A Man for All Seasons Read Online Free

of his hand over his sweaty brow. His blond-streaked, thick and wavy hair, was momentarily visible until he stuck the hat back on, slanting it across his eyes.
    â€œWho called you in on this?” the medical examiner investigator asked cursorily as she worked to prepare the body for transit.
    â€œMy boss. We’re hoping this may be a link to a guy we’ve been trying to close down for several years without success, considering where the body’s located. Naturally my boss sent someone experienced and capable and superior in intelligence to investigate.” He looked at her mischievously.
    She glanced appreciatively up at her rugged companion, appraising his lean physique and commanding presence. She gave a long, low whistle. “I’m impressed, Brannon!”
    â€œNothing impresses you, Jones,” he drawled.
    He turned around and went to look for Bud Garcia, the homicide detective. He found him talking to another plainclothes detective, who had a cell phone and a notepad.
    â€œWell, that sure fits the description,” Garcia was agreeing with a satisfied smile. “Right down to the raven tattoo. It’s him, all right. What a lucky break! Thank the warden for me.”
    The other officer nodded and spoke into the cell phone again, moving away.
    â€œBrannon, we’ve got something,” Garcia said when he saw the taller man approaching. “Wayne Correctional Institute down near Floresville is reporting a missing inmate who fits this man’s description exactly. He escaped from a work detail early yesterday morning.”
    â€œHave you got a name?” he asked.
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œWell?” Brannon pressed.
    â€œIt’s Jennings. Dale Jennings.”
    It was a name that Brannon had reason to remember. And now the face that seemed so familiar clicked into place. Jennings, a local hoodlum, had been convicted of murdering a wealthy San Antonio businessman two years before. He was also alleged to have strong ties to Jake Marsh and his underworld. His photograph had been in half the newspapers in the country, not to mention the front page of several tabloids. The trial had been scandalous as well. Josette Langley, the young woman who had been Jennings’s date the night of elderly Henry Garner’s murder, insinuated publicly that the person who stood to gain the most from the death was Brannon’s best friend, who was Bib Webb, now Texas Lieutenant Governor.
    But Webb’s attorney had convinced the prosecutor that it was Jennings who committed the murder and that Josette’s testimony in Jennings’s behalf was filled with lies. She had, after all, been proven a liar in a rape trial some years earlier. Her past was what had saved Webb from any charges. Silvia Webb, Bib’s wife, had seen old man Henry Garner outside and waved to himjust before she left to take Josette home. She also said she’d seen a bloody blackjack on the passenger seat of Jennings’s car. Both she and Bib Webb had an alibi for the next few minutes, during which Garner was said to have lost his life on the pier of the private lake at Webb’s estate.
    When Silvia came back from taking Josette home and saw Garner’s car still in the driveway, and empty, and nobody remembered seeing him recently, she called the police to report it. Several guests remembered hearing her make the call, and sounding disturbed. The guests were forbidden to leave the party while they searched for the old man, whom they found floating near the pier, dead. It looked like an accidental drowning, one newscaster said, and it was rumored that the old man had been drinking and walked off the pier, hitting his head on the way down. Still, no one was allowed to leave the scene until the police and the EMTs, along with the coroner, were finished. Witnesses were questioned.
    Even so, it just might have passed for an accident. Except that Josette, who heard the breaking story on television later that