossed. “Didn’t know you and Dan were friends.”
    “We