Womens Murder Club - 07 - 7th Heaven Read Online Free PDF

for her - and that pissed me off. “I’ve advised my client not to make any statements,” Ms. Chado said, setting her young face with a hard-ass expression that I found hard to take seriously. “This is your meeting, Ms. Castellano.” “I’ve talked with the DA,” Yuki said. “We’re charging your client with murder two.” “What happened to ‘illegal disposal of a body’?” Chado asked. “That’s just not good enough,” Yuki snapped. “Your client was the last person to see Michael Campion alive. Ms. Moon never called medical emergency or the police - and why not? Because she didn’t care about Campion’s life or death. She only cared about herself.” “You’ll never get an indictment for murder,” Chado said. “There’s enough reasonable doubt in your theory to fill the ocean.” “Listen to me, Junie,” Yuki said. “Help us locate Michael’s remains. If it can be determined in autopsy that his heart attack would have killed him no matter what you did, we’ll drop the murder charge and pretty much get out of your life.” “No deal,” Chado interjected. “What if she helps you find his body and it is so decomposed that his heart is just rotted meat? Then you’ll have a demonstrable connection to my client and she’ll be screwed.” I reevaluated Melody Chado as she fought with Yuki. Chado had either had a great education, grown up in a family of lawyers - or both. Junie fell back in her chair, turned a shocked face toward her breathless attorney. I guessed that Chado’s description had blown off whatever romance was left of Junie’s memory of Michael Campion. “I want to hear about the knife, Junie,” Rich said, steering the interview to our only piece of evidence. “The knife?” Junie asked. “We found a knife under your sofa. Looks like bloodstains on the blade. It’ll take a few days to get the DNA results, but if you help us, Ms. Castellano will take that as another sign of your cooperation.” “Don’t answer,” said Melody Chado. “We’re done.” Junie was looking at Rich, and she was talking over her attorney. “I thought the knife went into one of the garbage bags,” she said to my partner. “So I don’t know what knife you found. But listen, I remember the name of the town.” “Junie, that’s enough. That’s all!” “I think it was Johnson,” Junie said to Rich. “I saw a sign when we got off the highway.” “Jackson?” I asked. “Was it Jackson?” “Yes. That’s right.” “You’re sure about that? I thought you said you drove up the coast.” “I’m pretty sure. It was late, I got confused. I wasn’t trying to remember,” she told me, her eyes downcast. “I was trying to forget.”
    Chapter 14

    THE TOWN OF JACKSON was known for its cowboy cookouts and craft fairs. It also had a sizable dump. It was just after noon, and the smell of rot was rising as the sun cooked the refuse. Gulls and buzzards circled the trash dunes that filled our view out to the foothills. Sheriff Oren Braun pointed out the square acre of landfill he’d had cordoned off - the approximate section where waste had been unloaded at the end of January. “Soon as I got the call from the governor I had my boys on it,” Braun told me and Conklin. “ ‘Pull out the stops,’ that’s what he said.” We were looking for eight black plastic garbage bags in a sea of black plastic garbage bags. A hundred yards uphill, a dozen members of the sheriff’s department were picking very slowly through the three thousand tons of refuse piled twenty feet high, and the dump foreman was assisting the dog handler, who followed behind his two cadaver dogs as they trotted over the site. I was trying to maintain some optimism, but that was tough to do in this grim landscape. I mumbled to Rich, “After three months out here, all that’ll be left of Michael’s corpse will be ligaments and bones.” And then, as if I’d telepathically cued them, the dogs alerted. Conklin and I joined