“I’ll make this as quick as I can,” he told her and then strode into the Chief’s office.
The Chief looked up from his large desk. “How’s it going?” he asked.
“Everything’s fine but I need to talk to you about Jade being a suspect in the murder of Reannan Scott.”
The Chief motioned him to a chair and looked expectantly at Mitch.
“First off,” Mitch said, “someone is still following us.”
“What do you mean, ‘still following you?’”
“Just what I said.”
“Did he follow you in Italy?”
“Having never seen the person’s face, I couldn’t really say. But that would have been an expensive trip for whoever it is.”
“Has he been following you since you came back?”
“Yes. And the amazing thing is, he followed us home from the airport early this morning. It has to be someone who is in the know at Sorrento’s. How else would they know what time our flight was coming in?”
The Chief slowly rubbed his chin. “This could put a whole new light on this murder case.”
“That’s my opinion. So I have a list of things I would like to run by you.”
“Shoot.”
“First, I would like to see the arrest report and then I would like to see the autopsy report on Reannan. I’m assuming one was done.”
“Of course. It happens to be the law.”
“Even in the case of a homicide where the cause of death is obvious?”
“Yep.”
“Good, I would like to read it.”
“I’m not sure if it’s come back yet. At least nothing has crossed my desk.”
“If it’s finished, I would like to read it.”
“What are you thinking?”
“I find it hard to believe if Jade attacked Reannan with the box cutter that the other woman was going to stand there and meekly submit to having her throat slit. It seems like it would have to be a man strong enough to hold her with one arm and slit her throat with the other.”
“That sounds plausible.”
“Do you have a problem with my having all the reports to study over at home?”
“I don’t see a problem with any of your requests so far. Anything else?”
“I want your permission to run an investigation on all the employees of Sorrento’s. That would, of course, include Giovanni Sorrento. Oh, and the four contractors who work for Sorrento’s.”
“I don’t have a problem with any of that. But I can tell you right now, Sorrento has an air tight alibi for the time in question.”
“What would that be?”
“He and his attorney happen to be good friends. They were both playing cards with a group at my house that night. You know Stephenson is my brother-in-law, don’t you?”
“Someone did tell me that.”
“Okay, you have my approval to go ahead, but forget about Sorrento.”
“Thanks, Chief,” Mitch said as he stood and shook hands with Castillo. “Do you want to request all the paper work I mentioned or should I talk to your assistant about it?”
“No, I’ll take care of it and I’ll have her call you when it’s ready. In the meantime, stick with Jade 24/7 until she is either proven innocent or is convicted.”
The Chief followed Mitch to the door, but before he could open it, Castillo stopped him with a hand on his arm.
“You haven’t fallen for that model, have you?” he asked.
Mitch froze.
Had he been that obvious?
“You know me better than that,” he said.
The Chief didn’t reply as Mitch opened the door. He gave a wave to Jade as she stood up when she saw the two men.
“Ready?” Mitch asked.
She nodded and followed him out the door. As they walked down the hallway together, Mitch felt bad about the answer he had given Castillo. While he hadn’t exactly lied, he was sure he had led the Chief to believe he hadn’t fallen for Jade.
“Do you want to go by your apartment and pick up some clothes?” Mitch asked as he opened the passenger door for Jade.
“That would be nice. I haven’t been exactly looking forward to wearing the clothes I wore in Italy, even though they have been laundered.”
“Let’s do that and then we’ll go grocery shopping.”
“Sounds good.”
As Mitch pulled out from the underground parking, he glanced into the rearview mirror. Sure enough, the car that had followed them to the police station was once again following them. He wondered if he should try and lose it. That probably wouldn’t be a good idea. He hadn’t told Jade yet about someone following them and he didn’t want to frighten her.
“How did your meeting with the Chief of Police go?” Jade asked.
“It went just the way I hoped it would. He agrees with my plan to further investigate Reannan’s murder. He’s having his assistant pull together all the paperwork I requested and she will be calling me in a couple of days. Then I’ll go down and pick it up and go over it at home. Ordinarily, I would do it at the department but since I don’t know how long it’s going to take me, I’ll take it home. Then you won’t have to worry about sitting around in the police station.”
“Thank you. That’s thoughtful of you. I really appreciate it,” she said.
“You know me, there’s nothing I’d rather do than please you.”
“Is that true?”
“You bet.”
She looked at him thoughtfully, as though she wasn’t sure if he was serious or only teasing her.
Two days later, Castillo’s assistant called Mitch. She told him the papers he had requested were ready and he could pick them up at her desk. Once more, he and Jade made the trip to the police station.
Before he could get started on the review, Mitch had to take Jade to Sorrento’s. Giovanni had called that morning to say he needed her to come into work to try on some new styles he had designed to be shipped to Saks Fifth Avenue in New York City. He always liked to see them on Jade before he had them made up in the various sizes.
Mitch followed her into the warehouse where once again he saw the three men he had seen on their previous trip. Jade nodded to them as they looked up from their work and walked to the front of the building where Giovanni had his office.
“You like?” Giovanni asked as he pointed to a dress hanging on a hook on the wall.
“I like the design,” Jade said. “Let’s see how it looks on.”
She took the dress and went into a small room off Giovanni’s office. Before she closed the door, Mitch saw the model reflected from several different mirrors.
“What do you think, Giovanni?” she asked the question of Sorrento, but she looked at Mitch.
“Turn around,” Giovanni ordered.
She did as she was asked, moving slowly until she had made a complete circle. Giovanni took a box of pins and made a tuck here and a tuck there. When he was satisfied with the fit, he stood back and surveyed Jade with a pleased look on his face.
“Ees good,” he said.
He motioned her back into the changing room and turned to look at Mitch.
“She very beautiful. You think?”
“She is,” Mitch agreed.
“Is not possible she kill Reannan.”
“Do you have any idea who it might have been?”
Giovanni shook his head. “Many people not care for her.”
Jade came out dressed in her street clothes and Giovanni said no more.
“Do you need anything else from me?” Jade asked.
“I call if I do,” Giovanni said, standing up from his desk.
With a nod to the famous designer, Mitch followed Jade out of the office
and back through the warehouse.
“I don’t know if I can continue to work here,” Jade said as Mitch drove out of the parking lot.
“Why is that?”
“Every time I go there, I see Reannan laying on the floor in a pool of blood. I will never forget it and I don’t want to be constantly reminded of that night.”
“That’s understandable. If you did quit Sorrento’s, what would you do?”
“Find a job with another fashion house or free-lance like a lot of models do. I would have to get an agent and put together a portfolio, but I would rather do that than continue with Sorrento’s.”
Mitch concentrated on the traffic, glancing up in his rear view mirror to ascertain if they were still being followed. He saw the familiar car and once again wondered who it could possibly be.
Obviously, it had nothing to do with Giovanni Sorrento. The Chief had ruled him out as a possibility. Mitch was anxious to get home and open up the packet he had picked up at Castillo’s office.
“Would you like to stop for lunch or go home and I’ll make you a sandwich?” Mitch asked.
“Let’s go home. I have some phone calls I want to make. I want to check with some of the other models and see if one of them can recommend a good agent. Also, I need to call my mother and let her know I’m back in town.”
“Did you call your parents from Milan?”
“I did. As I told you, they have perfect confidence in me and they are hoping you come up with the killer before long.”
“No pressure,” he said.
“I thought it would make them feel better if I told them now that we are back in LA, you’re going to be working on finding the real killer.”
“As soon as we have lunch, I’m going to start reading those reports.”
“Do you think you’ll find anything in them?”
“Maybe not who the killer was. Actually, I’m more interested in the autopsy report than I am the one filed by the arresting officers. I’m sure their report is a pretty open and shut one accusing you of the murder.”
“I’m hoping to find something in the autopsy report.”
“Do they always do an autopsy?”
“I believe so. Castillo told me it’s the law. In addition, you were so insistent that you hadn’t done it. That there was someone else in the warehouse when you went into the building that night. Also I think he wanted to believe Giovanni when he said there was no way you could have done it.”
“I hope you find something in the reports that will prove I didn’t do it.”
“Me, too.”
Mitch was glad to see they were home and he stopped in front of the house. He went around the front of the car and opened the door for Jade. After she had stepped out, he reached into the back of the car and picked up the brown envelope off the seat.
They walked into the house, and Mitch went to his office where he put the reports on his desk. Going into the kitchen, he saw Jade had already pulled the makings for sandwiches out of the refrigerator.
“Let me do that,” he said. “You set the table and put a bowl of chips out for me. Also fruit for both of us.”
“Don’t you like the way I make sandwiches?” she teased.
“I don’t believe you’ve ever made one for me. I guess I’m too use to doing for myself.”
“Just give me a slice of the ham and a piece of cheese. I’ll just have it with some fruit. As you’ve probably picked up by now, I don’t eat bread.”
“I noticed that.”
Mitch made himself a thick sandwich of meat and cheese between two slices of wheat bread. He took a beer out of the refrigerator and sat down across the kitchen table from Jade with her small plate of food and a bottle of water.
He was anxious to get started on the reports. Surely, there would be something in them to prove Jade’s innocence.
Chapter 9
Mitch settled into the chair behind his desk and took the two reports out of the envelope and placed them down in front of him. In the background he could hear Jade talking on the telephone. He picked up the arrest report and read through it. There was nothing new there, which was no surprise to him. He slipped it back into the envelope and laid it on the corner of the desk.
Leaning his chin on one hand he began to read the autopsy report. The first page was the date of the autopsy and data on Reannan Scott. The second picture was a photograph of the body as it had been received at the morgue and laid out on the coroner’s table. Mitch studied the photo carefully.
“Good news,” Jade said from the doorway.
Mitch quickly turned over the paper he had been looking at. He didn’t want her to see the photo. She had had enough stress without adding to it with a picture of Reannan with her throat slit.
“What is it?” he asked.
“I’ve retained an agent.”
“That didn’t take long.”
“I talked to a couple of the models I know and they both agreed that Josh Robbins was the best in the business. I called him and he agreed to sign me up as a client.”
“That’s great. But I’ll bet Giovanni is going to be disappointed.”
“He’ll find someone just as good as me.”
“Does that mean you’ll be doing more traveling?”
“Probably. Have you found anything in the reports yet?” she asked.
“There was nothing in the arrest report that I didn’t already know and I’ve just gotten started on the autopsy report. It will take some time to read through since it is quite technical.”
“Will you tell me if you find anything?”
“I can’t do that without the Chief’s permission.”
She frowned. “How long is it going to take?”
“I’m not sure, but once I’ve read it, I will need to go back to the police station and go over my findings with Castillo.”
“Is there anything you want me to do while you’re reading it?”
“For starters, you can leave me alone and let me get on with it.” He smiled to soften his words.
“I think I’ll go in the kitchen and decide what to have for dinner.”
“Another thing you could do is weed the flowerbeds.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yes.”
“Look at these hands,” Jade said, holding them out for his inspection. “Do they look like they were made for weeding?”
He looked at her two hands with their long, slim fingers.
“I’ll get you a pair of gloves,” Mitch said, standing up.
“You really are serious.”
He smiled down at her as he walked past. Sighing, she followed him into the garage where he found a pair of gloves on a shelf.
“Here, try these on.”
They were a little big for her, but she decided they would work. They walked out into the backyard together.
“You do know the difference between a weed and a flower, don’t you?”
She grimaced at him. “It’s going to be your fault if I pull up a flower instead of a weed.”
“Do your best, but please don’t interrupt me while I read the autopsy report. I need to concentrate and I can’t do that if you keep bothering me.”
She stuck her tongue out at him. He grabbed her and gave her a quick kiss before he went back into the house.
That was only the second time Mitch had kissed her.
If you could call it a kiss.
She walked toward the first bed of flowers and got down on her knees and began pulling weeds and stacking them on the grass beside her.
Who would have thought with the money she made that she would be weeding a flower garden at some cop’s house?
But after working for thirty minutes, Jade decided it was good
therapy. She continued pulling weeds until she decided it was time to go in and prepare dinner.
She hadn’t seen Mitch since he had gone back into the house. She wondered if he was through reading the autopsy report. She wanted to find out but knew better than to bother him after what he had said. She could tell he took his job very seriously.
She put the gloves back on the shelf in the garage and went into the kitchen. Washing her hands at the kitchen sink, she took vegetables out of the refrigerator to make a salad. After she had finished, she covered the dish with cellophane and put it in the refrigerator to keep it fresh and cool while she prepared the rest of the meal.
She decided to make a recipe of her mother’s, so she peeled potatoes and put them on the stove to boil. When she was sure they were done, she drained the water from them and mashed them up, adding sour cream and cottage cheese. She whipped the mixture until it was smooth and spooned it into a baking dish. After grating cheddar cheese on the top, she set it aside to put in the oven for twenty minutes before serving dinner. The cheese would be melted and it would make a delicious entrée.
She tiptoed quietly to the door of Mitch’s office. It looked like he was making notes on a tablet. He looked up.
“Almost finished,” he said.
“Good, then I’ll plan on serving dinner in about thirty minutes.”
He nodded and continued to write.
Going back to the kitchen, she turned on the oven. While it was heating she took out a frying pan and put some butter in it. Taking out a wrapped package from the refrigerator, she opened it and took out the salmon that was inside. She put it into the frying pan and popped the dish of potatoes into the oven.
Seams of Destruction Page 10
