Total pages in book: 113
Estimated words: 107608 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 538(@200wpm)___ 430(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107608 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 538(@200wpm)___ 430(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
Instant coolness hits me as I walk inside, and I head over to the reception desk to give my license and credentials. They accept them, check some sort of list on the computer, and then call up to the detective before handing me a visitor’s badge. “All right, go ahead. Third floor. Go right,” the burly guard tells me.
I walk toward the elevators, quickly landing on the third floor, where a pretty dark-haired woman meets me.
Her skin is a deep brown, and her eyes alight with humor. “Hi there. I’m Louise.” She’s dressed in casual clothing. “I’ll take you back to Detective Battlement.”
“Thank you.” I note the hustle and bustle of the place. I walk by a guy slurping soup and shudder before continuing on. I keep AirPods in my handbag at all times just in case, but I can get through this place quickly enough without having to use them. We reach a door at the far end, upon which she knocks.
“Enter,” a booming voice yells.
She opens the door. “Here you go. Miss Mooncrest is here from Cage and Lion,” she announces. “This is Detective Battlement.”
I walk inside a room besieged by file folders, papers, and books that match the harried man behind the desk.
He stands. He’s big and burly and has a square face and a hard jaw. “Hello.” He shakes my hand. “Please sit down.” There’s one chair that’s clear of debris, and I sit, gently nudging a couple of file folders away from my new kitten heels.
“Sorry about the mess.” He looks around as if seeing it for the first time. He has to be in his early fifties, and his wiry gray hair stands up on end. He hasn’t shaved in a couple of days, and his eyes are bloodshot.
“Thank you for fitting me in.” I look around the cluttered office. “I can tell you’re swamped.”
“I am.” His beefy hand lands on the desk. “There’s a lot going on in Silicon Valley these days.” He digs under a stack of file folders and pulls out one. “I looked over the Alexei Sokolov case last night to prepare for our meeting, and it was pretty solid, I got to tell you.” He’s actually a lot nicer than I expected, considering I’m at the moment acting as a criminal defense attorney.
He continues, “I have a notation here that we sent copies of all the evidence over to your office already.”
“Yes,” I say. “We’re hoping to be able to repair the security disc from the date of the murder.”
He scratches his head and reads something in the file folder before turning the page. “Yeah, it was pretty corrupted. But that was, what, seven years ago? Technology has probably changed. We can take another look as well.”
“That is wonderful,” I say, although Ella is the best. I study him. “Do you remember much about the case?”
He focuses on me. “Yeah. I was the investigating detective at the time. Your client’s guilty, Counselor.” His voice doesn’t hold a lot of emotion, and I take that to be more from experience than anything else.
“Why so?” I already read his testimony, but I want to hear it directly from him.
The detective shrugs, leaning back in his chair, which shrieks in protest. He’s got to be a good six feet tall and maybe about two hundred and fifty pounds of what I would consider to be solid muscle—beefy and strong. He probably needs to have his suits specially tailored. “Your client was at the murder scene, and his fingerprints were all over the knife that he had to throw in the pond. He was in love with the deceased’s wife, and he thought he was untouchable.”
“Untouchable?” I ask, just watching him and not making notes. People are less likely to speak freely if they think you’re writing everything down, so I listen and make mental notes that I will type later.
The detective nods. “Yeah, he was rich, and he was popular, and he was cocky. Honestly, I’m sure he thought he could get away with it—that money would triumph in the end.”
I can see the younger Alexei thinking that, so I nod. “Go on.”
The detective shrugs. “Have you looked through all the evidence yet?”
“I’ve read the reports, depositions, trial transcripts, and his former attorney’s notes,” I murmur. “Besides the corrupted security disc from the Fairfax residence, I’m still watching the hundreds of hours on a bunch of CDs from the Amethyst Pony.”
“Your boy loved that woman,” the detective says, “and that’s one of the best motives there is for murder. Trust me, I’ve seen it happen over and over again. You take a cocky, rich playboy who’s challenged by another man, and he would’ve killed him. He did kill him. It’s a fact.”
It all seems too easy. “Alexei says he was set up, that he wouldn’t ever be dumb enough to throw a knife with his fingerprints into a pond that’s just off the back of the deceased’s home,” I say.