Sedona Law 4 by Dave Daren (ready to read books TXT) 📕

“Oh, my gosh,” Vicki responded. She was good at reading my mind. “You are not implying what I think you’re implying.”

I nodded and snickered. “What if Senator Malone had a nasty little secret?”

“In the form of Judith Klein,” Vicki followed me. “That would explain her lurking around behind the entrance conveniently when she was coming out.”

“Of course, she wouldn’t say that she knew him,” I said.

“Wait,” AJ said. “You mean that Senator Malone was a client of Judith Klein?”

“Ugh,” Landon shuddered. “Perverted politicians. That’s never happened before.”

“Well, it’s an idea,” I said. “Just because it’s a cliche doesn’t mean it is or isn’t true.”

“But why would she say she even saw him in the first place?” AJ asked. “Why not just keep quiet about the whole thing?”

“If she was scared,” Vicki said. “Scared of being framed for murder and Malone leaving her out to dry. Which he would have to in that case.”

“But we still don’t have a good motive,” I said. “I can see Iakova’s reason for a murder, at some level. Although, I think it’s a weak motive, and there’s got to be more to it. But, I don’t see Malone having a reason to be involved at all.”

From behind the camera, Landon cleared his throat, and I snickered and shook my head.

“Aside from the Illuminati, of course,” I said.

“This is where we keep getting hung up,” AJ sighed. “Every time I run the scenario, we keep coming up with no real reason.”

“Well, now, what if Judith was somehow blackmailing him?” Vicki theorized.

“There’s an idea,” I said. “But how would she blackmail him without exposing herself?”

“Maybe if she had incriminating photos she could leak,” AJ said. “Photos that she either wasn’t in, or wasn’t identifiable.”

“Okay,” Vicki said. “So, in this fictional scenario, we have this idea of a senator being blackmailed with racy photos. And then there’s the media executive, a publicity campaign, and a dead body. How do all of these pieces fit together?”

“This is what I keep saying,” AJ groaned. “It’s like a bad jigsaw puzzle. It doesn’t solve, and I run these around and around all day long.”

“Hmm,” I contemplated. “What I want to know is how would that still be advantageous for her to leak photos, provided that they exist at all.” I took a long pause. “Because if she ruins his life, he’ll eventually name her and ruin hers as well.

“Yeah,” AJ said. “But, he’s not going to let it get that far because he has too much to lose.”

“So he’s not going to call her bluff?” I asked. “That seems reckless.”

“Maybe that’s what happened that night,” AJ said. “Maybe she was going to expose him.”

“Okay,” I said. “There’s a conflict for disaster, but not a murder. Again, why the murder?”

We were all quiet for a few moments as we contemplated the question.

“Where are we on that meeting with Malone?” I asked.

“It’s still a few more days,” Vicki said.

“We need to find out about all of these dancers,” I said. “I know we’ve done research, and we’ve talked to them. But, I think we only scratched the surface on them. They didn’t really tell us anything we didn’t already know. I want to go deeper.”

“What if they don’t go deeper?” Vicki asked. “What if we’re on the wrong track and everything they told us is all there is?”

“That might be the case,” I said. “But I don’t think it is. We need to know everything about them, from their kindergarten teachers, illicit baby daddies, and everything in between. I want to know every place they’ve ever lived, slept, gone to school, college, traveled, all their friends, families, enemies, everything. We need to find out how these people are connected to Malone and or Iakova.”

“I’ve got their tour schedule,” AJ said.

“Great,” I said. “Let’s start there. How long was the tour?”

“It started on April 14,” she said, “And was supposed to go until May 27.”

“That’s what?” I asked. “Almost two months? That’s a pretty long tour for an indie act.”

“They’ve got stops all over the map,” she said as she skimmed her phone screen. Landon leaned over her shoulder.

“Minnesota,” he said as he pointed. “Wisconsin. Then Maryland, and then Nevada? Why would you book it that way?”

“Because,” I said, “that’s the way tours work. It’s the promoters that set the schedules for the most part. So, you can negotiate the dates, but in the end, it’s up to whatever event the promoter is doing, or when they have openings. At least when you’re a little guy on the scene. Once you get to be a big A-lister, you can call the shots.”

“I see,” Landon said. “So they take what they can get.”

“Right,” I said. “Even if it means criss-crossing across the country like a boomerang. I want you to call every contact on there and find out everything that you can about what happened at those tour stops. Find out about arguments, conflicts, payment disputes, stage mishaps. I want to know so much about what happened on that tour, I should be able to write a memoir.”

“Got it,” AJ said.

“You want me to help?” Landon asked.

“Perfect,” I said. “You and AJ split the calls, call host families as well. We want to know if there was anything that they picked up on, dynamics, late-night conversations, anything that might give us a clue as to what happened.”

“I’ve already been following them all on social media,” AJ said. “They all seem to be as in the dark as anyone.”

“Okay,” I said. “Let’s find out their whole life stories. We want to know who they know.”

“Got it,” AJ said. “I think we should have some way to document what we’re finding.”

“Right,” I said. “How about whiteboard columns?”

She made columns on the whiteboard