Flipping Out by Marshall Karp Read Free Book Online

us. I don't think she shot Jo, but now that one of her
partners is a homicide victim, she's going to milk it to help her sell more books.
I'll bet the first thing she did when she woke up at 4:00 a.m. was call her
publicist to see if she could get booked on Good Morning
America.''
    We
rehashed everything we had put together since we caught the case and decided
that we hadn't made a hell of a lot of progress in the critical first
twenty-four hours. Fifteen minutes later we were at 611 South Cherokee, the
house Nora and her merry band were flipping.
    There
was a squad car parked outside, its lights quietly flashing. The front yard was
wrapped in yellow crime scene tape. It was all part of the show.
    'Murder
at 611 South Cherokee,' I said.
    'Good
title for a book,' Terry said.
    There
was a jet black BMW 328i convertible sitting in the driveway. The vanity plates
said Joaquin.
    'Looks like Joaquin
is doing pretty well for himself,' Terry said.
    The front door
was wide open. We went inside. Marisol Dominguez was standing in the living
room with a heavyset Mexican man who was dressed in paint-spattered overalls.
He had a half-painted kitchen cabinet door in his hands and a puzzled look on
his face.
    Marisol was
pissed. 'No, no, no,' she said, tapping on the door. ' Este es amarillo de la mostaza. Deseo amarillo del limón.'
    ‘ Ah...limón,'' the painter said. 'Si .'
    She waved him
off, and he left to fix whatever he had done wrong.
    She looked up at
us. 'He says he's a painter, but he can't tell the difference between mustard
and lemon. The book specifically says ' The kitchen
cabinets were painted bright yellow. Miranda thought the colour matched her
sunny disposition, but Stephen said it was lemon - a perfect metaphor for their
sour marriage.'' That's what I get for hiring a
bunch of wetbacks.'
    It would be a
racist comment coming from somebody else, but Marisol was Mexican, so she knew
she could get away with it. I've heard her use the word before, strictly for
shock value, but in this case it was just a subtle display of power. She gave
us a challenging look that seemed to say, 'What are you two white cops going to
do? Arrest me for a bias crime?'
    There were times
when Terry and I wondered why Tony stayed married to her, but every time we saw
her in person, we'd smack our heads and say, 'Oh, yeah.' Marisol might have
been short-changed in the charm department, but God had packed what little she
had into a kickass body. Today, it was on display in tight jeans and a man's
shirt tied in a knot at her midriff, leaving a three-inch band of smooth, dark
skin.
    She had a
clipboard in one hand and a cigarette in the other. 'I knew you two would get
here sooner or later,' she said.
    'Good to see you
too, Marisol,' Terry said.
    'Don't take it
personally. It's just like I have a zillion things on this punch list that I
still have to get done.' She took an unladylike drag on the cigarette. 'I feel
bad about Jo's death, but if I told you I was grateful for the extra couple of
days to get the house ready, would that make me a suspect?'
    'You're not a
suspect,' Terry lied. 'We just want to know what you know about her.'
    'I hated her.
She treated me like I was the fucking help. Well, maybe I am, but without my
help, this house would never get done. She comes in as a five-percenter on the
fifth house in the series, and she thinks her shit smells like strawberries.
And she was always sucking up to Nora.'
    'Did you two
argue?' Terry said. 'Ever fight?'
    'I fight with my
husband. I fight with these dumb Mexican labourers. Her, I basically ignored. I
just hated her from a distance. I'm in this for the money, not the sisterhood.'
    'Just for the
record,' Terry said, 'where were you Sunday night?'
    'Home. I went to
sleep at ten. And just for the record, Detective Tony Dominguez can verify my
alibi. I was in bed when he got back from the poker game.'
    She took another
drag on the cigarette, then mashed the butt into an ashtray that was sitting