Enigma Read Online Free PDF Page A

shook his head at the sad likelihood of such betrayal.
    “May I interview your secretary?” In my peripheral vision, I saw Kommen glowering at me, a guard dog I was glad had been leashed. “I promise to be discreet,” I added. “And kind.”
    Richardson glanced at Kommen, who nodded. “I suppose you must,” he sighed. “Gladys has been my secretary for twenty-five years. I trust her completely.”
    I nodded. “I understand. And the fourth letter?”
    “It came to this office,” Kommen cut in.
    “Addressed to whom?”
    “Reverend Richardson, but to my attention.”
    “By courier or mail?”
    Kommen’s aura flashed. He was getting angry. “Courier.”
    “Which one?”
    “Colin can look that up.”
    “I’ll need to talk to their dispatcher. Will you authorize that?”
    Kommen gave me a tiny nod, looking deeply inconvenienced.
    “Were there any viable fingerprints on the messages?”
    “No. We had a very good lab do the tests. There weren’t any. Enigma wore gloves.”
    Kommen was trying to take control of the interview. I figured he wanted to end it, so I decided to help him out. I could tell I’d gotten everything I was going to get from Richardson. At the moment, anyway.
    “Okay. Well, thank you, Reverend. I’ll wait to hear from Mr. Kommen when I can interview your office manager and your secretary.”
    I put away my notebook. “I may need to ask you some clarifying questions after I interview your wife, son, and daughter-in-law. But for the moment, I’m all set.”
    Apparently Kommen wasn’t done flexing his muscle as gatekeeper. “Another interview may not be possible,” he huffed.
    I stared at him. “If it’s necessary, it will be brief. And I sincerely hope, Mr. Kommen, that your desire to insulate your client from my investigation doesn’t become counterproductive. My request would not be frivolous, and denying it could be problematic.”
    I stood up, and stuck out my hand again. When Richardson got up, so did Kommen. “Thanks for your time, Reverend,” I said. “We’ll get this cleared up, I promise.” I didn’t feel quite that certain, but I wasn’t going to hedge in front of Kommen.
    Even though the day was heating up, it was a relief to get out onto the street. I bought an early and unhealthy lunch from a street vendor, then walked down to Confluence Park. Traffic on the Speer Boulevard Viaduct shimmered in the heat, and a dozen thunderheads were already building against the mountains—a typical June morning in Denver, if any weather could be called typical here.
    At the park I found a little shade on the bank opposite REI, where I could watch the kayakers bob and twist through the man-made rapids, eat my lunch, and ponder my interview with Richardson senior.
    Now I understood why Kommen had been unconcerned about the police. They weren’t involved because there was no crime for them to investigate. Not until Richardson got a demand for money, at least.
    The bad news was that most of the customary lines of inquiry surrounding a crime were also missing. No police report, no witnesses, no known motive. Not even an apparent one. I did have leads, though. I was far from stymied.
    On the surface, the level of Richardson’s panic at receiving the letters seemed strangely disproportionate to what they contained. He had to see something in them that he wasn’t talking about. I’d find out what that was.
    Then there was the question of his son’s sexual orientation. Had father really expected reparative therapy to fix his son? Regardless of Howard’s expectations, James hadn’t been the poster boy for its success as proclaimed. Howard knew his son hadn’t been cured. He also knew he was vulnerable because of its failure.
    Something else was out of joint between father and son, too. Something he didn’t want to talk about. The afternoon’s interview with James promised to be more fruitful than I’d first thought.
    * * * *
    I got back to Kommen’s office in time to cool off a