A Match Made for Murder Iona Whishaw (pride and prejudice read .TXT) 📖

and his lawyer, a man who ate well and was feeling the heat. Griffin was out of prison on a sizeable bail, which he had no trouble producing. Both he and his counsel had been leaning back looking bored and, to Martinez’s surprise, confident.

“We’ve been following up on your finances, and we have solid evidence that you’ve been taking dirty money from your illicit gambling and funnelling it through your restaurant and other businesses.” Martinez mentally crossed his fingers they still had that evidence somewhere. “What I’m interested in is money you’ve paid out to the Desert Sunrise Nursing Home. Regular payments, every month,” he had said to Griffin.

“Really, Martinez, you’re grabbing at straws here. My client—”

But Griffin waved his lawyer off. “My mother is in the nursing home, what do you think?”

“She’s not, though. I checked. She died four years ago.”

“They were good to her. I give them a little something. A donation. I’m grateful, big deal. What are you trying to get at, Martinez?”

“What I’m trying to get at, Mr. Griffin, is that the nursing home tells me they’ve had no money from you since your mother died. So where is it going?”

Griffin had shrugged. “I give them the money. My money, from the restaurant, which, by the way, is a popular place. It’s not my fault they lose it. You should check with them. Maybe someone on that end is pocketing it. Maybe they don’t want to pay taxes. How the hell should I know? You haven’t got anything on me, or you wouldn’t be fishing around my dead mother’s rest home.”

The lawyer, sweat pooling around his collar, picked up his hat and hauled himself to his feet. “Fishing is right. If you have nothing else, I got places to be.”

Martinez sighed. He was fishing. If he couldn’t find the evidence he already had, he’d have to get to the bottom of the money going to the nursing home, a difficult prospect if there were no records and the nursing home was denying it had received any money. He was already in trouble with Galloway, who had a temper, over the missing evidence, evidence he knew for certain had been in the file in his desk drawer, which he locked every night when he went home, and then moved to the station files. His failure to adequately track where the missing “donations” were going meant that Galloway was right. The whole case was unravelling, and it would end up being his fault. This murder at the Santa Cruz Inn was going to take up time that he could ill afford, as he knew he would have to investigate the financial activities at the Desert Sunrise Nursing Home and hope to scrape up enough evidence.

He rose to indicate their conversation was over. He did not look at Griffin, but he watched the lawyer who stood outside the door fanning his face with his hat. Griffin got up languidly. He would be smirking. What Martinez did not understand was why.

“I feel awful leaving those two women behind like this,” Lane said. They stood on the front steps of the inn, waiting for Priscilla Galloway.

“I know you do. It’s one of the reasons I love you. If I ever get into a mess, I feel confident you will hate to leave me behind as well.” Darling was standing with his hands in his pockets, revelling in being able to wear a short-sleeved sport shirt in November. She had, in fact, risked everything to extract him from a very sticky mess in England the previous June.

A pale-blue Buick with a soft-top pulled up, and Priscilla smiled up at them; she was wearing large sunglasses, and her dark hair was wrapped in an orange scarf. “All ready? I thought of putting the top down, but it’s a longish drive, and we’ll be battered to death. Hop in.” She waved at them with a white-gloved hand.

Darling opened the front passenger door and pulled the seat forward to climb into the back. “It’s kind of you to do this, Mrs. Galloway.”

Lane settled luxuriously into the plush passenger seat. The car smelled new and gleamed in the morning sun.

Priscilla put the car in gear. “Nonsense, it’s a pleasure. Paul doesn’t often let me drive the car, so it’s doubly nice.” She gave a trill of laughter that made Lane turn toward her. It was the kind of unnecessary laughter that nervous people emit, but in Priscilla it struck her as having a brittle quality, as if she wished to fill some void with happy sounds.

“Tell us about this church,” Lane said.

Priscilla glanced at her, lips turned in a brief smile. “Well, I mean, really, it’s just a church in a desert, but it is old, as old as things get in America. Seventeen something. I quite like it, and it’s a day out. There’s a very nice Mexican restaurant on the way back we can stop at. Very authentic. I can’t help noticing that neither of you has a camera. I’ll be sure to snap a picture of you two in front of the place so you’ll have a honeymoon picture for your album.”

“It’s true. I don’t know why neither of us has one. Darling?” Lane looked into the back seat, where Darling was occupying himself looking at the part of town they were passing.

“Ames always takes the pictures. I don’t think I ever imagined myself in the role of tourist.”

Priscilla laughed again. “Wedded to his job, just like Paul. No wonder they’re friends. You should be careful, Lane.” She sounded as though she was going to add to that observation, but she stopped and lifted her chin and lowered it again, her lips closing tightly for a moment. “I wouldn’t say it’s the prettiest town, but it’s quite pleasant to live here. I like the climate, though it is dreadfully hot in the summer, and I do miss how green England is. We are just getting started on building a pool. You can’t