Read Online Chasing The Dead (An Alex Stone Thriller) by Joel Goldman - Free Book Online

Nor would Alex have expected her to do so, but there was one way to find out if that was what had happened this time.
    She called Robin’s secretary, Patty, who maintained a master calendar for all the cases in the office. Patty protected her turf so well that people in the office compared her to the Hand of the King in Game of Thrones .
    “Patty, it’s Alex.”
    “Oh, my God, Alex. This can’t be real, it just can’t.”
    Alex waited for Patty to compose herself. “I know. It’s awful, but I need you to do something for me.”
    Patty sniffled and cleared her throat. “Sure. What is it?”
    “I’ve got a new file for a client named Jared Bell. I need to know when his first appearance is scheduled.”
    “Hang on. Let me check. . . . Well, that’s weird. It’s not on the calendar. You know that I enter all relevant dates before I give a new file to Robin.”
    “Did you give this file to her?”
    “You said the defendant’s name is Jared Bell, right?”
    “Right.”
    “I don’t remember seeing that file at all. What are you doing with it?”
    “Meg Adler gave it to me. She said she found it on Robin’s desk this morning with a Post-it that had my name on it and assumed that Robin had assigned the case to me.”
    “Well, I don’t have any record of it, but I had a doctor’s appointment yesterday, so maybe it came in after I left. This is how stuff falls through the cracks. Whoever took that file off my desk should have known better, Robin included. Meg should have given the file to me first.”
    “I guess you’ll have to train her.”
    “Don’t think I won’t. Let me check on the initial appearance and get back to you,” Patty said and hung up.
    Alex didn’t think her problems with Jared’s case could get any worse, but they did when she opened the file and began reading the probable cause statement. The first line read, I, Detective Hank Rossi, #4278, knowing that false statements on this form are punishable by law, state that the facts contained herein are true.
    “Shit!” Alex said, slamming the file onto her desk.
    Another dance with Rossi was the last thing she needed, especially after what happened at the Zoo and what happened with Bonnie when she got home. Bonnie took one sniff and ordered both of them into the shower. Afterward, wrapped in their robes, they sat on the bedroom floor drinking wine and ruffling their dog Quincy’s fur. Bonnie waited until Alex had finished her glass of wine.
    “Okay, give. What terrible thing happened today?”
    “Do I look that bad?”
    “Yes, but you smelled worse. Where did that come from?”
    Alex knew that she had to give Bonnie enough of the truth to make sense of her appearance, and that meant telling her she’d been to the judge’s ranch. She’d never told Bonnie about her visits to the ranch, claiming she was meeting a witness in one of her cases.
    “I was in Judge West’s court today. He was going on and on about his damn horses and how wonderful they are and I was trying to be polite so I said that I’d love to see them sometime. And he said what about tonight, and what was I going to do? Of course, if I’d known he was going to ask me to help him muck out the stables, I would have come up with an excuse. But I wasn’t quick enough.”
    “You’re kidding! He made you shovel horseshit?”
    “Well, he didn’t make me. I just couldn’t figure out how to say no. Except for the smell, it wasn’t that bad. I needed the exercise, and who wouldn’t want to help a horse?”
    “That explains the smell, but it doesn’t explain why you looked so beat-up when you walked through the door.”
    Alex dropped her chin to her chest and sighed. “No, it doesn’t.”
    Bonnie draped her arm over Alex’s shoulder and pulled her close. “Come on. Out with it.”
    Alex left out that Judge West was blackmailing her, limiting her confession to her encounter with Rossi at the bar. They argued over what to do about it, Bonnie wanting her to file a