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I’ve silently stopped begging for normal cases. Normal cases for me are abnormal to everyone except for those that live in comic books. I’ve started to silently begging for ordinary cases. As soon as my perspective client said, “temporal dilation device” I knew it was a normal case.

He was an old man with mostly gray hair and a beard that reminded me of the fast food chicken mascot. He was in a wheelchair and his withered legs told me he’d been in it for a while. He was a kind old man who I liked instantly. He was the kind of guy who you could scratch your ass in front of and he wouldn’t care or even look.

“I’m sorry could you please repeat that Mr. Holland?” I asked.

“Pierce, may I call you Pierce Mr. McKullen?” Mr. Holland asked. I nodded my head. “Pierce my temporal dilation device has been stolen from me and I want it back.”

I translated in my head what those three words meant; temporal meant time, dilation meant change, and device meant thing. That fit with the rest of Mr. Holland’s home. It consisted of three rooms; one was the bedroom that was smaller than mine, a bathroom about the size of the bedroom, and a lab that took up the rest of the ranch home. He was a man after my own heart that his laboratory was his life.

“Who stole your,” I had to resist calling it the time changing thing, “temporal dilation device?”

“You’ll take the case?” Mr. Holland asked.

“I haven’t decided yet. It is the middle of the school year and I do have a great deal of home work.” I said. Being a part time private eye really cut into my further education into becoming a chemical engineer. That’s what I get for only being twenty years old.

“Edward always did give too much homework. He’s the one who told me to talk to you.” Mr. Holland said. Edward was Doctor Edward Pair who believed that weekends where we have forty-eight hours without eight hours of cases mixed in he could give four times as much homework. I greatly dislike Dr. Pair.

“Dr. Pair is a great professor, but if something was stolen you should go to the police.” I said it trying to sound reasonable to the wheelchair-imprisoned man.

“I called them up but as soon as I told them who took it they laughed at me and didn’t even send out a cop to take a report.” Dr. Holland looked madder than his withered old face could have looked a minute ago. “That’s why I don’t want to tell you who took it.”

I sighed knowing this was going to be a difficult. “Well what is a temporal dilation device?” I asked.

“Let me show you the other prototype.” Mr. Holland rolled out into the lab and into a half-circle cut into one of the low lab tables. He pulled out something that might have been a watch if there was some kind of display. “Put this on your wrist and press the green button to start it, and the red button to stop it.”

I didn’t ask what ‘it’ was and just did as I was told. As soon as I press the green button I felt something like static electricity shock my body, and Mr. Holland stopped breathing. I ran over to him and felt for a pulse there wasn’t one. I ran for the phone next to the window and before I reached the phone to call for help I looked out the window to see a bird that was in mid flap of wings. The bird was not moving, neither was the car out on the silent street. I checked out the clock on the wall and found the second hand not moving either. It was exhilarating.

That’s when I noticed how hot I was. My brown hair was sticking to my head with sweat, and it felt like my body had been plunged into a world of heat. I was getting hotter and hotter by the second. Since it was late winter, not quite spring and too warm to snow, the warmth was nice, but by that time it was beyond warm and was really hot. I pressed the red button.

Mr. Holland looked back at me. “You see how dangerous such an invention could be in the wrong hands? I invented it so plants could grow in the blind of an eye, provided there was enough water and nutrients. The problem is that heat. I need to work on how to combat it, and that’s why I needed the money. That’s why I had no problem showing the device to him. I had no idea he would walk off with it.”

“Who is ‘he’ Mr. Holland?” I asked again.

“I have saved up five hundred dollars.” Mr. Holland said with hope in his eyes. “That should afford-“

I held up a hand to cut him off. “If I take the case, and I haven’t said I would, we’ll discuss payment if I can get your thing back.” I realized I called the device ‘thing’ too late but Mr. Holland didn’t seem to notice.

Mr. Holland, or more specifically Dr. Holland, but he didn’t like that title so he liked mister better, sighed. “Congressman West.” I took the case.

Congressman West was one Peter J. West a congressman for Illinois, and the head of the appropriations committee. That’s what Mr. Holland had been talking to West about, getting money for his research. Mr. Holland never could get around the university in his wheelchair, so he worked out of his home, and that meant certain modifications to begging for money from the government. West got a personal plea from Mr. Holland for money, and had even visited. Then took the device from him.

West was a true scum of the Earth human. If such a man as West could be called human. I knew things about him that would make a DA salivate and a tabloid journalist rub his hands together with glee. West was a professional politician, and was milking his reelection fund for just about all the money he had. The kickbacks helped make his fortune. The fact he was a democrat kept the unions voting for him, and let him keep his chair. I hated him more than I hated Dr. Pair but for vastly different reasons.

I was back on my side of Chicago in my bedroom. I live with my uncle for reasons that only my mother in Canada knows for certain. My uncle lives above the nightclub he owns and runs, and usually I don’t mind the music filtering through the floor as I do my homework. I have my bed, burrow, one desk for my computer, and one desk for my homework. I kissed hello to my girlfriend Kelly who lives across the hall in the former band’s room, now a three-room apartment rented out cheep. Kelly’s mother left her husband with Kelly, and the newborn Bart. Now Bart is twelve, and Kelly and I are dating while going to Chicago University. She takes up computers, and I like chemicals, but we still love each other. She helps me out on cases, but only on the information side.

It was three o’clock and I decided to give Congressman West’s office a call. “Congressperson West office,” a happy female voice said. I had a feeling she wasn’t going to sound as cheery by the time I got done with West.

“Hello,” I said putting a Southern twang in my voice, “my name is Henry Walden. I’d like to please speak with Congressman West.”

“The congressperson is a very busy man, may I ask what your concern is?” She sounded so happy and pleased with her job, but I was sure she’d said the same line dozens of times just that day, but she sounded like I was special. Everyone in Washington is in politics.

“I’m calling about his recent acquisition of a temporal dilation device,” I said making sure she heard each and every word even is she didn’t understand them.

“One moment please,” She didn’t sound as happy, but she was pleasant.

The moment turned out to be over an hour and I was wondering if my cellular phone had enough battery power to complete the call. That gave me more than enough time to create e-mail address on one of those free e-mail sites. I had no problem using the name Henry Walden. I was forced to read Walden Pond and hated every word of it, and what I had in mind I had no intention of using my real name.

Then there was a click on the phone. “I don’t believe for a moment your name is Henry Walden.” His voice was gruff and sounded like a leader, even if his actions are different. It was Congressman West.

“Sir I strongly suggest you return the device,” I said. “If you do not I will be forced to take action.”

He laughed at me. “You can tell that senile old man his toy is far too powerful for him, so I will keep it.” Right, I thought, he didn’t con thousands of people to into remembering my name on a certain Tuesday. Mr. Holland didn’t have millions of dollars at his fingertips ready to throw it wherever would get him more votes next time. A scientist could never understand how the device he created could be used.

“I will call back tomorrow to see if you have changed your mind,” I said. He swore at me, and hung up first. This was his chance. I knew he wouldn’t submit to giving back what he took, but I was getting ready to send out my research for when I called back and he proved me right.

Years ago I was in a high school which was trying to get access to the Internet. The federal government gave money to whichever Internet access provider hooked up the school. My high school was having trouble because apparently someone had already claimed to hook up our school. The first thing I found was that the company who filed the claim was nothing more than a business on paper working out of an apartment. Then I found out who set up the business, one of them was congressman West.

Eight elected federal representatives, two of who were senators, and one was a liberal republican, were the ones who formed the business. As you can imagine that federal dollars split eight ways was not a great amount, so they relied on volume to make the con profitable. Then they ran out of schools that had not been hooked up to the Internet, so they made up schools and filed those mythical schools as being hooked up. I even tracked down the address of one of those properties and found a vacant condemned building that never was and never will be a school.

I made sure to have all the information loaded up and ready to go the next day. Every scanned document, e-mail, and scrap of information I could find I put in a special file ready for three o’clock the next day.

I also got to thinking about what I would have done in West’s place. I would have checked Mr. Holland’s computer e-mail accounts, and phone records to see whom he had contacted in the last few days. The e-mail account would have led directly to me, and the black helicopters would have been dispatched. It would have taken me forty-five minutes, but legally it would have taken West about two hours. I made a back up of my hard drive and hid the disk in my uncle’s nightclub where only someone looking could find it. Two hours past and there was no knock on the door with a battering ram, so I went back to concentrating on my history book.

The next day I called Congressman West’s office and again I got the woman with the happy voice. “I’m sorry but Congressman West has chosen not to speak with you.”

“Does he realize that I am prepared to release damning information about him?” I asked with the Southern twang still in my voice.

“Sir please do not swear over the phone or I will have to report you to the FCC.” She sounded so cute with her minor threat making it sound like it was my fault.

“Okay young lady, I’ll call back tomorrow at this time tomorrow to see if Congressman West would like to speak with me.” I shut my phone and pressed the image of the send button on the computer screen with the inappropriately named mouse.

In one second every single major television network, cable news network, local news and radio stations, Internet news groups, AM radio commentators, and a few reporters I knew received my black mail information. I know it really wasn’t true black mail. In black mail you let the person you are black mailing know what you have on him or her. This was revenge. I put one line of text on the e-mail saying to focus on West. I figured the conservative talk show hosts should give me one of their books free for the information I gave them.

CBS got back first with the reply saying they were not going to broadcast rumors. I guess that was because West wasn’t, in their eyes, one of those evil conservatives. Thankfully Drudge was far more accommodating with large THANKS followed by five exclamation marks. Happy that at least it would get out, even if only to the conservative side of the aisle would listen.

The morning newspapers had the story on page two, but that was only because the front page had been made the day before. By afternoon the newspapers had the story verified and printed up. Every news commentator pulled out creative words to make the eight elected officials look like devils. Most Internet groups had even published my picture. None used my name, even the reporters who knew who I was, but they all gave credit to Henry Walden. I couldn’t wait until three o’clock.

On the dot I called Washington D.C. and got the voice that was far less happy this time. “He’s been expecting you.” She sounded like she wanted to slap me.

My other hand was loading up my next piece of black mail, gold. I saw a government gold coin once that cost the owner five hundred dollars, for that was the price of gold, but the coin had a number printed on it that was far less. It seems that the US government in it’s early days didn’t have much hope for the future so they made the gold coins so they could buy it back. They would pay the owner of the coin what the government thought the owner was worth, and it was dozens of times less than the value of the gold itself. They still put a twelve-dollar number on a five hundred dollar coin, and the government will still pay the owner the twelve-dollars.

I wondered when was the last time the US government bought the coins back for twelve dollars. I found out it was only a week before. I also found out the only person who did buy the coins was Congressman West. He would pay the twelve dollars and resell the coins for maybe four hundred dollars. Still a three hundred eighty-eight profit was very good, now multiply this by three hundred times. That 116,400 dollars is in only one year, and West had been doing the scam for fifteen years, and that is 1,746,000 dollars. As long as the people of Illinois kept voting for him, he would add to that number.

If West spent government money to buy the coins, and sold them for money to be used by the government there wouldn’t be a problem. But West went about it in the wrong manner. He used his own money, and there was evidence of the transaction. He used his position to buy the coins and his name is on the list of government purchasers of the coins. Then he sold the coins to reputable coin dealerships and there were transactions of that, and the money going into West’s private bank accounts. I was going to enjoy this.

West picked up the line and swore at me. It was a cleaver swears that not only insulted me, but also my sexual orientation, kin, ancestors, descendants, my mythical dog, and the horse I rode in on. I had to give him credit for originality.

“That first little bit of information was just to get your attention,” I said. I can do a dead on Southern accent when I choose to. “I suggest you give back to Mr. Holland what you stole from him.”

West swore at me some more. “You have no idea what you’ve done?” He sounded as panicked as mad. I was enjoying this.

“I have a good idea. I suggest that you give back the temporal dilation device, or I’ll let everyone know about the gold.” I said. I couldn’t stop smiling. I could almost see the man suddenly forget it was winter and break out in a heavy sweat.

“You had better not,” West said in a threatening tone. He probably used that on his daughter and it never worked for her either.

“Last chance,” I said. “Give back the device or everyone will know.”

He paused for long time. I guess he was thinking about which was worst having everyone know he stole money from the American public, or having the ability to walk through a frozen world of heat. He told me to go someplace hot.

I pressed the send button. “Mr. West I will call tomorrow to hear you have already mailed off the temporal dilation device, for if you have not I will release evidence that will send you to prison for the rest of your life!” I started out the sentence in a low soft voice, but ended it with a loud harsh yelling that I found spittle on my phone later. He hung up, and I did likewise.

I didn’t want to publish the last piece of dirt I had on West. I may not have a problem using blackmail to destroy someone who deserves it, but there are consequences on both sides. The other side of West was the girl he had sex with. Three years before I created my web site, and started on my voyage of being a private detective and a student at the same time. Two years before I got a letter in the mail. In the letter there was a picture of West doing it doggy style with a woman decades younger than his wife, and thankfully wasn’t his daughter. I won’t even name the girl here, but she was only fifteen at the time, and the best friend to Peter West’s daughter.

She told me in the letter that Peter West had seduced her, got her drunk, and then did it with her. He took pictures while they did it on his bed. She had stolen one of the photographs just because she didn’t want to forget how horrible the experience was. Then she found out she was pregnant. In her letter she said she couldn’t live with herself any more. She sent me the letter and the photograph in hopes that I knew what to do with them.

I checked and found that indeed a fifteen-year-old girl had accidentally died when she didn’t have the garage door open while listening to music in the car. She knew how to start the car to listen to the music with better reception in the comfortable seats of the car. I contacted the coroner and asked him to discreetly find out if she was pregnant. Over the phone he did the test and told me that she was pregnant. Then I asked if it was possible to discreetly retrieve the fetal tissue and send it out for DNA testing. I was told it would be taken care of.

It didn’t surprise me when the results of the DNA test disappeared. Someone made the test disappear, but not the tissue. With my own money I had the DNA test done again, and I made sure I got the results. All it would take is one blood sample from West to confirm that he was the father of the never born child.

If it came to it and I had to publish the information I would say that West had raped her. Then her parents, who thought their daughter was just stupid when it came to cars, would know she was stupid when it came to everything including life. I didn’t want to subject her parents to that. Even if it did sent West to prison for the rest of his natural life I didn’t want that set of parents live through the death of their daughter again.

I guess that showed in my face all through the next day. For a Friday most students were happy to be getting free of classes for two days, even if the sky was so overcast that seeing the sun wasn’t an option. Pair didn’t even assign much homework that I think was a favor to me to be honest. I honestly couldn’t stop thinking about how I could get West to hand back the time dilation device without bringing up the dead.

I know it showed for even my sociology professor noticed I was quieter than usual. Typically he discussing some theory took up half the class time and the other half was taken up by picking holes in the theory. I thankfully was no longer alone in using logic to make sociological theories sound like fiction anymore so there was some rebuttal to the professor’s arguments, but not from me. He saw this and expressed his concern for my well-being. I don’t think my arguing with him has become something he liked, but it was something he expected, and when it didn’t happen he was concerned.

My last class of the day was canceled due to the professor being sick, probably of her students, so I got back home just after noon. I sat down at my computer and went through the Internet news quickly. Every news group had run with the gold story faster than they had with the school story. The gold was easier to verify and everyone knew about gold. I was making sure the West name was going to be as vilified as Judas.

I did some homework and then picked up my phone to call Washington. I was expecting to hear the happy voice of the woman, maybe less happy. I was in for a shock. “What did you do to him!” The voice didn’t have a trace of happiness, but it was Congressman West’s receptionist.

“What are you talking about?” I asked forgetting to toss in my southern accent.

“Peter, what did you do to him? He called here saying that when you called to have you call his home in Illinois, but then he was cut off and the phone went dead.” She sounded like she was crying. “What did you do to him!”

“What’s his phone number?” I asked. She kept crying. “What’s his number!” I yelled into the phone and that got her attention. She cried as she gave me the number. I hung up. I felt an ice sickle replace my spinal cord and had to give an involuntary shudder. To be honest I wasn’t so sure why I wanted to know where West was, but I had to know that he was okay. It wasn’t because I respected the man, but more along the lines I wanted to be the person who showed him the gates to Hell. If someone beat me to it then I would have to show him or her the gates to hell.

I once did a job for the phone company, and they had given me access to their database. I don’t know why, but my name also got on the list of automatic e-mails that let me know the new password for the database. I quickly punched up the number that I was given and I got the name on the account, the last cell location it was used in or address, and the last number that had been called out, and into the phone. The name on the account was Peter West, the last location was a cell tower, and the last number called out was the same as the last number called in from West’s office. I plugged in the cell tower number into the map and I got the location for just outside the city Sandwich Illinois. I did a quick property check and found that West had property in the cell tower range.

A quick kiss to Kelly in the hall and I told my uncle that I was taking the car. My uncle knew that when I didn’t ask to use the car I was on a case. He also knew that if he didn’t hear form me in forty-eight hours to get a headstone. I grabbed my bag of tricks and went out into the cold overcast late winter of the Midwest. I sat behind the three-year-old blue compact car and drove southwest.

It didn’t take nearly as long as I had thought it would to take me to the West estate, but I eventually made it to the only house it could have been. On a long lonely county road there was an enormous two-story building. The roof was bark color, but wasn’t, and the walls were wood like, but weren’t. The house was rimmed with three feet of dirt spotted by dead or dying plants. Behind the house were rolling hills with lake Holiday not far away. The large concrete driveway was empty except for the basketball hoop on the edge between concrete and brownish green grass, and two parallel black lines. The twin one and a half garage doors were closed, but the white door next to them had something other than glass and a doorknob on it. I passed the house twice before I decided to stop.

I grabbed by bag of tricks and went from the side of the street to the house. It wasn’t a safe place to park, but I guessed that anyone coming would see the car a mile away and know to avoid it. My bag of tricks was in fact my old high school backpack, which would not have been able to support my college books, so now I had all manor of detective stuff in it. One of those items in my bag was my digital camera, which I took out when I saw what the parallel lines were tire tracks. They were from a large truck of some kind, but I didn’t bother to learn all the tires of all the trucks out there, that are what computers were for. I took pictures of both rows of tracks just so I could have the evidence incase things just happened to disappear. I also took note that the tires were even, so either the driver was very slight, or there were two of them to put even pressure on the tires as the truck spun out.

Then I went to the side door of the house and was shocked at what I saw just to the left of the doorknob. It was a very large, very well defined boot print. There was a particular wear pattern on the print so it was as good as a fingerprint. That’s when I got out two more things from by bag, gloves and paper socks for my shoes. I got a snapshot of the shoe print and then eased the door inward. The jamb was splintered and the door didn’t have any resistance.

The door opened to the kitchen, which was spotless except for the wood on the floor. I carefully stepped to the edges as I walked around the lower level of the home. The first floor had the kitchen, the dinning room, a lounge, a living room, a den, a bathroom with shower, pantry, and utility closet. I saw nothing to give any indication that someone had recently invaded the house until I saw the security alarm panel. It was reading ‘phone deactivate’ on the green-lit LCD screen. Now that was interesting. Someone could call in and deactivate the security alarm. If I ever became rich I would have to remember that feature for myself.

The stairs that went to the second floor were either the large ones at the front of the house, or the small ones in the back. I took the back ones. As soon as I set foot on the carpeted step I could smell it. That harsh acidic smell that gets into your nose no matter what you do. It was urine. I stepped up and it wasn’t until I was halfway up when I smelled something else that landed on my senses like a sack of concrete. It was that heavy dull smell that only something alive, or previously alive, could make. It was the smell of something that belonged in the toilet. I had set foot on the top floor when I smelled that last thing that I knew meant that they hadn’t forgotten a dog. It was the bitter metallic smell that coated your tongue and wouldn’t go away. It was blood.

I slowly walked around the edges of the carpet on the second floor checking every room except for the one that smelled. There were two spare bedrooms, one that clearly was the daughter’s, and a bathroom twice the size of my bedroom, and then the master bedroom with a bed that had to have a fitted mattress for the size of the frame. With all the other rooms checked I went to the door to the smelly room.

Careful not to disturb any fingerprints that might have been left I opened the door. It was an office or a library with the side walls lined with bookshelves with as many books as knickknacks sitting on the wood shelves. The back wall was not a wall, but windows from floor to ceiling that might give person vertigo if they weren’t careful. In the middle of the room close to the windows was a large desk filled with papers, trays, a child like home made pencil holder, a computer, and an antique style brass phone. Behind the desk was a leather chair, and in that chair was West, no longer with us.

The same carpet that was in the hall way was in the office, and it made the blood stain near the chair stand out. In the chair West was looking up into the air with his throat slit from ear to ear, and his life blood seeping into his shirt and pooling under the chair. His suit jacket was on the back of the chair, and his necktie was loosened, and the top button on his shirt was undone. All this was stained brownish red as well as his hands and shirt cuffs. He didn’t even have time to roll them up. On the arm of the leather chair was his cellular phone balanced just so the slightest movement of the chair would have made it drop to the seat or the floor.

I played it out in my mind what had happened. Someone waited until West was in his home. They somehow knew that the security alarm was shut off, or shut it off themselves, and kicked in the door to the kitchen. Then they went up the stairs to the office, somehow opened the door when West wasn’t looking or paying attention. They crept up behind him, and slit his throat. West would have dropped his phone as his hands went to his throat. He would have dropped to the floor, which explained the bloodstain. Then the killer dragged West’s body to the chair, and sat him down. He wouldn’t have been alive for then they shut off the phone and put it on the arm of the chair. Then they ran like hell to their truck outside and drove like a mad man, or woman.

The why flashed into my mind and I looked down at the bulge under the right blood soaked cuff. I didn’t want to touch the body, but I had to know if under that sleeve was a Rolex watch, or something that would freeze time. Careful not to touch too much of the body, I lifted the sleeve and saw something plastic with red and green buttons on it. I let out a breath I was holding and slipped the temporal dilation device down to his wrist where I could take off the band. It had dried, and not so dried, blood on it, but that would wash off. I slipped the time change thing in a paper bag, so the blood could dry.

I knew that I hadn’t killed West, but who did? Any detective worth his salt would know that the blood free spot on his wrist would tip something was stolen. Mr. Holland’s e-mail service would delete any evidence of a sent file after three days of sending the e-mail, so I was safe on that front. Still, reporters knew that I had been making Congressman West’s life hell, and as soon as they learned he was dead they would be after me. I swore to a spirit. Of all the things I didn’t need was to try and figure out how West had been murdered.

The first thing was to get my uncle’s car off the road. I got out of the place and slipping off the socks and gloves walked leisurely to the car. I was pleased to see the dead leaf was still on the road, where it had been when I went into the house, so no cars had gone by. Something that I never do is panic, and when I had a murder to solve it wasn’t time for that. In the dead of winter the last place anyone would be at was an ice-cream parlor, so that’s where I went. I got a banana split, with the vanilla in between chocolate and strawberry, with a banana on either side, a mound of whipped cream on top, and a cherry directly over each scoop of ice cream. I sat down at the front windows to catch the last of the day’s overcast defused light.

I ate half my treat and pulled out my laptop computer. Hooked into my cellular phone I began checking things out. The house had four phone lines, one for the fax machine, two for the phones, and one for the security alarm. I laughed at the idea that a man who proposed that anyone with more than one phone line should get taxed triple would have four phone lines. I checked the security line, and found that there were two calls into it. The one was from Peter West, well that wasn’t a big surprise. The last one was from an unknown number to me, so I checked it out. The name that came back made me choke on a cherry. The name was Ann West, Peter West’s daughter.

My mind flashed back to the tire tracks. A very light person might have made them, but then I banished the idea from my mind when I remembered the boot print. It had to be a man, two men. I plugged my camera into the laptop and down loaded the photos of the tire tracks. When the computer beeped that the down load was finished, and I had a large mocha milkshake in my hand. I then pulled up the program I used to match tire tracks. While the computer ran I kept trying to figure out how the daughter fit into the game. Why did she call to shut off the security system so someone could get into the house, sneak up on her dad and kill him? Could it have been boys from school she had seduced into killing her father? Why? Did she learn about her father with her friend two years before?

My computer beeped and it showed that the tire tracks led to a Dodge Ram. That’s about as far as it got, because it seems that the Dodge company used the tire on many models, and on multiple years. I cursed at that. I went back to the only thing I had left, the phone records of Ann West.

I checked the more detailed records. It was a typical seventeen-year-old girl’s phone. There were calls from just before seven in the morning, then a pause until just before noon and then an hour of almost nonstop use, and then a pause until about three in the afternoon and use off and on until about ten at night. Most of the calls came from the same five cell locations. The two that stood out were made that day, and two days before from the same location. One of those calls was to the security system. Not only was the cell tower used completely different type of number, but also from the time when Ann would have been in school.

It only took one check to know where the tower used was. Then I remembered something I had forgotten. Wilma West, Peter West’s wife, was a lobbyist in Washington, and there was a rumor that she wanted her husband’s job. The tower used was from Washington. Could Peter West’s own wife have sent two men to kill her husband? The thought sounded enticing, but I had no real proof.

The number from two days before was far more delicious. Whoever or whatever Myers and More were it had been on the other end of the caller from Washington for over ten minutes. The nice thing was Myers and More happened to be right there in Sandwich. I thanked the workers at the ice-cream parlor and drove to where I had found the store on the map. It seemed that Myers and More was a hunting supply shop that sold everything from bows and arrows, to guns and knives, and even fake deer for target practice. With night upon the world, and the store brightly lit from inside I could see two large men through the large front windows. They looked so strong they could have snapped me in half, twice, independently. I drove slowly around the side of the shop and saw a Dodge Ram truck out the back of the building.

I smiled as I drove past down a rocky alley. It was time for a phone call. I suppose I could have waited around to see the fireworks, but didn’t bother. I got back on the state rout headed home for Chicago before I made the call.

“Homicide Detective Howard Green,” His voice was in mid sigh, as it always seemed to be when he talked on the phone.

“High Green it’s me Pierce,” I said happily into the phone.

“Pierce why do I get the feeling you’re about to give me a great deal of paperwork?” Green has always been a good detective, and always knew that I would never make him do anything without a damn good reason.

“I want to call in an anonymous tip,” I said. Green quickly took my meaning. “Congressman Peter West has been murdered.”

I could hear Green’s chair squeak as he sat up. “You’re kidding me.”

“No he’s in his home in the city of Sandwich on the corner of Dekalb County. The two men who killed him are at Myers and More hunting supply store in the city of Sandwich. I believe that Peter West’s wife Wilma West hired them to kill her husband.” I said putting the pieces together. “She cloned her daughter’s phone and used it to shut off the security alarm so the two guys to get in.”

There was a brief pause on the other end. I had a feeling that Green was making notes on his unauthorized notebook. “Do you have any proof of this?”

“There are tire tracks on the concrete drive way at the West place, and a huge boot print on the door near the garage. I saw tires that matched the ones on concrete to the ones at the hunting supply store. I suggest you get going before the daughter gets out of school and disturbs the crime scene.” I said.

“Right, thanks, I’ll take care of it.” Green said and hung up.

I drove on home and filled the tank before giving the keys back to my uncle. With that done, and hoping he was still awake, I called Mr. Holland. He sounded so happy to hear that I had retrieved his device he forgave me for waking him. We agreed I’d come by the next day and I’d bring lunch.

Green called around midnight and told me that the brothers who worked at Myers and More rolled over as soon as they saw a police car. Apparently they knew Wilma West from when they helped her campaigned for her husband. She talked them into using their hunting skills to stalk and kill Peter for twenty-five thousand dollars each. The brothers said she wanted the black mail on her husband stopped before it became something serious enough to ruin her own chances at a house seat. Green told how the DA was grinning when he served Wilma with an arrest warrant, and then she admitted to having her husband killed for in her words, “only the dead can become saints.”

As my client I told Mr. Holland everything I knew the next day. Over lemon chicken and fried rice I talked about the black mail. The old scientist couldn’t stop from smiling as I told him how I made the man squirm. Over hot tea I also told him how I found Peter West, and how I tracked down the rest. The old man listened to everything and by the time I had finished he was looking at me with more respect than before.

“You’ll become an excellent chemical engineer,” He said in his harsh voice.

“Why thank you,” I said accepting his gratitude and I had hopes of his money.

“You don’t give up, and you look at every possibility, no matter how narrow, and you deserve the entire five hundred dollars I had saved up,” He said with a smile wheeling his chair to the far end of the lab.

“Maybe you should save that money for your research,” I suggested. I did want his money, but I had to give him a chance.

“No need son I’m getting the funding I wanted,” Mr. Holland said coming back to me with an envelope. “I decided that the public sector is far too messy for me. A private company has agreed to back my research. I have no problem with that.” As long as the job gets done I thought.

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