AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Well, it was right here. Maybe it was put back in the wrong place.” She went through the other drawers, without success.
“Well, that is strange,” she said more to herself than to them. “It’s not here.”
“When was the last time the letter was accessed?” asked Jamison.
“Why, when Mr.Costa was here. But I know that I put it back in here.”
“Could anyone else have gotten to it?”
“Well, I’m the only one here. We do leave the door unlocked during the day, though, so I guess if I’m in the back and someone comes in but doesn’t call out to me, they could come in here without my knowing. But who would do that?”
“Can you tell us what was in the letter?”asked Decker.
“Yes, because I read through it quite thoroughly when I got it out for Mr. Costa. It was nothing special. Baron had written to a company about the construction of another building at his textile mill. It had to do with the purchase of equipment, clay, lots of concrete, brick molds, those sorts of things. I didn’t consider it important, really. It was just business.”
“When was the letter dated?” asked Decker.
“About a year before his death.”
“Was it a local company he was writing to?” asked Jamison.
“No, it was a company from Pittsburgh.”
“Do you remember the name?” asked Jamison.
“Oh, let me think. Yes, that’s right. O’Reilly and Sons. I remember because my mother-in-law’s maiden name was O’Reilly.”
“But I presume Costa was interested in the letter?” said Decker. “Since you pulled it out for him?”
“Well, yes. But that letter was really the only thing I could find about any business correspondence. We mostly had to rely on the Baron family for any such materials, and apparently they either didn’t have much, or else they didn’t want to part with it.”
“Well, thankyou for your help,” said Jamison.
As they were walking back to their truck she said, “Well, that’s strange that the letter went missing. Do you think Costa stole it?”
“Maybe. Or maybe someone else did.”
“I wish we had learned more.”
“Well, we have a new question we need an answer to.”
“What?”
“What did Baron the First really use the stuffhe ordered for? Because it wasn’t for a textile mill expansion.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because of what Detective Green already told us.”
