When Palm Springs millionaire Barney Lochner is found dead in his mansion—and his trophy wife’s lover is shot to death at a Salton Sea mini-mart—private investigator Dana Forsythe is pulled into a tangle of greed, lust and betrayal worthy of the valley’s most exclusive midcentury modern zip codes.
Dana’s client is Jamie Lochner, the trophy wife in question. She swears she’s innocent, but the evidence says otherwise: her missing gun, her lover’s body, her fingerprints on the life she tried to escape. Hovering over it all is Barney’s daughter Nielle, a daddy’s girl with dark secrets, a huge inheritance to protect, and a heart of pure venom.
As Dana digs deeper, she unearths a deadly family feud and a final reckoning more twisted than anything she could ever have imagined.
This is the subject of Exit Sideways, the second in Stan Jones’ “Dana Forsythe Mysteries” series. Jones is also the author of the Alaska-based Nathan Active mysteries, described by People magazine as “an enchanting series.” He loves writing about extreme landscapes—from the Alaskan Arctic to the California desert.
He had careers as an awarding-winning journalist and an environmental advocate. He co-authored a book on the Exxon Valdez oil spill.
He is married to Susan Jones, and divides his time between Anchorage and Palm Springs. Learn more at stanjonesauthor.com.
Here is an excerpt from Exit Sideways.
Chapter One
Thebedside clock reads 8:13 when my phone pings and Jamie Lochner’s ID pops up on the screen.
“Jamie?” I say past a sleep-furred tongue. “What did Tony —
“He’s dead!” she shrieks. “I … when I came … he was … I went into the store, and I didn’t see him so I called the number you gave me and it rang from behind the counter and I looked over and he was down there … the phone was ringing in the pocket of his shorts and he was … somebody shot him. Barney killed him!”
“What? He — where are you?”
“I’m parked in front of that place where Tony works … where … oh, God, what do I do now … Dana?”
“Are you sure he’s dead?”
“I think … yes, I’m sure … he … he … he’s lying behind the counter and his head … his head …”
“He was shot in the head?”
Jamie gets out a muffled “Yes,” then breaks down in sobs.
When she stops I ask, “In the head?”
“Yes,” she says, “and … and … there was a lot of blood on his chest, on his, his shirt. I think he was shot there, too, and he wasn’t moving and there was … there was …”
“There was what?”
“A fly. It landed in his eye, then it crawled up his nose. Oh, Dana.”
I wait out another bout of sobs.
“Did you call 911?”
“No, I, I’m scared … I can’t … Barney did this and he’ll … he’ll …”
“How do you know your husband did it? It could have been robbery. Or maybe some kind of biker thing with that Harley you gave him.”
“No, it was Barney,” she says. “It was him, I know it was. And I’m going back to Texas. I have to get out of this place.”
“Don’t do that. Whatever you do, don’t run.”
“Then what do I do?”
“All right, listen, can you drive?”
“Yeah,” she says. “I think so. I don’t know.”
“Well, calm down and come back up here to Palm Springs and meet me at Ike’s office. He’s your lawyer and he will, we will, we’ll figure something out together, the three of us.”
“I’ll try, I’ll …”
More sobs and another wait.
“You can do this, okay? Call me on the way if you need to, okay? I’ll call Ike now and we’ll start figuring this out, okay? Jamie?”
“I will,” she says. “Should I hang up now?”
“Yes, you should hang up now and concentrate on driving back up here. Call me if you need me.”
“I don’t want to hang up. Can you stay on the line while I drive up there?”
“No, I need to call –”
“Oh, lord,” she shrieks. “Somebody just pulled up to the pumps and this woman is going in, she’s going in, she’s gonna … I have to get out of here.”
“Jamie?”
I hear the crunch of tires on gravel, then silence as the line goes dead.
Two Days Earlier
Jamie Lochner is something, I give her that. Tall, lithe, honey-blond hair in a thick French braid, perfect tan, three or four years south of thirty, no obvious work on the face or body, dazzling in a white sundress that shows off gazelle legs to maximum advantage.
Just now she’s perched in front of my desk at Jacinto Investigations, which happens to be in my redwood bungalow in the Cahuilla foothills of the San Jacinto Mountains. It overlooks the mosaic of country clubs, condos, and mansions known as greater Palm Springs. It’s high enough and hard enough to reach that even two cops could afford it when I bought it with my late husband.
Jamie wants me to track down a guy named Tony Alvarez.
“And it’ll be confidential, right?” she asks. A perfectly manicured nail flicks a blond lock away from a sea-blue eye.
“And Mr. Alvarez is?”
“A friend.”
“Just a friend.”
She nods.
“Okay.”
“Y’all guys do that, right?” she says. “Find people?”
“You mean –”
“Private detectives. That’s what you are, right?”
I’m primarily a legal investigator. Most of my clients are lawyers. It’s one of them—Ike Skogel—who has sent Jamie my way.
But work is work, especially in a slow spell.
“Private detective is close enough,” I say. “And, yes, we find people, mostly deadbeat dads, cheating spouses, people trying to skip out on debts or court appearances, that kind of thing. And we guarantee confidentiality. Especially from husbands.”
She blushes a little. “How did you know?”
I point at her vacant ring finger. “The tan line.”
She examines it for a moment. “I guess that should make me glad I came to you.”
“Noticing things is what I do.”
“So, yes, I’m married.”
“And Mr. Lochner is very rich, I’m guessing from that Mercedes convertible in the driveway. Electric, right?”
“Of course. My aunt told me to marry well and divorce better,” she says. “Or just wait if he’s really old.”
“And Mr. Lochner is old?”
She nods. “I thought I could do it.”
“But an old man is not the same as a young one.”
I’m starting to like Jamie, but you have to be careful around a woman that beautiful. They tend to be snakes.
“Especially at night. Those liver-spotted claw hands on my …” She shudders and her eyes go a little dead. “At least it’s only twice a month.”
“Prenup?”
“Of course. Although lately, it’s not even that often. He seems to have tapered off.”
“So tell me about Tony,” I say.
Her face relaxes into something that looks real rather than performed. Her eyes come back to life. “Can we just talk? I don’t guess you have any Lone Star?”
“No beer. I do have wine.”
“Maybe something white?”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“And not with a metal cap if possible. Metal caps make me homesick for Lone Star. It’s the only thing I miss about Texas.”
I nod at the patio door across the living room. “We can talk out there.”
She pulls out her phone and disappears toward the patio as I start for the kitchen. There I pour her a glass of chardonnay—from a bottle with a cork—and make an espresso for myself. I’m starting to like Jamie, but you have to be careful around a woman that beautiful. They tend to be snakes.
When I reach the patio, I discover that Jamie has made another conquest. My retired German Shepherd K-9 unit has his head on her knee and she’s scratching him behind the ears. He’s grinning in bliss, tongue lolling.
“I see you’ve met Duke.” I hand her the wine.
“Duke,” she says. “I like that. It’s strong and masculine. And direct.”
“He’s all that.”
“I just hope I don’t disappoint him.”
“Why would you?”
“You haven’t heard my story yet.”
“Duke doesn’t judge.”
“Do you?”
“Not while I’m on the clock.” I say this with a just-us-girls vibe and wait to see if she picks up on it.
She does.
“Dana, I am so glad Mr. Skogel sent me to you,” she says. “And that you’re a woman, all things considered. He said you were a sheriff before.”
“Deputy sheriff, actually. Out of the Brawley station.”
Her face says she’s never heard of Brawley.
“Other end of the Coachella Valley from Palm Springs? Slab City, Salvation Mountain, Salton Sea, that area?”
“The Salton Sea. I’ve heard of that. It’s why Palm Springs smells like rotten eggs when the wind blows from down there.” She sips the wine.“And Mr. Skogel said you’re a widow?”
I nod. “My husband was a Palm Springs policeman. He was killed on duty.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Me, too. Most of the time.”
“Sorry if I was nosy.” She rests her heels on the flagstones of the patio, then settles back in her chair. “So, Tony.”
I raise my espresso cup. She looks puzzled for a moment, then raises her glass. We clink and drink. “To Tony,” I say.
“Where do I start?”
“The beginning is usually good.”
“Ever been to Luscomb, Texas?”
I shake my head.
“Lucky you. Officially has the second-highest murder rate in the state, which is going some in Texas. Probably the same for house trailers if anybody kept track. You ever hear that joke?”
“Eh?”
“How to tell if you’re a redneck?”
“How?”
“Your house has more wheels than all the dead pickups in the yard combined.”
“Good one.”
“Anyway, I was raised in a house trailer by my Aunt Blue.” The remains of her Texas twang make it sound like “ain’t blue.”
“She’s the one who advised you on marriage and divorce?”
“That’s her. Mary Bluebelle Harper. Mama left when I was seven and Daddy was always gone working the oil fields or drunk when he was home, so I got farmed out to Aunt Blue.”
I raise my espresso again. “To Aunt Blue.”
She bumps and says, “God rest her soul.”
She’s silent for a time. I think of asking what happened to Aunt Blue, but decide it doesn’t matter.
“I was twelve when puberty hit and I started to bloom,” Jamie goes on, “Couple years later, Aunt Blue pulls me in front of a mirror and tells me to look at myself. I was already freaking out from the boys at Luscomb Middle School and even the math teacher Mr. Dunleavy trying to stare down my front all the time, and Aunt Blue knew that. ‘Look,’ she says. ‘You see ’at face? ’Em eyes, ’em legs, ’at butt, ’em boobs? That’s your ticket outta here. Don’t waste ‘em on some cowboy.”
“I’m loving Aunt Blue a lot.”
“Smart as a barn cat and twice as mean. I actually listened to her about saving myself so I could get out of Luscomb. With the teenage hormones and all, you wouldn’t think it, but I did, I saved myself as long as I could. But then there was this one boy, Darren, he was so sweet, he was my first, and he wanted us to …”
She tears up and falters to a stop. “He had a pickup and a job in the oil fields and a couple horses and he wanted to have kids and teach them to ride and that’s how he saw his life but I …”
“Yeah,” I say. “It didn’t –”
“That’s right. It didn’t seem like enough. So, I let Darren go. Broke both our hearts, second-hardest thing I ever did. I got myself an associate degree in business administration from the community college while I clerked part-time at the Walmart, then I told Aunt Blue I was heading for Las Vegas. Lot of rich men out there with money flying every which way was what I heard.”
“But you ended up here.”
“Uh-huh. Aunt Blue said I should come to Palm Springs instead. ‘More rich old men and less hookers,’ she told me. She has a half-sister out here, Anna Marie, that works housekeeping at the Agua Dulce, and she got me on as a cocktail waitress. Next thing you know I’m dealing blackjack. I showed a lot of cleavage, the players got distracted, my table was always hot and loud, and it made a lot of money for the tribe. Pretty soon I’m dealing VIP games in the private suites and on track for a pit boss job. Then one night Barney walks in.”
Copyright 2026 by Stan Jones.