Free Death Spiral by James W. Nichol

McLauchlin will deal with everything that needs to be done and he will be in contact with you as soon as possible.”
    “I just asked if he had a will.”
    “That’s not my job. I have no idea.”
    “Look in his file.”
    “I’m sure Mr. McLauchlin will look in the file as soon as he returns.”
    The man’s pale eyes turned hard. “You don’t know anything about it?”
    “No.”
    “You’d think he’d have a will.”
    “Yes, you would.”
    Frank Cruikshank was beginning to look increasingly upset. He ran his hand through his thinning blonde hair. “What’s your name?”
    “Miss Carole Birley.”
    “Well, Miss Carole Birley, maybe you can tell me this. Has anyone else, some young woman say, come in here asking about a will?”
    “You mean your father’s will?”
    Cruikshank just stared at her.
    “No.”
    The man’s face went cold. He looked out the window and then turned back. “As far as I’m concerned, his goddamn corpse can stay wherever the hell it is. Goddamn him to hell!” He slammed out the door.
    Carole got up from her desk, pushed through the gate and turned the lock on the front door. She looked out the window. Cruikshank had already gone past the wrought-iron fence. He was turning onto Main Street.
    * * *
    “This belongs to an expensive lock,” Tony Gillo announced, standing in his cluttered shop and holding up Mary’s key in his grimy hand. “You see the difference?”
    “No.” Wilf leaned across the equally grimy counter and looked more closely.
    “It’s longer than your ordinary key. This is how it works. You put it in halfway, you make a quarter turn to the right, say, if you’re opening. Quarter turn the other way if you’re locking, see? And then you push it all the way in and turn to the left or the right as the case may be. Do you know why?”
    “No idea.”
    “Because,” Tony’s watery eyes peered triumphantly over his thick glasses, “if you can’t go straight in, you can’t pick a lock.” A grin spread over his grizzled face.
    “I get it.”
    “Like a woman with a chastity belt, eh?”
    “Right.”
    “Very nice. Expensive. Who would need a lock like that?”
    “Could you make a copy?”
    “Sure. But I don’t have the right blank for this. It needs to be cut special, give me an hour.”
    “I don’t need a copy, Tony, I was just asking if it was possible. Theoretically.”
    “Theoretically?”
    “If you did make a copy of a key like that, say within the last two months or so, would you remember?”
    “Now I got to remember?”
    Wilf grinned. “So no one’s come in here and wanted a copy of a key like that?”
    “This is a special job. Take an hour or so. I’d have to explain all that to the customer, why it was special, why he couldn’t just wait for it.”
    “Right.”
    “Right.” Tony handed the key back, “So, mister lawyer’s son, I think I’d remember.”
    * * *
    By the time Wilf had driven back into town it was the middle of the afternoon. It had seemed to make sense that Cruikshank would take the key out of town but Wilf had visited all three locksmith shops in Brantford and two shops in Woodstock, and just like Tony Gillo, no one had remembered.
    He pulled the car up to Doc Robinson’s home office. He had somehow made it, though his left leg felt like it was on fire from depressing the clutch all day and his shoulders ached from straining to see over the dashboard. He tried to rest for a moment but his mind refused.
    Why had Frank Cruikshank been in the dress shop in the first place? Because of the will. Even if Adrienne hadn’t known anything about it, Frank had found out somehow. But that didn’t make any sense. If he’d known about it the last thing he would have done was murder his father. Unless, of course, he and Adrienne had had an understanding.
    Wilf looked down the hill toward the double line of storefronts, the dress shop hidden in amongst them, and the steeper hill beyond. Everything looked wintery, misty and grey. But