LITMIR.BIZ

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Somewhere between thirty-five and forty. Quinn never forgot a face. He’d said his name was Norton. His identity didn’t come to Quinn immediately, but it would. Lieutenant Norton was a couple inches taller than Quinn, well-muscled and lean, with a world-weary look in his pensive blue eyes that hinted of pain, both physical and emotional.

      “The Quinn Cortez?” Norton asked, his hard face emotionless.

      Quinn grunted. “Yeah, I’m the Quinn Cortez.”

      “You just won that McBryar case over in Nashville,” Norton said. “What brought you to Memphis tonight?”

      “Lulu—Ms. Vanderley called earlier and invited me. Our get-together was supposed to be a celebration.”

      “Want to take me, step-by-step, through what happened from the minute you drove up in the driveway until the officers showed up?”

      “Sure.” Quinn knew the routine. Being a criminal lawyer, he had cultivated friendships with as well as made enemies of numerous lawmen in a number of states, where pro hac vice rules allowed him to practice outside his home state of Texas.

      “That your Porsche parked in the drive?” Norton asked.

      Quinn nodded. Was Norton one of those men who would automatically dislike Quinn because he was rich and famous? He’d run into his share of green-with-envy yo-yos who had tried to give him a hard time, but they’d all learned they couldn’t intimidate Quinn Cortez, nor could they scare him. But he’d never been in a situation such as this, had never been a suspect in a murder case. And he knew as well as he knew his own name that since he had found Lulu’s body and the two of them had been lovers, he would immediately top the police’s persons-of-interest list.

      “I got here around ten-thirty,” Quinn said. “I parked, got out, walked to the door and let myself in with the key Lulu kept hidden beneath the doormat.” When Norton squinted and frowned, Quinn nodded. “Yeah, I know it wasn’t very smart of her to keep a key in such an obvious place, but Lulu was like that. She enjoyed flirting with danger.”

      “Did she now?”

      “Hell, yes. Why else would she have lived the way she did? In case you don’t know anything about Lulu, let me tell you that the lady liked her thrills. She was into skydiving, mountain climbing, deep-sea diving and she had run through as many bad boys as possible since she turned fifteen.”

      “You’ve known the lady that long—since she was fifteen?” Norton asked.

      Quinn shook his head. “No, but she liked to brag, and her friends who’ve known her for years verified what otherwise I would have thought were tall tales.”

      “So, Cortez, were you just one more bad boy to Ms. Vanderley or were you somebody special?”

      Quinn shrugged. “I’ve never given it much thought, but I suppose I was just one more in a long line. Lulu and I are—were—a lot alike. Neither of us was into serious relationships.”

      “You were lovers?” Norton asked.

      “Yeah,” Quinn replied. “On and off. It wasn’t an exclusive relationship by any means.”

      “Before tonight, when was the last time you saw Ms. Vanderley?”

      “About six weeks ago. She drove up to Nashville and stayed a couple of days.”

      “Hmm…Okay, pick up with when you arrived tonight and let yourself into the house.”

      “I walked inside and called Lulu’s name, but she didn’t respond, so I went down the hall and straight to her bedroom. I assumed she was in there waiting for me.”

      “The master bedroom is downstairs?”

      “That’s right.”

      “And was she in the bedroom?”

      “Yes. She was lying on the bed, flat on her back, wearing a black teddy and…well, at first I thought she was asleep.” Quinn clenched his teeth. Lulu had looked lovely lying there, her eyes closed, her body resting in a languid pose. He’d bent down over her, intending to kiss her. But the minute he touched her shoulder and she didn’t even flinch, he’d known she wasn’t simply sleeping, even though she’d still felt warm to the touch. At that same time, he’d smelled the stench of death and had noticed, there in the dim candlelight, the waxy, translucent look of her skin. “She was dead. Probably an hour or less at the time I found her. Rigor mortis hadn’t set in and her body was still warm.”

      “Hmm…”

      Quinn could tell by the quiet, contemplative way the lieutenant was studying him that the guy would probably wind up hauling his ass down to headquarters for further questioning. There was only one way out of this mess and that was complete cooperation. Tell the police the truth and prove he hadn’t harmed a hair on Lulu’s pretty little head.

      But could he prove he didn’t kill Lulu? He had no alibi for the time of her death—he’d been en route from Nashville and had stopped for a quick nap when he’d gotten so groggy he couldn’t keep his eyes open. He’d pulled off Interstate 40 somewhere between Nashville and Jackson and had slept for well over an hour and a half.

      Norton glared at Quinn. “Considering you and Ms. Vanderley were lovers, you don’t seem too torn up about her death.”

      “I’m not the emotional type. I don’t fall apart in a crisis. If I did, I wouldn’t be the Quinn Cortez. But I’m not a completely heartless bastard.” Quinn looked Norton right in the eyes. “I cared about Lulu, as a friend. And as a lover. If I could change what happened to her, I would. But all I can do—all any of us can do now—is determine how she died. And if she was murdered, find the person responsible.”

      Norton eyed Quinn skeptically.

      “And no, lieutenant, I didn’t kill her. I had absolutely no motive.”

      Before Norton had a chance to respond, a man of probably fifty, with a receding hairline and a potbelly hanging over his belt, came into the room.

      “That you, Jim?” the man asked.

      Norton turned and nodded. “Yeah, it’s me. What have you got for us, Udell? Suicide? Accident? Murder?”

      Jim Norton. Jim Norton. Quinn repeated the name several times and suddenly a light clicked on inside his brain. Jim Norton, a running back for UT twenty years ago. That’s where Quinn had seen Norton. Norton had been star-athlete Griffin Powell’s teammate and best friend. The entire South—and that included Texas—had kept track of the two men who’d been destined to turn pro. Oddly enough, considering both had had NFL star quality written all over them, neither man had played professional football.

      “Murder,” the ME said. “Asphyxiation.”

      Quinn had suspected as much. When he had found Lulu lying there so peacefully, he’d desperately wanted to believe she wasn’t dead, that he could somehow save her. His first impulse had been to perform CPR, but when he’d lifted her right arm to check for a pulse and seen her bloody hand, he’d known that he had arrived too late. If only he hadn’t stopped for that damn nap, he might have gotten here in time to prevent her death.

      “There’s one other thing,” the ME said.

      “What’s that?” Jim Norton asked.

      “The index finger on her right hand was amputated. Postmortem.”

      Annabelle Austin Vanderley was at her best playing hostess. It was a role she’d been born and bred to perform, as had generations of women in her family. Tonight’s gala event—a buffet supper to raise funds for the Christopher Knox Threadgill Foundation—hosted society’s elite from Mississippi, Alabama and several other surrounding states. Tickets had been a thousand dollars each and all proceeds went directly into the foundation that Annabelle had established ten years ago, shortly after her fiancé, Chris Threadgill, had become the victim of a nearly fatal car crash that left him a paraplegic. The foundation was dedicated not only to research,

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