Cause to Kill (An Avery Black Mystery—Book 1) Read Free

smiled. “Good to know. All right, Black;
we’ve got a dead girl placed on a bench in Lederman Park, by the river. It’s a
high-traffic area. Not really a place you’d put a body.”
    Officers slapped palms with Ramirez.
    “Go get her, tiger!”
    “Break her in right, Ramirez.”
    Avery shook her head. “Nice,” she said.
    Ramirez raised his hands.
    “It’s not me.”
    “It’s all of you,” she sneered. “I never thought a police station
would be worse than a law firm. Secret boys’ club, right? No girls allowed?”
    “Easy, Black.”
    She headed toward the elevators. A few officers cheered at getting
under her skin. Usually, Avery was able to ignore it, but something about her
new case had already shaken her tough exterior. The words the captain had used
weren’t typical of a simple homicide: Don’t know what to make of it. Staged.
    And the cocky, aloof air of her new partner wasn’t exactly
comforting: Seems cut and dry. Nothing was ever cut and dry.
    The elevator door was about to close when Ramirez put his hand
through.
    “I’m sorry, all right?”
    He seemed sincere. Palms up, an apologetic look in his dark eyes.
A button was pressed and they moved down.
    Avery glanced at him.
    “The captain said you were the only one that wanted to work with
me. Why?”
    “You’re Avery Black,” he replied as if the answer were obvious.
“How could I not be curious? Nobody really knows you, but everyone seems to
have an opinion: idiot, genius, has-been, up-and-comer, murderer, savior. I
wanted to sort out fact from fiction.”
    “Why do you care?”
    Ramirez flashed an enigmatic smile.
    But he said nothing.
     
    * * *
     
    Avery followed Ramirez as he walked easily through the parking
garage. He wore no tie and his top two buttons were open.
    “I’m over there,” he pointed.
    They passed a few uniformed officers that seemed to know him; one
waved and flashed a strange look that seemed to ask: What are you doing with
her?
    He led her to a dusty, crimson Cadillac, old, with torn tan seats
on the inside.
    “Solid ride,” Avery joked.
    “This baby has saved me many times,” he relayed with pride as he
lovingly pat the hood. “All I have to do is dress like a pimp or a starving
Spaniard and nobody pays me any mind.”
    They headed out of the lot.
    Lederman Park was only a few miles from the police station. They
drove west on Cambridge Street and took a right on Blossom.
    “So,” Ramirez said, “I heard you were a lawyer once.”
    “Yeah?” Guarded blue eyes flashed him a sidelong glance. “What
else did you hear?”
    “Criminal defense attorney,” he added, “best of the best. You
worked at Goldfinch & Seymour. Not a shabby operation. What made you quit?”
    “You don’t know?”
    “I know you defended a lot of scumbags. Perfect record, right? You
even had a few dirty cops put behind bars. Must have been living the life. Huge
salary, an endless stream of success. What kind of person leaves all that
behind to join the force?”
    Avery remembered the house she’d grown up in, a small farm
surrounded by flat land for miles. The solitude had never suited her. Neither had
the animals or the smell of the place: feces and fur and feathers. From the
beginning she’d wanted to get out. She had: Boston. First the university and
then the law school and career.
    And now this.
    A sigh escaped her lips.
    “I guess, sometimes things don’t work out the way we plan.”
    “What’s that supposed to mean?”
    In her mind, she saw the smile again, that old, sinister smile
from a wrinkled old man with thick glasses. He’d seemed so sincere at first, so
humble and smart and honest. All of them had, she realized.
    Until their trials were over and they went back to their everyday
lives and she was forced to accept that she was no savior of the helpless, no
defender of the people, but a pawn, a simple pawn in a game too complex and
rooted to change.
    “Life is hard,” she mused. “You think you know something