The Girl in the Green Raincoat Read Online Free PDF

what men do . Most men can’t function alone.”
    “Still, it’s eerie, especially now that his second wife has disappeared—”
    “Ah, but you’re wrong on that.”
    “How can you be so sure?”
    “I’ll explain in all in due time. You don’t rush a master. You’ve made nice progress, with your laptop and your phone, but it’s nothing compared to what I can do with a couple of hours of computer time.”
    When had Dorie Starnes, once an ignored and scorned IT grunt at the local newspaper, learned to speak with such emphatic authority—and on all subjects, yet, not just computers? But Tess knew, for she had been a part of Dorie’s transformation. When they met five years ago, Dorie had no sense of her own power. Tess had shown her how much she knew, how much potential she had, giving her the confidence to open her own research firm, now a thriving concern. Despite that, Tess didn’t even get a discount on Dorie’s not inconsiderable hourly rate. All she got were “bumping rights”—priority over Dorie’s other customers, without having to pay rush rates. Normally, that was all Tess needed, given that she could pass the cost on to her clients. But who was her client in this matter, who would reimburse her? The insane Italian greyhound was clearly indigent; Carole Massinger Esptein was missing—only not according to her husband. She would have to pay for Dorie’s services out of her own pocket. Sorry, Fifi. That’s a few dollars less for the college fund .
    “Annette Epstein had been married to Don Epstein for almost five years when she died,” Dorie began, reading from her laptop. She would have preferred a PowerPoint presentation, no doubt, but Tess’s sun porch wasn’t set up for that.
    “What was the cause?”
    “Pneumonia was listed as the official cause, although that was actually a complication that resulted after her hospitalization. She died in an Anne Arundel hospital about eighteen months ago. Her husband sued, charging wrongful death. Hospital settled out of court.”
    “For how much?”
    Dorie shook her head. A short, top-heavy woman, she always reminded Tess of a robin, with her rounded front and tousled hair. In fact, just looking at her made Tess want to burst into the opening of “My Funny Valentine,” the prologue that so few people knew, in which the gentleman’s blank countenance was compared to a bird’s. But there was nothing vacant about Dorie’s brow. Like Mrs. Blossom, Dorie was another person the world tended to underestimate. Tess was surrounded by such people, she realized. She was one, in fact, a broad-shouldered jockette. Strangers would have trusted her with a lacrosse stick, but not much else.
    “I’m not that good,” Dorrie said. “Out-of-court settlements are sealed, and this one included a gag order. If Esptein shared the details, the hospital could reclaim its payment. But let’s play connect the dots. Epstein filed the lawsuit just before the deadline ran out. Settlement was reached in April of this year and he closed on the house on Blythewood in July. For cash—$1.2 million.”
    “Couldn’t part of the payment come from equity in his previous home? That house was appraised at four million.”
    “He owned the previous house only four years, and the sale price was only slightly above the price he paid. Figure in closing costs, and it was a zero-sum game for him. And according to documents he filed in the lawsuit, in which he was trying to demonstrate actual costs related to his wife’s death, he said he tapped into equity to cover her hospital bills.”
    “No insurance?”
    Dorie smiled. “No health insurance. He neglected to add her to the plan he carries through his job, and the insurance company was fighting him every step of the way over that bureaucratic oversight. Yet he didn’t overlook the life insurance. The hospital’s lawyers included that in their findings. His lawyer countered by putting in a claim for the wife’s personal