Status Updates From Body Work (V.I. Warshawski,...

“Most of my work is for corporate clients who pay me with money they get from grinding the faces of the poor in the dirt. Does that make me acceptable as a human being, that I’m just as much a part of the system as everyone else who comes into your bar?”

“One of those days, Erica. Just not in the mood.” I’d never be able to prove I was right, not unless I found a way to make Prince Rainier speak. I laughed to myself, thinking of Darraugh calling me after his mongrel terrier. Speak, Prince Rainier! Or I will sink my teeth into your calf.

With Rainier’s help, they thought it through and came up with a brilliant plan: dispose of two birds with one bullet. Shoot Nadia, frame Chad for her death, then make it look like he committed suicide by lacing his beer with roofies. Just another PTSD Iraqi vet who took the violent way out.

I squinted at the text, but finally had to enlarge it and read it a few words at a time. I hated to think that glasses lay in my future, that my eyesight was dimming as my body was slowing down. Weren’t there any compensations for turning fifty?

Freeman’s bill is one of the things that keeps me from ever getting ahead of the game financially. But the alignment between the law and me is such that I need the best defense lawyer in town. Even though my outstanding balance right now was close to sixty thousand,

Oh, the computer age. It’s been good for me, in a way. I used to write my notes on scraps of paper and lose them in the landfill on my worktable. Now everything’s tidily laid out in my Investigator’s Casebook spreadsheets, which automatically updates my handheld.