LITMIR.BIZ

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you’ve forgotten, sweetheart, hidden beneath my staid, Philadelphia lawyer suits are breasts Miss Universe would kill for.”

      “And she’s modest, too,” he muttered, feeling that familiar tightening in his groin. “Would you quit trying to turn me on for old time’s sake and just smell the damn thing?”

      “Kinky,” Jessica repeated, even as she did as instructed. “Shalimar,” she murmured. She rewarded him with another smile. “I knew you had a clever head on those wide, manly shoulders.”

      He stuffed the silk nightgown into an evidence bag. “The question is, why did she take it off?”

      “Why, Callahan,” the attorney said with mock shock, “surely it hasn’t been that long since you’ve bedded a woman. Why the hell do you think she took it off?”

      Although he wasn’t about to admit it, it had been a long time since he’d gotten laid. Too long, if the way just looking at Mariah Swann’s jean-clad ass sashaying across the parking lot had made him hot was any indication.

      Remembering the raunchy sex he and Jessica had shared, he considered that perhaps there might be some advantages to this case, after all. While what he and the winsome prosecutor had was admittedly a long way from love, there’d also been a lot more involved than casual fucking.

      What it had been, Trace decided, was affectionate lust.

      “My guess would be that she wasn’t alone all night.”

      “And 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.”

      “Amen.” 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.”

      “Any 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.

      “I 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.

      “The 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.”

      “I think I have the picture. So she was mad at Garvey?”

      “Livid. 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.”

      “Want to give me her name?”

      “Not 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.

      “There’s something else,” she said. “Patti said something about telling Matthew Swann about his daughter’s affair.”

      “Not the husband?”

      “If 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.

      “You 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?”

      “Cases 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.”

      “Wouldn’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.

      “While 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.

      “I think I’ll stop by the Garvey place on the way back to town,” Trace said. “And I’m calling a press conference for noon. Doc Potter should be done with the autopsy by then and we’ll know more.”

      “You realize there’s a good chance most of the national media won’t be able to make it here by then?”

      “One can only hope.”

      “You’re incorrigible, Callahan.” She shook her head and gave him a saucy grin. “That’s probably why I like you. Along with the fact that you’re not bad in bed.”

      There were a lot of reasons Trace liked her. And for more than terrific sex.

      “I assume you want to be there?”

      “You ever known a politician who wouldn’t jump stark naked through flaming hoops at a chance for national publicity? I’ll be there.”

      Jessica Ingersoll might be a politician, Trace thought. But she was also, as they would have said in the Dallas PD locker room, “a stand-up guy.”

      “Stop by my office about eleven-thirty,” he suggested. “The doc should be done by then.”

      She stepped over the lingerie and walked over to the bed. “It’s a date.”

      “Well, I’ve got an autopsy to attend. And some paperwork to get started on. Later.”

      “Later.” She was frowning at the bloodstained headboard and didn’t bother to look up at him.

      Trace was unlocking the Suburban when a voice called out to him. “Hey, Callahan!”

      He looked up and saw Jessica leaning out the bedroom window. “Yeah?”

      “You are going to shower and shave and change your clothes before the press conference, aren’t you?”

      “Sure,” he said, not wanting to admit he’d been too busy to give any thought to the matter.

      “Good. Because you look like roadkill.” She wiggled her perfect patrician nose. “And no offense, Sheriff, but you kinda smell like one, too.”

      He waved off her accusation, but as he drove back to town, he lifted his arm and sniffed.

      As usual, she was right.

      Chapter Five

      The Lakeside Lodge had begun its existence as the family home of a millionaire lumber baron. Built at the turn of the century, the stately mansion

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