One Fearful Yellow Eye Read Online Free PDF Page A

what you said," I told her. "And after we get into it, could you sort of remember something you have to go do?"
    "Darling, it will be a pleasure. When he talks about that stuff, it makes my head hurt."
    John Andrus was a likable guy in his late thirties. He was stocky, dark-haired, well-tailored, with the strong features of a character actor. We talked in Fort's study. Andrus had brought along the documents in a black dispatch case.
    "This report summarizes an awful lot of leg work," he said. "He had thirteen months of activity.
    It would average a little under fifty thousand a month converted into cash. He didn't want to attract attention, obviously. He opened up checking accounts in six other banks. He fed the money through the seven accounts. Apparently he also, in addition to cashing checks at the banks, cashed checks at clubs, restaurants, and hotels where he was well-known. He cashed in his securities holdings at at least four different brokerage houses. I think this summary by month of the assets converted to cash and the cash withdrawals through the checking account is very close to actuality. See, here is the biggest month for sale of assets, over two hundred thousand. He converted seventy-two thousand into currency last January, and that was the biggest month. The smallest was last June. Twenty-one thousand. He was a very respected and respectable man, Mr.
    McGee."
    "Strange behavior."
    "We're a little dazed, frankly. We had the estate set up so beautifully. Residuary trusts, insurance trusts, 28 beautifully drawn instruments. And when the time comes to put them into effect, we can't find anything except some very minor asset values. It wasn't really big money, of course.
    But it's enough to be worth handling properly. We've been through all his personal papers and records, and there isn't a clue. It's distressing."
    "To you and the IRS too."
    He frowned. "Unfortunately the man assigned to it was not too experienced. He got very agitated. He was going to attach everything in sight, the small equity left in the house, Mrs. Geis'
    insurance, the cars and so on. So we elected, as executor, to have the estate appraised one year from the date of death, as is our option. I imagine the IRS man thought it was some sort of attempt to evade estate taxes."
    "But you don't."
    He looked shocked. "Of course not! Fortner Geis was not a stupid man, and I think he was an honest man. I think he would... weigh all the alternatives, and do what he felt he had to do."
    "Which one of us is going to say the nasty word, Mr. Andrus?"
    He shrugged. "Okay. Blackmail. I investigated that possibility with Mrs. Geis, and with the Page 13

    daughter, Mrs. Trumbill, and with young Mr. Geis. I also checked with... some of the doctor's associates. It is a complete blank. Well, not exactly a complete blank. Mrs. Trumbill was very distressed when her father married a woman so much younger, and a woman... not quite on the social level of the Geis family, let us say. She suggested that her father might be paying out large sums to protect Mrs. Geis."
    "From what?"
    "When her father brought her back here, Mrs. Trumbill thought it would be wise to... have her stepmother investigated. She got a report on what had happened to Mrs. Geis' first husband and her two children in Buffalo over six years ago." He hesitated, looked troubled, and said, "I have a lot of respect for Gloria. I like her a great deal. And I do not like Heidi Geis Trumbill. Mrs.
    Trumbill suggested to me that perhaps Gloria in a jealous rage had killed her neighbor and her first husband, and the two children who witnessed it, and then someone who could prove that's what happened showed up and the doctor was paying that person to keep silent."
    "Heidi seems to have a nasty mouth."
    "She thinks Gloria had her father hypnotized. I felt duty-bound to check out her murder theory.
    Nonsense, of course. According to the Buffalo police reports, a neighbor saw Gloria turn into the driveway and get