Don sent a bunch of furniture over, high end stuff, real oak, not the pressed wood chips like I had for my desk. Dara came, set up a couple pics of mom and dad and her, then set up her computer. First few days, wasn't much to say, aside from Dara wanting to move her desk cause of the window. Glare off her computer was driving her crazy. That's when I found out I couldn't move her desk without a lot of cursing. No one called, no one came in. 50-something slob, college kid, we got nothing in common except her dad put us in a weird situation. She worked on her computer, I read the paper.
When Oscar came in, we were tripping over each other trying to talk to the guy, just so it wouldn't be so awkward. It was strange hearing her talk, and she probably thought the same thing about me [Trace's voice rumbles. He spoke so infrequently sometimes I thought it was electrical interference or a far-away fire engine. -Dara]. He was a tall guy in jeans and flannel, dark hair, short, built like a fighter, sort of like the guy on the paper towels. Thing was, when he talked, wasn't a blue collar slob, he used a lot of them 50 cent words and good electrocution [Elocution. Oscar wasn't a robot. -Dara].
Had to tell Dara to back off, she was speaking so much. Told Oscar to sit down, and he sat stiff, like it was a throne. Turned out Oscar was being charged with murdering his dad and step mom. I read about it not ten minutes before he came in, showed him the paper. He skimmed it, and fell back into the chair.
They set bail at a quarter mill, figured he wasn't a flight risk. His temporary freedom cost more than my last 7 or 8 years as a PI. Made me want a drink even more.
It wasn't looking good for him. Found them in the kitchen, some kinda struggle with a third person. The pistol in Dr. Peterson's hand came from the gun collection Oscar kept at his dad's estate. He liked hunting on the grounds. Now it was gonna come back to bite him.
Worse, he didn't have any alibi. Time of death was sometime in the middle of the night, when Oscar was off hunting on the grounds. Had a little tent set up and everything, would stay out all night trying to shoot stuff. Lots of woods, plenty of ways for a man to never get found if he didn't wanna be. But he swore up and down it wasn't him killed them, and needed me to help.
Soon as he said it was a murder, I got suspicious. Ain't no one come to me with a murder case ever didn't also have their own agenda, needed a patsy in case someone had to take a fall. Didn't stop me before, cause I needed the money, but I also wanted to know how bad Oscar was gonna burn me if it came down to it.
Before I can ask him anything else, Dara tells him I'd take the case. She puts her hands together, gets this real goofy smile on her face.
Oscar's so happy, he jumps out of the seat, starts shaking my hand like he's trying to get water out of a rusty pump. I pull my hand away, ask him why he came to me. He said the cops were trying to grab a “personal donation” from him, and they told him if he wasn't gonna play by their rules, he could find some slob PI.
Sometimes, cops end up sending me the most business.
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