Free Lethal Vintage by Nadia Gordon Page A

of the valley’s most notorious crimes in years. Naturally, Sergeant Harvey would rather see her cooking lunch than out digging around in his jurisdiction. Still, no matter how irritated he might be at her involvement, he was always respectful, if a bit stern and intimidating. He had a weight lifter’s body and used it to full effect, wearing his shirts tight and standing arrow-straight. Now he spoke in a low voice, poking her forearm with a burly finger after each phrase.
    “I don’t know how you managed to turn up in the middle of this”—poke—”but if I were to tell you something about a case”—poke—”based on that rapport we have”—poke—”and I tell you it is absolutely vital that you not share this information with anyone”—poke—”in a situation like that”—poke—”I assume I could trust you implicitly to keep such information confidential until such time as I choose to reveal it to others at my sole discretion.”
    Sunny moved her arm. “I would take a situation like that very seriously.”
    Sergeant Harvey stared at her. “I’m sure you can imagine why I would take such a risk.”
    She could not. She had, specifically, not the slightest idea. He continued to stare at her until the fog began to clear. “Because things are going to get messy?” she asked finally.
    He nodded. “That’s right. I don’t know exactly what we’re dealing with here, but I’ve seen plenty of people with head injuries. Car accidents. Drunks falling down. Fights. You name it. This one doesn’t look right to me.” He shook his head. “Something’s just not right. We won’t know for sure until the coroner’s report, but I’d bet my badge on one thing.” Sunny waited. Sergeant Harvey gritted his teeth. “The funny thing about what happened to your friend Anna Wilson, Sunny, is that it’s hard to fall out a window when you’re already dead.”

6
    The situation demanded an emotional response. Tears, ideally, and lots of them. Uncontrollable sobs. Collapse. Something to indicate she was human and felt human grief and compassion. Sunny McCoskey had never been the type, as much as she would have liked to be. She knew it was strange. It felt strange even to her. One of her oldest friends was dead and her eyes were dry as cork. Nothing. Not even a tingle. She’d always been this way. Emotionally powerful situations rendered her calm, cool-headed, and oddly devoid of emotion in direct proportion to the severity of the impact. The more serious the incident, the calmer the state of mind. After the crisis passed, and usually at an oddly irrelevant moment, she would finally feel the punch of grief, doubling up with sobs over a particularly moving beer commercial or the sight of a dog locked in a car.
    It was an effort to keep still. Her pulse was racing. She wanted to sprint up the dry trail behind the house, to run and claw and pull herself through the scraping bushes all the way to the top. She wanted her lungs to pump air until they burned and her legs and arms to work and sweat until they quivered with exertion. The worst was having to sit in the kitchen with a cold cup of coffee and wait. The police had asked them not to talk to one another, not togo anywhere, not to contact anyone, not to use their cell phones. An officer was left to watch over them while one by one they went into the improvised police headquarters set up in one of the guest rooms to tell their stories.
    It was a relief not to have to talk. Franco tried to discuss the situation, but the officer guarding them asked him to refrain from unnecessary discourse. He resorted to sighs and the occasional disgruntled expletive as he settled and resettled himself in the chair. Once he glanced over at Sunny with a look of such penetrating sorrow that she almost got her wish. Her throat tightened and it took a great effort to arrest the welling up of tears.
    They sat around the kitchen in a grim parody of the previous day’s festivities. Troy