Monkey on a Chain by Harlen Campbell Read Free Book Online Page A

car lot. He was expecting me, and his receptionist showed me right in. I hadn’t told him who I was or that April would be along. When he saw her, he spilled some of his coffee.
    “April!”
    She smiled shyly. “Hello, Mr. Pearson.”
    He fumbled with some papers, trying to regain his composure. I put April in a chair to one side and took the seat facing him. His reaction to the girl puzzled me. Since he didn’t want to start the conversation, I took the initiative.
    “I am an old friend of James Bow,” I told him. “I understand you were his attorney.”
    He admitted he was.
    “Did you handle his personal affairs as well as his business?”
    “I did.” He cleared his throat and avoided looking at April. “May I ask what this is about?”
    “His death, at least insofar as it affects his daughter.”
    That made him even more nervous for some reason. He asked what I meant.
    “He was murdered. You know that.”
    “I read the papers,” he said.
    “Murdered. In a way that threatens April. I want to know what happened, why he was killed. But first, I want to be sure it had nothing to do with April, and that she will be safe.”
    “I don’t know why he was killed.”
    “You know something about his business. You may know if his death resulted from something he was doing there.”
    “I don’t. As far as I know, his business dealings were all aboveboard. He was scrupulously honest.”
    “There was no unexplained income? No missing assets?”
    “No.”
    I stared at the man for a few seconds. “Did you write his will?”
    He nodded. “I did.”
    “Was there anything unusual in it, any strange bequests?”
    He wouldn’t meet my eyes. “No. None. He left everything to his family.”
    I was getting a very bad feeling. “Do you mean the reading has already taken place?”
    “Yes.” He cleared his throat. “Yesterday afternoon.”
    “How could that be without his daughter present?”
    Pearson looked directly at me. “James Bow didn’t have a daughter.” He looked at April for the first time and added, “I’m sorry.”
    I looked at her too. She sat frozen in her chair, staring at the lawyer. “Then who is this?” I asked.
    “She is a woman known to me as April Bow. She lived with my client. She represented herself as his daughter.”
    “Did he represent her as his daughter?”
    “He may have.”
    I looked at him like a target. I spoke softly. “May have…?”
    He shrank a bit. “Yes…Yes, he did. As his adopted daughter.”
    “But she isn’t.” I kept my voice as flat as possible.
    “To my knowledge, Mr. Bow never adopted anyone.”
    “Do you know why he told people that April was his daughter, that he had adopted her?”
    “I do not.”
    My face felt flushed. I was angrier than I’d been in years. “God damn it!” I said, “You must know something!”
    Pearson flinched. “Nothing,” he said. “Nothing of his actions with respect to Miss…to April…And nothing about his death. I’m sorry.” He was speaking to the girl. She sat with her eyes wide open, her cheeks wet. “I am very truly sorry,” he told her.
    I controlled my breathing. Anger is an enemy. “Then what do you know? Who were his heirs?”
    “I can’t say that. You know I can’t say that.”
    I stood suddenly and leaned over his desk. I grabbed his tie and pulled him toward me. His face turned purple. I hissed in his ear. “You can say. You will say. Look at me.”
    He rolled his eyes upward until they bulged at my face. They widened at what they saw there. He croaked. “Okay.”
    I let him go and he fell back into his chair. He started to reach toward the telephone, but I had the gun out and he saw it and stopped. After a moment he closed his eyes. “Put that away,” he said.
    “Do you know what’s at stake here?” I asked.
    “I think so.”
    “Then don’t make any mistakes.”
    “No,” he agreed. “Can you be discreet?”
    “I’m a grave.”
    He took a deep breath. “What do you want to