State's Evidence: A Beverly Mendoza Legal Thriller (24 page)

“Just never got around to getting one,”
Beverly offered a lame response. She had been meaning to have a
system installed, but procrastinated mainly because the area had an
active neighborhood crime watch and strong police-community
relations. Almost no burglaries had been reported since they moved
there. This was a burglary, wasn’t it? What else could it be?

“Well, we’ll fix that!” Grant said with
determination. He tried not to think about what might have happened
had Beverly walked in on the home invader. Their entire future
could have been derailed. Not to mention the unfinished business of
the present. “First thing in the morning I’ll make a call and get a
good security system put in for you.”

Beverly would have preferred to make her own
choice in this matter, but she knew Grant was only trying to help.
Besides, she found real comfort in having him take charge, as if he
were the man of the house. That was something she now felt she
needed in more ways than one.

“In the meantime,” Grant was saying, “you and
Jaime should stay at my house tonight.”

Beverly appreciated this, however she didn’t
want to feel too helpless or be put out of her own home.

“We’ll be fine here,” she insisted. “I doubt
very much that the burglar will come back. At least not
tonight.”

Grant’s brows drew together. “Don’t be so
naive, Beverly,” he snapped at her. “Or bullheaded. You don’t know
that this was just a burglar. You’re an Assistant D.A., for crying
out loud! Who’s to say that this creep wasn’t after you—or
Jaime—and just made it look like a simple burglary?”

The thought gave Beverly the jitters. What if
it wasn’t just a case of theft? What if the thief had a larger
agenda in mind?

Had she been targeted with the intent of
bodily harm?
Was this more than a random act of petty
crime?

Beverly mused about the man she had seen at
Burger King last week. Could he have somehow followed her home and
then come back at the opportune time? Was he also a rapist and
murderer?

“What is it?” Grant asked perceptively.

Beverly told him about the man and his
incredible likeness to Rafael Santiago.

“So what are you saying?” Grant asked.

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “For one, he
could be the person who broke into my house. For another, maybe he
broke into Judge Crawford’s house, too...”

Beverly could not believe what she was
suggesting, considering that they had Rafael Santiago’s DNA and
Maxine Crawford’s positive identification, putting Santiago
directly at the scene of the crime as its perpetrator. But what if,
against all odds, this other person had committed the crime ...
without leaving any DNA evidence?

Grant dismissed the notion. “We have the
right
man in custody, Beverly!” he said firmly. “One thing
has nothing to do with the other, assuming this man did follow you
home.”

“You weren’t there, Grant,” Beverly said
flatly. “You didn’t see him. I did and it really freaked me
out!”

“Will you listen to yourself, Bev?” He sucked
in a ragged breath. “You see some guy at Burger King who resembles
Santiago—a man you’ve admitted you may have only imagined looking
like him—and all of a sudden you’re questioning the entire case you
have against Rafael Santiago.” Grant’s gaze angled at her face. “Do
you
really
believe you have the
wrong
man in
custody?”

Beverly began to question her own judgment.
Santiago was identified right down to the tattoo on his pubic
region. Wasn’t that proof enough that he was Maxine’s attacker? And
the one who shot to death Judge Crawford?

Surely this other man, no matter how much he
may have looked like Santiago, wasn’t his identical twin with
respect to his private parts.

But that didn’t mean he hadn’t followed her
and broken into her house. Or that she might not still be in
danger.

“We’ll spend the night at your place,” she
told Grant.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

“Where have you been?” Claudia asked sharply,
a bead of perspiration dampening her brow.

“Out,” Manuel said simply, not in the mood to
argue. He’d had a good buzz and now just wanted to sleep. He walked
by her, getting a whiff of pungent body odor masked only slightly
by cheap perfume.

“The police came to the office,” she told him
nervously.

“So...” He looked at her.

“They asked about you...and one of them gave
me this.” She held out a business card.

Manuel took it and read:
Detective Stone
Palmer, Homicide, Wilameta County Sheriff’s Department
. There
were two phone numbers and a fax number on the card.

Manuel felt a twinge of panic, but fought
hard not to show it. “What did this Stone Palmer want to know?” he
asked nonchalantly.

“They’re investigating the murder of Adrienne
Murray,” Claudia said, as if he knew the woman.

“Who the hell is she?” He lifted his brow as
though not a clue.

“Adrienne worked for me,” Claudia said
tautly. “You met her at the office.”

Manuel shrugged. “If you say so.” He rubbed
his nose. “Why do the cops wanna see me?”

Claudia swallowed hesitantly. “They think you
may have had something to do with Adrienne’s death.”

Manuel narrowed his eyes. “What do you
think?”

Claudia brazenly got up in his face. “You
tell me, Manuel, that you
did not
murder Adrienne,” she
demanded. “Not someone I worked with, a friend... You couldn’t
have—”

“I didn’t murder no one,” he said coolly.
“Why do you even listen to them? You know me. I’m no killer!” He
stepped back involuntarily.

“I’m not sure I do know you, Manuel,” she
spat angrily. “You think I’m stupid? I know you’re still doing
crack. I can see it in your red eyes.”

He saw no use in denying it. “That don’t mean
I killed Adrienne whatever her name is—”

Claudia gave him a mistrustful appraisal.
“No? Then where’d you get the watch?”

“What watch?”

“The one you gave me last week for my
birthday! You said you bought it.”

Manuel knew he’d backed himself into a
corner, but was not about to remain trapped in it. “Okay, so I
lied. I found the watch, all right?”

“Found it where?” she asked warily.

“At the park,” he replied with a straight
face. “It was there on the grass. I figured someone probably had no
more use for it and tossed it. I cleaned it up and wanted you to
have it. That’s the truth, baby.”

When Manuel put a hand on Claudia’s rough
cheek, she winced as if he’d struck her. “You had blood on your
clothes that night Adrienne disappeared,” she recalled. “It was
her
blood, wasn’t it? Not fish blood.” When he did not
respond she shouted at him, “Tell me the truth, Manuel—”

His first impulse was
deny, deny,
deny
. But since she didn’t want to take no for an answer and it
was too late for that at this point, he decided what the hell.

“Yeah, it was that bitch’s blood,” Manuel
admitted tersely. “Happy now?”

Claudia was trembling. “Why, Manuel—?” Her
eyes filled with tears. “What did Adrienne ever do to you?”

“She got what she deserved—okay!”

“No, it’s not okay, Manuel,” she huffed. “How
could it be?”

“Because that’s over and done with, baby,” he
said. “Just forget about it.”

Claudia closed her eyes, squeezing out tears,
and opened them wide. “They think you killed a prostitute, too.”
She sighed. “It’s true, isn’t it?”

Again Manuel wanted to deny any such
involvement. But it was obvious that she’d already had her mind
made up from the beginning. Big mistake.

“Yeah, I killed the whore,” he confessed. “It
was just something that happened. We’ll go someplace else and start
over.”

Even as he spoke, Manuel never believed she
would go along with it. She couldn’t. No more than he could now
that the cat had been let out of the bag.

They had suddenly reached a turning point in
their rocky relationship and Manuel knew there was no going
back.

“You have to turn yourself in, Manuel.”
Claudia’s voice shook. “It’s the only way to make things
right.”

“Things can never be right again,” he told
her. “Not between us—”

The empty look in her eyes confirmed it.

He faced her squarely and, without giving it
another thought, took out his knife. Just as quickly, Manuel
released the switchblade from its holder. Claudia stared at the
shiny blade open-mouthed, as if it were an object from another
planet. He thrust the knife into her stomach, feeling it slice
through her.

Then again.

Again.

And again.

“I’m sorry, baby,” Manuel cried, holding her
in his arms as he continued to ram the blade into her. “There was
simply no other way. I can’t go back to prison. They do bad things
to people like me in there.”

When he finally released her, Claudia’s
bloodied body crashed to the floor. He closed her lifeless eyes and
kissed her goodbye.

I’ve got to get the hell out of here.
Manuel freaked out more about his latest kill than the others. They
would come back looking for him.

But by then he would be long gone.

He took whatever money Claudia had in her
purse. Then he took her car, knowing she wouldn’t be needing it
ever again.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

When Stone and Chang arrived at the duplex
that Claudia Sosa shared with Manuel Gonzalez, the place was
already crawling with cops. A call had come in from a neighbor who
reported hearing a woman screaming inside the residence.

Stone feared the worst had happened before
they could take Manuel Gonzalez into custody. He saw the body bag
being removed from the residence. After identifying himself, he
requested that it be opened.

Stone winced. The face staring back at him
was indeed that of Claudia Sosa.

“What happened?” he asked Detective Arellano
who had gotten there minutes before.

“Looks like she was stabbed to death,”
Arellano informed him. “A witness identified Manuel Gonzalez
running from the duplex. He drove off in the victim’s car—”

“Damn!” Stone closed his eyes in a moment of
anguish. He knew they had been so close to nailing the culprit.

“We have a make on the car and license plate
number,” Chang said. “We’ll get the son of a bitch—”

“Yeah,” muttered Stone. “Let’s just hope it’s
before he sets his sights on someone else. A probable
crack-addicted psycho-serial killer is the worst kind of criminal
we can have running around as a loose cannon.”

Stone thought about Chuck Murray. Where the
hell did he fit in all this? Was he really just an innocent
grieving husband? Or was he a wife-abusing, paranoid, jealous
bastard who would stop at nothing to keep his wife from abandoning
ship—including conspiring to commit a cold, calculated murder?

They put out an APB on Manuel Gonzalez,
hoping to get some answers from the armed and very dangerous
killer.

* * *

It was past midnight when Beverly came out of
the bathroom adjoining Grant’s master suite. Jaime was already
asleep in a spare bedroom and unlikely to come looking for her till
morning. By then, she would have breakfast made and he wouldn’t
have to concern himself about her sleeping arrangements.

Not that he doesn’t already suspect Grant
and I are having sex.
But why add fuel to the fire?

Beverly waited till she got to Grant’s
waterbed before removing her nightgown, exposing her naked body.
She watched as his eyes feasted upon her in the low moonlight
filtering through plantation shutters. She watched him, too, lying
on the bed with one sinewy arm propped on an elbow.

Without uttering a word, she climbed onto the
bed and went down to his flaccid penis, taking him into her mouth.
Within moments, it had become engorged and stiff, while Grant
sighed and ran his hands haphazardly through her hair.

Beverly’s arousal matched his. She pulled her
mouth off him and rolled the condom over Grant’s erection.
Straddling his hips, she slowly slid onto him till he was deep
inside her. Then she began galloping atop her lover, faster and
faster as the need for satisfaction enveloped her like a warm
blanket.

Grant caressed Beverly’s nipples with nimble
fingers, causing them to turn rock hard. He heard her soft moan and
bit back his own urge to vocalize his pleasure. Instead, he pulled
her down on top of him, cupped her buttocks, and began kissing
Beverly’s mouth feverishly till they both exploded in orgasmic
rhythm.

Beverly quavered violently as she came,
feeling herself tightening around Grant inside her. Their bodies
seemed to mold into one another as the final burst of ecstasy left
their breathing labored before there was calm.

Afterwards, Beverly continued to lie on
Grant’s comforting, solid body, her head against his chest. She
could hear his heart beating rapidly, not yet come down from the
high of sex.

Neither of them had spoken much about the
break in or Beverly’s fears that someone who looked like Rafael
Santiago had followed her home. Nor had they discussed the fact
that Grant’s rain check had come due sooner than either of them
expected.

Now where do we go from here?
Beverly
wondered nervously. Could their declarations of love carry them
further than either dreamed possible? Right now she only wanted to
sleep. There would be other days to tackle the weighty issues.

Grant held Beverly in his arms, wishing they
could stay that way forever. He could get used to having a woman in
his life full time again. Only this time he wouldn’t let her get
away. He couldn’t.

He wondered if the home invasion was somehow
tied into their destiny, to bridge the gap sooner than later and
become one. Or was there something more ominous afloat with the
burglary and the Rafael Santiago look alike?