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

for the four dancers, Senator Malone, and Marvin Iakova.

“Alright, people,” I said. “Let’s get to work.”

We grabbed laptops and cell phones and spread out on the conference table, and cold called everyone we could think of.

“Hi,” Vicki said. “My name is Vicki Park, and I am an attorney representing a dancer named Julianna Spencer. I believed she stayed with you a couple of weeks ago?”

AJ’s voice stepped over her, “Right. I understand that you hosted a performance with Ghoti earlier this month.”

Landon paced the room, his phone to his ear, “Well, what can you tell me about the night they performed?”

So, I made the call I had been dreading for the last week. I called Marvin Iakova.

“Hey, Marvin,” I said.

“Henry Irving,” he said. “Haven’t heard from you in a while. How’s it going?”

“It’s going,” I said. “We’ve got our hands full with this Ghoti murder case. I’m telling you.”

“Yeah,” his tone was strained. “I know about that. We’re trying to cover our asses on our end. It’s a publicity nightmare.”

“Right,” I said. “I understand completely. Listen, I wondered if I could meet with you sometime this week. Go over all the details of that night, we just need to talk to everyone involved. We’ve got this poor girl charged with murder, we need to leave no stone unturned.”

“No, I understand,” he said. “Give her a fair trial. She deserves her day in court.”

“That’s what we’re trying to do,” I said. “Since you were there that night, I thought I’d find out if you have any unique perspective that might give us some leads, that will either lead us to the real killer, or get the charges dropped.”

“She’s pleading not guilty, huh?” he said.

“That’s right,” I said.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” he said. “It was her dagger. She was arguing with him all night, and then she fled the scene. I don’t see how you’re going to get her out of this one.”

“It’s a tough one,” I shook my head. “But, would you be open to talking about it?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I think I’ve got an opening tomorrow. I’ll have my assistant call you to set it up.”

“Perfect,” I said. “Thanks, Marvin.”

“Anytime,” he said.

We said our goodbyes and ended the call. The rest of the team was still on their phones. I noticed little notations had appeared under the columns on the whiteboard. Beyo’s ex-wife, Evelyn, had refused to attend the funeral and called him a “misogynistic bastard.”

Chloe had an estranged relationship with her family once they found out she was bisexual. Olivia’s host family in Minnesota said she seemed withdrawn, and she didn’t eat anything, and they had noticed subtle signs of bulimia. This was all interesting dirty laundry, but none of it pointed to murder.

I looked up the number for the coroner to get the autopsy. The body had been sent back to New York, but with the team still grounded in town, I don’t think a funeral had occurred. The coroner’s report would probably reveal very little, but it might give us a small clue.

AJ ended the call she was on and then stopped as she looked into her computer screen.

“Uh, Henry?” she said.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“You might want to look at this,” she said and turned her laptop screen toward me.

“What is this?” I asked.

“I clicked on The Herald, for ideas on leads, and I found this,” AJ said.

I pulled the computer toward me, and everyone gathered around.

“Shit,” I said.

My eyes widened as I saw the day’s leading story. The graphic was a thumbnail image of me, walking down the block, evading Jerry Steele. The headline read, Sedona Attorney Admits Shady Deals with Corrupt Media Execs.

“What!” Vicki exclaimed. “What is this?”

“I don’t know,” I muttered. I clicked on the image, and we all watched the video with rapt attention.

“Do you support SB1110?” Jerry’s voice boomed from off camera.

“I couldn’t give an honest opinion,” was my heavily edited reply.

“Are you kidding me?” I mused.

The screen flashed a graphic, of a still frame of me, with animated jail bars around my scowling expression.

How about a ‘dishonest’ answer Mr. Irving? The caption appeared over my face.

“Oh, my God,” Vicki said. “Really?”

I groaned and rubbed my face.

“Do you know that Earnie Green suddenly retired as soon as the news hit about Iakova supporting SB1110?” Jerry’s voiceover said.

“I consider Earnie Green to be a good friend,” the video had me say.

“You said that?” Landon asked.

“Holy shit!” I laughed. “This fucker even retaped the question.”

Let’s recap, a slide read. SB 1110 would change media censorship and libel laws, to allow fake news and hate groups to disseminate information with little to no consequence.

“I have you tied to Marvin Iakova on no less than five occasions,” them there was a time sequence jump in the clip. “Your buddy Iakova supports the bill, do you?”

“I have no comment,” I said.

“No comment?” Jerry’s manufactured voiceover said. “On a bill to effectively ban media law?”

The clip jumped to me. I looked disgusted, irritable, and completely unsympathetic, and then it had a contorted clip of me saying, “You can argue media law all the way to jail. I don’t care.”

“How could you get that out of…” I trailed off. This was just too mind-bafflingly moronic for words.

Then, the film stopped, with a freeze framed expression of me, totally pissed off at Jerry, and looking like a real asshole.

“Wow,” I said. “Someone had fun with their video editing software.”

I skimmed the story that followed. It described the incident in the coffee shop, framing my deflective comments to make me sound like a shallow, insensitive jerk. He misused my comments and framed them around inflammatory prose to create an entirely different story. He even