Weddings Can Be Murder Read Online Free PDF Page A

chiffon dress and beautiful-but-flimsy
matching autumn-gold coat. She obviously hadn’t figured out that
October has been gone for awhile now.
    “Oh, dear,” she fussed. “Poor Ronnie. Will
Victoria be all right?”
    I didn’t want to even begin to address that
question so I changed the subject.
    “I’m so sorry about the cancelled luncheon,”
I told them. “Maybe when we get back we can get take-out food or
something.”
    “Don’t you fret about it at all,” Elsa said.
“I thought about it on the way home. I’ve got a pot of chile that
I’d made for tomorrow. It’ll warm up in a jiffy and feed us all.
And it won’t take but twenty minutes to bake a fresh pan of
cornbread to go with it.”
    “You all go ahead and eat. I know it’s late
for lunch and you must be starving. Drake and Ron and I will check
in with you when we get home.” I held to the faint hope we’d be
back within an hour or so.
    As we drove toward police headquarters
downtown, I couldn’t stop picturing the scene in Victoria’s house.
The blood, the disarray, the gown. Add to all this the fact that
they were now questioning Ron. I was glad we had passed up the
invite for lunch. My stomach was in such a twist, there was no way
I could imagine putting food in there.
    I navigated the one-way streets downtown
until I reached the station. Luckily, Saturdays are fairly quiet
around here and we were able to snag a decent parking spot. As we
approached the main entrance, it looked like some kind of speech
was taking place. Media people from all the local stations aimed
microphones at a suited man with a two-hundred dollar haircut.
Politician or lawyer. I didn’t recognize him, but he had the look.
We swerved around the cluster of excitement and climbed the
steps.
    I’ve been to Kent Taylor’s office before.
Several of Ron’s cases have overlapped with APD’s and most of the
time we’ve managed to work effectively together, if not always
cordially. In general, the police would love it if private
investigators and ordinary citizens stayed out of the way and
allowed the officials to do their jobs. Most of the time I’m
perfectly cool with that. Most of the time I don’t have a relative
who’s being questioned.
    Drake and I made our way through security
but were stopped short of getting down the hall where the
detectives’ quarters are. I had to put my name on a list and wait
for a sergeant to come out and listen to our story. He stepped away
and apparently made a call. When he came back we were told that Ron
Parker was a ‘person of interest’ and we would have to wait until
questioning was completed.
    “Does he need a lawyer?” I hated the fact
that I had to ask the question.
    “Mr. Parker has not requested one,” the
sergeant informed me, “although he certainly has the right to.”
    Something about his tone gave me an uneasy
feeling. I waited until he left and I turned to Drake.
    “I think I’d better call someone for
Ron.”
    “Charlie …”
    “Even if he doesn’t want an attorney now, I
think he needs good advice. The fact that they brought him here,
rather than covering the questions back at Victoria’s place … I
don’t like it.”
    He didn’t argue with me.
    I thumbed through the contacts on my phone
coming across the name of Ben Ortiz, one of the attorneys our firm
had dealt with on multiple occasions when RJP Investigations
performed background checks and other investigatory errands
connected with various clients of Ortiz’s. Mainly, I liked the fact
that Ben was a bulldog in court and had pulled off some amazing
feats of defense. I tapped his number.
    Court. Just having the thought go through my
head rattled me. Surely this thing would never go that far.
    “Ortiz.” His voice was crisp and matched
what I remembered of the man who wore tailored suits and expensive
shoes.
    “Ben, it’s Charlie Parker—RJP
Investigations.” I went into the condensed version of where I was
and what I was doing here.
    “I can