Dead Giveaway Read Free Page B

Mae had business in the city. Anyone with as much money as she seemed to have has business .''
      ''You should know,'' Jeff answered with a grin.
      ''Smart-ass.'' I used my knee to bump his.
      Kate and I inherited buckets of money along with a still-profitable computer company when our daddy died, money that I use to help unwed mothers like my own biological mother had been. The money also helps support my PI business—a business I started to help adoptees locate their birth families. Bottom lines aren't important to me; reunions are.
      ''Business would be a logical explanation for Verna Mae showing up,'' I said. ''The CompuCan CEO is always calling Kate or me to approve or sign stuff.''
      ''Okay, she may have been in Houston for reasons unrelated to your case,'' he said. ''But from what you've told me, seeing Will Knight the other day might have brought her here, too. Does he live in town?''
      ''He does. Bellaire. You want me to call him? See if he saw her today?''
      Jeff didn't get a chance to answer.
      A man wearing a dark suit came in with a uniformed cop trailing on his heels.
      ''Who's in charge here?'' the man said.
      Jeff pushed back his chair and slowly rose. ''That would be me, sir. How can I help you?''
      ''What the hell happened?'' The man was red-faced, and his bulbous nose bore evidence of more than coffee drinking.
      Jeff walked the short distance separating us from the newcomer and stopped within inches of the guy's face. ''Who's asking?''
      ''Jack Brown. I own this place,'' the man said.
      ''Sergeant Kline. HPD Homicide. A woman was murdered out back, Mr. Brown, then buried in a pile of coffee grounds. Those grounds your own special gift to the environment, maybe?''
      Brown's bluster disappeared. ''Wet grounds are heavy. Expensive to have hauled off.''
      ''Yeah. That's what I figured. You cooperate, and maybe the city won't be too pissed off about how you handled your garbage problem.'' Jeff turned to the cop standing next to the clearly agitated owner. ''Show Mr. Brown to a table, and I'll be with him in a minute. Maybe he'd like some coffee.''
      Jeff came back over and bent close to my ear. ''I need to interview this one now that I have his complete attention.''
      I whispered, ''Okay, I can wait.''
      ''Please go home. I'll call you.''
      ''But—''
      ''And do me a favor? Let me talk to Will Knight first.''
      He said this nice enough, but he wasn't asking for a favor: Jeff was warning me not to contact my client.
      ''If you say so,'' I answered.
      Now, sometimes you gotta dance to the tune the band plays, especially when one of the fiddlers is your cop boyfriend. But as I drove home, I had to think long and hard whether this was one of those times.

    2

    I arrived home around ten, grabbed a Coke from the fridge and headed for the living room, unable to stop thinking about Verna Mae's call to me today and the horrible way she died. The sheer brutality had me as mad as a bull in red dye factory. I needed to find out what had happened. I mean, why beat a woman to death for jewelry and the contents of a handbag that could have been snatched without much effort? But maybe she had some fight in her and pissed off her assailant. If the bad guy was on drugs, it wouldn't take much to set him off.
      Then there was Will. He would soon learn about this, and I sure wanted to be the one to tell him. I did have his number on speed-dial. One press of a button and I could see if he was home, walk that tightrope Jeff had placed between me and my client by asking Will if he'd had any surprises today—like a visit or call from Verna Mae.
       Don't be an idiot, I told myself. I needed to respect Jeff's request, and I sure didn't want to get on the wrong side of HPD. I was still a new PI and under the supervision of Jeff's good friend Angel Molina of the Molina Detective Agency. Though I am a registered investigator, I only stay that way if I don't get