The Envelope

When I woke up the next morning...Robert Foxworth was sitting by my bed...

"Hey Kev...How you doin man?" he said.

"I'm good...Well rested...You keeping some early hours counselor." I said.

"Yeah..Well guess what I found out?" he said.

"What?" I said.

"Della Jordan's apartment is not in her name." he said.

"Yeah, what else is new, It's in Basil Grundy's name right?" I said.

"No, it's not....That's what I thought at first...but Chance and I went down to City Hall and looked up the public records...Burke Blaine purchased that spot..

and the cable bill, electric bill, water bill, gas bill and the phone bill was all in his name...Even Della's cell phone bill was in Burke's name..." he said.

"What? I thought he was broke?" I said.

"Apparently not..He had debts...but he wasn't broke....He had invested his money very wisely and apparently died with quite a bit of money...He was bank rollin Della's entire lifestyle." said Robert.

This made me sit up...

"None of this makes any sense..." I said.. I got up showered , shaved and got dressed.

"Sepia...you workin today?" I asked my wife.

"No,not neccesarily.." she said.

"Get Dressed..you and I and Robert have to make a couple of stops today." I said.

"Okay" she said smiling.

We visited Chess and Chris Thompson down at their Penns Landing office of "C&C Brothers Inc."

"Yeah..He was into several people for close to one hundred thousand...then , the day before he died...He paid them all off." said Chris.

"Did they get a mysterious envelope?" I said.

"Nah..He came in here and personally paid them off himself. I asked him how he got so flush....and he said that he won a high stakes poker game in AC..." said

Chess.

"In AC? a legal game or ...." I asked.

"I don't know..but he paid everybody off." said Chris.

"Okay..Thanks guys!" I said as I left.

When we got to Police Headquarters Lt. Sissy Van Buren was waiting for us.

"Well Kevin...You're not going to like what I have to tell you..The DNA sample on the envelope belongs to Burke Blaine." she said.

"Yeah, I already know....Apparently , he'd been paying off all of his debts." I said.

"Did you know that he had done a spell in rehab?" she asked.

"No, I didn't?" I said.

"My Detectives do do some work.....He was hot and heavy with Della Jordan for awhile and paying her bills and for that ritzy apartment she lives in and running up debts with a lot of the playas...Then he went into rehab, cleaned himself up and began paying off his debts..." she said.

"You think one Basil Grundy would have been upset about that?" I asked.

She smiled.

"Funny you bring him up...Word on the street has it that while our dead guy was away, Basil and Della got really cozy....but Basil couldn't keep up with Blaine." she laughed.

"Funny, she told us it was the other way around." I said.

"I don't think she knew Burke's complete financial situation...He appeared to be a drunken ,drug addled bustout...but the man was shrewd...He still had money.

He had made his money grow...He manipulated the stock market and he kept money in off shore accounts...He wasn't broke at all, but he began to get cheap with her...He was planning to throw her out of that apartment.." she said.

"Really?" I said.

"Yeah..." said Sissy.

"With him dead....and not being married..where does the money go?" I asked.

"To his sisters and a cousin....none of whom can stand Della..She doesn't get a red cent." said Sissy.

"So who is bank rolling her now?" I said.

"Probably Basil Grundy..he's pretty smitten with her." said Sissy.

"But, there isn't enough evidence on either of them right ?" I said.

"That's right" she said.

Sepia was driving, Robert sat in the back of the car.....

"What do you think Kev?" asked Robert.

"I think Basil got pissed off when Burke returned , cleaned up and all..I think he and Della had been fooling around for awhile...and now with him back and clean and out of debt with his boss , among others...Della was pulling away from him and sliding back to Burke..He couldn't deal with that." I said.

"Yeah, but by killing Burke...He put a monkey wrench in his whole game...She's not going to have a place to stay...You heard the Lieutenant, she was almost out of there." said Robert.

"Right...which means...she would be totally dependent on Basil..See, that's all this was about all along....One guy wanting another guy's girl..." I said.

"But you can't prove it..." said Robert.

"He was at the party....That was his voice I heard in Leo Jenkins apartment last night..I just didn't see him....Now he doesn't know I'm still alive....Which reminds me...Somebody better call the cops and tell them there is a body in that house.." I said.

"Him thinking I'm dead is good...I gotta an idea of how rouse him." I said.

"Ohhh I like this..." said Robert.

"We are going to blackmail him." I said.

(Conclusion Next)