Regina Dawson's Casebook. Client: Malone, A.

[skybright]

Grimalkin Investigations, Inc.
Case #: M-5433
Client: Malone, Alex (entertainer)
Case Status: Closed (?)

Reason for Hire: Protection overtures (source: unknown Tiernan Enterprises)
Case Type: Recon/Information Gathering
Missing Person/Mark/Suspect: Tiernan, Nicholas (financier, philanthropist, activist)
Salary: Standard -- $50 retainer, $150/day


Preliminary Notes: Alex Malone hired me to find out who was pushing his boss at the Paragon Club for protection; and then my plan was to drop the information into the RICO office's lap and let them run with it from there.

Instead, I found out -- almost without trying -- that Tiernan Enterprises was responsible -- and I got Tiernan off the Club's back, again almost without trying. Of course, it took easily the most nerve-wracking conversation of my recent life to get there.

But I oughtta be happy about the whole affair, right? Sure. So why do I have the deep, ugly, nagging feeling that this case isn't over? And why precisely do I feel like this case and the VanLinden case are somehow gonna end up being the same one -- and not just because Tiernan's involved with both?

I dunno. All I know is I can't quit thinking about Wilhelm Schultz, broken to pieces in a dirty river a thousand miles from here.

I'll give Alex Malone his money back -- I didn't do anything to really earn it. And I'll just keep doing what I can to figure out exactly what I've gotten myself caught up in.

[skybright]

I hate being right.

I hate being wrong more.

I hate being both on the same case worst of all.

I was right to suspect that Alex Malone's case was linked with Miriam Van Linden's, and that it wasn't over. I was wrong to assume that Tiernan meant it when he said he'd 'lay off' Sid Rosenstein.

So now a woman is dead and it's all my fault.

No, scratch that -- it's not quite fair. Carolyn Rosenstein's death may or may not've happened because I got caught snooping around in Nicholas Tiernan's business.

Maybe it's more correct just to say that a woman is dead and I failed to prevent her dying. That's not unusual; women and men die everyday in this city and I don't prevent even a fraction of them from doing so.

But none of them trouble me like this woman does, like Wilhelm Schultz does. I feel more than anything that I have failed these people.

But now, one way or another, I've gotten mixed up -- along with Alex Malone and Doctor Miriam Van Linden -- in making certain that Tiernan pays for the deaths of these people I have failed.

It's no small job; Tiernan is Bill Gates, Dracula, and Al Capone all rolled into one rich, nasty package. But I'm going to keep up snooping into his organization and doing what I can to set things right.

If I can help it, I'm not failing anyone else this year.