A Lady Never Trifles With Thieves by Suzann Ledbetter

Author:Suzann Ledbetter [Ledbetter, Suzann]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General, Women Sleuths, Mystery & Detective, Historical, Fiction
ISBN: 9780743481977
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 2003-03-31T23:00:00+00:00

Nine

With blurry eyes, I read the passage in the law book again, then a third time. At that, it took a moment to register that my wild-hared hunch was correct.

“Won Li?” I called. “Come here on the double. I want to show you something.”

Placing my hands at the small of my back, I stretched, hearing pops and crackles uncustomary for one of my youth and vigor. Pain shot outward across my shoulders and up my neck. Another hour in the Windsor chair and I’d have been crippled for life.

Supper was delicious, plentiful, and a distant memory. The bowl of poppy seed cookies on the table was now as empty as my stomach. I didn’t recall eating nary a one.

“Won Li?”

From the kitchen, a surly voice answered, “I am coming.”

Which turned out to be when he was darned good and ready, which coincided with the expiration of my patience. Won Li strolled into the parlor. On the tray he carried were squares of cheese, crackers, and glasses of whiskey and water. I thanked him for the snack, eyed the whiskey with undisguised interest, but took the glass of water.

“What did you want to show me?” he said. “Other than how an excessively loud voice is extremely unpleasant to the ear.”

I pointed to a numbered statute. “Read this.”

He leaned closer to the page I indicated and squinted to bring the text into better focus. “Yes. That is interesting.” Whiskey in hand, he started back to the kitchen.

“Did you even read it?”

He turned and recited the paragraph verbatim.

My patron was an incurable grandstander. I swept the hair back from my face. “Eidetic recall has its advantages, Won Li, but the importance to Penelope LeBruton lies in what the law doesn’t say.”

“What is not specified cannot be enforced.”

“Precisely.”

He frowned. “It is absurd to try and assemble a puzzle to which you hold the pieces.”

“Humor me, please? Just read it one more time.”

The ceiling, not the book, was the target of his obsidian gaze as he sipped his nightly jigger of tanglefoot. Why follow instructions to the letter—so to speak—if one can review sentences committed to memory while irrigating one’s tonsils simultaneously.

“I still do not approve of your working for J. Fulton Shulteis,” he said. “But what you propose is an ingenious method of complying with the law while circumventing it.”

I grinned. “Yes, it is, isn’t it?”

The statute concerning printed notices of a marital dissolution allowed that they must be published in a newspaper of general circulation and accessibility. It did not stipulate that the announcement, or the newspaper in which it appeared, must be in English.

Won Li warned, “Yet there is no guarantee the outcome will be as you desire. If gossip were edible, few would ever retire to their beds malnourished.”

“I realize it’s possible Rendal LeBruton could learn of the notice.” I grimaced. “It’s his wife who’ll suffer the consequences if he does.” Looking up, I added, “And you, if LeBruton finds out who wrote it.”

“The Chinese newspaper editor is the cousin of the sister-in-law of my friend Cheng Xinnong.

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