Free Some Like It Lethal by Nancy Martin Page B

of a steelworkers' local and later turned up dead on a railroad track. Which, I admit, were the facts I learned the day a chain-smoking coworker showed me how to work the Intelligencer's computerized archive.
    So Kitty hadn't grown up in a happy household where luxuries came easily. I, on the other hand, had been photographed for the Intelligencer when I was presented to society as a debutante, became engaged, married the son of an equally prominent family and was elected to office by my many pals in the Junior League.
    For those events in my life, Kitty didn't just hate my guts. She wanted to cut them out with a rusty knife, roast them over fiery coals and throw the smoking remains in the Schuykill River to feed the carp.
    I swallowed hard when Kitty belittled and abused me in full view of my colleagues. I could not risk being fired. With the tax man planning to acquire my two-hundred-year-old home any day now, I needed my job desperately.
    Fortunately, my colleagues found Kitty's tirades entertaining. Most of the time.
    "Oh-oh." My friend, Mary Jude, the quirky lead writer for the food section, saw me coming into the office late Saturday afternoon and shooed me off with a paperback cookbook. "Go home," she ordered. "We're too busy to call an ambulance for Kitty if she has a brain hemorrhage."
    Mary Jude Yashurick wore a crooked set of reindeer antlers over her blond crew cut and a handknit sweater that depicted Rudolph, complete with a red light bulb for his nose, which flashed thanks to a battery pack hidden somewhere on her body. She was a Columbia School of Journalism grad, a single mom who could only work part-time, so she'd been hired by the Intelligencer, where her talents were exploited for a shamefully low salary. She favored short skirts with black tights to show off her lean legs and minimize her hips, which were large enough to give her the silhouette of a cello. Her mincemeat pie was the stuff of Christmas legend, and I looked forward to trying it for the first time at the upcoming office party. I understood I'd need a hockey stick to beat off the competition.
    She tapped her computer screen. "I'm serious, Nora. I'm on deadline here so I can get home in time to take Trevor to a birthday party. I can't be distracted by the Kitty Show right now. I need all my concentration to analyze butter cookie recipes. Good Lord, what's that?"
    "His name is Spike."
    Mary Jude recoiled from my handbag. "Is he a dog, or a muskrat?"
    Okay, Spike wasn't beauty-contest material, but I felt my defenses rise. "He's a Canadian bristle terrier. Be careful. He'll take your ear off faster than Mike Tyson."
    "Here, let's keep him occupied with a cookie." She offered a tray of assorted treats, arranged and numbered on plastic plates. "See which one he likes best. I can't decide."
    Spike took the proffered cookie like a shark snapping a minnow. He disappeared into my handbag with it. Only slightly more politely, I accepted a cookie, too.
    "Delish," I said when it melted on my tongue.
    "I never met a butter cookie that wasn't. Here, try another. Have you really come looking for Kitty?"
    I nibbled my cookie and sat on the edge of her desk. "I need her permission to get into the archive. I don't have access."
    Mary Jude grinned. "I do. Give me an opinion on these cookies, and I'll help you find anything you want."
    "Deal."
    She twisted her computer monitor around so I could see it. While Spike and I shared cookies, Mary Jude typed and clicked until we found half a dozen recent articles about Tottie Boarman's wheeling and dealing. We started in the business section, and I skimmed through long explanations of venture capitalists and how Tottie had allegedly made himself a bundle while taking his friends to the cleaners. He invested in startups, then demanded his money back as the business blossomed, usually forcing the owners to go public to raise money by issuing stock. Once the stock was issued, Tottie also bought the stock and sold it before