her shoes?”
“Now that you mention it, she had on bedroom like shoes, not fluffs, but soft looking shoes in pink! Didn’t match her outfit at all.”
“When she left the lobby, she had on very high heels!”
“Really?”
“So, yes, I’m sure as sure can be. Yep, we got ourselves a real mystery woman here! You feel like doing a little investigating.”
“Sure.”
“She took some phone messages off my desk. I need you to go through today’s recordings and write down every message I got. I hope they were all on the recorded line. Should be twenty-two of them. Can you do that for me?”
“Sure. I’ll pull the tape right now.”
Cain went back to his office to see if anything else was missing or out of order. His office wasn’t the neatest in the building but he knew right where everything was supposed to be.
He kept a folder of each of his stories that were in some form of investigation whether it was just a thought or almost completed. They were stacked in his middle drawer in colored folders. The various colors did not mean anything particular. Red didn’t mean a hot story any more than blue insinuated a cold lead. He could just remember the story by color and grab the folder without wasting time.
There should be six folders in his desk drawer. There were only five! The yellow airports folder, the orange Gleason middle school folder, green lotto folder, the white folder for the church charity investigation and the blue taxpayer-fraud program folder were on his desk. The black folder about the Crawford/341 by-pass was missing!
An octopus with eight hands was no match for Cain as he pulled out desk drawers, going through stacks of papers, his briefcase, the file cabinet and two boxes of older files in the corner. The file was simply not there. He was sure it was in a black file folder because the file was getting thicker than the folder was meant to hold, and he was planning to replace it. “Now what!” he said aloud. “What in the world is going on here?” He called down to Patsy and asked if she was able to retrieve any messages yet. She had four that had started at 1:05 p.m. two from that Penny woman and three others. “Patsy, spell Penny’s last name!”
“S K I N M O R E”
“Okay, thanks, ever heard of that name before?”
“Well, not a person. But there’s that cartoon.”
“Cartoon? What do you mean?”
“In the comics section, in the Monitor next to the back page, that cartoon ‘Skinmore.’ Don’t know why it’s in the comics though. It’s not very funny, if you ask me. It doesn’t make a lot of sense.”
“Patsy, please call downstairs and have Archives send me up the last dozen or so issues as quick as possible. In fact, tell them, I’ll come down and pick them up. Keep getting those messages for me, okay?”
“Yes sir.”
“What time do you get off tonight?”
“At eleven but I can stay, Frank’s at a meeting if you’re going to be here. I don’t think I want to be by myself.”
“Thanks, Patsy. I’m getting the tape of the woman in the lobby at ten thirty. If you can watch it with me, I’d appreciate it.”
“Cain, of course, you just let me know. I’ll keep listening to these messages.”
“Thanks, I’m going down to the basement.”
Chapter 7
Hilda and Jasper were still at the Brockton’s estate at nine thirty that night. They went through the master bedroom, the master bathroom, two other bedrooms that seemed to be recently used, the kitchen, the great room, a library, and Blake’s office. They even checked the laundry room, a mudroom, the garage, a storage/gardening shed, and two empty rooms and found nothing. They came up completely empty.
They had no hard evidence on Mrs. Blake Brockton. There was just the phone call at 1:04 p.m. that afternoon to 9-1-1 from Mr. Brockton himself, “help me… Blake, oh, Brock uh ton, at home, unh…I’ve, my wife…my wife’s… kill, no…don’t….no.” There were gunshots, some other loud noises
“Now that you mention it, she had on bedroom like shoes, not fluffs, but soft looking shoes in pink! Didn’t match her outfit at all.”
“When she left the lobby, she had on very high heels!”
“Really?”
“So, yes, I’m sure as sure can be. Yep, we got ourselves a real mystery woman here! You feel like doing a little investigating.”
“Sure.”
“She took some phone messages off my desk. I need you to go through today’s recordings and write down every message I got. I hope they were all on the recorded line. Should be twenty-two of them. Can you do that for me?”
“Sure. I’ll pull the tape right now.”
Cain went back to his office to see if anything else was missing or out of order. His office wasn’t the neatest in the building but he knew right where everything was supposed to be.
He kept a folder of each of his stories that were in some form of investigation whether it was just a thought or almost completed. They were stacked in his middle drawer in colored folders. The various colors did not mean anything particular. Red didn’t mean a hot story any more than blue insinuated a cold lead. He could just remember the story by color and grab the folder without wasting time.
There should be six folders in his desk drawer. There were only five! The yellow airports folder, the orange Gleason middle school folder, green lotto folder, the white folder for the church charity investigation and the blue taxpayer-fraud program folder were on his desk. The black folder about the Crawford/341 by-pass was missing!
An octopus with eight hands was no match for Cain as he pulled out desk drawers, going through stacks of papers, his briefcase, the file cabinet and two boxes of older files in the corner. The file was simply not there. He was sure it was in a black file folder because the file was getting thicker than the folder was meant to hold, and he was planning to replace it. “Now what!” he said aloud. “What in the world is going on here?” He called down to Patsy and asked if she was able to retrieve any messages yet. She had four that had started at 1:05 p.m. two from that Penny woman and three others. “Patsy, spell Penny’s last name!”
“S K I N M O R E”
“Okay, thanks, ever heard of that name before?”
“Well, not a person. But there’s that cartoon.”
“Cartoon? What do you mean?”
“In the comics section, in the Monitor next to the back page, that cartoon ‘Skinmore.’ Don’t know why it’s in the comics though. It’s not very funny, if you ask me. It doesn’t make a lot of sense.”
“Patsy, please call downstairs and have Archives send me up the last dozen or so issues as quick as possible. In fact, tell them, I’ll come down and pick them up. Keep getting those messages for me, okay?”
“Yes sir.”
“What time do you get off tonight?”
“At eleven but I can stay, Frank’s at a meeting if you’re going to be here. I don’t think I want to be by myself.”
“Thanks, Patsy. I’m getting the tape of the woman in the lobby at ten thirty. If you can watch it with me, I’d appreciate it.”
“Cain, of course, you just let me know. I’ll keep listening to these messages.”
“Thanks, I’m going down to the basement.”
Chapter 7
Hilda and Jasper were still at the Brockton’s estate at nine thirty that night. They went through the master bedroom, the master bathroom, two other bedrooms that seemed to be recently used, the kitchen, the great room, a library, and Blake’s office. They even checked the laundry room, a mudroom, the garage, a storage/gardening shed, and two empty rooms and found nothing. They came up completely empty.
They had no hard evidence on Mrs. Blake Brockton. There was just the phone call at 1:04 p.m. that afternoon to 9-1-1 from Mr. Brockton himself, “help me… Blake, oh, Brock uh ton, at home, unh…I’ve, my wife…my wife’s… kill, no…don’t….no.” There were gunshots, some other loud noises
Similar Books
