Defense for the Devil Read Online Free PDF

briefcase, will you,” Barbara said to Bailey. “I’ll get the paperwork out of the way. Not over the keypad locks,” she added. He scowled; he knew that, she understood. Maggie cleared enough space on her desk for the laptop, and very quickly Barbara filled in the information on the fee agreement, and then quickly keyed in another agreement, her obligations and Maggie’s. She finished almost as soon as Bailey was done.
    “I want a look in the duffel bag,” Barbara said.
    Very quickly Bailey said, “We should find something to dump it out in, something smooth.”
    Maggie rummaged in the tangle of clothes and brought out a white blouse, which she spread on the floor.
    After Bailey dumped the bag, they all gazed at a lead pipe and leather holder. “What…?” Maggie said, reaching for it. Bailey caught her hand.
    “Don’t touch,” he said. He found a plastic bag in his gear, and latex gloves that he pulled on; then he carefully picked up the pipe and holder and put them inside the bag. He held it by the top and let them look. “Hair, fibers, blood, all that expert detective stuff.” He put the plastic bag back inside the duffel. No one commented as he picked up the other items and replaced them in the duffel bag. Dirty shirts, underwear, socks, shaving kit… After that, he made a note of the tailor’s name in the silk coat, then he counted the money in the clip. “Eighty-two hundred.” Maggie nodded. In the wallet they found $728 and identification in the name of Gary Belmont. Driver’s license, insurance card, Social Security card, all in Belmont’s name.
    Barbara picked up a little notebook. “Okay if I keep this with me? Could help track him down.”
    Maggie shrugged, and Barbara slipped the notebook into her bag and brought out the Rolex, which she added to the duffel bag.
    “Is that Mitch?” she asked then, handing the driver’s license to Maggie.
    “Superficially it resembles him. Dark hair, at least. The statistics are almost right: six feet two, a hundred-five pounds. Mitch is six one, and not that heavy.”
    “Okay. I’ll write up an inventory of the stuff you’re turning over to me, explain the various agreements, then a quick look outside, and we have to beat it.”
    It didn’t take long. She explained the various papers to Maggie and was pleased to see that Maggie was actually reading them. She feared for clients who didn’t read what they signed. A few minutes later they were ready.
    “This end of the house can be closed off from the paying guests,” Maggie said at an outside door near her room. “We have a little privacy that way, and use this as a private entrance.”
    “How close can we get my car?” Barbara asked.
    “The driveway is over there, past my room,” Maggie said, opening the door to a terrace. “You can’t see it from here.”
    Barbara could see why the room had been angled as it had been. One wall with many windows faced northwest, one faced southwest; the view in either direction was magnificent—ocean, beach, cliffs.
    “Be right back,” Bailey said; he started around the house toward the garage.
    “I want to walk out there a bit,” Barbara said. She left Maggie in the doorway. The house was two hundred feet in from the edge of the rocky cliff, which was like a peninsula jutting out from the mainland. At the edge she stopped to gaze down. It was almost a straight drop from here to the beach, about seventy-five feet down, although on both sides the cliff sloped in a scalable fashion. A rustic split-log fence outlined the edge in both directions. She followed it to a break, where a trail zigzagged downward.
    When she returned to Maggie, she said, “Wow! It’s great!”
    “Yes,” Maggie said. “It is. When there’s a storm, a real gale, spray comes up over the fence.”
    Bailey came around the corner of the house. “Both cars torn apart,” he said morosely. “Walk over and look around. I’ll bring the car back to pick you up, and while you’re