Bel-Air Dead by Stuart Woods

Author:Stuart Woods
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Penguin Group
Published: 2011-04-10T21:00:00+00:00

31

Stone was standing in the driveway when the police cars—three of them, one unmarked—pulled up and stopped. He flashed his badge: “NYPD, retired,” he said. “Please turn off the flashing lights; let’s not disturb the neighbors any more than necessary.”

Dino came walking up the driveway, followed by another man. He introduced Sergeant Rivera to Stone, and Stone introduced them to the lead detective.

“We’ve got a man down in the central hall of the house,” he said to the detective. “One gunshot wound to the back, exiting the chest, DOA. We have security people here to prevent such a thing, but we found where he came over the rear fence, leaving this.” He handed the scrap of blue cloth to the detective. “You’ll see where it came from his shirt. We kicked his gun to one side when we turned him over to see how badly he was hurt, but nobody has touched it since.”

“Motive?” the detective asked.

“Uncertain,” Stone said. “Maybe robbery, maybe something to do with a business deal. This is the home of the late Vance Calder; his widow is in the house, but she saw nothing.”

The detective nodded. “I’ll need to talk to her.”

Stone went and brought Arrington out and introduced them. Then he sat and listened as she was interviewed. When they were done, he took her to her room. “You get some sleep,” he said, kissing her.

Somebody from the medical examiner’s office showed up, followed by two EMTs in an ambulance. They began to do their work.

Eventually, the ME joined Stone and the detective. “Deceased, probably instantly; gunshot wound, through-and-through, fresh corpse, been dead less than an hour.”

“I’ll need the gun that fired the shot,” the detective said, and Mike’s security man handed it over, along with his gun permit and a business card. The detective made some notes, then returned the permit to him. “Remain available,” the detective said, and the man nodded.

Mike Freeman turned up shortly. “I’m sorry I was so long; I was having dinner in Malibu,” he said.

Stone silently wondered where in Malibu.

“With Charlene,” Mike said.

Stone nodded and brought him up to date. “Your people did well,” he said, “but I didn’t. I took Arrington to dinner, and a car followed us, but I thought it was your people. Turned out, I was wrong.”

Photographs of the corpse and the scene were taken. Then the police cleared the scene and took down the yellow tape. Manolo turned up with a mop and a pail and cleaned up the blood, as if he did the same every night.

“It’s time everybody went to bed,” Stone said, shooing everybody out of the house but the security people and Dino. Then he went to Arrington’s room and knocked softly on the door.

“Come in,” she said, and when he had stepped inside, “close the door and come to bed; I don’t want to sleep alone.”

Stone undressed and climbed in next to her. “I told Manolo breakfast at seven; Mike’s people will deliver you to Burbank airport whenever you want to leave.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.