A Taxing Death

Why would an audit supervisor in a state tax agency be murdered?

Around noon on an average summer day in Sacramento, an ambulance rolls up to the State Capitol, intent on responding to an emergency call from inside the building. Rushing in, they arrive at the Department of Revenue Supervisor's Office to find the man decline emergency care. Paramedics convince him to allow them to check out his heart rhythm, suspecting problems with his pacemaker. They read his tracing and declare that they need to convert his heart to a normal rhythm. They pull out the defibrillator paddles to try and aid his heart with a single jolt of electric current, but it doesn't work, and minutes later, he lies dead in his office. Just another heart attack on the job .... or is it?

Jill Quint, MD, private forensic pathologist, and vintner, is hired by the family to perform an autopsy on Manuel Valencia, the recently dead man. She has a team of girlfriends that provide her with investigative expertise in accounting, dossier construction, and interview techniques to find the criminal mastermind in any case. The victim was loved by his large extended family, admired by co-workers, and he had just purchased new hiking boots for an upcoming vigorous hike in Yosemite. Both the local coroner and Jill agree it's a homicide once they look at new findings in the autopsy. The local police enter the case and pursue leads as well. They begin to look at the extensive list of people who have filed complaints against the victim's tax office., but that leads to thousands of suspects. How does she narrow the list of suspects? What if there are additional victims as well disguised as Manuel Valencia's death?

Read A TAXING DEATH, book 5 in the Jill Quint, MD series.