Scottsdale Heat: a romantic light-hearted murder mystery (Laura Black Mysteries Book 1)

SCOTTSDALE

HEAT

~~~~

B A Trimmer

SCOTTSDALE HEAT

Copyright © 2013 by B A Trimmer

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 an any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without prior written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

Editor:  Leslie Galen

Cover Design:  Tammy Malunas

ASIN: B00E3JAGZS

041215

E-mail the author with corrections or comments at [email protected]

Also by B A Trimmer

Scottsdale Squeeze

Scottsdale Sizzle

For Alison

Remembering the fun of audio books on our many long drives across the desert.

SCOTTSDALE

HEAT

As I’ve grown older, I’ve noticed I go through a lot of phases. I’ve also noticed my phases don’t always match with everyone else’s. Like when I was five and every other girl in the neighborhood wanted to be Barbie, sailing with Ken on the Dreamboat, I wanted to be GI Joe. It wasn’t I didn’t like being a girl. I just thought it wasn’t fair Joe got to drive a tank and shoot a machine gun, while all Barbie got was a kitchen and a pony.

Then there was the time when I was sixteen. I caused a minor family scandal by going to a Smack-Down wrestling match with my best friend Alison, rather than to the Junior Prom with Brian King. This was even though he had been asking me for a month, once actually in front of my mother. The way I looked at it, I could go to a dance anytime, but how many times could I see the Undertaker versus the Rock in a Texas Cage match?

When I was in college, all of my sensible friends studied sensible things like business, engineering, and computers. Even though I knew those majors were the best way to get a good job, they just weren’t for me. Instead, I was a philosophy major. Every night I would stay up late, reading the most depressing writing ever conceived of by man. I did it because after I finished reading, I always felt better about myself. Compared to these guys, my life was a piece of cake.

After college, I joined my friends by marrying the man of my dreams. Then, like my friends, I had a messy divorce. Most of my friends from college were now on their second marriages, complete with kids. But I decided a second marriage wasn’t for me. Who needs that kind of stress?

Of course, one of the good things about being married is you can have sex whenever you want, with a man who doesn’t make you feel creepy if he sees you naked. Unfortunately, I don’t have a man in my life and I’m not having any sex. As a result, I think about men all the time.

Take now for instance. I was lying on a bed in a suite of the Scottsdale Princess Resort. Looking out of the balcony door, all of Arizona was spread before me. Lying next to me on the bed was my old boyfriend, Jackson Reno, wearing nothing but a pair of red silk boxers. He was staring at me, breathing deeply with anticipation. I followed his gaze and realized I was naked.

Yes!

A wave of lust spread down my body in a warm shiver. Having Reno back in my bed had been a fantasy of mine for months. Now I was about to have him.

Anticipation rose as I lay back on the pillows and held my arms out to him. He leaned his gorgeous face over mine. I put my arms around his neck and drew him close. I felt him press hard against me as our lips came together for a slow, deep kiss. He placed his hand on the bare flesh of my stomach and then hesitated, as if not knowing what to do next. Just to be helpful, I gave his hand a gentle nudge. My heart pounded and I stopped breathing, waiting to experience the moment.

The phone in the next room started ringing. Reno was still smiling, but his hand had stopped moving. I nudged his hand again. The phone rang again. This time it was the phone in our room.

No, no, no,
I thought,
not now!

Again, the phone rang. This time with Sophie’s ringtone. The sound tore through my head like a vacuum cleaner.

Damn!

I opened my eyes, rolled over, and glanced at the clock: 8:23,
in the
morning
.

Damn!

I felt around on the nightstand, picked up my phone, dropped it, and then picked it up again.

“Hello,” I mumbled into the phone, hoping it was only a salesman so I could hang up and finish my dream with Reno.

“Hey Laura, were you still asleep? Damn girlfriend, you know you really sound terrible. How late were you up last night?”

“Sophie? Why are you calling me?”

Sophie is Sophia Rodriguez. She’s not only my best friend, she’s also the paralegal and administrative assistant for Lenny, my boss.

“Lenny says for you to get your skinny butt down to the office right away. Something new just came in and he’s all hot to get on it.”

“What is it?”

“Don’t know, but it’s gotta be something pretty big. Lenny’s got a wet spot on the front of his pants. You know how he gets when he’s excited, sorta like a puppy.”

“Doesn’t he remember I have three days off? Doesn’t he remember what I’ve been through the past couple of weeks? Doesn’t he remember I have a life?”

“It must have slipped his mind.”

“OK, he’s right. I don’t have a life. But I’m still asleep. It’s going to take at least two hours before I can get in.”

“Two hours? Lenny’ll be pissed.”

“OK, just
tell
him two hours. I’ll try to be there sooner.”

“Alright, just don’t be too tardy.”

I collapsed back onto the pillow.

~~~~

When I woke up it was 9:00
am
and the alarm was chirping away. Unfortunately, Reno hadn’t come back into my dreams. I pushed the clock off the nightstand to shut it off. I had set it the previous night, hoping to get in some early morning shopping. Christmas had come and gone. The new year had officially begun and Dillard’s was in the middle of its January shoe sale.

Two days before, I had finished an assignment for Lenny. I had been looking forward to three or four more days to myself before going back to work. In the last assignment, I had ruined my favorite pair of black pumps while fighting with a crack whore named Delores Sublet. I had planned to go to the mall today to pick up another pair. Instead, it looked like I was headed back to the office.

That’s OK, I told myself, I can use the money. Of course, since I’m always broke, I can always use the money.

~~~~

As I was dressing, Marlowe, my gray and white tabby, got up from where he had been lying next to me on the bed. He did a long slow cat stretch, dropped off the bed, and walked over to where I was standing. As I smoothed myself out in front of the mirror, he fell against the side of my leg and let out a pathetic squeak, which is his version of a meow.

I had found Marlowe a few years ago in a truck-stop bathroom while traveling on vacation in Colorado. When I found him, he was dirty, starving, and shivering with cold. He looked so pathetic, I bought him some food and gave him some water. Watching him gobble down the food, I realized he needed me. He’s been my roommate and friend ever since.

I went into the kitchen and put on a pot of coffee. Marlowe walked to his empty bowl and looked into it. He then sat down and glared at me. I went to the pantry, opened a can of Super Supper, and plopped it into his dish. Marlowe stuck his head into the bowl and quickly sucked up the food.

I walked into the bathroom and swiped on some mascara and eye liner. I then went back into the kitchen and poured the entire pot of coffee into
The Big Pig
, my oversized travel mug. I grabbed a couple of chocolate chip granola bars and headed out the door. I power walked to the stairwell and skipped down the stairs. I ran out the back door into the parking lot and jumped into my car, a cappuccino-colored Accord. I shoved it into gear and sped out of the lot.

Damn
, I thought, this is a lousy way to start a Monday. The client had better be cute.

~~~~

My name is Laura Black. I’m an investigator for the law firm of Halftown, Oeding, Shapiro, and Hopkins. Last year it was listed as one of Scottsdale’s top ten law firms and this year it will probably be in the top five. The firm now consists only of Leonard Shapiro. Jeff Halftown retired and moved to Pensacola years ago. Paul Oeding died two years ago in a skiing accident and Mark Hopkins died of a heart attack six months after that. Rumor has it he had his heart attack while doing the big nasty with Jeanette Simmons, a law student intern who was working for us at the time. I don’t know if the rumor was true or not, but Jeanette cried a lot at the funeral and never came back to the office. So, you never know.

~~~~

From my apartment building I drove west on Camelback to Scottsdale Road, then south to Stetson Drive. Lenny’s law office is in the middle of the Old Town Arts and Antiques District, one of Scottsdale’s most fashionable shopping areas. The office is sandwiched in between two art galleries and looks totally out of place. I’m not sure what his rent is but it seems to be worth it. Lenny makes an obscene amount of money.

Don’t get me wrong, he pays me double what I would make working for myself as a private investigator and I’m grateful. It certainly beats my last job, which was a bartender at Greasewood Flats. I just wish I wasn’t always so broke.

~~~~

I turned down the alley behind the law office and parked underneath the carport, between Sophie’s yellow Volkswagen and Lenny’s red Porsche. Covered parking is a big benefit in Arizona, where summer temperatures can go over 120 degrees.

I used my key and opened the rear security door. I walked down the back hallway, past my cubicle, through the polished wooden door, and into the front reception area. The contrast between the utilitarian back offices and the plush front offices is always a little startling.

When a client walks into the law office from the street, the first thing they see is Sophie’s desk. It is beautiful and it dominates the reception area. On the wall behind her desk is a floor to ceiling bookshelf containing legal books of every description. Thick carpet and overstuffed red leather chairs fill the space. On the walls is an amazing collection of antique legal documents. It’s like being in a small law museum. Through hidden speakers, Miles Davis was playing
So What?
from his
Kind of Blue
album. Next to a casino, no better environment ever existed for extracting money from the rich, the desperate, and the unaware.

Sophie saw me and smiled with relief.

“I am so glad you made it in. Lenny’s got that pulsing vein thing going in the middle of his forehead again and you know how nasty it is. Just seeing it always makes me want to vomit in a trash can.”

Sophie’s parents had come up from Mexico the year before she was born. She grew up in Southern California and was a surfer chick for most of her youth. Sophie had been a singer for a punk rock band in LA while working to get in her paralegal training. She then had followed her husband from California to Scottsdale when he got a transfer, about five years ago. The husband was gone soon after that, but Sophie seems like a permanent Arizona resident. She’s tall and graceful, with long black hair, and dark brown eyes. She has a temper that can go from nice to nasty in a flash. Sophie knows my darkest secrets and has always been there for me.

I glanced at the doors to Lenny’s office and saw they were closed. This usually means he’s with a client, blackmailing a public official, or surfing internet porn.

“Lenny in with somebody?” I asked Sophie.

“Naaah, he’s just on the phone. Must be something hush-hush. He’s been on the call for a while now.”

“So, what’s up?” I asked.

“Don’t know. Lenny was with the client when I got in. She wasn’t in the appointment book, so she must have called him at home. I only got here in time to see her leave.”

“Called him at home? Lenny never gives out his home number. What’s she like?”

“Well, she’s old.”

“And?”

“Lots of wrinkles.”

“And?”

“And she’s rich.”

“How rich?”

“When she left, I saw her get into this white Bentley waiting for her out front. There was a driver with a uniform and stuff.”

“How do you know it was a Bentley?”

“Because I saw a bunch of them last weekend on the Travel Channel. They had a show on European millionaires and most all of them had a Bentley. With that much money, I’d been surprised if she didn’t have a Bentley or at least a Rolls Royce.”

“Why didn’t Lenny assign Gina?” I asked. “She always handles the big money cases.”

Gina Rondinelli was the firm’s senior investigator and my mentor. Two years earlier, when I had first joined the firm, she took me under her wing and showed me the fine art of investigation; how to pick a lock, hotwire a car, bypass an alarm system, those sorts of things. She had spent seven years in the Scottsdale PD with the last three years in plain-clothes work. She’s also been trying to train me how to shoot a gun and defend myself. As a student I’m a slow learner. As an instructor she’s more than qualified, being a police firearms instructor and having black belts in both Judo and Tae Kwon Do.

“Lenny couldn’t ask Gina,” Sophie said. “She’s in Las Vegas, babysitting the son of Congressman Berry. She won’t be back until later today.”

“Why’s Lenny having her do that?” I thought aloud. “Daniel Berry is only in his first term. He doesn’t have money
or
influence yet. Lenny usually goes after Senators. Besides, how old’s the baby?”

“He’s eighteen,” Sophie said. “Representative Berry is going to chair a sub-committee that’s going to decide what to do with a big tract of land down by Tucson. Lenny wants inside information on the bidding so he can pick it up cheap. He’s already talked to three developers about what to do with it once he gets it. I think he wants to build Lenny Town or something like that.”