Jailhouse Glock (A Dead Sister Talking Mystery)

by Liz Lipperman

  She loved this room, had spent many hours in here with Robbie and his parents while they’d prepared dinner or snacks, or sometimes just talked over coffee like she was doing now. God, she wished Robbie was here with her. He’d know how to rub her shoulders and make her feel like things would get better.

  But he’d been gone over ten years, and she’d had to learn how to fend for herself.

  Robbie Castillo had been an only child, and Sandra and Big Rob, as they’d called Robbie’s father, had doted on their son, spoiling him rotten. Maddy had set her sights on Robbie in junior high and pursued him relentlessly until he’d finally given in and asked her to the prom their senior year at Vineyard High School. They were together nearly every day after that, and before he went into the army, they’d found out she was pregnant. A quick trip to the Vineyard Justice of the Peace surprised both sets of parents, but they were young and too much in love to wait.

  The memories of the night she’d found out Big Rob had died of a sudden heart attack a few weeks after Robbie was deployed to Afghanistan were still vivid in her mind. Since her husband had been unable to get back home to comfort his mother, she’d been left with the task and had done everything she could to ease Sandra’s pain. Little did either woman know that less than six months later they’d be comforting each other over yet another death.

  “Are you going to tell me or not?”

  Maddy was jerked out of her walk down unpleasant memory lane and nodded. “Coffee’s about ready. I guarantee both of us will need it.” She meandered over to the pot and stood with her back to him to watch the dark liquid finish dripping. After filling two cups, she carried them back to where Rogers sat. “I’m guessing you still take it black.”

  “Black and hot.” He reached for it.

  Sitting down next to him, she took a sip of the steaming liquid before she repeated the events of the horrible night.

  “Jesus!” He jumped from his chair halfway through her rendition. “Some guy was in this house with a gun?”

  “Yes,” she said sadly. “I was hoping you’d seen something when you arrived that would prove he was really here.”

  “Why in the hell would you need to prove something like that?”

  She finished the story, telling him how the phone and the text had disappeared, and how it came down to her word only. When her voice caught, he patted her hand.

  “Maddy, no one could ever believe you had anything to do with killing Bernardi. What possible reason would you have to off that fat bastard?”

  She shrugged before taking another sip of the hot coffee. “I don’t know. Colt’s at the hospital now talking to the guy who was in the cell next to Bernardi. Hopefully, he’ll be able to shed some light on the situation.”

  “You didn’t tell Colt I was at the diner, did you?” A look of panic spread across his face like a little boy who’d just done something naughty and hoped no one had noticed.

  For the first time since Bernardi was killed, Maddy smiled. It was just like a man to worry about something like that only seconds after hearing about her traumatic experience. “Your secret’s safe. No reason Colt needs to know about your quest to bed Miss Whatever-Her-Name-Is.”

  “Thank God for that!” A mischievous grin replaced the worried look. Holding up his thumb and forefinger, he said, “I’m this close to getting her between the sheets.”

  Why is getting laid the only thing the male species thinks about? The always hysterical Robin Williams got it right when he said that God gave men a brain and a penis, and only enough blood to run one at a time. Guess which one wins out every time?

  Maddy choked on the sip of coffee and nearly spewed it across the table.

  Tessa walked up and plopped her elbows down on the countertop. Any news?

  “Colt’s at the hospital now talking to the other guy,” she answered her sister before remembering that Rogers had no idea Tessa was in the room.

  She glanced his way, noticing his furrowed eyebrows. He must be wondering if she was going batty on him. She’d better get used to Tessa showing up whenever she pleased, or they’d be loading her onto the loony train before long. That’s if they didn’t put her in the paddy wagon first.

  “I was just thinking we should dust Jessie’s room for prints when she wakes up, although I have a feeling we won’t find anything. Whoever planned this whole thing was pretty clever. I seriously doubt they’d be dumb enough to leave evidence.” She hoped Rogers bought into her explanation for the surprised gasp.

  “I agree. How do you think they got in?”

  “If they’re as smart as I think they are, they probably cased the joint and knew where Sandra hid the key.”

  Sheesh! That’s inviting robbers to come on in and clean out the place. Hasn’t anyone heard of keypads?

  Maddy ignored Tessa and refilled Rogers’s cup. She was about to refill her own when she noticed Colt’s police car pulling up to the curb outside. She ran to the front door and threw it open at the exact moment he walked up the steps onto the porch. One look at his face told her he was not bringing good news.

  Her heart felt like it would beat out of her chest. “What did you find out, Colt?”

  “I’m sorry, Maddy. I have to take you down to the station.” He made eye contact with Rogers. “Stay here until I can send someone to relieve you. I don’t want Jessie or her grandmother alone for a single minute.”

  “Why do I have to go to the station with you now?” Maddy asked, hoping he had a perfectly logical reason—one that didn’t involve her wearing handcuffs.

  His eyes clouded with sadness. “I talked with Alan Foxworthy before they wheeled him up to surgery. He fingered you as the shooter.

  I have no choice but to book you for Bernardi’s murder.”

  five

  Jake Matthews nudged the dark-haired woman next to him in bed, but she didn’t move. From the little he remembered about the night before, she’d already been two sheets of the proverbial three sheets to the wind when he’d picked her up at the hotel bar. He hadn’t intended to bring her back to his room, but something about her had intrigued him.

  Maybe because she could throw back a double bourbon better than he could. Or that she had more cleavage hanging out of the tight jersey knit dress than should have been legal.

  He got out of bed and padded naked to the bathroom, catching a glimpse of himself in the mirror.

  Jesus! When did he get the paunch? He’d worked damn hard for his six-pack abs, maintaining his as-yet-undefeated status as weight-lifting champ at the TriCity Police Olympics. Or at least since the last time he checked. Although he’d only been off the force a year now, he was definitely showing the consequences of neglecting his workout routine. When had all that flab snuck up on him? Apparently, the “use it or lose it” mantra was not just empty words.

  Screw it!

  He relieved himself, holding his head erect so the pounding was tolerable. Sneaking another look at his naked and not-so-buff physique, he grabbed his duffle bag from the floor and pulled out two extra-strength aspirins before heading to the minibar for something to swallow them with.

  Halfway there, the woman in the bed let out the mother of all snores before rolling on her side, giving him an unrestricted view of her backside. Angela or Annie—some damn name with an A—had looked a whole lot sexier last night in the dim light of the bar. After getting that last glimpse of his naked self in the mirror moments before, he was sure she’d say the same thing about him. Alcohol had a way of masking the imperfections.

  He stooped to open the minibar, causing his head to throb once again.

  “Dammit!” he exclaimed as he stared into the unit.

  He and Lady A had gone through every bottle of alcohol that had once occupied the first shelf. Desperate, he grabbed a Coke, popped it open, and swallowed the pills, praying it would quickly work its magic.

  Aware of the bad taste in his mouth, he chugged the rest of the soda. He hated that he was becoming more and more like his dad every
day. Jake Senior would tie one on, then spend the next morning drinking God only knew how many soft drinks. When the vomiting began, followed by killer headaches, he’d curse the colas. It still amazed Jake that Senior never once considered that feeling like crap might have something to do with the fifth of Scotch he’d consumed the night before.

  Jake and his younger brother Caleb would watch in anticipation, knowing how it would play out. The old man would start “cussing like a sailor” and his mother would scream at him for cursing in front of the children. He and Caleb would run and hide so Senior wouldn’t hear them giggling, because there would’ve been hell to pay if he’d known they were laughing at him. Of course, there was always hell to pay for everything back then, and Jake still had the scars on his legs to prove it.

  He would have to quit mixing his drinks and stick to good old draft beer. But he knew that wouldn’t happen anytime soon. Beer never took him where the hard liquor did—never made him forget how he’d fucked up so many lives in a matter of minutes.

  How he’d held his best friend in his arms when he took his last breath.

  No, as bad as the aftereffects of hard drinking were, they didn’t even come close to the pain he felt without it.

  He jumped when the phone blared from the nightstand, grabbing another soda before heading that way to answer. He figured there was no hurry since Lady A was dead to the world and snoring like a lumberjack with her bare-naked ass in the air.

  He grabbed the phone. “Yeah,” he said into the receiver before easing down on the side of the bed.

  He figured it was Tommy, the morning desk clerk, calling for some reason or another. He’d chosen this hotel because of its close proximity to both DFW airport and Vineyard, and he’d gotten friendly with several of the employees. Freddie, the night clerk, always made sure Jake made it from the bar to his room every night, and Tommy saw to it that no one disturbed him until noon every day.

  He glanced at the alarm clock. Nine thirty. So why was Tommy calling him now?

  “Jake?”

  He straightened up, setting off another flurry of pounding above his right eye. “Why are you calling on the hotel phone?”

  “Because you’re not answering your other one. Is everything alright?”

  Jake surveyed the area before spying his jeans in a heap across the room and his cell phone on the floor beside them. He’d probably turned off the ringer before he and Lady A had started celebrating.

  “Battery’s dead,” he lied. “So what’s up, boss?”

  “There’s been a new development in your case.”

  Jake popped the soda top and took a long swig, thinking he was never going to get rid of the feeling that he’d just gone through a West Texas dust storm with his mouth wide open. No wonder his dad had gulped down so many of the carbonated drinks the morning after. “What kind of new development?”

  There was a long pause before the man on the other end cleared his throat. “He’s dead.”

  Jake stood, turning once again to glance at the woman in the bed to make sure she was still asleep. He’d told her he was a computer software salesman in town for a convention. The last thing he needed was to complicate things. He had no plans of ever seeing her again, and the less she knew, the better.

  He grabbed his jeans off the floor and scooped up the cell phone. Six missed calls. Jesus! He had to quit doing doubles.

  “How did he die?” he asked, pulling the suitcase out of the closet, already anticipating the drive back home to San Antonio.

  “They say a cop shot him in the Vineyard jail last night.”

  With the phone lodged between his ear and his neck, Jake stepped into his jeans and stopped halfway up his legs. “Why would a cop kill him?”

  “We don’t know, but it’s time to go to Plan B. We need you to find out what the cop knows, and we need you to do it quickly.”

  So much for going back home. “I’m on it, boss,” Jake said, shoving the suitcase back into the closet.

  “Call as soon as you know something.”

  “Will do.”

  He hung up the phone and gave Lady A another gentle shove. It was obviously going to take more than a few shakes to wake her up, and right now, he didn’t have the time or the patience to mess with it. He’d make sure Tommy sent up room service around noon. That’s the least he could do for the woman after partying with her all night. It should have scared him that he couldn’t remember if they’d had a good time, but it didn’t. Right now he was more concerned with why the man he’d been tailing for the past two weeks had ended up dead in a jail cell.

  Grabbing his car keys and cell phone, he exited the room and gently closed the door behind him, grinning at the absurdity of that. Not even a live heavy metal concert in the room would wake up the buxom brunette.

  On the first floor, he stopped and made the arrangements with Tommy to take care of Lady A, then walked out into the cold November Texas air. On the fifteen-minute ride to Vineyard, he’d already begun wracking his brain for a reason why a cop would want to kill a prisoner under his watch. He’d had eyes on the guy as late as ten the night before, but he’d left the Vineyard bar right after the cops had hauled the mark’s sorry ass to jail. Seems Gino Bernardi had gotten jealous when another drunk made some kind of remark about his girlfriend, and he’d pounded the guy.

  Figuring Bernardi’s lawyer would play the get-out-of-jail-free card and have him home before most people had consumed their first cup of coffee, Jake had headed back to the hotel to celebrate the rest of Thanksgiving in his own way.

  The whole thing made no sense—at least not yet. But he hadn’t been a cop for over ten years without learning that nothing was ever coincidental.

  There was a reason behind the killing, and he was being paid good money to find out if that reason involved a piece of jewelry.

  _____

  Maddy sat at her desk watching the police station come alive with activity. Although she’d been fingerprinted and booked, Colt hadn’t insisted she sit in a cell while she waited for Lainey to come through with the name of a good criminal lawyer.

  She shuddered at the thought that she even needed a lawyer, much less a criminal defense attorney. Lainey worked in downtown Dallas as the weekend anchor on the six o’clock news for a local station, and although she didn’t know any defense lawyers personally, she had access to people who did. She’d been on the phone to her colleagues ever since she’d come to the station an hour ago.

  Maddy blew out a breath, hoping somehow this would all magically go away, but she knew that was wishful thinking. Even though right now she was on leave with pay, she wasn’t sure her financial situation could handle too much time off. Things would go south in a hurry if a grand jury thought there was enough evidence to go forward with a murder charge. She was already counting every penny as it was, and just last week at the grocery store, she’d had to put back a couple of items she’d decided they could live without.

  It wouldn’t kill her and Jessie if they didn’t eat ice cream or cookies while she got her savings back on track. She might even lose a few of those unwanted pounds she’d packed on in the past few months. Eating healthy wasn’t cheap, another casualty of her money crisis.

  “Maddy, I think I found someone.”

  She glanced up at Lainey, noticing how pretty her sister was even this early in the morning. Of all the siblings, Lainey looked the most like Tessa, who had been—hands down—the best looking of the bunch. She decided to keep that observation to herself for now. Despite the fact that Lainey and Tessa had ended their nine-year estrangement the year before, Lainey was still uncomfortable when people mentioned the resemblance. Tessa had used her looks to get what she wanted in the world and hadn’t been above screwing anyone who stood in her way. Lainey wanted no part of even the slightest comparison.

  Maddy reached for the slip of paper in her sister’s hand. “Joseph Newland of Newland, Rhodes, and Associates,” she read aloud. “They sound expensive.”

  “S
eriously, Maddy? You’re going to go bargain hunting when there’s a possibility you might have to spend the rest of your life in jail for a murder you didn’t commit?” Lainey scolded, before she softened and moved closer. Bending down, she hugged her sister. “I’ve been told this guy is the best. Besides, that’s what families are for. Tessa left me the vineyard when she died, and Deena and Kate will want to pitch in, too.”

  Maddy gave a fake laugh. “The vineyard burned down, remember? I’ve heard you say too many times that what little income you’re getting from selling wine made with someone else’s grapes is only enough to cover operating costs while you wait for the new vines to produce. And Deena has to answer to that asshole husband of hers for every penny she spends.”

  Lainey opened her mouth to argue, but Maddy silenced her with her hand. “Then there’s Kate who eats every meal away from the hospital at my house because her paycheck as an obstetrical resident is so pathetic. And God knows I can’t afford another payment.” She shook her head. “I’m sure there are cheaper—“

  “Hush,” Lainey interrupted. “We’ll find a way. I’ve already lost one sister, and I’m not about to lose another because we used a discount lawyer.” She grabbed the slip of paper back from Maddy and pulled out her cell phone.

  Maddy listened to her leave a message with the lawyer’s answering service. She’d forgotten this was Thanksgiving and most people had taken the long weekend off. Obviously Newland and Rhodes were enjoying the mini vacation, too.

  It didn’t seem possible that less than twenty-four hours earlier, they’d all been sitting around Deena’s dining room table giving thanks and enjoying each other’s company. The only thing she’d worried about then was how many miles she’d have to jog around her neighborhood to burn off all the calories from her sister’s phenomenal desserts.

  At the thought of the Thanksgiving feast, Maddy remembered that Deena had sent a piece of pumpkin pie crunch and a bowl of ambrosia to the station, her favorites. She’d been just about to snack on them when she’d gotten the phone call, and all hell had broken loose.