Death and Honesty Read Online Free PDF

cards.

    “As I said, the assessors are working with some of the cards. They’re not all here. You can’t take these out of the building, you know.”
    “Thank you, Oliver.”
    “Use that empty desk. I’ll have someone show you how to operate the copier.”
    “I know how to operate the copier.”
    Victoria found the card for her own property and the one for Delilah’s, several of Delilah’s neighbors’ properties, and several of Victoria’s own neighbors.
    “Find what you were looking for?” Oliver asked.
    At that point the phone rang. Oliver answered. After a long silence, during which he glanced from Victoria to the copier to the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet and back to Victoria, he said to the caller, “I can’t talk now, Ellen. Let me get to another phone.” He punched the hold button and set down the phone.
    “I’ll be right back,” he said. “Don’t disturb anything while I’m gone.”
    He headed downstairs to the one private phone in the building. Victoria immediately went to the filing cabinet and found, in the unlocked bottom drawer that Oliver had been eyeing, two thick folders marked “DS.” She hurriedly copied everything in both folders, and, without looking at them, tucked the copies into her cloth bag and replaced the folders in the bottom drawer. She was about to sit down again when she noticed the white pasteboard candy box. She peeked inside. Fruit jellies. They called the candy Turkish delight when she was a child. She hadn’t had a fruit jelly for a long time. She was just about to help herself to a piece when she heard footsteps coming up the stairs. She closed the box quickly and returned to her seat. By the time Oliver returned, she was sitting in her chair, rosy-cheeked but calm.
    Oliver, himself, was pink-cheeked and perspiring.
    “I’ve made copies of a nice selection of cards and will examine them when I get home,” said Victoria. She separated out a dozen pages. “Now, will you please show me the bills you sent out for these properties?”
    Oliver looked at his watch. “I don’t have the time.”
    “I can imagine,” said Victoria. “The bills, please.” She settled
back in the chair and thumbed through her photocopies. When she got to Delilah’s property she sat up straight. Oliver was shuffling through manila folders in the top file drawer.
    “Oliver!” she called out.
    “What now?” He shoved some papers from his desk into a folder and went over to the filing cabinet.
    “Would you please explain this?” Victoria held up the copy of Delilah’s card. “Do the assessors know about it?”
    “Mrs. Trumbull,” Oliver said with exaggerated patience. “Do you want me to find the bills or do you want me to explain the property cards …” he looked over at the copy Victoria was holding up and stopped in mid-sentence.
    “Both. Bills first. Is this a mistake on Miss Sampson’s assessment?” She waved her copy at him. “This says her property is assessed at fifteen million dollars. Yet I understand she was billed based on a twenty-million-dollar assessment. And there’s a third bill based on eighteen million. Which is correct?”
    Oliver sighed. “The assessment procedure is complicated, Mrs. Trumbull. Assessors need years of training. Experience.”
    “Oh? To reach three different figures?”
    “Our assessments are based on complex formulas and neighborhood designations. A layman can’t understand.”
    “Surely you agree that something is wrong here,” Victoria insisted.
    Oliver twitched a stack of jammed paper out of the copier and threw it on the floor. “You’ve gummed up this goddamned machine.”
    Victoria gathered up her copies of the bills, placed them in the cloth bag along with the copies of the property cards and files marked DS, thanked Oliver, proceeded carefully down the stairs, and marched out to the waiting limousine. Darcy was standing by the passenger door.
    Oliver pounded down the stairs behind her. “The check!” he