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I started to walk across the lawn towards my car, but Henry spoke up again.  As I turned I saw his gun pointed at me.  “Simba, I really insist that you stop ignoring me.  I asked a simple question, and I don’t think that it’s too much to ask.  So I’ll say it again, and this time I want an answer.  Why was Sylvia here?”  This time he was pointing the gun at Simba.  I reached into my purse to feel Sam’s gun.  Continue reading →

Henry emerged from a side door and stood on the stone patio.  Sam and I were about 50 years away and down a small dip in the landscaping overlooking the canyon.  But even at this distance in the dark, I made out the unmistakable shape of a small hand gun.  Sam stopped moving toward the house, but stood up straight and said in a loud voice, “Henry, do you always bring a gun to a family reunion?  It is a somewhat unusual choice, don’t you think, but it seems to be the one thing that we have ever agreed on.  You see, I never come to a family reunion without a gun either.”  He reached into his pocket and now the two men  vaguely pointed a gun at each other.  I wonder if Henry had ever shot a gun.  I was sure that Sam had pulled a few triggers, but all bets were off since both men were wavering unsteadily in the moonlight. Continue reading →

I walked out the gate and pondered my options, which turned out to be very limited.  Just didn’t seem right for a private eye to arrive at a potential crime scene in a cab.  But then I remembered that Mary had moved around here a couple of years ago.  It was her statement house, she said, to prove that she had arrived in Santa Teresa society.  I really wasn’t a good enough friend to call her at this hour, but with any luck, Nick Nichol would be with her, and he was somebody I could always call.  My purse was still in my stolen car, and with a sickening feeling, I realized that my gun was in there also – an unforgivable mistake, but fortunately, my cell phone was still clipped to my waistband.  My call to Nick went straight to voice mail, but it always did, since Nick never answered a call on the first try.  I think  it was a control issue, he always wanted to be the one to initiate a call on his schedule.  But I knew that he couldn’t resist the juicy message I left him.  Continue reading →

As I got back into my car, I realized that I hadn’t eaten all day.  I figured I would have a bite to eat, and then just sack out at Ralph and Fanny’s.  It really didn’t make any sense for me to cross town to my apartment, particularly if I had to head back into Cutter City tomorrow.  I was utterly exhausted, but at the same time experiencing the excitement of a breaking case, something that had not happened for a long time.  Cheating spouses were my bread and butter, and typically involved long, tedious stints of surveillance, punctuated by a few revealing photos.  Then there was the tearful meeting with aggrieved spouses, confirming what they already knew, otherwise they wouldn’t have hired me in the first place.  Runaways or skip traces could be more interesting, but mostly involved computer work, and if the runaway turned out up out of town, all I had to do was call the local authorities.  But this case was the liveliest I had in a long time.  I remember when my father got a hold of a breaking case – the pacing around, the endless cups of coffee, the sleepless nights, but most of all the excitement in being the only one to understand all of the pieces.  Sometimes the pieces would fall together on their own, and sometimes Dad was the master manipulator.  Occasionally, I would feel a little uncomfortable about Dad’s excitement, after all he was enjoying the misery of others, but now I understood it all.  I loved this case and all its moving parts.  I think that I was in command of more pieces of information of the intersection between the Todd’s, Murphy’s and Knox’s.  Well perhaps each of the individuals had more information than I did, but I don’t think that any of them – Sam, Simba, Henry – realized that I knew as much as I did, and that was a source of power.   I just had to make sure to use it carefully – using information to get information was one of Dad’s tips. Continue reading →