Lucky Break by Deborah Coonts Read Free Book Online Page A

knees grew a little wobbly.
    Teddie couldn’t have done it—could he?
    I eased my elbow free.   “I’m waiting for Romeo.   He’s going to give me a look at the murder weapon.   Paolo’s outside, if you’d like to wait.”   Romeo was terrified of my father.   Things would go better if he weren’t peering over my shoulder making Romeo feel the need to posture, as threatened men are wont to do.
    As if my father could read my mind, he nodded and went to the entrance to claim his things.   I hoped Paolo had remembered to stock the single malt.   If he hadn’t, he’d be looking for a new job tomorrow… until the Big Boss found his smile and rehired him.
    Romeo didn’t leave me cooling my heels for long.   “Here it is.”
    Already logged in to preserve the chain of evidence for trial, the knife was secured in a thick plastic bag.   Lighter than it looked, made of metal with a patina dark and old.   The blade long and thinner than most knives, the business end had been sharpened to a single edge terminating in a long point.   The other end had a small wooden handle.
    My eyes met Romeo’s.   “What is this, any idea?   Unusual for a normal blade.”  
    “Old, too, from the looks of it.”
    I spread the plastic so I could see the metal more clearly.   I leaned close.   Scratches in the patina on the edges.   I pulled my iPhone out of my evening bag.   “Mind if I take some photos?”
    “Go for it.”  
    I photographed and then recorded the dimensions as best I could.   “You know what this looks like?   A bayonet.”
    Romeo pursed his lips.   “From an old rifle?   How would you know that?”
    I looked at the blade.   1859.   The year was right.   I had a sinking feeling.   I flipped the blade over.   G.G.   I knew it.   Gresham Gittings, the patriarch of the Gittings line—his statue atop a horse graced the grounds of some capitol building in the South; I hadn’t bothered to remember which one.
    “I have a good idea where this came from.”   My tone indicated I wasn’t happy about it, which I wasn’t.
    Romeo’s head jerked up, his pupils dilated.   “What?”
    Irv Gittings was the eight-hundred-pound gorilla in the room and I was the only one who saw him.   “I knew a guy once who had a rifle he was very proud of.   A family heirloom, rich with tradition and tales of derring-do to hear him tell it.”
    “You always have a guy you once knew.”   Romeo thought that funny; then he sobered.
    “Be thankful you didn’t have to live through my bad choices.”   I gave him a look intended to shut him up.   “Remember Irv Gittings?”
    His eyes bugged.   “Shit, really?   Isn’t he in jail?”   A girl shoved out of a tour helicopter and landing in the middle of the Pirate Show in front of TI had brought Romeo and me together.   And together we had put Irv Gittings in jail for it.
    Which is where I thought he still resided.   “As far as I know.   But it wouldn’t hurt to check.”   In my gut I knew the answer, but I wasn’t ready to accept it or believe it just yet.   As if the metal had suddenly grown hot in my hands, I tossed the bayonet back to Romeo.   “When you get the crime scene stuff from the coroner, can you forward the photos and measurements to me?”  
    He caught it and looked at it with renewed enthusiasm—enthusiasm I didn’t share.   I’d put Irv where he belonged once.  
    Romeo seemed to be thinking the same thing.   When his eyes met mine, they were dark and angry, his smile a memory.   “You got it.”  
    “And when the techs finish with the crime scene?”   I didn’t need to elaborate.   We’d worked together long enough for a bit of verbal shorthand.  
    “The full report, you got it.”   He turned to go, then paused.   “And what are you going to do?”
    “With Irv in jail, his hotel gone, and his apartment and hotel foreclosed on, I’m going to try to figure out what happened to his gun collection, who bought