The Lady Sleuths MEGAPACK TM(4)

                “You’ve caught this case?” I asked. “It’s yours entirely?”

                “Yeah,” he said, and he didn’t sound happy about it. “This is a big deal. Miss Langham is one of the richest people in the city, if not the richest. Her family goes back to the city’s founding, and she’s related to mayors, governors, and heads of the university. She’s important, Miss Wilson.”

                “I’m getting that,” I said. “Why am I here?”

                “Because,” he said, “cases like this, they’re always about something.”

                “Yes, I know, but—”

                “No,” he said. “You don’t know. There’s the official story. And then there’s the real story.”

                I froze. Cops rarely spoke to civilians like this. I had learned that from my ex-husband, who had been a Chicago cop and who had died, in part, because of what had happened to me.

                “You think the real story is going to get covered up,” I said.

                “No,” Kaplan said. “I don’t think it. I know it.”

                I glanced around the room. “The real story is here?”

                He shrugged. “That I don’t know. I haven’t investigated yet.”

                He was being deliberately elliptical, and I was no good with elliptical. I preferred blunt. Elliptical always got me in trouble.

                “Why am I here?” I asked.

                “I need a fresh pair of eyes,” he said.

                “But the investigation is just starting,” I said.

                He nodded. “So is the pressure.”

                I let out a small breath of air. So, he had a script already, and he didn’t like it. “You want me to photograph things in here?”

                “As much as you can,” he said. “Keep those pictures safe for me.”

                “I will,” I said.

                “And Miss Wilson, you know since you were once a cop’s wife, how things occasionally go missing from a crime scene?”



                             “Oh, I do,” I said. “You want to prevent that here.”

                He shook his head, and gave me a look he hadn’t shown me since the first time I met him. The look accused me of being naïve.

                “You know, Miss Wilson, I find it strange that you don’t carry a purse. Most women carry bags so big they can fit entire reams of paper inside them.”

                My breath caught as I finally understood.

                “I prefer pockets,” I said, and stuck my hands inside the deep pockets of my coat.

                “You are quite the character, Miss Wilson,” he said approvingly. “I think you might have a couple of uninterrupted hours in here, if I keep the doors closed. Is that all right with you?”

                Inside a room with no windows, only one door, a phalanx of cops outside, and a dead body a few yards away. Sure, that was Just Fine.