At the office I grabbed a couple of pain killers, a slug of scotch and told Daisy to bring me the Grace file.

"You mean these three pages?"

"Just bring me the file, Daisy, I don't need attitude."

I opened the folder and stared at the contents. I could feel her laughing and I pretended my face hurt.

"Grab a seat; I want to run a theory past you."

"This about the investigation?"

"You wanna help or not?"

She nodded, sat back crossing her legs and wrapping her fingers about her knee.

"Okay. I think I know the why. I don't know how or who, but I have my suspicions." She took in a deep breath but didn't speak.

"Myna Darkly has a lock on peaches and cream muffins; nobody else can make them. She is the sole producer. Our client, Caroline, is the largest and really the only distributor of muffins in the city. All her product comes from Myna."

"I know all this."

"Okay just gimme a minute. With prohibition all that business goes away. So McGinty approaches Myna with a deal to move her muffins through his speakeasies; that Crooked Smile guy at the art gallery put me onto this. Myna, no stranger to under the table deals, agrees but he has to give a cut to Caroline."

"Why?"

She owns the newspaper. If she got a sniff of muffins being sold all over town she would be on it like white on rice, and Myna knows it. She wants that avenue closed or no deal.

"Bu if she got involved-"

"She's just getting paid to stay quiet. Caroline has nothing to do with the distribution." I sifted through my three sheets of paper trying to look important.

"So you think McGinty wasn't satisfied? He wanted more and threatened Myna and Caroline."

"You mind If I finish my theory?"

"Sorry."

I jogged the papers and asked if there was any coffee. Daisy left and returned a minute later with two mugs; too fast to recover from her observation. I delayed a bit longer drinking the coffee.

"Where were we?"

"Right . . . Myna wouldn't be bluffed with a threat of expo-"

"Maybe he threatened something else."

"It wasn't Myna or Caroline, Daisy, so let's move on. My instinct says it was Brody Delaney."

"I'm still waiting for the 'theory', Tres."

"Bruce Buchanan owed Shamus money. Buck Buchanan told me Shamus and Brody came after Bruce the night Shamus got clipped."

"He must have got away from them. Bruce wound up in NoLuk territory the same night and he was already in sad shape before the Tong started on him."

I stared at her.

"The young waitress at the diner down the block was telling me. She's Chinese and goes to a lot of the NoLuk fight nights."

"I see . . ." I didn't but I was beginning to. "So he was beaten up before the Tong got him."

"You think Brody did that."

"Him or Shamus . . . or both."

"And the Tong?"

"They just beat him up because he's a member of the mob and he crossed territories."

"You think the Tong would kill Shamus for just crossing territories?"

"Depnds, I still think Brody, but you never know."

"You better know if you want to keep your client. What about Louise, maybe it was a jealous argument?"

"I doubt it, Louise and Shamus were no Ozzie and Harriet.

"Who?"

"Aah, a couple in the future . . . don't worry about it. But maybe Shamus was getting tired of Brody chasing after Lou. He's always had a thing for her and didn't really hide it. Could be the situation came to a head, they fought and Brody won."

"So not Louise either?"

"I don't see a motive, Dais. And if I believe Billy McCarty, she took it really hard at the morgue- and don't say guilt; Louise doesn't have that emotion."

"So you think Brody."

"My first choice. Only Brody and Bruce Buchanan had any real motive. One borrowed his money, the other borrowed his wife."

"You put it so delicately."

***************

We ate Chinese out of cartons and Daisy had a laugh at my fork.

"That retainer sure helped, Tres."

"Yeah but I gotta start earning it. There's a lot more going on than- damn . . ."

A piece of sweet and sour pork landed on my pants.

"Careful, you're getting some in-"

"Cork it, Daisy." I wiped the red sauce deeper into the material and swore.

"There's a lot more going on in this case and it's all connected somehow. Take Billy McCarty, he had an arrangement with Lou after his undercover stint was blown and it wasn't just business. Now he's poking around with the help of that writer dame, O'Cappella. He wants to keep Lou out of it."

I rubbed at the stain angrily. "A reporter from the Times gives her the password to Velveteen the night of the raid, she meets Billy and suddenly they're couple working together. Billy asked me to speak to her about what she was really writing. Interesting I get beat up just before talking to her."

Daisy finished her chow mein, dropped the carton in the waste basket, slapped her thighs and stood up.

"And on top of that, the reporter Annie spoke to is a partner in Barter and Winks, the bank!"

"Why would a bank partner work as a reporter for a newspaper?'

"Excellent question, Dais." I jogged my three sheets and replaced them in the file.

"Well?"

"Well I don't know why. Then there's Lorne Order. His sister getting into McGinty's speaks, singing and getting busted. He's pulling every string he can find to keep her out of jail. So where is she? At Myna's under house arrest with AJ and Gynn watching her."

"What has that to do with anything? Do you have anything at all, Tres, because all this supposition won't get you a stale muffin." She patted her hair and gave me her, is that all, look. "That it? End of theory?"

I frowned and handed her the file. "Write it all up and type up an edited version for our client."

Daisy smiled. We knew one another too well. She gave me a small salute and left.

"Hey," I called after her. "Those pans in the corner behind your desk, just leave them okay?"

"What are the- oh really! You didn't drag them home from the scrap yard did you?"