After getting some work lined up for his secretary when she came in, he needed some coffee. It was right at eight o’clock as he walked down the hall to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. The kitchen staff kept the coffee in there so it would stay fresher longer.
Roy didn’t get the coffee.
Instead he caught the woman’s body as it tumbled out of the fridge.
CHAPTER 5
THEY RODE in a black Town Car, an SUV loaded with security behind them. Mace glanced over at her older sister, Elizabeth, known as Beth to her friends and some of her professional colleagues. However, most people just called her Chief.
Mace turned and looked at the tail car. “Why the caravan?”
“No special reason.”
“Why come tonight?”
Beth Perry looked at the uniformed driver in front of her. “Keith, turn some tunes on up there. I don’t want you falling asleep. On these roads we’ll end up driving off the side of a mountain.”
“Right, Chief.” Keith dutifully turned on the radio and Kim Carnes’s jagged voice reached them in the backseat as she crooned “Bette Davis Eyes.”
Beth turned to her sister. When she spoke her voice was low. “This way we avoid the press. And just so you know, I’ve had eyes and ears in that place from day one. I tried to run interference the best I could for you.”
“So that’s why the cow backed off.”
“You mean Juanita?”
“I mean the cow.”
She lowered her voice further. “I figured they’d planned on giving you a parting gift. That was the reason I showed up early.”
It irritated Mace that the chief of police had to have the radio playing and whisper in her own car, but she understood why. Ears were everywhere. At her sister’s level, it wasn’t just about law enforcement; it was about politics.