A Dead Husband (Jessica Huntington Desert Cities Mystery) (26 page)

“Sure,” Jessica said.
“Do I have a way with men or what?” she thought. “Just call me ‘Jessica-downer’.” His demeanor scared her even more than Jerry’s and Detective Hernandez’s had.

“Is the Pacifica okay for lunch?  I didn’t make a reservation anywhere given that the season is over, but if you have a place you’d rather go...?”  She let the sentence trail off, the question hanging in the air like so much of her life these days.

“That sounds good, Jessica. Let me show you the suite of offices and I’ll tell you what we’re planning to do here.” Jessica tried to listen attentively to what he said about the layout and hiring lawyers at the new office. He described the range of services they aimed to provide for clients, mostly help with tax and estate planning, prenups and divorces, and assistance with routine matters. She moved silently through the attractive, empty offices, nodding and grunting almost randomly. Finally, he stopped.

“So what do you think?”

“The office looks great. You can’t beat the location. I’m sure you’ll do well here.” She tried to sound enthusiastic, but she was distracted. It seemed like a waste to take up so much of Paul’s time. Laura was in little danger of being charged with anything at this point. If that was the only danger she faced, Jessica might be able to breathe more easily. How much trouble was Laura in if Bedrossian was behind Roger’s murder? Before she could think of anything else to say Paul spoke again.

“Let’s go have
lunch and you can tell me the whole story about the circumstances surrounding the murder of your friend’s husband.  You seem to have become involved in a very interesting case.”

“A little too interesting, if you ask me
.  I really would like to run all this by you, but I feel guilty about taking up so much of your time.  Laura and I both panicked when she found Roger dead.  The police can’t still believe she’s a suspect at this point.”

“Yo
u never know. After we talk I’ll have a clearer idea about where things stand. Please don’t apologize for taking my time. I have to eat lunch Jessica, and I don’t mind sharing that lunch with an attractive and intelligent colleague.” Jessica felt a flush rising in her cheeks. Fortunately, he had his back to her. He reached the door just as the office manager was returning from lunch. 

“Jessica, this is Amy Klein, the woman who’s going to keep this shop running day-to-day
.  Amy, I’d like you to meet Jessica Huntington-Harper, an alum from Stanford. She recently returned to the area. I’m hoping we might interest her in helping out around here, once we’re up and running. If she’s planning on sticking around town, that is.  I’m having lunch to learn more about her plans.” Jessica was caught off guard and felt that flush returning.

“The plot thickens,” she said, glancing at Paul as she shook hands with Amy
.  “I thought I was the one setting the agenda.” She barely managed a “nice to meet you” before Paul Worthington whisked her out the door.

CHAPTER 25

Jessica was mulling over her lunch conversation with Paul
. She tried to review the discussion but she was distracted by how pleasing she had found his smile. His attentiveness was pleasant, and seemed genuine, but more than that required of a colleague. For the time being she put him in the “really nice guy” category and understood how he and Jerry could work together. 

He was serio
us about the idea of Jessica working in the office as soon as it opened. She filled him in about her practice experience, including the stints at clinics in the Bay Area before and after her work in environmental law. She had actually acquired a fair amount of experience as a generalist, in addition to that acquired in her specialty. Despite all the law and order TV shows, lawyers spent very little time in a court room and even less at trial. Less than one percent of civil matters go to court and about ninety percent of criminal cases are settled before going to trial.

Jessica’s compulsive nature made her good at all of the more tedious aspects of a lawyer’s job that, when done right, were meant to avoid the disputes that led to courtroom confrontations
.  She had done her time in “document review hell” like most new lawyers in established law firms.  Unlike many of them, she didn’t mind the long hours looking through dusty record rooms or surfing the internet and mining databases. As he surmised, she did know her way around a contract, was a good researcher, and a quick study, too. In the end, she agreed to think about affiliating, in some way, with their new office. 

Paul was also impressed by how much she had managed to get done on a murder investigation in a day or two.
Of course, as she point out, Jerry Reynolds had something to do with that. She was handling things for Laura reasonably well, except for the Bedrossian matter. He was as adamant as everyone else about staying clear of the man, no matter how anxious she was to help clear her friend’s name. 

P
aul offered to pass along the information she had uncovered to colleagues in the LA area who were already tracking the guy. He’d tell them about Margarit Tilik, too. Paul was intrigued to learn Bedrossian, a member of the Armenian community, was engaged to a woman with a Turkish surname. Longstanding animosity between the two ethnic groups continued to pose problems in the U.S., and in their ancestral homelands, despite efforts to mend the rift. 

Jessica was so caught up in her
own thoughts that she walked right past her car in the garage. She stopped, abruptly, when she went to press the button to unlock her BMW, realizing it was the wrong one. Turning quickly she gazed at the cars she had passed, a sea of benzes and bimmers.  As she turned, a tall man stepped into the shadows of the garage overhang. Something about the furtiveness of his movements caused the hair on the back of her neck to stand up. 

As Jessica continued to stare in his direction, searching for her white BMW coupe convertible with a moonlight black top, the guy
took a step forward. He bent down as though he was inspecting the tire on one of the cars, or looking for something he had dropped. The ploy did not work since it was
her
car that the gentleman appeared to be examining so intently. 

Not sure what to do
, Jessica dug through her bag like she was looking for something. She found her phone and thumbed through the icons to the one that operated the camera.  The guy had not made a move, still looking around him on the ground. In one fell swoop, Jessica aimed the phone and her electronic key in the direction of her car. Rather than pointing the key to unlock the car she used it to set off the car alarm.

That startled the guy who straightened up, looking for a moment, in her direction
. Jessica snapped away on her camera, hoping to capture a shot or two while he was looking her way. The alarm was blaring. In a flash, the guy took off, toward her, though, rather than running away! 

Panic hit
as the tall man barreled her way. She kicked off her Jimmy Choos so she could run for it.  Hurling one at him, she picked up the other to use as a weapon if he overtook her.  The first shoe made contact.  The pointy heel hit him squarely in the forehead, bouncing off but drawing a little blood in the process. The blow stopped him, but only for a split second. Now royally pissed off, he took off again with a burst of speed that was striking for a man of his size. Jessica hurled the other shoe in his direction.  He dodged it easily and actually smiled as he continued to close the distance between them.

Jessica turned
away from him, intending to put her own sprinting ability to good use. Unfortunately, as she put her bare foot down, she landed on something sharp. She didn’t even get a good look at what it was before the guy had her by the scruff of the neck.  Jessica experienced a moment of déjà vu as, for the second time in a week, some maniac grabbed her from behind. A bolt of pain in her right foot caused her to cry out.

“Let me go, you son-of-a-bitch,” she hollered at the top of her lungs.
The scrumptious fabric in the bodice of her dress give way as she struggled to free herself.  His grip held. The closure in the back popped as the thug reached around with his other hand and tried to pull the bag off her shoulder. Jessica held onto her bag stubbornly. There was another sick little ripping sound as a shoulder seam gave way to her twisting and writhing. Her cell phone went flying in one direction, her keys in the other. She was about to give in and let the bastard have her damn purse when she heard someone call out.

“What’s going on? Police!  Let her go.” His last hard yank on her bag unleashed from her a series of epithets
. Sister Bernice would have sent her to Father Flynn for confession. Her tormentor took off, bounding out of the garage through an opening between pylons, heading in the direction of the shops.  Upon release, she was propelled forward by a shove and the momentum of her struggle to get free. She landed and skidded on her hands and knees, like a kid on roller skates taking a spill. Tears of pain and frustration welled up in her eyes. 

“Are you okay?”
She was starting to hate that question.  How could she possibly be okay?  She was sprawled out on the ground with her designer dress, knees and pride in shreds. 

“No, I am
not okay,” she said as she tried to figure out how to get up. Fortunately, there was no disconcerting desert breeze blowing up her backside so at least her skirt wasn’t up around her waist. One of two police officers retrieved the keys she had dropped a couple feet away. Manipulating the buttons on the key fob, he shut off the wailing car alarm.

“Let us help you.”  With that, two sets of strong hands gripped her on either side and hoisted her to her feet
. She winced when she put her foot down and probably would have fallen back to the ground if the two police officers weren’t still holding on firmly. 

“Whoa, lean on me, keep that foot off the ground
. Let’s sit you down and take a look at it,” one of the two officers said.  Both officers were in the summer shorts and short-sleeved shirts that uniformed bicycle officers wore this time of the year in the desert. “I’m Officer Parker and that’s Officer Turner. What’s your name?”

“Jessica, Jessica Huntington-Harper,”
she replied as he helped her sit down on the cement curb nearby.

“Okay Jessica,
may I call you Jessica? Let’s see what’s going on here.” After taking a good look, he got up and went to his bike.

Officer Turner was calling in the incident using
a shoulder mic. She heard him reporting the incident as an attempted purse snatching, in which the assailant had escaped on foot through the El Paseo Garden shops. He described the assailant as a white male, six feet tall with a muscular build and dark, close-cropped hair. He was dressed in a dark suit. 

“I
s that about right?” he asked Jessica. 

“
Yes, but tell them Bruno Magli shoes, too, and he’s got a scratch on his forehead where I hit him with one of my Jimmy Choos.” Officer Turner looked puzzled. “My shoes, officer, I threw one of my shoes at him. I hit him on the forehead.  It left a mark,” Jessica repeated, tersely.

She g
ritted her teeth as Officer Parker, kneeling in front of her once again, pulled a good-sized piece of glass out of her foot. Using a first aid kit retrieved from the saddlebag on his bicycle he gently cleaned the cut and the area around the wound. Whatever he was using stung like hell. 

“You sure about that?”
Officer Turner asked Jessica. “Bruno Magli shoes, like OJ’s, right?”

“I’m sure,” she said, “I do know my shoes.” Officer Parker,
laughed at that remark as he put salve on the wound then, bandaged it.

“Yeah, that’s what I said
. The guy’s wearing a suit and Bruno Magli shoes,” Officer Turner said to the dispatcher. “I know, not your run-of-the-mill purse snatcher, even on El Paseo.”

“You’re not going to need stitches but you should get a tetanus shot if you haven’t had one for a while
.  Watch out for infection. Clean this a twice a day for the next couple days at least, and keep it bandaged. If that pain gets worse or you see anything that doesn’t look right go to a doctor. Now let’s take a look at your knees, Jessica.”  He paused, looking up at her face.  The sunglasses had come off at some point during the melee and she imagined the makeup wasn’t holding up all that well at this point. Sweat, from terror and exertion and the afternoon heat, was pouring down her face.

“Nice shiner you got there
. Are you sure we’re doing the right thing reporting this as a purse snatching attempt? Is there something else we should know?” He spoke to her gently, but directly, fixing her with his gaze.  As he spoke he poured more stinging cleanser onto a cotton ball and gently cleaned up her knees.  She was too numb to even flinch.

Officer Parker
waited for her to respond to his question. His amiable, relaxed manner was comforting and reassuring. He was a good-looking man who bore a vague resemblance to Don Cheadle, especially when he smiled broadly. Probably about her age, but it was tough to tell. Her age-o-meter didn’t work much better than her gaydar these days. For all she knew he might be forty or fifty. His dark eyes exuded kindness and concern, for which she was grateful under the circumstances. He and his partner were both in commendable physical condition, the by-product of a job that involved cycling miles a day, she supposed. Holding out her dirty, wounded palms so he could pour a little whatever he was using on them, she answered his question.

“Officer Parker, I have never seen this man before
. He was trying to take my purse. This is the second time in less than a week that I’ve been attacked by someone looking for something that I don’t have.  The shiner is a memento of my efforts to fight off the first attack. If you contact Detective Hernandez in Cathedral City, he can tell you that I have stumbled into a morass that I am ill-prepared to handle.  Trust me, he’ll have plenty to say about it. I don’t know how you coordinate between police departments, but I’m pretty sure that our would-be purse snatcher is tied in somehow with an ongoing murder investigation. I think we should call him, tell him what’s happened and let him rant. Do you have any water?”  Officer Parker was even more concerned after listening to her story.  She wasn’t sure if that was because he believed her or because he thought she was nuts, maybe overcome by the heat.

“Pete, can
you bring Jessica a bottle of water, please?” Officer Turner, Pete, stopped entering information into a handheld device of some king and got a bottle of water from a small cooler on one of the bikes.

“Pete,
Jessica seems to think we should contact Detective Hernandez with Cat City PD about this.” Handing Jessica the water he continued. “I’m going to find out if I can l locate him, as long as no one objects.”  Jessica wondered how long she would have to wait for all of this to be over so she could go home and throw away another ridiculously expensive set of designer rags. 

“Ms. Huntington-Harper, can you spell your full name for me, and can I get an address and phone number.” Jessica knew the ropes and did as Officer Pete asked
. She also recounted the incident for him, from the beginning, in as much detail as she could recall. As she neared the end of her story, the handsome Officer Parker returned.

“We’ve located Detective Hernandez but he’s tied up at the moment with a double homicide
at an apartment complex in Palm Springs. He says we should give you a message. Your friends are fine, but you should go home, and stay there until he contacts you. We’re supposed to take a statement and send you home, unless you think you need to have us call the EMTs. We’ve bagged the shoe you threw at your assailant in Bruno Maglis, and we’re going to need your bag. You can get your stuff out of it, but since he grabbed the shoulder strap, maybe we can get a print.” Jessica’s mind was a jumble. 

“Did he say
what apartment complex?” she asked anxiously.

“No, Detective Hernandez said you’d know
.”

“
On Avenida Caballeros?” she asked.

“Yeah, that’s right
.”