The Case of the Yellow Diamond by Carl Brookins Read Free Book Online Page B

to find Deephaven, should I ever need to do so.
    â€œI appreciate the lunch invitation, Mr. Anderson. How may I be of service?” Unlike the hostess, whom I could hear behind me seating other guests, I was anxious to get down to the meat of the matter. I figured if I kept a light pressure on, Mr. Attorney Anderson might not only reveal his agenda, but a few other choice tidbits as well. I’m always willing to receive choice tidbits.
    He smiled, nodded at someone I couldn’t see, and said, “Let’s order, shall we? I understand the broiled salmon is quite good today.” Then he proceeded to do exactly that, having downed half his martini. For both of us. He didn’t order the broiled salmon. Instead we had cold smoked salmon steaks with a small boiled potato and a crisp arugula salad combined with a light balsamic and oil dressing and half a thinly sliced tomato. It was a dynamite lunch and I said so. He airily waved the compliment away. I got the impression he might not have known the difference if the salad was limp iceberg and the salmon was hard and dry, which it certainly wasn’t.
    He had another dry martini, and I had another glass of water. He took a sip and got down to business, speaking just loudly enough so I could hear him over the other conversations in the room.

 
    Chapter 7
    A s I’m sure you are aware, Mr. . . . Sean, I have had the privilege of serving the Pederson financial interests for some time, and more recently those of Tod and Josie Bartelme,” Gary began. “Even though neither of the Bartelmes has the kind of investment resources our firm normally deals with, we are happy to be assisting Mr. Pederson’s daughter to realize a comfortable retirement.”
    â€œI assume there’s some depletion of those resources going on at the moment.”
    â€œIndeed, you assume correctly. This near obsession of Josie’s to locate her clearly deceased granduncle Amundson is not only taking up a considerable amount of time, it’s now eating into the family retirement resources.”
    â€œYou needn’t go into the details, but I am curious as to why you are telling me this,” I said, taking another sip of water.
    â€œI decided it would be wise for you to be in the picture, so to speak, in order for you to better understand current family dynamics. Ordinarily an outsider like yourself wouldn’t have this kind of access. I’m aware that Tod and Josie have already talked rather freely, which is their right, of course.”
    Yeah, their right, and Anderson didn’t approve. I could tell.
    â€œMr. Pederson, out of his not inconsiderable resources, largely financed the first two expeditions to the South Pacific,” he continued. “After Tod established the website and they made contact with veterans groups around the nation, and word of their quest got out, some contributions came in. They got a lot more requests for information than they did money, unfortunately. A few people even asked if they could hitchhike along. It is hard to imagine why there seems to be so much interest in this project. There are others, of course. Relatives and historical groups are always looking for missing pieces and as I’m sure you’re aware, there are still a considerable number of unrecovered remains from that war.”
    I agreed he was correct and had some more water. Anderson’s empty martini glass had been replaced with a full one. The alcohol he was imbibing had no discernable effect on his speech, and he still leaned confidentially over the table at me. His hands and arms made no histrionic gestures. All in all, it was a pretty good performance.
    â€œWell, as you can understand, after the first two trips, which inevitably cost more than budgeted and resulted in little significant additional information, some of those investing time and money assumed that would be the end of it.” He grimaced. “We misjudged the depth of