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Chapter 41

"So . . . those were some of the boss's old associates?" Mindenhall asked Glibspet the next morning.

"Yeah, wanted to know where he was," Glibspet said, pouring himself a cup of strong brew from the office's Mr. Coffee. He passed a cup to his assistant.

"Thanks." Mindenhall added a spoonful of sugar and stirred. "So what did you tell them?"

Glibspet shrugged. "That he had started a puppy farm in Chatham County last I heard."

"Is that true?"

"I think so—he doesn't talk to me much anymore. It wasn't what they wanted to hear, though."

Mindenhall looked troubled. "I thought they couldn't hurt us," he said.

"Define hurt," Glibspet said. He took a sip of his coffee. A little bland, he thought, but he doubted Craig would take well to some of his favorite flavorings. "It didn't hurt me to be doused with Karo syrup," he continued. "And if I ram my nuts into the edge of the desk trying to get away from them, well, they didn't do that, did they?"

Mindenhall winced in involuntary sympathy. "Where in the world did they get Karo syrup?"

"I'm sure Hell has a pantry," Glibspet said darkly and took another sip. "It's probably on the shelf right next to the Puppy-on-a-Sticks." That was true, actually, though he'd gotten his bottle at Food Lion. "Anyway, I doubt they'll bother us again."

Mindenhall sighed. "I hope not. My priest is unhappy enough about me working here without my running into demons." He finished his coffee and crumpled the cup violently, throwing the wet ball of Styrofoam towards the recycle bin. "Of course, he's always been unhappy with the whole gay thing too, even though I've been celibate lately, so what's one more sin?"

"I like that line of thought, Craig." Glibspet looked into Mindenhall's eyes for a long moment, then winked.

Mindenhall smiled, hesitantly at first, then with more assurance. "You've got a one-track mind, Dom," he told Glibspet, "but maybe your track leads to my station."

Progress, thought Glibspet. Solid progress. "I hope the train's an express." He set his cup down. "Now, what were you bringing me last night?"

Mindenhall went over to his desk and opened his briefcase. "Just this." He extracted a large manila envelope. "I checked the papers and the police. I've got thirty-one deaths here that meet your profile. Thought they would be worth a closer look."

"Great. Burn me some copies, then start running the standard checks. Credit histories, insurance payouts, college records, the works. I want to know anything that doesn't fit."

Glibspet watched appreciatively as Mindenhall bent over the copy machine. Soon. Very soon.

Mindenhall handed him the warm sheets of paper. Glibspet took them into his office, and after a moment's consideration, closed the door.

There were things Craig couldn't check, he reflected, like whether a decedent was currently in Hell. He got out the red modem and attached all the wires. All he wanted this time was a bunch of simple yes or no queries; it should be easy enough to program the specifics into a script so he could go on and do other things. He only had a few menus to navigate through.

Two hours, with every curse he could think of laid on the head of whoever had designed the brain-dead COBOL-like scripting language for his com program, Glibspet finally finished his "simple" query. And it had only taken him twice as long as doing it by hand would have. A programmer had once told him that she couldn't find much difference between Hell and COBOL; of course, that had been before she went into the Pit. Still, he was starting to see her point.

He hit run and listened to the modem dial. It dialed only seven digits—Hell is never long distance. He listened to the modems handshaking; then, satisfied that he had a connection, Glibspet turned to his map.

The map was a large-scale representation of the Triangle area and covered most of the right wall of his office. There were pushpins stuck in various spots, some green and some amber. As yet, he could find no real pattern. Glibspet took the morning's Raleigh News & Courier and leafed through the main and local sections.

He found two possibles. The first was a Chapel Hill kid dying of cancer. His dog had gone missing, and when it did, the boy lost the will to live. Suddenly, after three months, the dog showed up—but at the hospital, not the home—and the kid started responding to chemo. The second was an attempted robbery at a suburban Southern National branch that failed when the intended robber's bullet missed the clerk standing two feet in front of him, triggered the silent alarm, and caused a short circuit that overloaded the light fixture directly above him, cracking the globe which fell on his head and knocked him out. Incredible coincidence or Divine Providence? Inquiring minds wanted to know.

Glibspet pushed two new green pins into the map. Interesting . . . Was there a cluster roughly centered on Research Triangle Park, or was it a statistical anomaly? Glibspet just didn't believe in coincidences. Maybe it was time to hit the road and run down some of his best prospecting leads from the same general area.

 

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Framed