The Delaney Dupe, or the Fox Fur Farce

When Nick told me he and Joe were opening a detective agency I laughed in his face. When he asked me to come work as their secretary I told him to go to hell. I was young and impetuous and I had dreams of being a Broadway star; I’d be damned if I was going to spend my life working for my brother and his idiot friend.

            As it turned out, my acting career was not a success, to no one’s surprise but my own. On the other hand, Hart and Hopper Investigations was, to everyone’s surprise, including Nick and Joe’s. When I moved back home at twenty-six, the business was still going strong, and lucky for me, their regular secretary had just walked out.

            Nick and Joe were good bosses – they paid fair, and I got a long lunch and flexible hours. Business was good, but even with all the clients coming and going I didn’t have to do much except buzz them in or take messages. Most days I got to kick back, read magazines, and do my nails. I had the best nails in town.

            On this particular morning I was painting them a screaming shade of red. Nick was on the phone in his office working on a case. Joe was down south chasing after some bail jumper making a run for Mexico. I had just finished the left hand and was starting on the right when a tall blonde swathed in a magnificent fur stole breezed into the office.

             “Hello,” she said breathlessly, “I’d like to speak with Mr. Hart or Mr. Hopper. It’s urgent.”

She stood before me, smiling expectantly. Her hair was honey blonde and naturally curling, her teeth white, and her legs long. She was wearing a smartly cut brown suit and a brown pillbox hat tipped at a pert angle on her shining head. The stole was made of tawny fox fur; the fox’s head rested on her right shoulder, its jaw open slightly to reveal small pointed teeth as white as hers. Its glimmering glass eyes caught the light whenever she moved; it looked as if the animal were alive and angling for a bite of her smooth, pale neck. It was remarkable, and very obviously expensive.

I tore my gaze away from the stole. “I’m sorry,” I said, in my best secretary voice. “Mr. Hart and Mr. Hopper are both juggling full caseloads at present, but if you’d like they can take care of your case in”–I broke off to skim through the organizer on my desk–“a month’s time when their schedules clear up and they can devote their full attention to your case. That’s lovely, by the way,” I said, gesturing to her stole.

The blonde looked confused for a moment. Her smile dimmed, then came back on ten watts brighter as she registered the compliment. “Do you like it?” she asked. “I just bought it this weekend, and it was ever so expensive. Sometimes though, a girl just has to splurge.” She spun around. “It’s very becoming, don’t you think?”

 “Yes, quite.”

She laughed, but her face quickly darkened as she remembered why she had come. “Really, miss,” she said seriously, “I need to speak with one of the detectives. It’s urgent.”

“So you told me,” I said, just a trifle impatiently. “But as I said, Mr. Hart and Mr. Hopper are not taking on new cases right now. However, if you’d like to leave your information they can get back to you–”

            “That’s alright, El,” said a voice from behind me.

            I turned. My brother was leaning against the doorway to his office. I rolled my eyes. Trust Nick to know when there’s a woman around. He came forward, offering his hand to the blonde. “Nick Hopper,” he said. “Like Ellie was saying, our caseload is quite heavy at the moment, but I’m sure we can find some way to fit you in Miss…” he trailed off enquiringly.

            “Appleby,” said the blonde, taking the offered hand. “Mona Appleby.”

            “Delighted to meet you, Miss Appleby. Now if you’ll come this way, maybe you can start by telling me what the problem is,” he said solicitously. He took her by the elbow and steered her into his office.

            “Oh, Mr. Hopper, it’s just awful!” exclaimed Mona as the door swung shut.

I stared at Nick’s closed office door. Nick and Joe already had their hands full as it was – how would they deal with another case? I had a bad feeling I already knew the answer to that.

*          *          *

I had finished my nails and was reading the paper when Nick opened his office door.

“What’s in the news?” he asked.

“More of the same,” I informed him. “Elections, celebrity gossip, and the Delaney trials.”

Nick came out into the front office and shut the door behind him. “What’s happening with those?”

“It’s not looking good for the Delaney execs, and the trial hasn’t even started. Look at these charges.” I unfolded the paper on the desk and read them off to him. “Bank fraud, securities fraud, wire fraud, money laundering, conspiracy, making false statements to banks and auditors, insider trading… and there’s over forty more counts. Even if they get off on half of these, the other half will be enough to put them away for good.”

Nick shook his head. “Hell of a thing. This is going to destroy the Delaney Corporation, and just maybe this town with it.”

I snorted. “And I thought I was the drama queen in the family.”

“El, Delaney Corp employs half the people in the city. What do you think is going to happen to them when Delaney’s gone?”

“I think they’ll get by. We certainly do, without Delaney.”

We sat for a few moments in silence, considering this. In spite of Delaney’s recent troubles, Hart and Hopper had been getting along just fine. If anything, we were getting more new cases than ever. Which reminded me… 

 “Please tell me you’re not seriously thinking about taking this case,” I said. “Because you and Joe have three cases each already and I don’t think you can handle any more.”

“Well,” said Nick slowly, “I was thinking you might be able to take this. I mean, you did such a good job on the last one, and–”

“Oh no,” I said. “Not again.”

*          *          *

Perhaps I should break off at this point to explain what I mean by “Not again.” Six months after I started working at Hart and Hopper, Nick and Joe got wrapped up in what they have affectionately termed ‘The Cartwright Caper.’ I prefer to call it ‘The Day All My Troubles Began.’

Callie Cartwright was this rich heiress who lived out in the eastern parts of the city. She was famous for her lavish and numerous parties. Callie used practically any occasion as an excuse to throw one. New job? Let’s celebrate! Got dumped? Pick me up party! It’s Saturday? Costume ball!

On this occasion, Callie had invited her fifty closest friends to the family estate to show off a diamond necklace her oil baron father had just bought her. Now, Callie had a real flair for the dramatic, so when the moment of unveiling came, she had everyone gather into the ballroom and got the butler to dim all the lights but one.

I wasn’t there, but I’ve heard this story enough times that I can picture it as if I were. Let me set the scene.

Callie stands at the top of the stairs in the darkened room, the one spotlight trained on her. In her hands she holds a black velvet box containing the infamous diamond necklace.

On some invisible cue she begins her descent, drifting slowly towards the eager masses at the foot of the stairs. The spotlight follows her as she travels. Once she reaches a point on the stairs that is just above everyone’s eye level, she raises the box high and opens it to reveal – nothing.

The box is empty. Inside, no diamonds flash and glitter under the strategic lighting. The guests gasp and begin to mutter amongst themselves. Callie stands above them, beaming and proud, still holding the empty box aloft like some sort of trophy. But after a while she begins to realize that something is wrong. She lowers the box, looks inside, and faints.

After that the house is cordoned off and the guests are ordered to stay inside. When questioned, the guards say that no one has entered the grounds since the start of the party – the theft had to have been committed by one of the guests. The guests are searched, but the necklace is nowhere to be found.

Nick and Joe are called in to investigate, and I go along for the ride.

While Nick and Joe interrogate the guests, I sneak off to the kitchen to see if there is any food left over from the party. There is. I strike up a friendship with the cater waiters and they are more than happy to provide me with leftovers.

So I’m sitting in the kitchen, eating my food, as the waiters are cleaning up from the party. They’re coming and going, with plates and plates still half covered with food, and they keep dumping the scrapings down this trash chute in the wall right next to me. I get to thinking. Where does the trash chute lead?

I grab a waiter as he rushes past me with a stack of dirty dishes.

“Where does this go?” I say and point to the chute.

“A dumpster outside,” he tells me. I ask him to show me.

The dumpster is nestled up against the back side of the house. It is taller than I am and stinks of sour milk and rotting meat. Every so often, a fresh batch of plate scrapings thunders through an opening in the wall positioned just above the dumpster’s lip.

I ask the waiter to give me a boost.

“Are you crazy?” he says. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m following a hunch,” I tell him.

He makes a sling with his hands and pushes me up and over the top of the dumpster. My feet make a squelching noise when I land.

Digging around in the refuse I find out more about human eating habits than I have ever wanted to know. I find withered carrots, congealed oatmeal, hardened rice, stringy spaghetti, fermenting apples, furry lemons, and something red and squishy that I can’t identify and don’t really care to. I find wine corks and Ziploc bags, grocery receipts stained with food, soggy newspapers, crumpled tissues, twist ties, rubber bands, paper towels, rusty cans, detergent bottles, cereal boxes, plastic wrap, and more. But no necklace.

I am about to give up when something in the corner of the dumpster catches my eye. I move forward to get a better look. The thing is partially obscured by a wilted leaf of lettuce, but there is no mistaking it.

I reach forward and pick up Callie’s diamond necklace, covered in the remains of some guest’s dinner.

The thief is caught. It turns out to be Callie’s best friend, who snatched the necklace, and slipped it out in a plate of half-eaten veal marsala. For a while I am hailed as a hero. A tearful Callie thanks me enthusiastically and pumps my hand, even though I am still covered in garbage. The newspapers have a field day, running articles with headlines like ‘Dumpster Diving Detective Digs up Diamonds’ and ‘Secretary Turned P.I. Saves Day.’

My moment of glory was short lived, but I have had to live with the repercussions of that day ever since.  While most of the world has forgotten about ‘The Cartwright Caper,’ Nick and Joe remember it all too well. They’ve been trying to push their extra cases off on me and coming up with stupid nicknames for them ever since.

*          *          *

I had been shot at, threatened, kidnapped, and burgled more times than I could count since I started doing Nick and Joe’s dirty work. I was sick and tired of coming home to find another villain sitting in my living room, pointing a gun at my head and wanting to tell me all about how he got away this murder or that heist. I was sick and tired of the cheesy murder mystery titles, the sneaking around, and the late nights. I was sick and tired of it all, which is why I was so vehemently against Nick taking on Mona Appleby’s case.

“No, Nick,” I said. “I told you that the last time was the last time.”

“Aw, come on, El,” begged Nick. “I swear this one’s easy. Mona already has a lead for us. It’s practically open and shut; you just need to check out some guy. You’d be in and out in minutes.”

“No,” I said firmly. “I am a secretary, not your backup P.I.”

“But you can do it. You foiled ‘The Pearson Plot!’ This’ll be a breeze.”

“I said no. I told you after that last one that I wasn’t going to work your cases anymore.”

“But I already told Mona we’d take it!”

“I don’t care! You just march back in there in tell her sorry, some other time, because working your cases has only ever brought me trouble!”

Nick changed his tack. “We could really use the money, El. We’d be stupid not to take it. She’s offering us a sky high flat rate for what’ll end up being a few days’ work.”

“We need the money?” I exclaimed in disbelief. “What do you mean we need the money? You’ve already got six cases!”

“Well,” said Nick defensively, “it wouldn’t hurt. And it really is an easy case.” He paused and looked at me pleadingly. “Just this last one?”

I sighed. No matter how hard I tried to stay firm, Nick always found wore me down. I couldn’t say whether this was due to persuasive skill or to sheer persistence. “Fine,” I said, “But it had better be just as easy as you say.”

            Nick bounced up. “For you, Miss Ace Detective, it’ll be even easier,” he said as he grabbed me into a bear hug. “Thanks, El. I owe you.”

            “Yeah, sure,” I grumbled.

             “Here’s the specs.” He tossed a file on to my desk. “Read it over. I’m going to go bid Miss Mona Appleby adieu,” he said as he disappeared back into his office.

            I opened the file. On top was a picture of a pretty girl in her mid twenties, with the same honey blonde hair and doe-like eyes as Mona Appleby. Her sister, I guessed.

Nick’s notes gave her name as Angel Appleby, younger sister of Mona, former wild child, and currently working as a financial consultant with a top accounting firm, Becker and Becker Financial, located downtown. At least, that was up until she disappeared from her apartment in the Sunset District six days ago.

I flipped to the next page. According to Mona, this behavior wasn’t entirely uncommon for her younger sister. Angel, in spite of her name, was not so angelic. She’d been a bit of a handful in her teens, and had tried to runoff with several unsavory boyfriends by the time she graduated from high school.

Nick’s office door opened again, and he and Mona came out.

“Miss Appleby,” said Nick, “Ellie, here is going to be handling your case. So, uh, if you have any questions you can, uh, direct them to her.”

Mona raised her eyebrows. “The secretary? Mr. Hopper – and please don’t take this the wrong way, Ellie dear, I’m sure you are perfectly capable – but do you really think that the secretary is the most qualified person to be dealing with this?”

“I assure you that Ellie is an excellent private investigator,” said Nick. “She just… moonlights as a secretary in her, uh, spare time.”

“Still,” said Mona uncertainly. “I don’t know.”

“Miss Appleby,” I said. “I can’t give you my word that I will find your sister. But I can tell you that I will not stop looking until I have exhausted all my resources and I am satisfied that I have tried to the best of my ability to find her.”

Mona gave me a long, searching look. “Alright,” she said finally. “You’ve convinced me. I do believe that you will do a good job.”

“Good,” I said. “Now that that’s settled, I’d like to ask you a few questions about the case. I know that you’ve already told Nick all this, and I’ve looked through his notes, but if you don’t mind I’d like to hear the story from you.”

“Alright,” said Mona. “What do you want to know?”

            “First of all, when did you find out that Angel had disappeared?”

            “Two days ago. I’d been calling and calling her apartment, but she didn’t answer and I got worried. I went round her place, and I saw that she hadn’t picked up her mail in days. I can’t exactly say I was surprised, though. I’d been expecting something like this for some time.”

            “Why?” I asked.

            “You read the file.” Mona laughed shortly. “Angel was no angel. It seemed like she tried to run off at least once each year when she was in high school. We were all so relieved when she quieted down in college. She graduated summa cum laude, you know, and then she got the job with Becker and Becker. We thought that was all in the past.

            “But then, a little over a week ago, on – it must have been Wednesday – I saw her with Raymond Dean, this guy she used to date in high school. He was one of the ones she tried to run off with – the last one, actually – and I think he was the only one of them she really ever loved. But of course they got caught and that was when Daddy put his foot down and he forbade Angel from seeing him ever again. Last I heard Ray moved away.

“Angel kind of lost her fire after that, settled down, started focusing more on school. All for the best, really. But then I saw them together again and I knew, I just knew that no good was going to come of it.” Mona sighed.

“Were there any other signs?” asked Nick. “Had she been acting strangely?”

“The last time I spoke with her she seemed… I don’t know. Distracted? That isn’t quite the word for it. She was…” Mona hesitated. “She seemed torn. I got the impression that she wasn’t happy at Becker and Becker.

“So you think she might have left her job to run off with this Dean guy?” I asked.

“I think it’s possible.”

“Well,” I said, “it’s as good a place to start as any.”

*          *          *

            I found Ray Dean’s address after just a few minutes of rifling through the phone book. Dean lived in a shabby triplex by the docks on the west edge of town. The front of the building was dominated by an open air garage that was sunk partially into the ground. If you made your way past this, you came upon the first apartment, and beyond that a flight of rickety stairs leading up to the other two apartments.

I knocked on the door to Apartment 2B. As I waited, I clutched my Bible and wondered why Mona Appleby hadn’t come herself. If she was so sure her sister was with Dean, why did she need us to pay him a visit in her place?

            My thoughts were interrupted when the door swung open to reveal Raymond Dean.

The first thing that I can say about Dean is that he was attractive. Extremely attractive. He didn’t have strikingly beautiful features, but he was crudely handsome in a Marlon Brando as Stanley Kowalski kind of way.

I tilted my head to the side a little. In fact, he looked a lot like Marlon Brando as Stanley Kowalski, right down to the white T-shirt and smoldering glare that was currently directed at me.

            “Can I help you?” said Dean.

            I smoothed my long skirt and smiled. “Good evening, sir,” I said. “I am here to bring you the word of God.”

            “Not interested,” said Dean, and tried to slam the door in my face.

            I wedged my Bible into the crack of the door and forced it open again. “Sir,” I said, launching into my spiel. “When was the last time you went to church, or for that matter, prayed? I’m guessing it’s been a while. It is time to turn your life around, which is what I am here to help you do. God changed my life, and he can change yours too if you just give him a chance. He can lift you up from this den of sin in which you find yourself and he can welcome you into his kingdom with open arms. He can – he can…” I trailed off. “Oh, screw it. I suck at this undercover stuff.”

I shouldered my way into Dean’s apartment.

            “Hey!” he protested. “This is trespassing! I’ll call the cops.”

            “I am the cops,” I said, and folded my arms. “Or close enough. I’m a private investigator,” I told him. Or close enough. “My name is Eleanor Hopper. I’m looking for Angel Appleby, recently missing. I heard she might be here.”

            He glared at me. He seemed to do that a lot. “Well you heard wrong,” he said. “Angel and I split years ago. It was on good terms, but that was in high school and I haven’t seen her since.”

            “Sure,” I said. “And I suppose that next you’ll tell me it wasn’t you that Angel’s sister saw her with last Wednesday.”

            After a moment of silence, Dean said, “Her sister? You mean Mona?”

            “That’s the one.”

Dean stared into space as he considered this, grinding his jaw. “Okay,” he acquiesced. “Maybe I did see her Wednesday. We met up because she wanted to talk. But she’s not here.”

            “Then you won’t mind if I look around,” I said.

            “Go ahead. You won’t find her.”

            There were three doors leading out of the combined living room/kitchen we stood in. Door Number One led to a sparsely furnished bedroom with a large window in the far wall. The paint on the wall was faded and peeling, but the room was neat except for the rumpled covers on the bed. In the closet I found men’s clothes and shoes. Nothing else. Strike one.

            Behind Door Number Two I found the guest room. The bed hadn’t been slept in, there were no clothes in the closet, and there was dust on the bedside table. No signs of recent occupation. Strike two.

            Beyond Door Three lay the bathroom. It was small and cramped; you had to sit down on the toilet and put your feet in the shower stall to close the door. The only place to hide was the cabinet under the sink, and that was crammed with various bottles of soap and shampoo. I ruled out the bathroom as a possible hiding spot. Strike three.

            “Okay,” I said to Dean. “She’s not here. I believe you.”

            “Nice to know you’ll take me on my word,” he said sarcastically.

            I shrugged. “I’m suspicious. It’s my job.” I sat down on his dingy couch and put my feet up on the coffee table. “Now that we’ve established that Angel is not here, why don’t you tell me about the last time you saw her?”

            “Angel called me about a week ago. Suggested we meet up.”

            “Why?”

            “She…” he hesitated. “She wanted to catch up. Like I said, we split on good enough terms, and she thought that maybe it was about time for us to be friends again.”

            “And?”

            “We did the whole catching up thing. You know, have you seen so and so? And did you know that so and so is doing this and that? We talked for maybe an hour, then I drove her home, and that was pretty much it,” he said.

            “Have you talked to her since?”

            “Nope.”

            “Huh. Did Angel say anything about going away when you saw her?” I asked.

            He shook his head. “Not a word.”

            “Did it seem like there was anything wrong when you spoke with her? Was she… agitated? Or distracted?”

            “No. Just the regular old Angel.”

            This was going nowhere. “Thank you, Mr. Dean,” I said, getting up to leave.

At the door I held out my hand. “I may drop by again with some follow up questions.”

            “I’ll look forward to it,” he said dryly. We shook.

            I made my way back to the garage, fishing for the car keys in my purse. I found them just as I reached the car, but as I pulled them out they slipped from my grasp. They fell to the ground with a metallic clang, next to a ‘2B’ painted on the concrete in large white letters.

            Puzzled, I looked at the cars next to mine. Both had letters painted behind them as well, a ‘1A’ for the SUV and a ‘2A’ for the grey station wagon.

I unlocked my car and climbed in. Dean was home, but my car currently occupied his parking space. He must have a car, I thought. He said that he had driven Angel back to her place after they met at the café. But then where was his car?

You’re overreacting, I told myself. The car could have been in the shop. He could have borrowed a friend’s. There were thousands of reasons that parking space could have been empty.

Yet even as my brain argued that there was a perfectly logical explanation for the absence of a car, I couldn’t completely dismiss what my gut instinct was telling me. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned as a secretary turned P.I., it’s to always follow your hunches.

*          *          *

            When I got back to Hart and Hopper I threw my purse on the desk and slumped into my swivel chair. Nick came out of his office and leaned against the doorframe.

            “What’s wrong, El?”

            I glared at him. “Turns out this case isn’t so open and shut after all. Dean was a dead end.”

            “Really?” Nick rubbed his chin. “What happened?”

            “He said he met up with Angel, but just to talk. Hasn’t seen her since.”

            “You’re sure he was telling the truth?”

            “I think so. At any rate, the girl wasn’t there.”

            “Huh. So what’s your next move?”

            “I don’t know,” I said. “You’re the detective. What would your next move be?”

            Nick thought for a moment. “I guess I’d try her work. Mona said that she was complaining about it – maybe she up and left because of something job related. Why not see what was going on there?”

            I shrugged. It was as good a shot as any.

            I dialed the operator and asked for Becker and Becker Financial. While I waited to be connected, I asked Nick what I should try to find out.

“Find out what work she was doing. But don’t show your hand,” he reminded me. “We don’t want to scare them away or anything.”

The phone rang a few times, and a chirpy voice came on the line.

            “Becker and Becker Financial, this is Lindsay speaking. How may I help you?”

            “Hi, Lindsay,” I said. “My name is Eleanor Hopper. I’m looking to hire a financial consultant, and a business associate of mine recommended someone from your firm named Angel Appleby. Before I make a decision though, I want to know what her experience has been like. What other companies has she done work for?”

            “Let’s see…” Lindsay paused as she typed something into her computer. “Looks like Miss Appleby, has done a lot of good work. She handled the Andersen account a while back – that was a big one – and the Ernst and Young ones too. Most recently she worked on the Delaney account and – just a minute.” Lindsay broke off, and I heard hushed voices on the other end of the line.

            When she came back her voice was stiff and halting, as if someone were feeding her a line. “I’m sorry,” she said, “but I regret to inform you Miss Appleby is not currently accepting new accounts. Would you like us to set us up with another one of our financial consultants?”

            “No,” I said. “I don’t think that will be necessary.”

            “Thank you for your interest, ma’am. We at Becker and Becker hope that you will continue to turn to us for all your accounting needs. Goodbye.”

            She hung up.

            I frowned at the dial tone, and set the receiver down. I had some nasty suspicions brewing in my mind after that conversation. Angel Appleby, financial consultant to the Delaney Corporation, disappears right after their financial fraud goes public? It couldn’t be a coincidence.

            As their accountant, Angel was in a prime position to see their first hand evidence of their financial fraud. My guess was that Angel was the one who blew the whistle.

I had watched enough TV to know how this worked. Whistleblowers always got the short end of the stick. They spill some secrets, and the people with those secrets get angry. But to put those secrets back where they belong they have to silence the whistleblower, either by persuading them to keep quiet, or by more permanent means.

The Delaney trial was still proceeding on schedule, so I didn’t think this was what had happened to Angel. The prosecution’s case would have fallen apart by now if their star witness had disappeared.

Angel, I figured, had had the good sense to lay low up until she was called to testify. So she called up Dean, asked to borrow his car, and drove north, south, or wherever until it was time for her to appear again.

There was one thing I couldn’t figure out, though, and that was Mona Appleby’s place in all this. Was she simply a worried older sister looking for out for her prodigal younger sibling? Or was she working with the Delaney Corporation to help them find her sister? I couldn’t answer that myself. For that, I had to go straight to the source.

*          *          *

I called Mona and told her I had some urgent news about the case. She appeared in the doorway of Hart and Hopper and Investigations twenty minutes later. The fox fur and suit were gone. She was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt, and breathing as if she had just run a hard race.

“I came as fast as I could,” she panted. “Have you found her? Oh, please tell me you’ve found her! But how could you have found her so soon?”

“Sit down, Miss Appleby,” I said, offering her my swivel chair. “We need to talk.”

She sank graciously into the chair while I perched on the edge of my desk. “I’m sorry to call you so late,” I said, and laughed sheepishly. “Lord knows most people would be in bed at this time. My brother left ages ago.” I nodded toward his office door.

“It doesn’t matter,” said Mona. “Anything for Angel.”

“Well, I’ll say right off that I don’t know where your sister is. However, I do have some idea of why she disappeared. You’ve heard of the Delaney scandal?”

“Of course I have,” said Mona. “Everyone has.”

“Your sister was working as their financial consultant before she disappeared. She was the one that spilled the scandal to the cops. A brave but risky move, one that didn’t leave the Delaney Corporation too pleased with her.”

“Oh!” gasped Mona. “That’s why she–”

“Why she disappeared. That’s right. Now Delaney Corp us trying to find her to buy her off so she–”

“Won’t talk,” finished Mona. “I see.” She shook her head sadly. “God, how could Angel have gotten mixed up in all this?”

“She just had the bad luck to be assigned that account,” I said. “I’m more interested in how you got mixed up in all this.”

“Me? What do you mean?” said Mona, her voice slightly sharp.

 “I think Angel’s not the only Appleby the Delaney Corporation is trying to buy off,” I said loudly. “I think that they pulled you into their game because it would look less suspicious, you trying to find your sister, than if they did it.”

“Why – why that’s ridiculous.” Mona stood up. “I won’t be insulted like this.”

 “Don’t bother denying it. I bet if I pulled up your financial records I’d find that you’ve come into some money recently. What was the deal? Half now, for agreeing to rat Angel out, then the other half after you found her? How could you do that, Mona? Your own sister.”

Her arm jerked forward suddenly, as if to slap me. I flinched, lost my balance on the desk, and fell. I caught myself before I hit the ground and scrambled to my feet.

Mona glared at me. “That’s right, my own stupid, silly sister,” she said furiously, advancing towards me as she spoke. I backed slowly towards Nick’s office.

“What does it matter?” Mona laughed bitterly. “You can’t prove it anyways.”

She had me pinned up against Nick’s door. Mockingly, she said, “You figured it all out. I admit it. Delaney offered me money to look into my sister’s disappearance. It wouldn’t look too good if they were found asking questions after her. As you said, it would look like they were trying to buy her off.”

“So the Delaney Corporation was attempting to bribe your sister into not testifying against them?”

“Yes, didn’t I just say that?”

 “Just making sure we’re clear,” I said. “You can come out now.”

Nick opened the door behind me.

“Did you get it?” I asked him.

He waved the tape recorder in his hand. “Got it.”

Mona stared at him in astonishment. “You said he was gone!”

“I lied. So did you. I’d say we’re even now.”

“Nice bit there at the end,” Nick told me. “I couldn’t quite hear you until you got up close to the door. You can hear her confession clear as a bell though.

“You know,” I said to Mona, “bribing a witness is a class B felony. I don’t know what aiding would get you, but I’m guessing the courts won’t look too kindly on that.”

Mona opened her mouth, but nothing came out.

Nick took the tape out of the recorder. “I’m going to run this down to the station,” he said. He put on his coat. “I think they’ll be interested to hear what’s on it.”

“You’d better take Mona too,” I said. I pushed her towards him. She flopped limply into his grasp. I think she was in shock. He took her by the arm and maneuvered her gently towards the door. When they were halfway out, he turned back.

“El,” he said. “I followed all your reasoning with Delaney Corp and Dean’s car, but I don’t get how you knew Mona was in on it.”

“The fox fur,” I said. “When she first came in here she was wearing that gorgeous fox fur stole. She told me she got it this weekend – with, I’m assuming, the bribe money from Delaney Corp. That was the clincher.”

 “Huh,” said Nick. He grinned suddenly. “You know, I think I already know what I’m going to call this one.”

I groaned. “What?”

“‘The Delaney Dupe!’” he said delightedly. “Or maybe ‘The Fox Fur Farce.’ I haven’t decided yet. I’ll wait until Joe gets back to ask him what he thinks. Man, is he going to be sorry he missed this!”