Read Online Beer Money (A Burr Ashland Mystery) by Dani Amore - Free Book Online Page B

judge, and the mitigating circumstances. Maybe how good my lawyer was. Or how pissed off the cops were. I did know, however, that I didn’t want to go to jail. A week behind bars was too much, let alone five to ten years. That’s right where Tim’s killer would want me, so that my investigation would stop.
    I had a bottle of Point beer in front of me. I was at a bar just around the corner from Hoopin’ Productions. Which would make the whole transaction simple and efficient. I had a feeling it wasn’t going to be painless, though.
    Homicide detective Gabby Engel walked through the door like she was breaking the finish line at one of her races. She had on dress slacks and gray overcoat. Which looked sexy as hell, for some reason.
    She sat next to me. “Bottled water, please,” she said to the bartender.
    "So this isn’t your kind of place?” I asked.
    “Off-duty, maybe. On-duty, no.” She looked around the place. “Actually, not even off-duty.”
    I lifted a box from beneath the table and set it in front of Gabby.
    “Ooh,” she said. “For me?”
    “A few days ago, my friend Fred Pip received this in the mail. They were from Tim Bantien. Not knowing what they were and if they might have anything to do with Tim’s death, he didn’t look at them right away. This morning, he dug them out, called me, and together we looked at them. After I saw them, I called you. Immediately.”
    “Okay, okay,” she said. “You called me right away. I know that whole timeline is probably bullshit, so just get on with it.”
    “It may be bullshit, but it’s bullshit that’s on the record, am I right?” I still had my hand on the box, like I could run out of the bar and throw it in the lake.
    “Yes, it’s on the record,” she said, rolling her incredibly cute eyes.
    “They’re old eight millimeter films,” I said. “I had Fred digitize them and put them onto DVDs for you, as well as a zip drive. You’ll want to take a look at them right away.”
    She took a sip from her water. “What’s on them? Reruns of Family Feud?”
    “Why don’t you just watch them. It’ll probably be similar to your typical evening.”
    “Just tell me what’s on the tapes,” Gabby said.
    “Porn,” I said.
    “And that would be your typical evening,” she said with a smirk.
    “It’s old porn. Like turn-of-the-century porn. Fred thought the originals were really old. Way back when movie cameras were first invented and being used. That kind of old.”
    Gabby drummed her fingers on the top of the bar. They were nice fingers. Slim, the nails clear and not bitten.
    “All together, how much…”
    “Footage?”
    “How much footage is there?” When she nodded, I said, “All together it’s a little over a half hour.”
    “Great, a fuck film,” she said. “The boys in evidence will get a kick out of this. Probably schedule a movie night.”

Twenty-One
     
    The sun blessed my living room with its presence, threw soft rays of dappled light on my oak floor. Sunny days like this made the long winter more tolerable even though at this time of year it was a lame duck sun: it still held the position but with none of the power.
    A ringing phone had awoken me from a restless night. It was almost nine o'clock.
    The woman on the other end of the phone told me she was Philip Krahn's secretary. She said that Mr. Krahn would like to meet with me, could I stop by later this morning? I pretended to think about it briefly, then said yes.
    I threw back the sheets put on a sweatshirt and sweatpants, checked my watch then headed upstairs and fired up the computer. My desktop icons appeared one by one. I double-clicked on the Firefox icon and watched as Google's home page popped up. I closed the window without looking, then called up a search engine and typed in the word “Krahn.”
    I’d heard of Philip Krahn, since he was managing director of Krahn Breweries, and great-grandson of Jacob Krahn, the company's founder.
    After showering and throwing on