Heart to Heart by Don Pendleton

Author:Don Pendleton [Pendleton, Don]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Tags: Suspense, Paranormal, Occult Fiction, Mystery, series, mystery series, don pendleton, psychic detective
ISBN: 9781453655368
Amazon: 1453655360
Barnesnoble: 1453655360
Goodreads: 596862
Publisher: iUniverse
Published: 1986-12-31T13:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seventeen: The Elect

Alvarez himself had discovered this corpse. An appointment diary found on Sloane's body recorded a planned meeting with Gibson on the evening that Sloane died. Routinely checking that connection, Alvarez called on Gibson at his office and was told by the receptionist that her boss had not come in yet.

This was past eleven o'clock.

Alvarez had one of those cop quivers probably, and insisted on being shown into Gibson's private office.

In defense of the receptionist, who later stated that indeed she had looked inside that office earlier, the presence of a corpse was not that obvious when Alvarez first stepped inside. The swivel chair is high-backed, and it was turned sort of toward the windows; the angle of view from the doorway was such that you saw only the back of the chair at casual glance. So if the young lady had looked into that office earlier, then the discovery hours later that her boss had been sitting there dead all the while must have been an unnerving experience, to say the least. I sent her a mental apology for my initial reaction to her executive style; she was doing very well under the circumstances.

Alvarez was of course stretching the protocol on city turf by his very presence there, so he called it in to the Newport Beach police and stepped aside for them to handle it, though remaining to assist in view of the possibly related death at Laguna Beach.

There were no obvious wounds or signs of violence on this body. It looked as though the guy had just been sitting there at his desk, had some sort of seizure, and died.

"But look at the face," Alvarez unnecessarily added. "Same as the other guy. What is that?—terror or what?"

I said, "Yeah...or pain, rage...whatever, death abruptly stopped it."

He pulled me aside and lowered his voice to ask me, "So what brings the psychic detective to this latest scene of death?"

This was somewhat embarrassing. I had not deliberately withheld the information regarding Gibson's interest in Pointe House and Sloane's apparent animosity toward the guy; with all the other mystery, and the shock of finding myself a possible murder suspect, I simply had not thought to tell Alvarez about it. Now I tried to gloss it with vagueness. I told him, "Sloane mentioned this guy when he was briefing me on the legal problem. Seems that Gibson had been trying to broker a deal for some developer before the state stepped in with their claim. But that was the only connection I had until about an hour ago. Now it seems that these two were old college chums and still get together frequently on the golf course."

Alvarez said, "Uh huh. Where'd you get this?"

"Sloane's office."

"Why didn't you bring it to me then?"

"Would have," I said, "if something had turned. You and I are not working the same end of the stick, you know. You're investigating a suspicious death. I have been retained to prevent a confiscation of the estate. I guess that's what I'm expected to do.

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