Bone Valley Read Free Page B

O’Leary, and Stanley associate as young and untrained as young Mr. Quartermire would have practiced budding lawyer skills in a series of meaningless legal thrusts and parries with the opposing side until Jimmie’s insurance company decided on a proper settlement amount.
    But just my luck, Jimmie Rodgers was not only the man who had done all the odd jobs around my house, but he reminded me of my grandfather, who also drank more than was sociably acceptable. Given our relationship, I wasn’t about to turn Jimmie down when he asked me to defend him in his stupid car lawsuit, even though the case was far beneath my standing in the hierarchy of Sarasota lawyers. Friends don’t leave friends at the mercy of the vagaries of the Florida tort system.
    So, there I was—stuck handling the kind of case that dumb kids like the nervous Jason Quartermire cut their teeth on.
    What with a parrot-induced fender bender and a defamed-orange case to live down if word got out, I knew I needed a page-one lawsuit. But the legislature had made it so difficult to sue doctors in Florida that those million-dollar med-mal suits I was locally famous for successfully defending were drying up. At a point in my career where most lawyers looked forward to coasting on their laurels and having their associates do the hard stuff, I was looking at developing a new legal specialty.
    Seeing no need to explain any of this to Quartermire, I simply said, “Good day,” in a voice that signaled the end of our conversation, and turned and jogged off with Jimmie huffing to keep up as we left the courthouse.
    As Jimmie prattled beside me on the short, but hot and trafficky walk back to my office, in the humidity my hair felt like a thick, dark blanket on my head and shoulders. Stifling a pant, I scooped it up into a temporary ponytail, anchored by my hand, and let a hint of the Gulf breeze cool my neck. Then I wondered how many people got sued in Florida for defaming fruit. Was there a trend there I might capitalize on? I mean, how hard could it be to defend a lawsuit against an orange?
    Jimmie grabbed my hand as we ran across Ringling Boulevard, dodging the cars that never stop, and we landed safely on the other side. But before I convinced him to go home, I saw Angus John milling around outside the front of the Smith, O’Leary, and Stanley law office. Off slightly to one side stood a tall, thin man with long, wavy black hair and just about the most beautiful face I’d ever seen on a man. It looked like he was preaching to Angus, with his arms raised and his hands open.
    I stopped walking and inhaled so deeply that Jimmie took my hand again and said, “Lady, are you all right?”
    All right? My fingertips tingled. My lips began to part. The rub of my panty hose on my thighs was electrocuting me. Suddenly I could smell my own pheromones.
    All that from one look at a black-haired stranger ten feet away from me.
    And I was, more or less, or at least in the eyes of Philip Cohen, my ardently persistent lover, an engaged woman.
    “Oh, my lord,” Jimmie said, turning to follow my stare. “Don’t he look like a Mexican Jesus fixing to feed the poor ones.”
    I licked my lips and tried to breathe.

Chapter 3
    Olivia was crouched over Bonita’s desk, where they appeared to be hatching some plot, and they both looked up at me with practiced expressions of neutrality when I pranced into Bonita’s cubbyhole on the way to my own office.
    “Lilly,” Olivia said, “my goodness, Bonita was just telling me about M. David. Why does that deputy sheriff think you had something to do with killing him?”
    “I’m not a suspect,” I said.
    “Are you sure? I mean, everybody knows you hated the man. I can’t say I cared much for M. David myself, his politics being what they were, though he danced divinely with me every year at the United Way ball, but what a terrible way to go. How did…” Olivia paused when she noticed the parade of men I had been leading, the short