Tags:
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detective,
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Ms. Calverton's employ, all of whom were loyal pawns determined to keep me from capturing the Queen. I didn’t mind it so much, sitting in my office, my feet up on the desk. And after a half hour of being bandied about, she finally picked up.
"Why did you call me here, Madison?"
"There are some things we need to discuss and I can’t do it through some dude in a bad disguise walking into my brewery and confusing my people."
"I want you to do one thing right now, Madison."
"And that is?"
"I want you to hang up, and then I want you to look outside your window."
"Pardon me?"
"Or look outside your window first. Your choice. But I am going to hang up now."
The call disconnected. I took my feet off the desk and walked over to my window.
There, down below, was a silver Porsche 911. Leaning up against it was Zelda Calverton.
#
"What? They can route your calls to your cell phone?"
"We are living in modern times, you know," she said.
"Well, you have a helluva staff. Keeping me occupied on the line while you drive over here to meet me in person."
"They're good employees. I want you to know that this is a special trip I made, and you'll not see another. Going forward, all communication will be on my terms, in the manner that I decide. I'm paying you here. Not the other way around. Now, what is it you so desperately needed to speak to me about?"
I don’t think I need to say that I was beginning to dislike this woman. I took a deep breath and began. "There's a problem I discovered."
"Go on," she said impatiently.
"I found two wills. The cops have one, and the executor's office has the other."
"One of them is fake," Zelda said, so matter-of-factly that it implied common knowledge.
"Ok," I said with hesitation.
"Surely you must have already concluded that."
"Well, yes, I have. I just didn’t think you were aware—"
"Of course I'm aware. I leaked the fake one to the cops."
Again, I was hesitant. "Ok."
She looked at me askance. "Please tell me you're not suddenly getting squeamish here."
"No," I said, "not necessarily so."
"Oh good. Well just in case you are, maybe you need a little more money? Add ten percent to your fee, how about that? Will that help to ease your queasy little stomach?"
I stared at her for a moment. A slight smile came across her face.
"I apologize. I can be a real...well, you know all the ugly words used to describe a person like me. So I apologize. But you must understand that it is imperative that I steer the cops away from me at all costs. They see how much money I received in the real will, and they’ll surely start looking at me. They're already looking at me. It’s costing me a lot of money to keep their eyes off. That's why you need to act quickly, understand? You need to beat them to it. This is what I'm paying you for, dear."
"Then," I said, regaining a bit of inner strength, "as part of the process here, I'm going to ask you a question: Do you know who killed Eli?"
"I think I know how it was done."
"Benzene inhalation."
"Yes, that was the cause. I said I think I know how it was done . But you have to find that out for yourself. None of the information must
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