Jay Giles Read Online Free PDF

Wright,” I heard Rosemary say in her most polite voice.
          “Matt’s expecting me.”
          “I’ll show you back.”
          Eddie ambled in first, altogether pleased with himself. Rosemary came next. “Right in here,” she said, offering a smile and extending an arm. As soon as Tory walked past her, Rosemary crossed her eyes and left.
          I almost missed the eye bit. I was busy looking at Tory. She had on a Day-Glo orange top that left her midriff exposed. Skin-tight black stretch pants. She had her big black bag over her shoulder. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail. Sunglasses hid her eyes.
          I stood. “Come in. Have a seat.”
          She sat in one of the visitor’s chairs, took off her sunglasses, and leaned forward. “I don’t want this to be interrupted. Can you cancel any appointments you have for the next hour, have her hold your calls?”
          I reached for the phone, hit the intercom. “Rosemary, would you cancel anything I have for the next hour, hold all calls?”
          “Would you like something to drink?” I asked Tory.
          “A Diet Coke would be great.”
          I buzzed again. “And could you bring us two Diet Cokes? Thanks, Rosemary.”
          Moments later she brought in the drinks. “Would you like me to shut the door?” she asked as she left.
          “Yes,” Tory answered for me.
          Rosemary crossed her eyes again, closed the door with just enough of a slam to make Tory jump. I could tell these two would never be best buds.
          Eddie, on the other hand, obviously liked Tory. He sat next to her, rested his head on her thigh. She got a folder out of her bag, put it on the desk, found what she wanted, then reached down and absentmindedly stroked Eddie’s head.
          “Let’s start with Joe Jesso’s death.” Her tone of voice said she wasn’t going to sugarcoat anything. “It was natural causes, no doubt about it.”
          “How can you be sure?”
          She frowned. Obviously didn’t like being interrupted or questioned. “Oh, I’m absolutely sure. I talked to his primary care physician, Dr. Flores. Seems Jesso had been having angina for over a year and a half. Flores had him do a stress test and discovered two of his major arteries were eighty percent blocked. Flores wanted to schedule bypass surgery, but Jesso wouldn’t agree to it.”
          She paused and took a sip of her drink. “According to the doc, Jesso had a real fear of hospitals. Lots of older people are fearful of going to the hospital, but Jesso must have been adamant. According to the EMS logs from the night he died, they responded to a frantic call from Jesso’s wife saying he was having severe chest pain. One of the paramedics told me that when they loaded Jesso into the ambulance, he complained he’d never had such bad pain. It must have been the early stages of a heart attack. The paramedic said he thought Jesso suffered a massive stroke on the way to the hospital. As hard as they worked on him, there wasn’t anything they could do.”
          “So there isn’t any doubt it was natural causes?”
          “None. I asked the paramedic if he thought there was any chance of foul play. He said what he saw was a heart attack in progress. With Jesso’s medical history, it was just a matter of time.”
          “They why would Joe’s brother-in-law have told me Joe died in bed?”
          She shook her head. “I don’t know. That’s not the way it happened. Makes me wonder about this guy.” She reached into a bag and pulled out a photo, handed it across the desk to me. “Let me tell you about his sister, your friend’s wife. This is a rare photo of Janet Wakeman—that’s her maiden name. You have no idea how hard that photo was to come by.”
          I stared at the grainy enlargement. It showed an older, balding man in a plaid sport coat, his arm around