"Hello Mrs. Vanessa Less?"
"Yes. Is that you Detective Mikey?" She said, her voice breathy and low, seemingly made to put a tingle down your spine as you hear it.
I answered her question, "Yes, it's me. I have reached my final conclusions in the case and I'd like to tell you in person."
"If you say so detective. When can I expect you?"
That wonderful voice. They say most people with a phone voice that sexy did not have looks to match it but she did. She was tall with long hair black as midnight and dark blue eyes that flashed like a deep lake under a full moon. I was investigating her husband's murder and she was my prime suspect but that voice still had the power to move me.
"I'll be there in half an hour." It all started two days ago. Mr. Howard Less had been a wealthy inventor. He had patented a string of useful devices and made several million from licensing his ideas to big corporations. He had been working on a prototype. A robotic mining device. It blew up while he was testing it and he died. The police received a hysterical call from Mrs. Less and gone over to see what was wrong. Since both of them were affluent and upstanding citizens and friends of the Mayor, the officers sent were discreet and polite as well as observant. Their initial report was that she had been home talking to the mayor's wife about a charity event they were planning and she heard a great boom. She dropped the phone and went rushing to her husband's basement workshop and saw he was messily dead. The uniformed officers stated that it seemed clear to them that the device he had been working on had exploded and killed him. They also noted that Vanessa Less genuinely distraught at her husband's death and they did not believe her guilty of anything but being a trophy wife.
I was assigned the case in the morning. I was told that I also needed to be discreet. I checked around before going and discvovered that the widow was considered very sweet but not too bright. I easily discovered that good old Howard Less had a mistress. I mentioned to the captain that this along with the fact that she was the only beneficiary of his will made her a very good suspect and was told I would need ironclad evidence if I wanted it to stick. The day after I started on the case I got a call from the Mayor himself telling me that I should just close the case as an accident and wanting to know if I minded appearing with him at a press conference tomorrow to present my findings? Without mentioning things like mistresses and other things that would only cast aspersions on loyal contributors and be unfortunately detrimental to his campaign for re-election. I said the only thing I could, if I still wanted to have a pension. So I was heading out to her estate to tell her it was all an accident. However I did find out a few more things, interesting things. I found out that while the future Mrs. Less had no college degrees she had been a straight A student in high school and those of her old teachers that I could reach that day all said she had an uncanny knack for picking up ideas quickly and not one of them thought she was stupid. She had gotten married within a few months of her graduation and shortly after her eighteenth birthday. Howard Less had already been a millionaire at the time and had been ten years older than his wife. However it did certainly look like an accidental death and I could not prove otherwise.
But I doubted. I doubted that Vanessa was as dim as she pretended. I doubted that the death was accidental. And I doubted that the mistress had nothing to do with the case. Several gifts of jewelry, lingerie, and broadway show tickets had been paid for with a credit card that had both his and her name on it and sent to a Park Ave. apartment that was also paid by that card but was leased in the name of one Jessica Brewster. I was thinking she had found out about his cheating and killed him for it by causing his latest prototype to blow up in his face, killing him. I had no proof though. An expert brought in stated that the prototype could well have exploded if the wrong thing was done. So it was most plausible as an accident. But I doubted and so I was pulling something from out of an Agatha Christie book. I was going to try to spook a confession out of her but if she was as smart as I feared I would not succeed.
At this point in my ruminations I got to the wrought iron gate of the Less estate. I was buzzed through and drove up to the front door. It was time to try my last trick to see if I could catch a murderess. I walked up the marble steps, up to the front door, and rang the bell. The butler answered and showed me to the parlor where she was waiting to meet me dressed fashionably but all in black.
I ignored with difficulty my natural urge to help a woman so beautiful looking so unhappy and I started in on my monologue about how I thought she did it and why. I wish I could have fetched Jessica, the mistress, along to rattle her more but I couldn't do that if I wanted to keep my pension. For an hour I talked and she did nothing but cry. I left with no confession and a sick feeling that maybe I had been wrong. I closed the case.
The next morning I appeared in front of the ladies and gentlemen of the press and assured everyone that although it been quite tragic it was completely accidental and that the poor widow had my complete sympathy. I think they even believed me. If so, I deserved an Oscar for my performance.
The Captain had heard about that last grand gesture but eventually decided to let me keep my job. I'd never get promoted again but so what? I was already a lieutenant and I didn't have the connections necessary to be captain here so no harm done to me or my career. No harm done to anybody but the dead man. I kept my eyes open and I noticed that she had no trouble running her own finances after she inherited the money. In fact she did it better than her husband had and donated large amounts to her favorite charities and was a large contributor to the Mayor's campaign fund. He got re-elected and she got away with murder; ah the wonders money can produce.