Lessons

WT Lesson 6: Mystery

A cramped cluttered office held the key to the entire case, if only he could figure out the motive.

Ken James, private eye, was a bit miffed when he read the headline in yesterday's paper, he never got around to reading the Sunday paper until the next day as he was usually just getting home when it arrived on his doorstep, and his head usually hurt too much to read.

Big bold letters shouted Millionaire Tycoon Randall Withers Dead at 70! The story said he was in good health and it seemed his death was ruled a hunting accident. The grieving twenty-four year old-looking widow was shown in sunglasses, clutching the arm of Withers' son in a photo captioned His widow shown here with her stepson Lance was too distraught to comment.

James grunted. "Well that's a likely story, isn't it?" He asked his empty office. "So I guess nobody's going to come banging down my door to solve the mystery of old Randall's death. Seems pretty suspicious to me." He wandered around his office pushing piles of paper this way and that muttering to himself.

Business had been slow for a month or so, since about the time Big Louie decided James was getting a little too close to the Organization's territory with his knack for solving crimes. Big Louie had some very important business transactions that he would not appreciate James' interference in, and word gets around about things like that.

As he tripped over the wastebasket and kicked it across the room strewing unpaid bills across the floor the doorbell rang. "If it's Big Louie's goons again, I'm going to have to get really mad." he said as he shoved the papers under the desk with his boot.

He stumbled over to the door and called, "Just a minute, be right there." as a tall attractive woman opened his office door and raised a perfectly shaped eyebrow at him hopping on one leg trying to get the phone cord from around his other one.

"Mr. James?" she asked in an accent he couldn't quite place.

"Ouch. Sorry, yes, that's me" he said as he succeeded in untangling himself and stood upright and offered her his hand.

She looked down at his hand and back up to his face as she said, "I was told that you are the best."

"Well that depends on who you ask, ma'am. Would you care to sit down?" he asked without really thinking. The only empty chair was at his desk, and the others were full of clothes and papers. He thought he recognized this woman, but he knew he would have remembered a dame that beautiful. Then it struck him. This was the woman from the photo. She looked to be in her late thirties. Dark hair and a perfect face, Randall Withers' widow.

"No, thank you. We have a mutual acquaintance, Louis DeGiamo." Her lips quirked in an almost smile.

"Sorry." he said as he looked around his office, then realized what she'd said, Big Louie sent her. Great. Well, at least Louie didn't have the rich guy whacked. "Oh, yes, he is quite a guy. Uh, Mrs. Withers, is it? How may I be of assistance?"

"Since you already know who I am, wouldn't it be obvious? I am here about Randall."

"I am sorry for your loss, but wasn't your husband's death ruled accidental?"

"That's what the police have said, but I do not believe." She waved her hand in a dismissive gesture. "Randall was too meticulous to have allowed such a thing. He was murdered, and I want to find out by whom."

"How, exactly, did your husband die, Mrs. Randall?"

"You may call me 'Angelica'. Randall was a great sportsman. He was fit and strong, and had the stamina of a man thirty years younger." She looked smokily at James, to be sure he got her full meaning. "The detectives said he dropped his rifle while hunting, and his dog stepped upon it, accidentally firing a bullet into Randall's head. This is quite ridiculous. First, Randall would not have dropped his gun. He thought more of his gun than he did of most of his three children; second, the dog had been sleeping in the master bedroom and Randall had told me he wasn't going to bother her as they'd had an active morning and she has a bad hip, and third and most importantly, the bullet that killed Randall had not been fired from the gun that he took out with him."

"If you knew all this, why didn't you tell the cops?"

"What, and become a suspect myself? No, thank you. Also, I was very distraught.. I stayed away as the police did their investigation. I loved Randall, I did not want to see him dead, I don't think he would have wanted that either." she took a deep breath to compose herself.

James thought she was either sincere or would have a wonderful award-winning career in Hollywood. "Mrs., er, Angelica, the first part I get, I suppose you saw the dog, too?" she nodded. "What I don't follow is the bullet. Please explain so I can understand. How was the bullet not from the gun they found?"

She laughed. "Randall had taken his favorite rifle with him as he always did. He never hunted with any other, oh he would use others for target-shooting. Few people knew this. He also made his own bullets for it. He was a bit eccentric in this regard, he liked to make his casings out of titanium. The casing found at the site was unremarkable, and brass. He would never have shot an ordinary bullet from his gun. I am not certain they even checked to see if his gun had been fired. I don't think so."

"This sounds far-fetched to me. Who would want to kill your husband?"

"Several people, probably. Randall was a good man, and a great businessman, but you don't become as successful as Randall without stepping on a few toes, or heads."

IdaLin
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