BLACK OIL, RED BLOOD
by Diane Castle
A WISHLIST BOOK
http://www.wishlistpublishing.com
http://www.blackoilredblood.com
Copyright (c) 2012 by Diane Castle. All rights reserved.
Smashwords Edition
DISCLAIMER
Please note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, industries, events, or locales is entirely coincidental or has been fictionalized. This book is not intended to be read as fact or truth. Read it for fun, and take it all in with a grain of salt.
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For my dear husband David, the love of my life.
Without your love and support,
I would be utterly and completely lost.
Okay, I'll yetay now.
Acknowledgements
This book would not be complete without a giant thank you to my friend and mentor, Carole Nelson Douglas. Words cannot express how much I appreciate your help, encouragement, and friendship. To the readers—if you have not read Carole’s Sherlock Holmes/Irene Adler books or her Midnight Louie mystery series, do so immediately. You’re in for a real treat.
Secondly, I would like to thank my other beta readers: Angela Spring, Judy King, Julie VanDolen, and Jamie Spence. Angela, I can’t thank you enough for reading every single revision and providing invaluable advice and support—your feedback on the ending was particularly helpful. Judy, thanks for going through the manuscript not once, but twice! And thank you for your ever-faithful friendship, which I will treasure always. Your kindness and generosity of spirit inspires me every day. Julie—thanks for your tremendous support during development and for listening to me rant about benzene, carcinogens, and the whole book submission process ad nauseam! Don’t know what I’d do without ya. Jamie, this book would have definitely had a crummy opening without you! You’re an amazing writer yourself, and I can’t wait to see your book in print!
I'd also like to thank attorney Keith Patton for teaching me the basics of toxic tort litigation.
Thank you also to JoAnna Couch for teaching me how to write in the first place, and for never laughing at me for having the audacity to think I could actually write a book.
Many thanks and all my love goes to my husband David. Without your support, this project would not have been possible. Thank you also to Jana, brother David, Dad, Joanne, Gary, and Linda for your love and encouragement.
Another big thank you goes out to all my wonderful Gulf Coast activist Facebook friends. You inspire me every day with the work you're doing down there. Stay strong, and never give up fighting the good fight!
Finally, thank YOU—yes, YOU. . . the person reading this right now—for taking time out to read this book. That means more to me than I can ever express.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Facebook, Twitter, and the Blue Bulb Project
PROLOGUE
I didn’t even know how to use a gun before yesterday, and I certainly hadn’t become a crack shot overnight. That didn’t bode well for my chances of survival at the moment —especially since I was currently staring down the wrong end of somebody else’s barrel. What was I supposed to do? Duck? Shoot first? Run?
Maybe the decision would have been easier if I hadn’t loved the guy pointing the gun at me. I watched his trigger finger tense as the smoky, toxic air around us seemed to grow even thicker. Walls shook and the floor rolled beneath me as an explosion thundered through the building. The PetroPlex flagship oil refinery was fast on its way to becoming nothing but a memory.
The doorframe buckled before my eyes—my only means of escape. Sharp orange tongues of flame lapped at me from above, sending down a rain of fiery particles as acoustic ceiling tiles disintegrated overhead.
That’s when I knew that gun or no gun, I was going to die.
CHAPTER 1
The thing about cancer is it's hard to prove somebody gave it to you on purpose, but I can prove it. In fact, I make a living proving it. I sue oil refineries that would rather save a buck than comply with safety regulations designed to do important things like, you know, keep people alive. It’s not unusual for my clients to pass away in the middle of a case, but I’d never had an expert witness turn up dead until today.
My favorite client, Gracie Miller, hurried toward me as I walked up the stairs to the courthouse. I had hoped to put off talking to her until after I’d spoken to the judge. Her untamed gray hair spiraled out of a would-be bun, curls going in a million different directions.
“Chloe!” she said. “Is it true? Say it ain’t true!”
She didn’t wait for me to answer.
“I didn’t believe it at first,” Gracie said, “because I heard it from crazy Mrs. Bagley, and everybody knows she ought to be in a home already. But then I called Mrs. Scott, and sure enough, her husband is out at the crime scene with all the other police, and oh! I’ve lived here for forty years and we ain’t never had a murder!”
That seemed like a pretty big stretch to me, seeing as how we lived in Kettle, Texas, human population: four-thousand; gun population: thirty-four-thousand-three-hundred-fifty six. With all those guns around, there had to have been an incident at some point in the last forty years.
I took Gracie’s arm. She was not going to like hearing that yes, Dr. Schaeffer—her expert witness and the key to winning her case—was indeed dead. He had been scheduled to present critical evidence at a make or break summary judgment hearing twenty-four hours from now. A loss tomorrow would mean the end of our case.
Gracie searched my face and saw the truth before I said a word.
“Oh Lord, a’mighty! What are we gonna do?” she said.
I had a plan, but it was kind of a desperate one—and Gracie didn’t need to know about it, now or ever.
I smiled encouragingly as I carefully omitted the truth. “I’m about to ask Judge Delmont for a continuance. If he says yes, we’ll have enough extra time to find a new witness.”
“Sweet Jesus, Mary, and George W. Bush!” Gracie said. “You know perfectly well he ain’t gonna agree to that! Ever since my husband died, it’s been real lean times. I’m probably gonna lose my house. And I ain’t got all his medical bills paid yet, neither.” Her lip trembled and one big tear welled up and left a streak on her face before it fell to the ground.
Gracie’s husband, Derrick Miller, had died only a month ago from a rare form of leukemia caused by exposure to a toxic chemical called benzene. Derrick had worked his whole adult life in the benzene unit of the PetroPlex oil refinery situated in the middle of town. PetroPlex had never provided Derrick with safety equipment and also had never warned Derrick that benzene would kill him. I was now representing the Millers in a wrongful death suit against the Big Oil industry giant, and tomorrow’s hearing would have been a slam-dunk win if somebody hadn’t offed our expert witness.
“You think it was just a coincidence?” Gracie asked. “Him turning up dead like that the day before our hearing?”
Of course I didn’t think it was a coincidence. The whole situation reeked. If your expert witness dies of a heart attack while surfing in Aruba, that’s life. If he’s murdered the day before he’s set to testify at a hearing that can make or break a case, that’s friggin’ suspicious. But I didn’t see any sense in getting Gracie more worked up than she already was.
“One thing at a time,” I said. Let me go in there and get the judge to move the hearing date back, and we’ll worry about the rest later.”
Like it was going to be that easy.
Gracie nodded. “If anybody can do it, you can. I gotta get back to my cake. I left it in the oven, and the pastor’s wife gets real snarky when I bake ‘em too long. That woman hates a dry cake. It beats all I ever seen.”
“Your cakes are always perfect,” I said.
Gracie beamed. “I got another one mixing up just for you. Strawberry with cream cheese icing—your favorite. You come on by this afternoon and get you a slice, you hear?”
My mouth watered just thinking about it. “That sounds great,” I said, omitting no truth there. I waved goodbye and hurried into the courthouse.
***
Judge Delmont was waiting for me in chambers. When I walked in, he had his arms folded across his chest and a look on his face he reserved for. . . well, me. He didn’t like me too much. I was lucky he’d even agreed to an emergency ex parte conference.
Here went nothing. I mentally willed myself into super-lawyer mode.
We exchanged greetings, and I pulled a motion for continuance out of my briefcase and slid it across his desk.
He took a cursory look and laid it back down. “Look,” he said. “I’d like to help you out, but it ain’t my fault your expert’s dead.”
“Not dead,” I said. “Murdered. There’s a difference.”
Delmont shrugged. “What do you expect me to do about it? I ain’t Jesus. I can’t resurrect him.”
“I just need time to regroup,” I said, pulling some more papers out of my briefcase and sliding them over to the judge. “I already drafted the order for you. All I need is your signature—no miracles required.”
Delmont shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “If you had any evidence to support your claim—“
“I have it. I just need an expert witness to present it, but I can’t find a replacement for Dr. Schaeffer by tomorrow morning.”
“Well,” Delmont said, “If you can get opposing counsel to agree to the extra time, I’ll consider the motion.”
Uh, right. “Buford Buchanan is conveniently out of town, and he is not answering his phone. Besides, you and I both know better than to expect that he would voluntarily agree to something so reasonable.”
Delmont pulled a cigar out of the humidor on his desk and took a long whiff. “Smells good, don’t it?”
He offered it to me. The gesture felt like an executioner handing a condemned prisoner his last cigarette before facing the firing squad.
I shook my head. “I trust your judgment.”
“On the cigar. Just not the case.”
This conversation wasn’t going as well as I’d hoped, and that was saying something, considering I hadn’t hoped for much at all. Everybody around here knew darn well the judge in this town had oil stains on his hands.
I sighed. “I’d like to hear your reasoning as to why you think a continuance wouldn’t be appropriate in this situation.”
Delmont leaned back in his chair and propped his custom-made snakeskin boots on his desk, which was decorated with a humidor, an ash tray (full), a cactus, and a jackalope head. No pictures of wife or family.
“The case has been on the docket for well over a year. Besides that, I got too many cases against PetroPlex floating around here already.”
“And that ought to tell you something about the kind of business they’re running around here,” I said.
PetroPlex is notorious for flouting safety violations and dumping known carcinogens into the air and water. The EPA has been after them for years, but they don’t care. It’s cheaper to pay the fines than comply with regulations.
“It ain’t their fault there’s lawyers like you slinking around trying to sue ‘em out of existence. They employ more than half the people who live here. If they leave, Kettle dies.”
“If they don’t clean up their act, Kettle dies anyway.”
Delmont rolled his eyes.
Almost nothing makes me madder than an eye roll from a good ol’ boy. I mentally pulled up my “big girl” panties, leaned over his desk and delivered my most intense “I-am-a-damn-good-lawyer-and-you-will-listen-to-me” glare.
“Look,” I said. “Maybe you think cancer is something that happens to other people. Maybe you think you put on a pink ribbon once a year and you’ve done your part to fight the disease. But if you’ve seen cancer—really seen it—you know that all the pink ribbons in the world just aren’t enough.”
Delmont pulled out a match and lit the cigar he’d been holding. Clearly he wasn’t concerned about cancer in the least. “You finished, Miss Taylor?”
I lapsed into a coughing fit as I waved the cigar smoke out of my face. “You know PetroPlex is dangerous,” I said. “Even if you forget the cancer, how about the explosions? How about the toxic clouds?”
“You got an explosion in this case you wanna talk about?”
“Not in this one, but—“
“Stick to this case, why don’t ya?”
I squared my shoulders and relaxed my glare—but only by a little bit. There was no way I was going to let this stuffed shirt redneck pawn intimidate me into backing down. There was too much riding on tomorrow’s hearing to just roll over on it. Not only would Gracie wind up in a world of hurt if we didn’t come out on top of this, but I would probably also lose my job. I’d had a pretty nasty string of highly questionable losses in this courtroom under this judge for more than a year now, which was fast destroying my reputation as a good lawyer. . . not to mention depleting my bank account. Wrongful death attorneys don’t get paid if they don’t win, and I’d been eating nothing but Ramen for weeks.
Meanwhile, I was pretty sure Judge Delmont was living fat and happy off the scraps PetroPlex passed him under the table, but I couldn’t prove it.
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s cut to the chase, here. I’m gonna stop pretending like I expect you to be reasonable. So if you wanna stop pretending like anything I have to say matters to you, that’ll be just fine with me.”
Delmont shrugged.
“What are my chances of getting you to sign a continuance?”
“I’d say ‘slim to none,’ but I’d hate to give you any false hope.”
I took a deep breath. What I was about to do was likely to land me in serious trouble if it didn’t come off right. On the other hand, Delmont really didn’t leave me any other choice.
I reached down to my briefcase and lifted out a manila envelope. Slid it slowly across his desk.
Delmont rested his cigar in his ash tray and pulled the envelope toward him. He cracked open the flap and pulled out a series of glossy eight by tens. As he looked at the photos, the lines in his face seemed to deepen.
“You really don’t look good naked,” I said. “And I wonder what your wife would think if she saw you with that blonde?” I leaned forward conspiratorially. “There’s no way those boobs are real, right?”
Delmont shoved the pictures back in the envelope.
My heart felt like a jackhammer inside me. I prayed Delmont couldn’t actually see it pumping. If I showed just one sign of weakness, this whole thing would backfire for sure.
Delmont put his hands on the desk and leaned over it, getting right in my face.
“You think this is a game, Chloe?” He spoke slowly, softly.
“I most certainly do not,” I said. “The question is, do you?”
“I could have you disbarred for this. Throw you in jail.”
“But you won’t.” I tried to put as much meaning behind those words as possible.
Delmont pulled back abruptly. “Where did you get those?”
I had gotten them from Miles, my fabulous paralegal. Where he’d gotten them I didn’t know. Frankly, I had been kind of afraid to ask.
“It doesn’t matter where they came from,” I said. “What matters is the continuance. I expect to see the order signed and filed by eight a.m. tomorrow morning.”
“Or what?” Delmont asked.
“I think you know what.”
Delmont got up from his desk and paced back and forth across his bearskin rug, his fat rolls jiggling with each heavy step. When he turned his back on me, I could almost see his life-sized portrait of Robert E. Lee reflecting off the fresh perspiration on his bald head.
I waited. The courthouse was quiet today. It seemed as though the loudest sound in the room was the sound of my own heartbeat.
“Fine,” he finally said.
Joy welled up inside me, but I didn’t allow it to show.
“But you only get a week.”
And just like that, the joy was gone. “A week! That is a joke! I need six months!”
“You get a week, or I will call your bluff and report you to the bar.”
“What makes you think I’m bluffing?”
“What makes you think I give two pig farts about keeping my wife?”
My jaw dropped open against my will. Seeing as how this was my first attempt at blackmail, I was kind of at a loss. I had never considered the fact that he might not even want to keep his wife.
“Get out,” Delmont said. “And pray to God the next time you stand in front of me you got a jury on your side.”
I gathered my things together and stood.
“A week,” Delmont said. “I don’t care what else you’ve got up that sleeve of yours, that’s all you get. That’s the extent of my patience. Got it?”
I tapped the photographs on the desk with my index finger. “I’ll just leave these here for you to think about. I’ve got my own set.”
I didn’t wait for Delmont to reply. I just walked out.
I was so distracted as I walked down the concrete stairs of the courthouse and into the town square that I stepped wrong and broke the heel off one of my Louboutin shoes. I tumbled down the steps, my briefcase popped open, and my papers scattered all over the town square.
I cursed at the shoe. The Louboutins were a relic of better times—the times when I’d actually had no trouble winning cases. The times when the deck wasn’t completely stacked against me.
Even if I could find a replacement expert in a week (which was highly unlikely), all of Dr. Schaeffer’s evidence and files were locked away in his house behind a whole lot of crime scene tape. We only had one set because my boss was too cheap to foot the Xerox bill.
If I couldn’t convince the police to let me in and get those files, I’d just blackmailed the judge and put myself in jeopardy for nothing.
***
It was only three blocks back to my office.
I parked and limped indoors. Mountains of boxes lined the hallways—all of which contained my boss’s files, not mine. Art hung on the wall, but you couldn’t see it behind the stacks of cardboard.
I twisted and turned my way through the paper maze until I found my little cubicle, from which I daily fought Big Oil. My paralegal, Miles, was waiting for me.
He took one look at me and zeroed in on my broken heel. “Oh my gawd. Not the Louboutins! Please tell me you broke that heel wedging it between Delmont’s butt cheeks.”
Miles is the kind of guy who sets off even the most recalcitrant gaydars.
“Sadly, no,” I said, tossing off the shoes and collapsing into my desk chair.
Miles crossed his arms and eyed me with concern. “Too bad. That would have been worth the loss. Did you get the continuance at least?”
I nodded, and Miles did the happy dance. “Woo-hoo! Atta girl!”
Our boss, Dick Richardson, heard the commotion and popped his head into my office. “Oh, good, you’re back. Didja get it done, or are you fired?”
Miles glared at him, but I was unperturbed. Dick talked to me like that all the time. He’s the kind of micromanaging, paranoid, jerk boss you want to avoid at all costs. His first name kind of sums him up. If I hadn’t been out of other options when I moved to Kettle two years ago, I never would have agreed to work for him.
“I got the continuance,” I said. “If you wanna fire me today, it’s gotta be over something else.”
“Hrmph. I’m shocked. ‘Bout time you won one. How’d you manage it?”
“I used my superior persuasive skills, for which he was no match.”
“You take your shirt off for him or something?”
Before I could figure out what to say to that, Miles chipped in. “She has other assets.”
Dick made a noise that was something between a grunt and a laugh. “Not the kind that appeal to you, I bet.”
Before Miles could launch into a tirade that might produce negative consequences, I said, “If you don’t mind, we’ve got work to do.”
“Yeah, get back to work,” Dick said. “I gotta go into Houston to pick up my new car, anyway. Settle a case and generate some cash while I’m gone, will ya?”
Geez. Another new car. This guy was living high on the hog and I was at home eating Ramen. What was wrong with this picture?
I waited until Dick was well out of earshot before dropping my bomb on Miles. “Okay, so you’ve heard all the good news,” I said. “Now for the bad news.”
His face fell. “Oh no. There’s bad news?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Pretty bad. We only have a week to prep for the next hearing.”
Miles looked like he was about to faint. I wouldn’t have blamed him. I might have already fainted myself if the sheer urgency of the situation hadn’t kept me moving forward.
Miles sat down hard. “We can’t find and prep another expert in a week.”
“I know that.”
“Good Lord, Chloe! Why didn’t you just come out and say so! You got my hopes up and called the boss in here and—“
“Um, I think he came in here on his own.”
“Whatever. Details!”
“I don’t want Dick to know about this until we have another expert in place.”
“Chloe, you are dreaming. Dick and Delmont and the whole PetroPlex crew have a poker game scheduled for tonight, and all his poker buddies already know! How do you think you’re going to keep it from him? This is not going to go well for you.”
“You never know. Maybe they don’t talk business at those games.”
“And maybe a leprechaun will fly up your arse and leave a pot of gold!”
“It’s the best I can hope for,” I said. “I might get another case to settle before Dick figures it out. We have the rest of the afternoon. And besides, we might be able to find and prep a new witness before next week.”
“But we haven’t even got all of Dr. Schaeffer’s research, and his place is a crime scene! You’ll never be able to get your hands on it in just a week!”
“Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures,” I said.
“What are you going to do? Break in?”
“If I have to.” Hey, I’d already committed blackmail today. One more moral breach wouldn’t matter too much, right?
“Girl, you have lost your mind.”
“Not yet,” I said, “but I’ll be there soon without your help. Have you found out who the detective on the case is yet?”
“Of course! It’s Jensen Nash.” Miles fanned his face with his hand and raised his gaze to the ceiling in a mock partial swoon.
Jensen Nash was one of the town’s local detectives. I didn’t know a lot about him except that he was an eligible bachelor and purportedly the sexiest male in a two-hundred mile radius. But this was according to the local girls, whose taste in men I seriously questioned. I was not really into the cowboy type, which comprised the majority of the male population in this town.
“Have you been able to get a hold of him yet?”
“Yes. I already asked him for an appointment on your behalf, and he refuses to see you today. I also told him there wasn’t much time, and that you were dealing with matters of life and death,” Miles said.
“And?”
“He wasn’t impressed. He said he deals with matters of life and death every day, and that the living, especially living attorneys, can wait.”
“He said that?”
“Yeah. But in a really sexy voice.” Miles sighed. “You should call him.”
I buried my face in my hands. Honestly. I just needed one thing—one thing—to go right, to be easy, just one time today. Was that really too much to ask?
“Go see him in person,” Miles said. “Wear something low-cut.”
“That is cheap and disgusting. . . and worth a shot.” I rolled my chair back from my desk and inspected my broken shoe. “Are you up to finishing the draft of this motion?”
“Sure,” Miles said. “Go get him, tiger. But take my advice and go home and freshen up first.”
“That bad?” I asked.
“Girl, your hair looks like it went through a hay bailer. Change into something cuter. And do I even need to mention the shoes?
I sighed and limped out the door.
***
When I pulled into my driveway, the looming afternoon shadows of PetroPlex’s largest refinery draped my sorry excuse for a rental house. The refinery was one of the largest in Texas and the town’s supporting industry, employing over 1500 of Kettle’s total population of 4000. The regional corporate headquarters were attached to this refinery and employed another 500 people. The complex was large and situated smack in the middle of town, right in everyone’s backyard. Here, workers refined over 140 million gallons of crude oil into gasoline and other substances every day.
Residents whose property abutted the refinery, like mine did, were used to living under the refinery’s continuous cloud of smoke and the frequent spurts of fire from the safety flares, which ignited every time the refinery needed to burn off excess vapors. Every now and then, something would go wrong, and the neighborhood would be filled with the smell of toxic chemicals. Sometimes alarms would even go off, warning nearby residents to stay indoors and seal the cracks in windows and doors with wet towels to keep the chemicals from getting in.
Worst of all were the explosions, and there had been a few. Most of them were minor, but several years ago a large one had killed ten people and shook the neighborhood’s foundations.
I hobbled out of my car, grabbed the mail, and stumbled inside, kicking off the now defunct Louboutins. My long-haired Chihuahua/Sheltie mutt Lucy (so named for her red head—a characteristic she shared with me) raced towards me and jumped up and down, tongue lolling out, eyes wide. I put my stuff down and scooped her up to pet her hello. She licked my face and I kissed her on the head. “Are you hungry?” I asked.
She responded by leaping out of my arms and racing to the back bedroom where I kept her food bowl. I followed her, scooped some food into her bowl, and returned to the kitchen to look at the mail.
Bills, bills, and bills, all of which were 60-90 days late. Student loans in excess of six figures. Electricity. Phone and Internet. No cable, though—I had long since let that go. I swore out loud when I saw a demand letter from my landlord. I was sure to be evicted soon, at this rate. I really needed to settle a case and generate some cash.
There was also a notice from the City of Dallas threatening to repossess my dog if I didn’t send them proof of vaccination within seven business days. I figured I could at least safely ignore that one, since I didn’t live in Dallas anymore and I doubted they’d come all the way down here to get her. Still, I did need to find a way to pay for the vaccinations soon. Down here, you never knew what would jump out and bite you.
I threw open my pantry to see if maybe there was some hidden gem in there I had forgotten about. Sadly, there was only Ramen. I was really much more in the mood for fajitas—and margaritas. Patron margaritas. The kind that were served in the big glasses the size of a human head with salt on the rim and a sangria floater.
Maybe if I played my cards right, I could get Detective Jensen Nash to buy me dinner. After all, he’d be more likely to spill his guts over drinks, right? Maybe I wouldn’t even tell him I was a lawyer. Maybe I’d just go down there and turn on the charm and lure him out of the office and wham! Before he knew it, I’d know all about Dr. Schaeffer’s murder and I’d have my files back.
This seemed like a pretty good plan, assuming I could get it to work. I have never considered myself beautiful. My bright red hair and pale porcelain skin are a bit out of place among all the tanned blondes down here in south Texas. Because I was hungry and really wanted those fajitas, I prayed Nash was into the red-headed type.
Trying to forget about my financial situation for a moment, I went to the bedroom, flinging off today’s office wear as I went. I changed into a black lace number layered over a solid red cotton tank and very tiny, very fitted jean shorts, then I slipped on some red high heels. I felt pretty naked for what would essentially be a business meeting, but on the up side, I looked absolutely nothing like a lawyer, a breed of people Jensen Nash apparently hated.
I told myself this was totally going to work. Then I shut my eyes really tight while I tried to make myself believe it.
Okay, who was I kidding? I opened my eyes and took a moment to fantasize, not for the first time, about what my life would have been like if I had actually married my ex-fiancé, Dallas trial attorney Dorian Saks—a partner and colleague at my old law firm. He was more tall, more dark, and more handsome than the tallest, darkest, handsomest man you’ve ever seen. He owned a mansion in Highland Park, an area of supremely-concentrated wealth near downtown, and he was a movie star in the courtroom. When he looked at you, everyone else disappeared. I was absolutely certain that every time he stepped before a jury, each juror felt as though there was no one else in the room and that nothing mattered except producing a verdict in Dorian’s favor.
If I had married him, I would have had a cook, a housekeeper, and a personal shopper to replace my broken Louboutins. I would have had a fireplace in the bedroom and a Jacuzzi in the bathroom. I would have had a diamond ring big enough to have its own zip code.
And I would have had an eternally broken heart. That was the fantasy killer.
Dorian was simply incapable of honesty and fidelity. This I discovered after we were engaged. Dorian’s secretary knocked on my office door one day and told me Dorian had taken her out for a steak dinner. He told her he was going to marry me and asked her not to tell me she was sleeping with him.
Dorian’s ego was such that he thought that would fly, but I’m no doormat. He lost both me and his secretary, but I was sure he’d had no trouble finding replacements for both of us.
The toxic torts circle in Dallas is a small one. I couldn’t handle staying there and facing him every day, so I left town. The only job in my practice area that was available anywhere in Texas happened to be here in Kettle.
Living in this crummy rent house buried under stacks of unpaid bills, I wondered for a fleeting moment if maybe I could have lived with the infidelity after all. He had loved me enough to propose. Couldn’t that have been enough?
I thought about it for a moment, but in my heart I knew, even stuck down here in Kettle, Texas with a job that paid jack squat, I wouldn’t trade places with whoever Dorian was with now.
I noticed a chip in my fingernail polish, and that brought me back to the present. I pulled out a bottle of top coat to smooth it over and tried not to let the situation get me down. Sure, I was feeling a little desperate, but I vowed to myself that Jensen Nash would never, ever know. I would be smooth. I would be charming. He wouldn’t know what hit him.
I checked my mascara one last time, spritzed on some Michael Kors perfume, ruffled the fur on Lucy’s head, and headed out the door and down to the police station. Look out, Jensen Nash! Here I come!
CHAPTER 2
The local police station consisted of one plain red brick building surrounded by a host of mobile trailers. Rather than buy or build a new building as the department expanded, the city just kept dropping in trailers and setting up offices in those. I found Jensen Nash in his office in one of the trailers. His name appeared in neat white block letters on a black sign attached to his door. I opened the door and walked in without knocking.
He barely bothered to glance up at me. It was hard to tell by the look on his face what he thought of me or my skimpy ensemble. That was not encouraging.
“You’re off for the evening, I take it,” he said.
“Um, yes, actually, but—“
“Chloe Taylor, right?” he asked without looking up.
“Yes, but—“
“I thought I told your paralegal I was busy.”
Crap. So much for my “I’m not a lawyer” ruse. “You did, but—“
“You thought you’d come down here anyway and charm me with your feminine wiles.”
Wow. I hadn’t felt this out of control of a conversation since I was a zitty teenager trying to get up the courage to talk to my first crush. To make matters worse, Detective Nash was, in fact, the sexiest man I had seen in a 200 mile radius. He was even sexier than Dorian. He had Rob Lowe good looks. Even through his black suit jacket, I could see that he was incredibly fit. If he possessed even an ounce of personal charm, I might have fallen instantly in love. Instead, I found myself stammering and irritated.
“How do you know who I am?”
“I’m a detective,” he said. “I know things.”
“Would you care to share?”
“Nope,” he said.
I bent over his desk, resting my weight on my elbows, chin in my hands, desperately trying to think of a way to get him to engage.
“Your victim was my expert witness,” I said. “I knew him pretty well. We should talk.”
Nash steadily refused to look at me. “I don’t think so.”
“I can help you,” I said.
“I doubt it.”
“Then maybe you can help me,” I said.
“I doubt that, too.”
Okay. Now he was starting to piss me off. “Well if you won’t help yourself, and if you won’t help me, how about helping Gracie Miller? Or are you just a heartless sonofabitch who doesn’t care about old lady widows and their kittens?”
Nash looked up in surprise. “Kittens? What do old lady widows and kittens have to do with anything?”
I took advantage of the opening. “My client Gracie Miller used to be married to a guy named Derrick. He worked for PetroPlex in the benzene unit for forty years, starting right out of high school. When opposing counsel deposed him a year ago, his wife Gracie, who he married when he was nineteen, had to push him through the doors and into my office in a wheelchair. I had to wheel in his oxygen tank. He had no hair, not even eyebrows or eyelashes because of chemotherapy. He had radiation burns on his face and chest. He had to take off his oxygen mask and gasp for breath just to answer questions for the jackass PetroPlex attorney who spent the entire day trying to prove that even though Petroplex never warned Derrick that benzene causes cancer, that even though PetroPlex was too cheap to install the safety devices that would prevent benzene leaks, and even though PetroPlex never supplied respiratory masks or safety equipment, they were not to blame for my client’s cancer and subsequent death.”
I had finally succeeded in gaining Detective Nash’s attention. I still couldn’t quite read his face, though.
“Derrick,” I said, “slaved away for years to save up for a down payment on a tiny farm. He took Gracie out to dinner at Olive Garden once a year for their anniversary because that was the best he could afford. And on my birthday last year, Gracie baked me a cake. From scratch. With homemade chocolate icing and real butter. And incidentally, my birthday was the day before Derrick’s funeral, which was also the day after he died, at home, gasping for breath in his wheeled-in hospital bed. Gracie is thoughtful like that.”
Nash’s eye twitched almost imperceptibly. What did that mean? “And the kittens?”
“Gracie has a cat,” I said. “The cat had kittens, but they all drank water from a toxic pond near the refinery and died.”
He was silent for a few moments. I waited. Finally, he said, “All right. So your client’s sob-story notwithstanding, I have to know. Are you a particular fan of Ramen noodles?”
“What?” My eyes went wide. “What kind of a random question is that?”
“Do you buy Ramen noodles because you like the way they taste?”
“I love them,” I lied. I folded my arms and glared at him, nonverbally daring him to imply otherwise.
“I couldn’t help but notice the redhead in the grocery store last Sunday wearing a thousand dollars’ worth of designer clothes and buying fifteen or twenty packages of Ramen. Closer to twenty, I think, because you didn’t check out in the express lane.”
I’m not sure, but I think that if Nash had had a mirror on the wall in his office, I might have seen my face turn as red as my hair right about then.
“A woman like you buying food like that. I thought it was strange. Don’t get the wrong idea. It’s just that I’m a detective, and I’m trained to notice things that seem. . . off. So I was wondering whether or not you have a genuine love for all things Ramen.”
“Well, I just, you know. . . the spice packets come in so many varieties.” My fingers tingled. My head felt like it was floating up off my neck. I could feel my body shrinking. I thought I might die of embarrassment at any minute.
“I asked the checkout clerk if he knew your name. He did.”
“I’m flattered,” I said sourly.
Nash smiled. “So did you come down here dressed like that because you’re looking for a dinner date?”
My jaw dropped open, but only for an instant. “You’ve got a lot of nerve accusing me of strolling around like a hooker in search of her next meal.” Okay, of course I was cruising for dinner, but I’d been hoping not to be totally obvious about it. “I went to law school. I passed the bar exam. I am a professional.”
“So is that a no?”
I stopped short. “A no to what?”
“A no to my dinner invitation.”
“You didn’t extend a dinner invitation,” I snapped. “And if you had, I wouldn’t be inclined to say yes.”
Nash laughed. “But you would go.”
Well, yes. But no way was I about to fall all over myself rushing to admit it. “Let me tell you something,” I said. “Every other girl in this town may be falling all over themselves trying to get a date with you, but I’m not that kind of girl. I don’t just keel over in the face of good looks. I am a strong, confident, individual, highly accomplished professional, and you would be lucky to get a date with me.”
“I’m sure that’s true,” he said, glancing at me sideways. “So you think I’m good looking, then?”
“I didn’t say that!” I said. “I was talking about other people. The ones who might think you’re good looking. Not me.”
Nash laughed again. I was really starting to feel like the village idiot, and that was saying a lot, considering that I lived in Kettle.
“Chloe Taylor,” he said, “may I buy you dinner?”
I groaned. “Yes. But only because I need to ask you some questions about Dr. Schaeffer, and I feel like you’d be more talkative over margaritas. Pick me up in an hour.”
I scrawled my address on a Post-It, flung it at him, and hurried out the door.
CHAPTER 3
Judge Delmont’s cell phone buzzed. He picked it up. “Talk to me.”
“The police chief said Nash is about to leave town with Chloe Taylor,” said a gruff voice on the other end of the line.
“You got a tail on them?” Delmont asked.
“All my manpower is on the files. Schaeffer’s laptop is encrypted, and there are ten boxes of stuff in print. That’s just the stuff we got. There are thirty more boxes where that came from. We have to find out exactly how much he knew before we’re certain we’ve plugged the leak.”
“Thirty more boxes?”
“There wasn’t enough time to get them all before Nash and his guys got there. We need to secure the rest before Taylor does.”
“I see. You got any idea where Nash and Taylor are headed?”
“Some place for dinner. Nash is going to pick her up at her house at 6:30.”
“A date?” Delmont rearranged the cigar ashes in the tray with the end of his pen.
“Not according to Chief Scott.”
“How would he know?”
“He’s got Nash’s office bugged, as of yesterday. You know Nash and his goody-two-shoes reputation. If he happens to get wind of us, no telling what he might do.”
“You think Taylor will find out anything we don’t want her to know?”
“Unlikely. I don’t think she’s aware anything out of the ordinary is going on.”
Delmont snorted. “Please. Her expert turns up dead the night before a summary judgment hearing, and you don’t think she thinks anything out of the ordinary is going on? Get real. She’s a big city lawyer. She ain’t stupid. And you’ve got piss poor timing. You should have called me first.”
“It wasn’t your call to make.”
“Maybe not, but just FYI, Taylor ain’t playing by the rules anymore, either.”
“What do you mean?” the voice on the other end of the phone asked.
“If I don’t grant her motion for continuance tomorrow morning, I’m gonna lose my wife—that’s what I mean.”
The person on the other end of the line grunted. “Huh. Well, is that altogether a bad thing? Thought you were getting tired of her anyway.”
“Yeah, but I’d just as soon the local tongues not go a waggin’.”
“I’ll cut you a deal.”
“A deal! You’ve been hanging out with Dick Richardson too much lately. I’m sick of you guys and your deals.”
“A deal,” the voice said. “Here’s how it is. You get somebody to man all the roads back into town, and I’ll get somebody to go through her car and her house. There’s gotta be something there you can use to get her to back off. Nobody’s perfect. When you see Nash’s vehicle, call me and warn me to get out. Things go my way, and you can deny that motion for continuance come tomorrow morning.”
“Fine. I’ll call you,” Delmont said. “But I don’t like it. Frankly, I think you and your guys are getting careless.”
“I don’t care what you think, and even if I did, you’re not in a position to judge here. Just remember who put you where you are.”
“I was elected fair and square.”
“Sure, on my campaign money.”
Delmont held his tongue. He’d always thought it was stupid that Texas elected their judges instead of appointing them. On the other hand, the system did offer certain advantages for people like him.
But now he was starting to feel a little out of control of the situation. “Listen here,” he said. “I want you to keep me in the loop on all this. I don’t want to get caught by surprise on this case, understand?”
“I understand.”
“All right. Just so we’re straight. Otherwise you may find you start disliking some of my more important rulings.”
“That would be inconvenient,” said the gruff voice.
“Darn straight.” Delmont hung up the phone.
CHAPTER 4
Nash drove me to the nearby town of Rosethorn, which was slightly larger than Kettle and had a better variety of restaurants. We needed to leave town for dinner, seeing as how the exhaustive list of places to eat in Kettle included Dairy Queen, McDonald’s, Grandma’s Fried Chicken, and a place called Caliente, where the only flavor of food is jalapeno. I love jalapenos, but I haven’t eaten at Caliente, mainly because I haven’t been able to afford it lately. I’ve heard they serve jalapeno-flavored goat, and you can even get jalapeno-flavored rattlesnake there if you want to. (Apparently, some people actually like to eat rattlesnake—a fact I find hard to comprehend.)
When we got to the restaurant, Nash pulled out my chair and unfolded my napkin. I was just on the verge of thinking some nice things about him when he sat down and pulled a pen and small notebook out of his pocket.
An interrogation. Not a dinner date. Wow, how naïve was I? This guy was a real pro. He had gone out of his way to put me off balance so that he could ask me questions. Not the other way around.
Of course he would want to question me. I had been working with Dr. Schaeffer the day he was killed. As stupid as I had felt earlier, I felt infinitely more moronic now.
“Really?” I eyed his notepad pointedly. “You could have just taken my appointment request and asked me what you wanted to know down at the station.”
“Frankly,” he said, “I really didn’t have time to see you today. I had just gotten back from the crime scene when your office called, and there were more important people to talk to.”
“Like who?”
“Like people who actually had a motive to kill Dr. Schaeffer.”
“Such as?”
“The details of the investigation are confidential.”
“But here I am. So what changed?”
“Certain other people were unavailable. And you did show up in very skimpy clothes.” If he were resisting the urge to leer or grin, he didn’t show it. “And I’m hungry. A man has got to eat, and there’s nothing wrong with multi-tasking.”
I folded my arms across my chest defensively. “Are you always all work and no play?”
“Would you accept an invitation to find out?”
I rolled my eyes. “Stop it. We both know this is not a date. I want information, you want information, so let’s have at it. Ladies first.”
“By all means.”
“What happened to Dr. Schaffer?” I knew he’d been murdered. I just didn’t know how.
“The details have not been released to the public yet.”
“I’m not the public.”
“That’s right. You’re worse. You’re the deceased’s hiring attorney. My turn.”
This guy was really a piece of work. “You don’t get to insult me and then ask me questions.”
Our waiter arrived, asking us what we’d like to drink.
“Two margaritas,” Nash said, without hesitation.
“And you don’t get to order for me either,” I said through gritted teeth.
The waiter, sensing my agitation, hesitated for a moment before turning to me and asking me what I’d like to drink.
“Margarita,” I said. “The big one in a glass that’s the size of a human head. With Patron and a sangria swirl.”