Read Online The Devil's Interval by Linda Peterson - Free Book Online Page B

“I bet you’ve got a couple yourself.”
    I felt my face go warm, remembering the last session with Dr. Mephisto.
    She held up her hand. “I’m not interested in yours and you’re not interested in mine. We’re only interested in Travis’s tastes because one of his women ended up dead.”
    â€œYou’re something else,” I said.
    â€œNo, I’m not,” she shot back. “I’ve got a son on Death Row. You can’t imagine how that enables you to cut through the nicey-nice stuff and get right down to it.” She sighed. “I didn’t know much about Mrs. Plummer, and I didn’t know about the rough sex. But I know Travis, I know him down to my bones. He likes to have fun, he likes to take things as far as they can go. But I read the description of how they found that woman. And I cannot believe Travis would do something like that to anyone.”
    Neither of us spoke. I looked down at the bar, and Ivory’s good hand, the one she was leaning on, was trembling. Suddenly, the door behind the bar flew open, and a burly guy pushing a handtruck loaded with cases of beer maneuvered it to Ivory’s side and put his arm around her. She stiffened, then leaned into him. With his free hand, he tore off the black and orange Giants cap he was wearing and dropped it on the bar.
    â€œHi, babe,” he said. “This was at the back door, thought I’d move it in for you.” He looked at me. “Did I bust up something?”
    Ivory shook her head. “No, just talking about Travis’s appeal. Maggie Fiori, meet Augustus Reeves III, also known as Uncle Gus.” Reeves, who had a shaved head under that cap and a nose that looked as if it had been broken and not repaired exactly the way it should have been, stuck out his hand. We shook.
    â€œYou another lawyer?” he asked. “That sounds expensive.”
    â€œHardly,” I said. “I work for a magazine.”
    â€œOh, yeah? Anything I’d ever heard of? Biker Mama , say?” He barked a laugh, and hugged Ivory close to him again.
    She put her hand on his impressive chest, and gently pushed him away.
    â€œEver the joker, Uncle Gus,” she said.
    â€œHey,” I said lightly, “I wouldn’t mind an assignment for Biker Mama once in a while. But they never call.”
    Uncle Gus narrowed his eyes, as if he couldn’t quite figure out if I was joking. That was okay; I couldn’t figure him out either. He seemed too close to Ivory’s age to be her uncle.
    â€œYou work here, Gus?” I asked.
    â€œNot exactly,” he said. “I’m a fan of Ivory’s, so I try to be useful from time to time. Keep a hand truck in my van, just to help my favorite proprietrix move things around. So, what’d I interrupt? You two seemed pretty intense.”
    Ivory gave me a quick, sideways glance. “Travis’s lawyer thought Maggie might be able to help. Find some things out. Turn over a few of those high-society rocks the cops couldn’t get to. I was just making my last-ditch mother-to-mother appeal to her.”
    â€œSo, what’s the verdict?” asked Gus. He seemed suddenly serious, done joking around.
    Ivory came around the bar and sat down next to me again.“Are you in or are you out?”
    I looked at Ivory and I saw she’d pulled rank on me. No longer just a piano player, a bar-owner, a woman who’d been disappointed in love. She was a mother. And she was in the kind of trouble I couldn’t even begin to imagine. Isabella was sure he was innocent—and for no good reason on earth, I believed her. If one of my boys…I stopped that train of thought cold in its tracks by opening my mouth.
    â€œI’m in.”

CHAPTER 7
    T uesday mornings were all-hands editorial meetings at Small Town . Like most monthly magazines, we worked on three issues at once. We had one in final production, one in