Free Defending Angels by Mary Stanton Page A

need for this particular case.” He turned to Bree and nodded at the far corner of the couch. “Sit down, please, Bree.”
    Professor Cianquino’s cool professionalism doused her fit of hilarity like a dash of cold water. Bree sat down.
    “This is Liz Overshaw.”
    Bree nodded. “How do you do?”
    “Not goddamned well, as you might guess.” Liz cleared her throat with an irritating sort of gargle. “This business with Skinner ...” She cleared her throat again. “We’ve got to do something about it.”
    “You were—and still are, I imagine—a senior partner with his most well-known company, Skinner Worldwide, Inc.?” Bree asked. Bree’s mother was fond of reminding both her daughters that honey was a far more effective flycatcher than vinegar, so Bree added, “And an admired and effective CFO, as all women in business know.”
    Liz ran both hands through her hair. “Yeah. Actually, if I can come up with the funding, I’ll be the majority shareholder, too. Skinner left options on his stock to his partners. We—that is, I—just have to decide whether I want to buy him out, or find an appropriate buyer.”
    This kind of arrangement wasn’t unusual when the stockholder in a corporation wanted to bar family heirs from getting control of a company. Bree made a note in the file. “Is that going to be a problem?”
    Liz flung her hand up irritably. “Christ, no. I’m not here about that. If I needed business counsel you think I’d be talking to you?” She glanced at Bree sideways and pursed her lips. “Not that you aren’t perfectly competent, I’m sure. Cianquino doesn’t deal with idiots.”
    “Then how can I help you?”
    “I told you. I’ve got to do something about Skinner before I end up in the ha-ha room at the sanatorium.” She glared at Professor Cianquino. “You sure I can trust her?”
    He smiled and shrugged. “There isn’t anyone else I can recommend to you. Her qualifications are unique.”
    “All right,” she said crossly. “Just fine.” She inhaled, and then let her breath out with an explosive “Pah!” “You’ve read the reports of Skinner’s death?”
    “The newspaper account, yes,” Bree said. “And of course, the television news channels covered it quite extensively.”
    “The coroner’s office is calling it a heart attack. He had a heart attack and drowned. Skinner didn’t drown.”
    “Heart attacks take a lot of assertive men in their early sixties,” Bree said in a mild way. “And is it likely that the medical examiner would make a mistake? Especially with such a prominent man as Mr. Skinner?”
    “Prominent son of a bitch, you mean,” Liz said. She made that hawking noise in her throat, like Felix Unger in those endless reruns of The Odd Couple . Bree looked down and studied her own toes. Liz Overshaw couldn’t help it if she had postnasal drip. But she sure could be less noisy about it.
    “He was murdered.”
    Bree looked up. “I beg your pardon?”
    “He was murdered. He won’t tell me how. He can’t tell me how, because the next thing he knew after getting kicked in the chest with a heart attack, he was floating over his own corpse on a mortuary slab wondering what the hell happened. Did you see the interviews the press did after his death? One of those four is a murderer.”
    Bree didn’t say anything for a long moment.
    “Carlton Montifiore, Douglas Fairchild, John Stubblefield, and Chastity McFarland,” Liz said impatiently. “Did you see it?”
    “Yes, I saw the interviews.” Bree refused to look at Professor Cianquino. If she looked at the professor, she was going to make a horrific face at him. “That’s what the young woman who’s his current companion seemed to feel,” Bree said diplomatically. “That he was murdered.”
    “That little idiot,” Liz said without heat. “Hell, maybe she actually knows, too.” She clamped her mouth shut and stared at her hands, apparently unwilling to say any more.
    “And you know he was