Death on the Rocks

Hired to investigate a seemingly accidental death, a PI discovers a perverse secret

Denver oilman Phillip Townsend is alone in his Jaguar when he drives off the cliff. The police call it an accident, but his widow, half mad with grief, insists it was murder. Her husband was quiet, cautious, boring—so what was he doing on the outskirts of Denver, driving drunk down a lonely mountain road?

The Townsends’ lawyer hires Jacob Lomax to look into the matter, letting him know that it would be best if the official version of the story were quietly confirmed. An ex-cop who became a detective in the wake of his wife’s murder, Lomax is too dedicated to his work to simply parrot a police report. Digging through the dead man’s office, he finds a tape that shows Townsend and an accomplice binding, gagging, and raping a teenage girl. The most boring millionaire in Denver, it seems, had a secret that was worth killing for.