Page 2 - Labelle Gramercy, On the Case

Polished Off

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I didn’t particularly care for the woman. Ours had been a business
relationship, despite her obvious attempts at vamping me every time
she had an appointment. Mariana S. Trench was not my cup of tea,
and a mature successful attorney should be able to avoid any
unwanted entanglements with his clients. This one was a piece of
work: loud and abrasive, with a nasal honking voice compounded by
chronic sinus trouble; I had to open the windows after she left to
dispel the heavy miasma of her overdosed perfume. Her outfits
looked like she rose in the morning determined to wrap herself as a
Christmas present for the luckiest man on earth; but the effect was
always mutton dressed as lamb—if she ever had a clue what lambs
were wearing this decade. How she wound up running a bookstore
would have been anyone’s guess but mine: I knew she inherited it,
lock, stock and barrel, from her father, one of my first clients.
Then late on a fine summer morning, the day after returning near
midnight from a two-week holiday in one of our state’s tamer
watering holes, just as I was beginning to ponder the conundrum of
lunch, I learned of her sudden death. The receptionist connected me
without comment.
“P.G.? Your name is on the list. You should know that Mariana
died in her office this morning. Anything you want me to do?”
It was Iris Call, long-time and long-suffering manager-cum-clerk
at Bibliopoly. So much did her rasping ex-smoker’s voice grate
against my still-vacationing sensibilities that I did not think to ask
what list, or what other names appeared on it, above or below mine.
Thus began the series of intellectual lacunae in this matter leading, I
must confess, to my comeuppance at the hands of another, very
strange woman.
“Oh. Please accept my profoundest condolences, Ms. Call. As her
attorney, I must advise you not to displace any documents related to
the business. In fact, you should probably try to keep things going
there, at least until the disposition of her assets can be undertaken—
sorry, I mean, performed. This must be a terrible personal loss to
you.”
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