Evidence by Jonathan Kellerman Read Free Book Online

shirt dared to come over. “Everything okay?”
    Milo
expanded like a balloon. “Everything’s grand, just go about your business.”
    Now
was the time for the badge. Gawking, the kid turned heel.
    Milo
said, “Your friend’s pretty upset, Bettina.”
    “Sheryl’s
got a iffy stomach.”
    “That’s
Sheryl Passant?”
    Nod.
“Omigod. Who hurt Des?”
    “That’s
what we’re trying to find out. Mind if we join you?”
    “Um
…” Not budging.
    Milo
smiled. “Thanks for the compliment, but I need a little more room than that,
Bettina.”
    “Oh…
sorry.” Sanfelice scooted over and he wedged beside her. Milo’s presence turned
her tiny. An abused child.
    I
settled across from them.
    Milo
pointed at the pink drink. “I know it’s a shock, feel free.”
    “Oh …
no, thanks.” But she grabbed the glass with both hands, took a long, noisy sip.
    “Frozen
strawberry margarita?” said Milo.
    “Frozen
straw-tini … Des is really dead? Omigod, that’s so … I can’t believe it!”
    “Tina,
anything you can tell us about Des would be really helpful. You and Sheryl both
worked with him, right?”
    “Uh-huh.
At GHC—that’s a architectural firm. Sheryl got me the job.”
    “You
and Sheryl are old friends.”
    “From
junior high. We tried out for the army but we changed ourmind
because of Eye-rack. Instead, we enrolled in JC but we didn’t like it, so we
went to ITT to learn computers but we didn’t like that so we switched to
business technology at Briar Secretarial. Sheryl got a job right away, she can
type fast, but I’m slower so I switched to computer graphics. My dream is to
design furniture and draperies but there’s nothing right now so when Sheryl got
the job at GHC, she told me they needed a intern, maybe I could get to do
design.”
    “Did
you?”
    “Uh-uh,
I mostly ran errands, answered the phone when Sheryl was tied up. Which didn’t
happen too much. There really wasn’t nothing to do.”
    “Was
Des working at GHC when you and Sheryl got hired?”
    “No,
he came later. Like a week later. We said, ‘Finally, a guy.’” Blushing.
    “Mr.
Cohen’s a guy.”
    “He’s
old.”
    “How
old?”
    “Like
sixty. He’s like a grandpa.”
    A
voice to our left said, “He is a grandpa, used to bring his rug-rat
grandkids in and would go off all day with them.”
    Sheryl
Passant looked down on us, oracle on the mount.
    I got
up to let her in. No more ponytail; her blond hair was long and loose and
streaming and her glasses were gone.
    She
slid in. “Why were you talking about Mr. Cohen?”
    Bettina
Sanfelice said, “We’re talking about Des, Sher. To find out who killed him.”
    “Us?
What can we tell them?”
    Milo
said, “For starts, what kind of guy Des was, Sheryl. Did he have enemies, who’d
want to hurt him?”
    Passant
shifted closer. Her thigh pressed against mine. I scooted an inch away. She
frowned. Flipped her hair. “Des had no enemies.”
    “None
at all?”
    “Des
was really mellow, I can’t see anyone hating him. Not even Helga the Nazi.”
    “Helga the Gestapo Girl,” said Sanfelice, giggling,
then turning grave. “Sorry, we just… she didn’t treat us good. Just getting our
paychecks was a hassle. Sheryl, I mean. I was just an intern so I didn’t get
paid at all.”
    “Which
totally sucked,” said Passant. “You did the same job as me, Teen. You should’ve
gotten paid the same as me. Helga sucks.”
    Milo
said, “Wasn’t the firm a partnership?”
    “Marjie
and Mr. Cohen didn’t control the money, she did. The building was hers, the
idea was hers, everything was hers. She was always talking like she was the one
who’d made up Green. Like Al Gore had never existed. You think she killed Des?”
    “You
think she could’ve?”
    The
women looked at each other. Sanfelice stirred her drink. Passant said, “I’m not
saying she’d have done it. But she’s not like a regular person, you know?”
    “Different,”
said Sanfelice. “She’s from