Free Deadly Deceptions by Linda Lael Miller Page A

glowered me into silence.
    We both got up and tracked Greer to the bathroom.
    She was on her knees, with her head over the toilet bowl, dry heaving.
    When she stopped, I soaked a washcloth in cool water and squatted to wipe off her face.
    Jolie flushed the john and spritzed the air freshener.
    â€œYou can’t possibly think I would murder my own husband!” Greer sobbed as Jolie and I helped her to her feet. I looked at her cast, due to come off in a few weeks, and wished it had been on her right arm instead of her left. If it had been, she couldn’t have shot Alex.
    â€œLook, Greer,” Jolie said fiercely, though she was stroking Greer’s back as she spoke, “the cops will give you a day or two to catch your breath, then they’re going to be in your face, wanting a lot of answers. Talk to us. ”
    â€œI didn’t kill Alex!”
    We ushered her back to the living room and sat her down in a leather armchair, facing the empty fireplace.
    â€œYou can tell us if you did,” Jolie said. “We’ll help you.”
    Greer shook her head. “It was probably that bitch Beverly,” she said. “I need wine.”
    â€œNo, you don’t,” Jolie argued quietly. “I know you’ve had a shock, and I’m sorry. But you can’t afford to crawl into a bottle and pretend none of this is happening, because it is. When did you see Alex last?”
    Greer considered. “The day after Lillian’s funeral,” she replied. “He came by to pick up some of his things. He said he wasn’t really leaving—that we just needed some time apart to get perspective.”
    Greer might have been getting perspective, I thought. Alex had probably been getting nooky instead.
    â€œWhere was he going?” I asked after a sour glance at Jolie, thinking hey, I’m the detective around here.
    â€œHe said he’d be staying at the Biltmore.”
    That figured. The Biltmore is posh—nothing but the best for Alex Pennington, M.D., and the bimbo du jour.
    â€œDid you check?” Jolie pressed. “Call the hotel to find out if he was really there alone and not staying with a girlfriend?”
    Greer’s right hand knotted into a white-knuckled fist. “No,” she said, gazing up at me. “I paid Mojo to do that kind of dirty work.”
    â€œI was a little busy,” I pointed out.
    â€œI want my retainer back,” Greer said.
    â€œFine,” I told her.
    â€œStop bickering,” Jolie said. “Both of you!”
    Greer and I both subsided.
    â€œA man is dead,” Jolie informed us. “Let’s stay on the subject.”
    Greer let out a wail.
    A man is dead, I thought with a mental snort. Gee, maybe I ought to offer Jolie a partnership in Sheepshanks, Sheepshanks and Sheepshanks. She had such a keen eye for detail.
    But then, she’d expect a paycheck.
    Back to sole proprietorship.
    â€œI think Beverly killed him in a drunken rage,” Greer said with frightening clarity. “Alex just spent a fortune to send her to some fancy rehab center, but I’ll bet she was swilling gin on the plane back. Are there any more cookies?”
    The whole conversation went like that. I wondered why anybody would want to be a cop—or a private investigator, for that matter. And I seriously considered applying for a blue greeter’s vest at Wal-Mart. The dead guy and I would probably get along fine.
    Â 
    A T SIX-FIFTEEN that evening I pulled into Helen Erland’s dirt driveway. She lived in a double-wide on one of those acre plots with “horse facilities,” meaning pipe fences, a rusted feeder and a beat-up tin roof the animals could stand under to get out of the merciless Arizona sun. When the place had been new, it was probably pretty remote; now it was surrounded by the ever-encroaching stucco houses people like Helen couldn’t afford.
    There weren’t any horses.
    Before I could knock, the