Verdicts & Vixens

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  VERDICTS & VIXENS

  by

  KELLY REY

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  Smashwords Edition

  Copyright © 2017 by Kelly Rey

  Cover design by Yocla Designs

  Gemma Halliday Publishing

  http://www.gemmahallidaypublishing.com

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

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  CHAPTER ONE

  Except for the lawyers and the clients, the law firm of Parker, Dennis was a pleasant enough place to work. Lots of rich wood and old books and pricey furniture. It was warm in the winter and cool in the summer, and it had indoor plumbing and a stocked kitchen.

  My name is Jamie Winters, and I liked to delude myself that my job as executive assistant was just a blip in my professional trajectory. But after a year and a half, I knew better. I was in my thirties, hadn't gone to college, and wasn't particularly ambitious. My trajectory was pretty much the same as the Hindenburg's.

  I was in the kitchen eviscerating a Twinkie on a Thursday morning in mid-June when the temperature chilled, and I looked up to find Janice Iannacone, the firm bookkeeper, sitting across the table staring at me.

  A word about Janice. That word is terrifying. When she wasn't trampling the support staff, she manipulated Parker, Dennis's finances like Play-Doh. I had reason to believe she also embezzled, and that reason sat in the parking lot and cost $50,000.

  "Hello, Jamie," she said.

  That should have been my first warning.

  "I need a favor," she said. "You know Oxnard Thorpe is one of Howard's best clients."

  Lawyer-speak for richest.

  "He's marrying Sybil Sullivan a week from Saturday," she said. "Howard needs someone from the firm to be there. He asked me. I'm asking you."

  I stared at her. "What?"

  "It's no big deal," she said. "It's just a wedding. I thought you might like to help me out."

  I couldn't imagine why she would think that. We weren't exactly besties. It was hard to warm up to someone who opened each workday with the phrase, "Get out of my way."

  "I don't think so," I said.

  "I can slip an extra hour of pay into your check," she said. "Howard wouldn't notice."

  "I don't think so," I said again.

  "A hundred bucks." Her voice was grim. "How long does it take you to earn a hundred bucks?"

  She ought to know. She was the one who cracked open the piggybank to pay me.

  But I knew bargaining power when I heard it. "A thousand," I said.

  She snorted. "Get real. I'll give you five hundred."

  I considered it. I'd be getting paid to go to the wedding of a person I knew nothing about by a person I knew too much about.

  Then again, I was constitutionally incapable of doing the Macarena.

  Then again, she was offering me someone else's money.

  Then again, that someone else was Howard Dennis. And Ken Parker, the Sleeping Beauty of the legal world. But mostly Howard Dennis.

  Was I so mercenary that I'd trade my long-held principles for a few dollars in the bank?

  What a stupid question.

  "Five hundred," I said. "Cash. In small bills."

  She raised an eyebrow at me.

  "And I'm not doing the chicken dance," I said.

  An hour later, I was at my desk trying to wrestle Howard's indecipherable handwriting into a formal complaint when the phone rang.

  "You'll never believe this." It was Maizy Emerson, my landlord Curt's niece. Maizy was an uber socially conscious seventeen-year-old genius with blue hair and a talent for situational improvisation.

  "That doofus driving examiner failed me," she said. "Again."

  Maizy had failed her first test because she'd initiated a high-speed chase in the middle of it. Which hadn't stopped her from driving any more than Cop Rock had stopped people from watching TV. She got her cars from a shyster named Honest Aaron who didn't require a driver's license, rented by the hour, and offered discounts if the cars had bloodstains and missing seats. Because she refused to drive her parents' gas-guzzling SUV on eco-principle, she insisted on taking the test in my car. Which was fine, except I drove the Methuselah of cars, and it had broken down on the way to the DMV on her last test date. Maizy was a lot of things, but patient wasn't one of them.

  I hit Save and sat back. "I'm sure there's a story here."

  "There's an injustice here," she said. "And it's not my fault. I rented a '71 Pinto from Honest Aaron for the test. He should've told me not to make right turns."

  I closed my eyes. "What happened?"

  "The passenger door fell off," she said. "Don't worry, the examiner landed in the grass. After he rolled across the street. You might think that's a bad thing, but road rash clears up pretty quick."

  Actually, I was thinking I shouldn't get in a car with Maizy ever again.

  "He was lucky," she said. "He didn't see that little electrical system fire. I'm starting to think a '71 Pinto isn't a very safe car."

  "So he failed you because you made him fall out of the car," I said.

  She snorted. "I didn't make him fall out. Is it my fault he didn't use the bungee cord? But that's not even the important part."

  The examiner would probably disagree.

  "The DMV blacklisted me for three months," she said. "Can you believe that? It's not like I couldn't finish the test. It just took a little more concentration. We didn't even hit anything."

  That was something less than a Clarence Darrow-esque defense.

  "It's cool, though," Maizy added. "Honest Aaron felt bad, so he discounted a boss 240Z. It's got a bike rack and everything. You'll see it later. I'm coming over to Uncle Curt's for dinner. I'll park around the block so he'll think I rode my bike over."

  "I don't want to lie to Curt," I told her. Curt and I had a thing going. I couldn't exactly define thing—it changed a lot, depending on whether I was a murder suspect or he was shirtless.

  "It's not a lie," she said. "He doesn't need to know how far I rode it. It's all about results with me."

  It was all about insanity with her. Still, it was probably better for her to get Honest Aaron out of her system before she became an adult in the eyes of the criminal justice system.

  The future Mrs. Thorpe, Sybil Sulli
van, showed up a couple hours later. She was less than a stunning beauty. Her sharp, pointed features and raised eyebrows gave her the look of a perpetually surprised ferret. Her outfit seemed expensive, but linen only took you so far. The last time I'd seen someone like her, it had been in a movie, when a house had fallen on her.

  "Get Howard," she said, but less politely. "Oxnard Thorpe has an appointment to discuss revisions to his will." She pivoted to reveal the Oxnard Thorpe previously hidden behind her 100-pound heft. His skin hung on him, and his skull was pink and shiny between patches of wispy white hair. His red rimmed but sharp eyes were taking liberties with me that I didn't like.

  He offered me a gnarled tree stump of a hand. "You must be Julie."

  "Jamie," I said, at the same time Sybil said, "Oxie, not yet."

  Not yet? He didn't look like he had much time to wait.

  I tried to free my hand. The old geezer was stronger than I'd expected. After he petted and stroked and squeezed it to his satisfaction, he gave it back to me.

  Sybil's gaze was as penetrating as an x-ray. "Is Mr. Dennis here or not?"

  Oxnard threw out his elbow to poke his dearly beloved with it and got her right in the oversized designer bag. She never felt a thing. The bag came away with a puncture wound.

  "Dear, why don't you stay down here and talk to June for a bit."

  Oh, no. He wasn't pawning Miss Personality off on me.

  "That won't be necessary," I said. "I have a lot of work here and—"

  "She'd love to talk to you," Oxnard informed us. "You two can get acquainted while I consult with Howard." He did another full body scan on me. I was starting to feel like I was at the airport. "If you would tell him I'm here, dear."

  After a fawning Howard had scrambled downstairs to whisk Oxnard off at a brisk shuffle, Sybil folded herself into the empty secretarial chair across the room.

  I focused on the monitor, where my cursor blinked insistently: Therefore… Maybe I should charm her with small talk since she was the fiancée of Howard's pet client. Problem was, I couldn't think of a thing to say. Except:

  "So you're getting married," I said.

  Oprah had made it look so easy.

  "Oxie pursued me for months before I agreed to go out with him," she said.

  I couldn't imagine why.

  "I was lucky to meet the man of my dreams," she added.

  She was marrying the Crypt Keeper, and she called that lucky?

  "By the way, I should thank you," she said. "Janice told me you're my maid of honor."

  I looked up. "What?"

  "My maid of honor quit yesterday. She said I insulted her just because I told her to lose thirty pounds and color all that gray hair."

  Why would she find that insulting?

  "I don't have a lot of female friends," she said. "For some reason, no one else wanted the job. So Howard asked that lovely girl of his, Janice, but she's scheduled to donate bone marrow and then drive senior citizens to doctors' appointments all day. She said you volunteered to step in."

  How had I let Janice scam me out of half of a weekend? Oh. Right. Because she'd neglected to mention maid of honor when she'd been bribing me to take her place.

  Speaking of bribes, Sybil was busy spending mine.

  "You'll have to buy a better bag." She wrinkled her nose at my $20 Walmart purse.

  I loved that purse. Why spend $300 for a designer handbag to carry around $30?

  "In fact," she said, "you'll have to get a better haircut, too. And for God's sake, pluck those eyebrows. And whiten your teeth. And it wouldn't hurt to—what's the matter with you?"

  "I'm fine." My lower lip was trembling, but I was pretty sure it was just cold from the air conditioning.

  She rolled her eyes. "Do you have to be so difficult about this?"

  I was being difficult? She was lucky I wasn't impaling her on one of Oxie's elbows.

  She huffed out a sigh. "Fine. You need some stroking. Janice said you were capable. Feel better now?"

  Capable. Wow.

  "Well, if you don't want to help me out…" She started blinking her fake eyelashes, trying to conjure up a tear. It was like watching spiders take flight. "Here," she said. "In case you change your mind."

  An invitation landed in front of me. Lots of cream and peach with a little satin bow in the corner. I could appreciate a good card stock. Especially since Maizy had taught me how to get through any locked door with it.

  I pushed it away. "I can't be your maid of honor. I don't even know you."

  She pushed it back. "You know enough."

  "Really," I said, "I wouldn't be comfortable. It wouldn't be right."

  "You don't have to be comfortable," she said. "You just have to be there."

  This was starting to sound like my sex life.

  "The ceremony is at nine," she said.

  "In the morning?"

  She rolled her eyes. "At night, of course. I wanted a romantic midnight ceremony, but Oxie's schedule couldn't accommodate anything that late."

  Probably conflicted with his bedtime.

  "I want you there," she said. "You're hired."

  Last time I'd heard those words, it had led to this job. I wasn't going through that again. Even if Janice was embezzling five hundred bucks for the occasion.

  Although I could put that extra money to good use. Sure, there was that whole saving for retirement thing, but I made next to nothing, drove a decrepit Escort, mooched meals off my landlord, and shopped the Walmart clearance racks. I didn't see a lot of golden years ahead of me.

  "I already have a job," I said.

  "Nice to see you have a sense of humor," she said. "I'll expect you next Friday at one for rehearsal."

  Howard's voice grated through the intercom. "Does Jamie Winters still work here?"

  "She'll be there," Oxnard's disembodied voice said.

  Sybil stepped aside and there he was, shriveled up behind her again. I don't know how they did that. Those two should take their act to Vegas.

  "Howard would like to see you," he told her. "I'll wait here with Julie."

  "Mr. Thorpe—" I started, but I didn't know what else to say. Except… "My name is Jamie. And I should get back to work."

  "Oh, keep an old man company," Oxnard said. "I won't let them fire you."

  He had a way of leering that made me want to slap off his liver spots.

  "Would you happen to have anything to drink, Julie?" he asked.

  I ran down the beverage list. "And my name is Jamie," I added.

  He wanted coffee, so I poured him a cup. He wanted milk, so I added milk. He wanted two sugars, so I added two sugars. Then he wanted tea, so I poured it down the drain and started all over again.

  "So," I said, just to keep the mood light while I fumed, "how did you two meet?"

  "The usual way," he said. Whatever that meant.

  I did the sugar and milk thing, this time with a teabag. While I was sliding it in front of him, he snaked his arm out and pinched my backside. Which made me jerk and splash most of the tea into his lap, which probably didn't contain working parts anymore. His mouth flew open. No sound came out, but his teeth did, dropping with a splash into the remains of his Lemon Zinger.

  Howard picked that moment to barge into the kitchen. "Jamie, did I or did I not tell you that I needed you to—" He froze, his gaze bouncing from Oxnard's hands on his privates to his grimace to my expression of guilt. "You're fired," he told me.

  "I didn't do anything," I said. "Mr. Thorpe—" I hesitated, "—startled me," I finished. "It was an accident."

  "I should say it was." Howard handed Oxnard some paper towels. "Sir, I'm very sorry. Do you need medical attention? I can't imagine how this happened. And—" He held up a hand when I started to tell him. "—I don't care to know. It won't happen again. Today is her last day."

  Oxnard fished his teeth out of his tea, stuck them back in his mouth, and said, "Nonsense. I expect to see her when I come back. I find her charming."

  "Yo
u do?" Howard frowned at me, clearly not seeing it.

  I stood there and stared, charmingly.

  "She was quite right," Oxnard said. "I startled her. Completely my fault. Although maybe I'll ask for iced coffee next time, hm?" He chuckled, which got Howard chuckling in the way that sycophantic suck-ups tend to do.

  Next time I'd dump the whole teapot on him.

  CHAPTER TWO

  For the rest of the afternoon, I did the usual secretarial things for the usual lack of appreciation, and when the clock hit five, I headed for home.

  Home was on the second floor of Curt Emerson's house in Maple Grove, on a street full of trees and responsible, lawn-mowing nine-to-fivers. Curt was as good as it got when it came to landlords: rent was on a sliding scale, food was guaranteed, studliness was a side benefit. He had a business degree but worked as a package delivery driver because he didn't want to spend his days in a cubicle wearing a tie. In his spare time, he kept his house clean, his lawn landscaped, and his barbecue grill in good working order.

  I found Maizy with him in the backyard when I got there. Maizy's ten-speed was propped against the house. She slouched in her chair wearing skinny jeans, a midriff shirt, and Doc Martens, her hair poofed and Carolina blue. Heavy on the black eyeliner. She'd painted her nails white with a little ruby set into each of the two middle fingers to aid in nonverbal communication.

  Curt had swapped his uniform for faded jeans, running shoes, and a royal blue T-shirt that did magical things for his shoulders and chest. He had dark brown hair, darker brown eyes, and a perpetual five o'clock shadow that totally worked for him.

  Over in the corner of the patio stood Vern, the silver Stud of Death mannequin who Maizy had acquired through dubious means to help us solve our last case. Vern was pretty hot for a guy with no face, all rounded muscles and hard planes. Usually he hung out in the basement, holding the rack for Curt's pool table. Guess Vern had needed some air.