Free Sleuthing for a Living (Mackenzie & Mackenzie PI Mysteries Book 1) by Jennifer L. Hart Page B

been expecting. If I'd been arraigned on murder charges, I would have been a total basket case. So what if, over the course of my investigation, I found out that she had been behind her husband's shooting? Would I still get paid?
    It was a crummy thought considering the father of her children had just been gunned down, but my mother had moved into my apartment building, and I owed her money. Loan sharks were more forgiving.
    Len shuffled to his desk and sat behind it. "Dr. Granger was just telling me she thinks she knows who killed her husband."
    "Ex-husband," Jessica Granger corrected in a smooth, carefully accent-less voice. "Yes, I believe it was his mistress."
    "His mistress," I repeated. "And do you know who that is?"
    She blinked at me, eyelashes fluttering like Morse code. "Why yes, of course. Her name is Rose, Rose Fox."
    I cast a sidelong look at Len, but he was keeping his own counsel. "Did you tell the police about Ms. Fox?"
    "Mrs. Fox. And yes, her name came up."
    "A widow?" I asked. She was so matter-of-fact about her husband's mistress. Maybe aloofness was her particular defense mechanism. Maybe she had huge crying rages in the privacy of her own home. Somehow I doubted it.
    The good doctor shook her head. "No, she's married too. In fact, we met both Mr. and Mrs. Fox during one of our retreats."
    There was a small notebook in my jacket pocket along with a pen. I uncapped the sucker, flipped opened the notebook and wrote Mr. and Mrs. Fox on retreat. It looked like the intro to a children's book. "What kind of a retreat?"
    "It was for…people like us." She shifted in her chair, looking discomfited for the first time.
    I shot an imploring glance at Len, but he just smiled. Okeydokey then .
    "Mrs. Granger, may I call you Jessica?"
    When she nodded I continued, "I'm here to help you, and I need a place to start. You say you knew Mr. and Mrs. Fox well? What was the nature of your relationship?"
    "We…swapped."
    "Swapped what?"
    "Spouses. We traded spouses during the retreat. I was with Mr. Fox, and Paul was with Rose."
    I shot another furtive look at Len. He raised his spidery eyebrows as if asking what I was going to do about it.
    Nothing. I was going to do nothing except hopefully provide Hunter Black with enough evidence to arrest Rose Fox for murder and entice the DA to drop all charges on Dr. Granger.
    "I'm going to need a little more to go on," I said slowly. "You met Mr. and Mrs. Fox on a spouse-swapping retreat. Did you know your husband was going to get romantically involved with Mrs. Fox?"
    "We knew what we were signing up for, if that's what you're asking," Mrs. Granger said. "We'd done it before, swapped, for a weekend."
    "Why?" The question slipped out before I could stop it. It really wasn't any of my business, and curiosity aside, I wasn't sure how it could pertain to the case.
    She leveled a challenging stare on me. "Have you ever been married, Ms. Taylor?"
    "No." I swallowed and tried not to squirm under her assessing gaze.
    "Well let me tell you, marriages can turn stale if you let them. Len and I had decided to have an open marriage, to liven things up, but we had rules. I wanted full blood panels and a financial background check. And we only swapped with couples and only for a limited amount of time. It was supposed to be organized and contained, something apart from our day-to-day life."
    "But that changed," I said softly.
    Her hands, which had been folded primly in her lap, squeezed into fists. "Yes. Rose and Paul wanted more. They fell in love."
    "And what did Mr. Fox think about this?"
    "Robert was devastated, just like I was. It was such a shock to both of us."
    I drew an arrow down and wrote Robert Fox beneath his wife's name. "Do you know what sort of car Robert drives?"
    Her brown eyes narrowed suspiciously. "The police asked me the same question. Is that relevant?"
    Len piped up for the first time. "A witness saw a Black Escalade speeding away moments after the shooting." I was grateful