Excerpt from Dead in Pleasant Company

He rose from behind a nameplate-less desk with the easy grace of a man whose body has been tested and found lacking nothing: tall, silver-haired, handsome, Thaxton blood at it's best. At six-foot three he has me beat by two inches, but towers over Sal. Although his body looked lean and tough as always, I thought his face seemed sharper somehow, with worry lines firmly entrenched. His eyes, the same clear grey as my sister's, lit up at the sight of us. He threw us the same quick smile, so puzzling in its sweetness, he shares with Sal.

He gripped my hand but hugged my sister, one of the few who get that privilege. Hell, I've known since we were all kids together how he feels about her and it's only their cousinship that keeps him away. I suppose by this time you're thinking I'm prejudiced where my twin is concerned. You may even go so far as to suggest I'm projecting when I tell you how men fall for her, but it's just plain fact. She neither flirts nor teases, nor does she, as far as I can see, treat them in anyway special, yet around her men seem to feel it is good to be male. She doesn't believe me when I tell her a sizable lot of guys, young and old, look at her as if she were a chocolate fudge sundae. I've made it a point not to tell her Cousin Andy is one of them. As I say, she wouldn't believe me anyway and it would just force her to keep her distance from one of the few people she genuinely likes.

A little flushed from the hug, Sal sat as suggested and looked around. "Perhaps," she said smiling, "you need to look up the definition of 'hole.'"

He had no trouble picking up the reference, ancient as it was. That quick intelligence too, he shares with Sal.

He laughed. "Just didn't want to get you tax-payers in a tizzy. Actually," he included me in his smile briefly, "with all the personnel cut-backs, we actually have more suites like this available than 'holes.' I guess they decided to treat the old man to one of them." He smiled at us again. "I'm delighted to see you both," he said, carefully including me. "Sorry I missed Groundhog's Day this year. Did you see me Mum there?"

Sal shook her head. "I didn't. Ray drove her down for the lunch crowd then right back to New York for the eight o'clock curtain. I was on duty so I missed her, but I'm told she wowed all as usual. They appreciate that she doesn't forget her roots."

"Yes, yes," another smile darted out and back. "Mustn't forget the little people. Dines out on it for weeks, I'm sure. Gave me an earful though when I didn't show. Well," he said, brushing both mother and Groundhog's Day aside, "you've made yourself rather popular around here...bumping off our nation's chief pain-in-the-rump. How'd you do it? Arsenic in the shoo-fly pie? My boss said to ask." He laughed.

I told him it warn't funny. "Thur's them as would like to put it on us."

"You're not serious?"

"I am."

"I've heard a few thinly veiled hints of course. You're saying there's something to them then? Figured it was all media 'hype'."

I shrugged. "Unfortunately, in this case, the media has something to 'hype' about."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning the deceased met his Maker in one of our 'stores'. Meaning he'd been our dinner guest that night, yet both of us were away from the table at the crucial moment...a fact which seems to have piqued the imagination of more than one idiot."

"I know better than ask this but I do anyway. Why, for heaven's sake? What do they suggest for motive? You're friends aren't you?"

"Oh come now. You are the last guy to expect people to think reasonably. At the moment, the favored motive, one completely ground-less guess which has grown from theory to possibility to probability, is that he was there to write the long-awaited expose of the Thaxtons." I muttered under my breath. "One of these days the Thaxtons will have to do something awful just to make ourselves believable."

Sal threw me an undecipherable look. "You must admit though, Sam, there is a genuine mystery there."

"There is? Oh. You mean the how of the thing. Yes, that is strange." I looked at Andy. "What do you know of this peculiar method of killing someone? It's new to us."

"Two pin-pricks at the base of the hairline?" He shook his head. "There has been nothing in our pipe-line here since it's not our case. If it was two bullet holes now, we'd know where to look but pin-pricks? VICAP should have something."

"Doesn't though. Sal's checked that herself."

Andy looked from one to the other. "What is the official line?"

I shook my head. "Officially they're mystified. They're waiting on blood and tissue samples sent to Atlanta."

Andy frowned. "Be interesting to hear what they say. I'll see what I can find on this end. What's the unofficial version?"

I brushed at the crease in my trousers. "Ya puts down yer money an' ya takes yer choice. Tunnelson's sister is busily suggesting a variety of motives, all attributable to us and/or the restaurant. She's suing us. Then there's our chef, Barney Schantz. You remember that situation. Anyway, Schantz has put himself and us in it by disappearing, apparently taking Walt with him. There's an APB out for both of them."

"For Walt too?" He looked at Sal. "You should have called ... "

Sal said it was for his own protection. "According to Musselman anyway." To Andy's questioning look she added, "Walt and Barney have become very friendly lately."

I went on. "Officially they're keeping Walt out of it for now but when it gets out, they may not be able to. Then too, Sal's position on the force makes the word 'cover-up' inevitable. Add fuel to the ever present suggestion that the cops are playing favorites because we're Thaxtons."

"Not too much we can do about that," Andy said. "It's one of those when-did-you-stop-beating-your-wife, things. Why are they looking for your chef? After all, that was all in the forgotten past."

"Not any more," I said. "I'm afraid Barney himself resurrected it by shooting off his mouth when he learned Tunnelson was in the restaurant that night. Said something that could be taken as threatening."

"Not very smart of him," Andy said mildly. "I hope that's all."

"Not quite." I grimaced. "We're wondering if perhaps Tunnelson and we have a mutual enemy, someone who decided to kill two birds with one stone by killing him in our store."

He swept us again with a quick glance. "Cedar River Gambling for instance."

I nodded. "For one, yes."

"I don't imagine," he grunted, "there is any dearth of others who are just as glad Tunnelson's no longer around. Is the PPD looking around? I don't think they've called on us for help or I would've heard. Somebody ought to..."

Sal said, "What we think too. We've been working on it ourselves. At least Sam has. He's had a look at the network records of people who've had it in for Tunnelson over the past few years. It's an incredible list! I'm surprised Tunnelson got around without a guard!"

Andy nodded, said he knew. "We have, of course, our fair share of people who don't think much of us. I seem to tick people off in particular."

Andy grinned. "Old man Longnecker being a problem again? According to me Mum, he's had it in for the Thaxtons since H.H. bought the Longnecker farm when they went bankrupt."

"Good heavens! That's ancient history. Besides, Grandfather let them stay there and keep their home and all their crops. He kept them from being homeless!"

Andy nodded. "I suspect they've put their own spin on the story. That's Mum's theory anyway. Jealousy, that's what it is," Andy smiled at her. "That's nothing new for you. You're just too good at too many things. If I didn't like you so much I'd find you a pain-in-the-neck myself." The smile stretched to a grin. "In any case, I'm assuming you think I can help. What do you want me to do?"

"About Tunnelson, nothing. At least not now. Actually we were just telling you how things are at home. We're here, that is Sal is, on something else entirely."

My sister took the cue and got down to business, reporting in her crisp and thorough way how the abandoned child came to her attention and the frustrating search for the child's family. "It's curious enough that I can find no reference of her in any of the usual data-bases, but to get shut out just when it looked hopeful..."

Andy studied her face. "You must be pretty good to have accessed that particular section. I won't ask how you did it. Yes, I'm familiar with it. To say it's top secret is putting it mildly."

Sal kept her eyes on him and waited. He got up to close the door, pushed a button on his desk and came to face her, sitting on the edge of his desk, (another habit shared with Sal.) "Look, it's no mystery really. Both of you know what a problem we've had with security on the Internet. I emphasize what I'm going to tell you now is, literally, just between us." He gave us a second to underscore the point, then went on, his eyes on Sal's. "The code, ICN900, stands for International Crime Network. It's assigned only rarely and then to cases in which there are multiple investigations being run simultaneously across borders, either state or international. You can imagine what that's like: multiple teams, each with a support staff, each having access to the intimate details of an investigation. Add access to the 'Net from every Tom, Dick and Harry from any remote outpost in the globe and leaks are inevitable. Not only is it possible that a criminal knows as much about his case as we, but it encourages 'copycats.' Hell, it's an open invitation to folks with an ax to grind, to say nothing of would-be Woodward and Bernsteins. In cases where rewards are offered you can add to that 'hackers' eager to help finger the guilty. And unfortunately, bad guys know how to use the 'Net too. Any one of these can really throw a monkey wrench in an investigation. So now we're playing hard ball. To begin with we've gone back to using voice activation to access the system, adding a couple of new wrinkles, one of which would have given you seven seconds to exit the program. Failing that, your hard drive would have crashed and your 'BIOS' erased without which, as you no doubt know, you would not be able to even turn your computer on." He flicked a glance at me and went back to her. "We've tried to keep quiet about it of course. No sense telling John Q. not to put the beans up his nose, eh?"

"I see," Sal said, thinking. "Which is why local police have not been alerted."

"Yes. It's always a tough decision who should know what." He shifted his weight and bent closer to her. "We've learned some hard lessons lately about whom to trust. In addition to all the possible invaders outside the investigation, there's always the possibility of another Nicholson or Hanson right among us. Do a lot of damage. What we've done is to limit access to just three people, world-wide, in each case. It's only in a trial period of course and we'll have to see how..."

But he had lost Sal. She sat staring into the space above his head, oblivious to all around her. I love to see her like that. It meant she had hold of something big.

For the next few moments I engaged Andy in chit-chat, giving her time to work it out. Then her eyes dropped, she drew in a breath and I knew she was done. She rose abruptly and offered Andy her hand.

"Andy, it's been fun to see you again! Sorry if we got into something we shouldn't. Come on Sambo. Let's let the man get back to work."

"Hey! Just a minute! I want to know more about your young friend."

"Of course. I'll call you," she said.

I followed my departing sister, nearly colliding with her when she stopped at the door and turned. "Thanks again Andy. I'm glad you're working on it. I'm confident if anybody can stop him it's you." She looked at him. "I assume the child was used as a decoy?" She nodded at his expression. "I know. You can't tell me. Okay, thanks Andy. Let's go Sammy me boy."

"Sal! Wait! If you've any information at all..."

"Don't worry cousin. You shall be the first, well, the second, to know." She tossed him a salute and turned to go.

His voice followed through the closing door. "For God's sake, Sal! Keep out..."

We fled.

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