Free Confessions by Joann Ross

decided, was affectionate lust.
    â€œMy guess would be that she wasn’t alone all night.”
    â€œAnd I’d guess that you’re right.” She shook her head with regret as she took in the bloodstained mattress. “You know, as good as sex can be, it sure as hell isn’t worth dying for.”
    â€œAmen.” He pulled a ballpoint pen from his pocket and tagged the evidence.
    Smiling, she patted his cheek. “But if any man could make the choice a close one, Sheriff, it’d definitely be you.”
    The contrast between her cool looks and uninhibited attitude had been one of the things that had attracted Trace to Jessica Ingersoll in the first place. “Thanks. I think.”
    â€œAny time.” Her voice was throaty and every bit as seductive as the rest of her. “And I mean that literally.”
    For the first time since Cora Mae had called him with the one-eighty-seven code, Trace found something to laugh about, just as she’d intended. Relaxing slightly, he shared what he’d learned so far.
    â€œI think I might have an idea who your writer is,” she said when he got to the letters. “You may want to go talk to Clint Garvey.”
    The name rang a bell. Trace knew Garvey to be the Fletchers’ nearest neighbor.
    â€œThe woman who does my hair used to have a thing going with Garvey,” Jessica elaborated. “Last time I was in, a couple of weeks ago, she was waving the scissors around like she wished she could be hacking away at something else besides my hair, if you know what I mean.”
    â€œI think I have the picture. So she was mad at Garvey?”
    â€œLivid. But actually, now that I think about it, she seemed angrier at your victim. Kept muttering about the lady already having one man and how she had no right taking someone else’s.”
    â€œWant to give me her name?”
    â€œNot really. Since she’s the only decent hairdresser I’ve managed to find in this part of the state and if she ends up in the state pen for murder I’m going to be really pissed.” She scowled. “It’s Patti. With an i. Patti Greene. She runs The Shear Delight on Pinewood Drive.”
    Trace wrote the name in his notebook.
    â€œThere’s something else,” she said. “Patti said something about telling Matthew Swann about his daughter’s affair.”
    â€œNot the husband?”
    â€œIf she had that in mind, she didn’t mention it. Apparently Swann broke the couple up once before. Patti was hoping he’d have the clout to do it again.”
    Trace thought about the message left on the phone recorder and decided that he had a pretty good idea exactly what Swann had been so angry about. He also thought about the fact that Cora Mae still hadn’t managed to track the rancher down in Santa Fe.
    â€œYou know,” Jessica said thoughtfully, “this is going to generate a lot of heat. We’d better start the paperwork for obtaining a search warrant.”
    Trace had already decided to do just that. “Worried the senator might withdraw permission?”
    â€œCases like this, the killer is usually a family member.” She told Trace nothing he didn’t already know. “If Fletcher is involved, and he gets spooked, he could do just that.”
    â€œWouldn’t want to step on any murderer’s constitutional rights,” Trace agreed dryly.
    She laughed. “Spoken like a true cop. That’s the difference between you and me, Callahan. All you have to do is put on your blue body stocking with the big red S sewn on the front of it, outrun a few locomotives while dodging speeding bullets and apprehend the bad guys.
    â€œWhile I, on the other hand, have to make certain they make it through the convoluted maze of our judicial system without escaping through some legal loophole.”
    He thought of Laura Swann lying all alone in the morgue and vowed that would not happen.
    â€œI