"Thanks," I said.

"Yeah, well… you did good, kid." Jack chucked my chin. "But don't let it go to your head or anything. You're still green as a broken traffic light."

"I may be green, but I'm far from done." I folded my arms. "And you're not off the hook, either. There's a pretty heavy situation still going on in my time."

"I know, baby. I haven't forgotten."

"Good," I said, then admitted something that was still bothering me. "There's still one thing about your case I don't understand."

"What's that?"

"Why didn't Mrs. Burwell take you up on your offer to help nail the blackmailer?"

"The lady just wanted out. And that's what she got."

"But her husband admitted to her that he was going to let a murderer walk free! How can she live with that?"

"You don't understand these cliff dwellers, baby. The threat of scandal might sound like a punch line to some floozy in the Bowery, but women with Mrs. Burwell's address would never survive the shame of a tabloid blitz. Society's circle would close her out. She'd be shunned by friends, family… ruined. It's a long way down from a Manhattan DA's wife to an object of pity. Alcohol and pills is the typical end for dames in that situation. I've seen it before. They're lucky if they don't get a trip to Bellevue and a nice long stay at a cackle factory."

"But Jack… she's buying her freedom with a man's life."

"Mrs. Burwell didn't stab Irving Vreen, sweetheart. Hedda Geist did."

"With the help of Pierce Armstrong," I pointed out. "And Wilma Brody."

"Well, Wilma's dead," Jack reminded me. "You told me that yourself. She died in 1966 in a horseback riding accident-the same year some journalist tried to open a can of worms on the Vreen murder."

"But Pierce is still alive," I noted. "And so is Hedda."

"And that's why you've got to be careful," Jack warned. "You're in the middle of a kettle that's been boiling for decades. And it just might explode in your face. Keeping watching your back, honey."

"I will. As long as you keep watching it, too."

"I always do."

"Not my backside, Jack. My back." He laughed.

A few minutes later, our cab pulled over and Jack paid the fare. As we climbed onto the sidewalk, Jack touched my arm.

"Be a doll, okay?" He took a bill from his pocket and handed it to me. "Take that sweet backside of yours into the drugstore on the corner. Buy me a deck of Luckies and meet me upstairs in my office."

"What am I? Your secretary?"

"For the moment? Yeah, you are. My old one quit last week to get hitched. Just be grateful I haven't put you to work yet typing and filing."

"Ha! From the complete lack of organization in those dusty files of yours that Kenneth Franken sent over, I'd say you needed to hire a new secretary badly."

"I'll take it under advisement."

We parted ways on the sidewalk. As Jack took his building's elevator up, I ducked into the corner drugstore. I bought the cigarettes for him, a candy bar for me, and took the same elevator north to his office. The clanging lift may have been new in Jack Shepard's day but to me it felt like an ancient relic. It had a hard-to-close cage and it squealed and squeaked and seemed to take forever to climb the few flights up. Finally, I arrived.

I pulled back the cage and stepped onto green linoleum. When I found Jack's office, the door was wide open.

"Jack?"

No lights were on. I glanced around the dim room. "My god!"

The place was in chaos! Files were strewn everywhere! Chairs were overturned! I flipped on the light.

"Jack!"

I found him slumped on the floor in the corner. His head was bleeding. "Jack, can you hear me? Jack!"

He groaned, his eyelids fluttered and he slowly sat up. "Oh, my head. Those SOBs… they didn't give me a chance…"

"What happened?"

"I got jumped. A couple of goons were in here riffling through my files. I'm pretty sure one of them was our old friend Egbert. They must have heard me coming because they were hiding when I opened the door. Then wham!" He gingerly touched the lump swelling on his forehead.

"What did they want, Jack?"

The PI slowly rose from the floor. I helped him get to his feet. Once he was steady, he walked over to his secretary's desk.

"It's gone," he said with a disgusted exhale. "I figured it would be. Everything was right here and they took it. The reports, the photos…"

"Nathan Burwell's file?"

"Yeah, baby. Even if I'd wanted to turn him into the feds or the state bar, I'd have no evidence to back my story. They took it all."

"So that's why you told me what you did the other day-not to bother looking for the file."

"Yeah." He patted the breast pocket of his suit jacket. "Mrs. Burwell's envelope's gone, too. The DA's hired goons took it all."

"All that money? Oh, Jack… "

"Looks like its back to the salt mines for me. But it's not a total wipe. I still got you as a secretary-"

"Excuse me? Don't you mean partner?"

"Partner, huh?" Jack shook his head. "I don't know…"

"After all we've been through, don't you think I've earned it?"

The PI's lips lifted ever so slightly. "I'll have to think about it."

"Fine. You just call me when you're done thinking about it-"

Jack caught my wrist before I could walk away. "Dames. Why are they so much trouble?" "I'm no trouble!"

"Oh, yeah? Let's test that theory. C'mere…"

Jack jerked me close, into his arms. He kissed me and I kissed him right back. Then his lips were on my cheek, my jaw, my neck.

"Oh, Jack… " I sighed. "That feels like heaven… " I closed my eyes, wanting the feeling to go on forever- Ring-ring! Ring-ring! Ring-ring! Ring-ring!

I OPENED MY eyes. Sunlight was blasting through my window pane, morning had come without notice, and I was alone in bed. Jack's body was gone. His arms were no longer around me. His kisses had faded on the last wisp of dream.

Ring- ring! Ring- ring!

Ring- ring! Ring- ring!

Ring- ring!-

I sat up and slapped off my plastic alarm clock with enough force to crack the case.

CHAPTER 17. Quibbling over Clues

BUD NAPP SLAMMED his ball peen hammer on the table. "Motion carried," proclaimed the hardware store owner. "I'll draft a letter of protest to the mayor today, and deliver it in person first thing Monday morning."

He set the hammer down and lifted his paper cup of coffee. Bud paused, the cup halfway to his lips. "I'll inform 'his honor' that every member of this organization refuses to pay these unfair fines-and I can't wait to see the look on that mealy-mouthed politician's face."

Getting every last one of the Quibblers-aka, the Quindicott Business Owners Association-to attend a meeting at eight-thirty on a Sunday morning might have seemed insane a week ago. But a second round of two-hundred-dollar littering tickets written to every business on Cranberry Street automatically rendered everyone fit for a straightjacket.

The previous evening's Film Festival party on the Commons had left a pile of trash on the city streets, and the mayor decided to levy punishing fines on all of the business owners to cover the cost of clean-up.

As soon as Bud found the ticket plastered to his hardware store's front door, he made a few phone calls. He discovered, after dragging the police chief out of bed, that Ciders had been leaned on by the mayor, who was threatened with political punishment by none other than Councilwoman Marjorie Binder-Smith-and her wealthy Larchmont Avenue backers. So Bud had called this emergency meeting.