State's Evidence: A Beverly Mendoza Legal Thriller by R. Barri Flowers Read Free Book Online

wife was having an affair, you’re wrong. We’re in love and not
having any marital problems.”
    So you say. Stone looked at him with
misgiving. What couple in America doesn’t have any marital
problems?
    “Could have been a miscommunication—” he told
the husband as a possibility. “Maybe you and your wife weren’t on
the same page when she left for work.”
    Chuck dismissed this with a twist of his
head. “There was no miscommunication. Something’s happened to
Adrienne. I can feel it.”
    Stone wasn’t convinced. By the same token he
couldn’t rule it out either. “I can understand your concern, Mr.
Murray, but the fact is, your wife hasn’t even been missing for
twenty-four hours. Technically, that makes her not really missing.
Does your wife always come straight home from work?”
    Chuck regarded the question like it was
incomprehensible. “Adrienne likes to jog sometimes after work,” he
admitted, as if just remembering this. “There’s a park across from
her office where she runs.”
    “And that park would be?”
    “Belle Park.”
    Stone wrote this down, familiar with the
area. “Do you know if she was planning to jog after work last
night?”
    Chuck paused. “We never talked about it,” he
claimed.
    “So then she could have gone jogging?”
    He shrugged. “Yeah, I suppose. Adrienne keeps
some running clothes and shoes in her car to change into at
work.”
    “I see.” Stone looked across his desk,
thoughts running through his mind.
    Chuck picked up on it, eyes widening. “So you
think Adrienne went running and someone attacked her?”
    “Not really sure what to think at this
point,” Stone responded candidly. He wondered if the man was being
straight with him across the board on his wife’s disappearance. Or
was there more to this that he wasn’t sharing? “I’ll look into this
and see what I can find out. I’ll need a recent photograph of your
wife, where she works, daily schedule, type of car she drives and
license plate number. And also your address and phone
number.”
    “No problem.” Chuck removed the wallet from
his back pocket and pulled out a photograph, sliding it across the
desk. “It was taken in June at a company picnic. I have larger
pictures of her at home if you want them.”
    “This will do for now.” Stone studied the
photo of the two of them. Adrienne Murray was a pretty lady:
blonde, blue-eyed, slender. She looked to be in her late twenties,
early thirties. The type of lady one might never want to let go
of.
    And it was that very thought that troubled
Stone most at this point of the investigation. He had been around
long enough to know that many men could not bear the thought of
losing their wife to another man—or a woman. It wasn’t uncommon to
see men commit murder to hang onto the wife forever in their
own warped minds.
    But it was still too soon to know if this
missing woman had fallen prey to foul play. Or if she had simply
left her husband, even if just for a night. Stone didn’t rule out
that Murray could well return home to find his wife waiting for him
with some kind of explanation as to her whereabouts for more than
fourteen hours.
     

CHAPTER EIGHT
     
    Detective Joe O’Dell stood at the door of
Judge Sheldon Crawford’s house. He glanced at the unmarked sedan on
the street, where a detective sat, assigned to protect the judge’s
wife, Maxine Crawford 24/7. The order was expected to stay in
effect for as long as her attacker and husband’s killer remained at
large.
    It had been two days since the crime occurred
and O’Dell looked forward to finally being able to talk to the only
living witness, having been rebuffed in his attempts to interview
her during her hospital stay. He understood that Maxine Crawford
was still in the grieving process and recovering from her own
victimization, but some things could not wait any longer. He had a
job to do and he intended to do it, even if he had been ordered to
take it easy on the lady.
    O’Dell