The Last Word Read Online Free PDF Page B

inmate go?”
    “Fine. Why do you ask?” D said. He said it defensively, if I was not mistaken.
    “Because I usually ask about these cases. Is there a reason you don’t want to talk
     about the interview?”
    “No,” D said, pulling the file from his desk. “His name is Louis Myron Washburn. He
     was convicted twelve years ago of armed robbery and second-degree murder. The witness
     ID seems shaky. During the first interview she said it was the wrong man and then
     changed her mind. Looks like a case of an unreliable cross-racial witness ID and maybe
     some unhealthy influence from the cops. Washburn has a rap sheet—assault, possession
     with intent to sell. The police probably were itching to take him down.”
    “If you need any help, let me know,” I said. “Vivien, I need you to serve papers next
     week. One looks cut-and-dried. He’s knows it’s coming. The other is a divorce situation.
     The wife has filed and the husband has made himself scarce. I tried to serve him two
     days ago at the golf course and he took off in his golf cart. Since he got a look
     at me, I figured you could have a go at it. Considering your history with golf carts,
     I’d rather you try to servehim at home. Other than that, I don’t have much. Hope you have some papers due next
     week.”
    “I can handle being at a golf course,” Vivien said.
    “I don’t want to risk it.”
    Just then my sister Rae entered the office, eating a lone pancake folded like a taco.
    “Have you tried these pancakes?” Rae said. “I think Mom stole your secret recipe,
     D.”
    “I don’t believe in secret recipes,” D said.
    “Colonel Sanders would disagree with you, and that is why Colonel Sanders is rich
     and you have enough money to put a down payment on a one-bedroom apartment in the
     East Bay.”
    Quick explanation for the mildly hostile exchange: When D was exonerated, Rae relentlessly
     encouraged him to file a lawsuit for malicious prosecution. After almost a year of
     debating his options, Demetrius finally agreed. He had a solid case, but both parties
     wanted to avoid the public scrutiny of a lengthy and costly civil trial. D was given
     a fair offer but never disclosed the sum to my sister, since she’s got a habit of
     offering unsolicited financial advice. Rae merely assumed that it was a paltry settlement
     and has been on D’s case ever since. It was not a paltry settlement. But D has managed
     to be conservative with his investments and unless my sister opened his bank statements,
     she’d be none the wiser. I can always see a veiled smirk of satisfaction on D’s face
     when Rae trips over the subject.
    “Is there something we can do for you, Rae?” I asked.
    There was a time it seemed that my sister and I, together, were the future of Spellman
     Investigations. As a child she was far more interested in the family business than
     I ever pretended to be. But people change, I’ve discovered. Their goals and motivations
     make invisible seismic shifts over time. My sister learned that you can’t get rich
     being a PI; since she readily admits that money is her first love, the job eventually
     lost its luster. Nowadays, Rae always manages to find lucrative part-time employment
     and will only take a Spellman job under extreme duress. She comes to the house for
     the obligatory Sunday-night dinners and is rarely heard from in between.
    “I’ve got a case,” Rae said. “A friend of mine hired a moving and storage company
     when she moved out of her apartment over summer and took a short holiday. She signed
     a contract for the full service and paid fifty percent up front, which was twelve
     hundred dollars. The services they were to provide included packing up her belongings
     from her old apartment, keeping them in storage for four to six weeks, and then moving
     them to the new location within a twenty-five-mile radius. When my client arranged
     for the delivery of her stored items, the movers held her belongings