Kissing Arizona Read Online Free Page B

this is a terrible shock. But just for now . . . do you mind walking down this row of cars here to the RV that says Tucson Police Department? Right there, yes. And this officer –’ he signaled Ollie Greenaway who was still putting markers in the yard –’will let you in and stay with you until we . . . till one of my detectives comes over there to talk to you.’
    â€˜Are you serious?’ Cooper kept getting redder and angrier, his bright blue eyes glaring out of his ruddy face. ‘Both my parents are dead in this house and you’re telling me I can’t go in and see them? You want me to go and sit in a . . . trailer ?’ He spat out the last word. Sarah thought he might be going to explode in a minute and walked toward him, ready to help subdue him if need be.
    But Delaney as usual got cooler and quieter as the opposition heated up. He had summoned two officers out of the street, the angry young man was surrounded by large men with guns now, and began to look aware of his narrowing options.
    â€˜I know this is a very hard time for you,’ Delaney said. ‘We want to help you all we can and I’m sure you agree the best way to do that is to complete this investigation as quickly as possible. And to find out what happened to your parents, we need to get all the evidence collected while it’s still fresh.’ He talked soothingly beside the yellow crime-scene tape, doing his stolid blinking thing, and the man gradually calmed down.
    â€˜So, if you’ll just wait for us over there for a few minutes . . . there you go.’ Delaney nodded around at everybody as if he was relieved to see they all agreed, and in a few more seconds Tom Cooper was walking toward the department’s modified RV with his three-man escort. He almost balked at the doorway, waved his hands and shook his head, but Ollie had the door open and was helping him up the step with a hand under his elbow.
    Delaney walked back inside and told Sarah, ‘I want you to do the inside interviews. Besides this piece of work that was just here – he’s the son, Tom – there’s a daughter, uh . . . Nicole.’ He was flipping through his notes. ‘I’m told she’s on her way. You’ll need to get Tom’s stats and his whereabouts yesterday and today till now. Same for the daughter. It seems they both work in the family business, Cooper’s Home Stores. Family whereabouts first, and then who hates who and why, and anything they’ll tell you about employees, money –’ he spread his hands – ‘fights . . . the whole ball of wax.’
    â€˜Sure.’ Something about this set-up was making him nervous, he was telling her things he knew very well she didn’t need to be told.
    â€˜There’s the manager at the Oracle Road store, a woman named Phyllis Waverly who seems to be kind of the Big Cahuna of the employees. She says she can’t get away from the stores right now, somebody has to be in charge, but she’ll try to get to the station by afternoon if you can see her then. Try to see her today – sounds like she’ll know what’s been going on. There’s a housekeeper we took to the ER, you know about her?’
    â€˜Leo told me, yes.’
    â€˜OK. Her name is, uh, Rosa Torres. She found the bodies so you need to see her as soon as you can, but it may not be today – she started to tell us about finding the bodies and just totally lost it, they were sedating her in the ambulance as they drove away. Here’s her number and the manager’s number at the store. No sign of forced entry, by the way. Rosa used her key on the front door like always, and Jason did a quick check of the other doors and windows, didn’t find anything unlocked or broken. Oscar and Ray have started the neighborhood canvass.’
    The department command post was a modified RV fitted