Read Black and Blueberry Die (A Fresh-Baked Mystery Book 11) for Free Online

something’s not right, that the facts don’t match up quite as neatly as they appear to at first glance.”
    “That’s enough for me,” Sam said with an emphatic nod. “If you’ve got doubts that Danny’s guilty, we got to look into it.”
    “I think you’re right.” Phyllis pushed back the heavy chair. “Let’s go talk to Mr. D’Angelo.”

Chapter 5

     
    “I’ll let Mr. Jackson know I’m going to take his case, and I’ll file an appeal immediately,” Jimmy D’Angelo said as he sat back in his chair, laced his fingers together on his ample belly, and grinned at Phyllis and Sam. “I’ll also file a motion requesting that he continues to be held in custody in the Tarrant County jail rather than transferred to TDC in Huntsville.”
    “Will that be better?” Phyllis asked.
    “County’s no bed and breakfast,” D’Angelo said with a shrug, “but I’d rather have him close by. It’s a legitimate request since I’ll need to confer with my client...and so will my investigators.”
    He pointed both forefingers across the desk at Phyllis and Sam, with his thumbs raised to make them look like guns.
    “That still seems strange to me,” Phyllis said. “We have absolutely no qualifications to be investigators.”
    “Other than solving a dozen murders.” D’Angelo chuckled. “All right, I’ll get the wheels in motion.” He made a shooing motion with his hands. “Go do what you do. Just let me know how it’s going. I’ll go over to Fort Worth and talk to Danny and try to be encouraging.”
    As they left the office, Sam said, “Mike’s gonna be happy. Or at least, maybe not quite as worried about his old friend. I don’t reckon he’ll be happy until Danny is cleared.”
    “Things could still turn out badly,” Phyllis reminded him. “Mr. D’Angelo won’t be able to get Danny’s conviction set aside without strong evidence that he’s not guilty. That’s going to require discovering who did kill Roxanne. Reasonable doubt won’t be enough.”
    “So we’ll find the real killer,” Sam said confidently.
    “And hope that it doesn’t turn out to be Danny himself.”
    “Yeah, there’s that,” Sam admitted.
    Phyllis wasn’t sure of Mike’s work schedule, so she didn’t want to call his cell phone to let him know she was going to look into the case. She might wake him. She would call Sarah a little later, she decided, and ask her to have Mike call back when it was convenient for him.
    As Phyllis pulled the Lincoln into the driveway back home, the first thing she noticed was that the front door was closed. They had been leaving the wooden door open and hooking the screen door while the central unit wasn’t working so that air would circulate better through the house. The sight of the closed door raised her hopes, and as she and Sam walked through the garage entrance into the kitchen, she felt cool air blowing from the vents in the ceiling.
    A big grin appeared on Sam’s face as he said, “Doesn’t that feel nice?”
    Carolyn came down the hall from the living room to meet them. She waved a hand and said, “I guess you can tell the air conditioning man has been here.”
    “He got it fixed that quickly?” Phyllis said.
    “He just had to replace two little parts. A solarnoid and a capacitater, I think he called them.”
    “You mean a solenoid and a capacitor,” Sam said.
    “Isn’t that what I said?” Carolyn responded with a glare.
    A quick glance from Phyllis told Sam he would be wise not to pursue this line of conversation. He smiled and nodded and said, “Well, I’m sure glad it’s fixed, that’s all I got to say.”
    “So am I,” Phyllis said. “Is he going to send me a bill?”
    “That’s right. I would have paid him myself, but you said to do it the other way.” Carolyn paused. “How did it go at the lawyer’s office?”
    “Interesting,” Phyllis said.
    Carolyn gave her a look. “You’re going to investigate that poor young woman’s murder, aren’t