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

message was, stick to the murder investigation and don’t dig too deep.”

“Which explains why he gave us all the information we wanted,” I said. “Enough that we would lay off him.”

Chapter 14

The next day was a lazy Saturday morning in our cottage. We didn’t get that often during a big case. When work slowed, we could actually enjoy weekends like a normal couple. But, when we were on a big murder case, like we were now, it was a seven day, around the clock marathon to the finish line. But, today we had a rare moment of calm. I wasn’t complaining. With all of the events of the last couple of days, we needed a break.

I woke slowly with the mid-morning light pouring in through the blinds.

“We need better curtains,” I grumbled.

“We need a better house,” Vicki said. She sat in bed on her laptop.

“No work,” I mumbled.

“Agreed,” she laughed. “If I hear the names, ‘Iakova’ or ‘Malone,’ I think I might throw up.”

“Or murder someone ourselves,” I muttered.

She laughed. “Right? No, I’ve been getting ready for our meeting with Susan tomorrow.”

“Susan,” I recalled as I stretched under the blankets. “The realtor.”

“It’s next week, and she sent me this website,” she said. “It turns out that there’s a lot of good real estate in Sedona. If you’re looking for something… a little avante garde.”

“Avante garde,” I said. “I need food before I can handle avante garde. Get up, and make me some breakfast, woman.”

She laughed and pointed, “Kitchen, there. You have two feet.”

“Damn you,” I said as I grabbed my phone off the nightstand. “I’m ordering in.”

“Actually,” she said. “I already did. Jitters is on their way.”

“Nicely done,” I said. “I missed a call from my dad.”

“Yeah,” she said. “It went off a couple of times. I didn’t want to wake you.”

I returned the call, and he answered after the first ring.

“Hey, Henry,” his tone was quick and excitable.

“Hey, dad,” I said. “What’s going on?”

“You sound like you were asleep,” he said. “It’s eleven in the morning.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Chasing down murderers and crooked senators is tiring work.”

“I saw that,” he said. “You were on the news last night.”

“Was I?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said. “You were talking about a big murder case with that dancer they found at the PAH.”

“Uh-huh,” I said. “It’s turning into a monster case.”

“Yeah,” he said. “We’ve been following it in the news. Your mom is concerned about Julianna. She was always a nice girl. Are you going to get her off?”

I knew what he meant, but given the offer Julianna and Gabriel made us at dinner that night, his word choice held a different meaning in my head.

“We’re pretty close,” I chuckled, as I tried to free my mind of the thought.

“Really?” he said. “Is it the senator? Because on the news you said he wasn’t involved.”

“He might not be a murderer,” I said. “But he’s as dirty as they come.”

“Ohhh,” he said. “I get an exclusive.”

“Yeah, but don’t tell anybody,” I said. “He’s already out to ruin my career.”

“Really?” he said. “What has he done?”

“Nothing yet, as far as I know,” I said. “But I’ve been warned. Anyway, is that why you called, that I was on the news last night?”

“No,” he said. “I need a favor.”

“Oh, yeah?” I asked.

“So, I got this thing at an auction,” he said. “I need you to come with me, to verify that it was authentic.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Well,” he said. “It’s... it’s… alright, well, uh…”

I heard my mother in the background. “Just tell him, already.”

“Alright,” his voice lowered as if he were telling me a great, great secret. “I bought Jimi Hendrix’s storage locker.”

“What?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said, and I could hear his wide grin through the phone. “Before he became famous, he moved to Sedona and wanted to hang out near the vortexes to get a vision for his career.”

“I wouldn’t doubt that,” I said.

“Legend has it,” my dad’s voice dropped to a melodramatic tone, akin to campfire ghost story, “that for six months, Jimi camped up near Cathedral Rock, and smoked Peyote for a month straight, and that’s when he wrote Purple Haze.”

I laughed. “That’s something I wouldn’t doubt, either.”

“But,” he said, “This is where it gets dicey. When he lived out here, he was flat broke. So, he had to be basically homeless for a while, and lived on people’s couches. And he had most of his stuff in a storage unit.”

“Uh-huh,” I said, as I started to figure out the end of this story. I was unaware storage units existed in the 60s, but I didn’t want to bring that up.

“Then,” he said, “he met an angel, that told him to go to L.A., and so he did. He hopped onto a bus with just what he had and didn’t bother to clean out his storage room. And the storage room was seized.”

“Right,” I said. “And this is coming up sixty years later, because…?”

“Because,” his voice dropped to an even more dramatic tone, “the guy that owned the storage unit, he got busted for dealing drugs through the storage unit, and so he went to jail, and then there was a federal lien on the property, and no business transactions could occur. By the time the lien was lifted, the rights were transferred to his son, who realized whose storage unit it was, and has held on to it all these years.”

“I can see that,” I said.

“But,” he said. “Then, his son recently retired and gave the property to his son, who is short on cash, so he auctioned the unit off.”

“And you won,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said. “I mean, this