Day 2 - Stanhope Mansion, Savannah, Georgia. Morning.

Detective Ned Wells was standing over the corpse when a uniformed officer approached. "Loot, there's a guy outside. Says he needs to talk witcha."

Wells sighed. He had a pretty good idea who it was. Johnny Earthquake had just been here to meet with Lady Stanhope yesterday and now the old dame was dead. He issued a couple of terse orders to his minions and went out to the gravel drive.

Johnny Earthquake was pacing the drive, winding his way between parked police cars and uniformed men trying to look busy. He looked up to see Wells coming down the front steps. Wells shook his head no, 'don't come up here' and pointed off to the side. Johnny joined him behind a huge pink Oleander bush.

"The Captain's up on the porch and the Commissioner is due to show up any minute now. You don't wanna be mixed up with this mess."

"What happened?"

"The old lady did a tumble down the grand staircase. It looks like an accident but there are . . . anomalies."

Johnny looked at his friend. "You know the kid did it. He got caught with his hand in the cookie jar and didn't like it when Momma slapped it."

"Yea, well the maid saw it all, and Jason was nowhere near her."

Johnny thought back to the look between the two the day before. "The maid was fired. What was she doin' there?"

Wells scratched his head. "I dunno. We'll ask. But the butler could see her standin' in the foyer when it happened, so she didn't do it. She said it looked like Mrs. Stanhope's foot got caught in her hem, and the hem is torn, so that's a match. But she has a nasty wound on the back of her head that don't line up with the way she fell. You seen that stairway. It's all some kinda stone, so anything is possible."

Johnny thought about the shredded invoice and the timing of it all. It seemed more and more likely that the son, Jason, was involved somehow. "Lean on the kid," he told Wells. "He'll' cave."

"Can't. The family lawyer, Winston Williams, is already here". His tone of voice said everything that needed to be said on what Wells thought about the lawyer. He mimicked a reedy voice, "The boy is grieving. We can't bother him. A statement is forthcoming. Blah Blah Blah."

"Pull him in on dose other thefts. We can tie him to swag from three homes."

Wells interrupted. "Can't. All three refused to press charges when they heard who dunnit. One of the women turned so pale I thought she was gonna faint. They're afraid of him."

Just then a small parade of cars pulled into the courtyard amid a swirl of dust and a crunch of limestone gravel. "The Commissioner's here," Wells told his friend. "I gotta go."

Ned Wells joined the Captain on the porch. While they waited for the Commissioner to make his grand appearance, the Captain asked,"He gonna go for it?"

"Like a dog with a ham bone," Wells replied. "Why can't we just ask him outright to take a look. I don't like all this scheming."

"Unless the ME comes up with something definitive, there is every likelihood the commish and hiz honor the mayor are gonna shut this down. The Stanhope Foundation still pulls a lot of weight in Chatham County and the boy and his lawyer now control the foundation. This whole thing stinks but we ain't got bupkis.

"Johnny Earthquake may be a little rough, but he'll find the truth. And if he ruffles some feathers, we can tell them," he nodded to the Commissioner and the Mayor, who, now that the dust had settled, were just getting out of the car, "that we didn't know nothing about it."