Read Online Sudden Death by David Rosenfelt - Free Book Online Page A

this chair since. If it happened here, with American doctors… who knows if it would have been different, you know?”
    I don’t know what to say, so I don’t say anything. Everything Bobby ever wanted disappeared when his car went a few inches off the side of the road. I can almost feel the disappointment in the air, weighing on him.
    I’m relieved when the door opens and Teri comes in, still wearing her nurse’s uniform. She also has with her a young boy, whom she introduces as Jason, their seven-year-old son. Jason seems tall for his age and has none of his father’s offensive lineman bulk. He’s either going to be a wide receiver when he grows up or, if he takes after his mother, a nurse.
    “I’m off to work, Bobby,” Teri says. “Don’t let Jason stay up too late.”
    He smiles. “What do you mean? I thought we’d go out drinking tonight.” He taps Jason lightly in the ribs. “Right, big guy?” Jason taps him right back and mimics his “Right, big guy.” There seems to be an easy relationship between father and son.
    Teri says goodbye to me and leaves. Once she’s out of the house, Bobby says, “She works like crazy and takes care of me and Jason. She’s unbelievable.”
    “Can you drive?” I ask.
    He nods. “Yup. They make hand controls for cars. But it’s still a hell of a lot easier when she’s with me. The team lets her come on road trips.”
    Jason asks Bobby to read him a story, and I take advantage of the interruption to say my goodbyes.
    I drive back home, no more enlightened about the facts of the case, but liking my client a little more. He has taken good care of this one friend, and on some level it makes it harder for me to believe he killed another one.

L AURIE MAKES MY favorite for dinner, pasta whatever. She seems to add anything lying around into the sauce, and somehow it turns out terrifically. The best part is, she never tells me the ingredients, since if I knew how healthful they were, I probably wouldn’t eat them.
    We have an agreement that we never discuss business at home, but while we’re on a case, we break the agreement pretty much every night. Tonight is no exception, and during dinner she tells me about her initial efforts to investigate the life of Troy Preston.
    Mostly working with her own contacts, the picture she’s getting of Preston is not a positive one. Word has it that he failed an NFL drug test last season. NFL policy is to put the failed player on probation and mandate counseling. The infraction remains secret until the second offense, at which point there is a four-week suspension. The prosecution’s postmortem blood test on Preston indicated that he would have failed another test had one been scheduled any time soon. That’s not something he needs to worry about now.
    The Jets, according to Laurie’s sources, were very worried about Preston and felt that drug use was responsible for his mediocre performance last season. He was never more than an adequate reserve anyway, and with his knee injury he was in danger of being cut from the squad this year.
    After dinner we go into the living room, put on an Eagles CD, open a bottle of chardonnay, and read. I had run a Lexis-Nexis search on Kenny, which through the miracle of computers allows me to access pretty much everything that has been written about him. Edna has pared it down to everything not related to game performances, leaving me with a thick book of material to go through.
    Laurie reads a mystery, one of probably a hundred she reads every year. It surprises me, because solving mysteries is what she does for a living. I’m a lawyer, and trust me, when I have spare time, you won’t catch me reading The Alan Dershowitz Story.
    Tara takes her spot on the couch between us. Music seems to put her in a mellow mood, which Laurie and I augment by simultaneously petting her. My assigned zone is the top of her head, while Laurie focuses on scratching Tara’s stomach.
    Laurie and I haven’t discussed