Devil at Dusk - Installment number nineteen.

Cute little bloodhound puppies and mama dog.

In case you are new to my ongoing Devil at Dusk story here is a link to Installment number one: http://artdecogirls.blogspot.com/2013/05/van-pelt-1950s-private-investigator.html

Welcome everybody to Devil at Dusk installment number nineteen.

Will’s grandparents drove him up to Chicago and left him with my parents. We hated taking him out of his school in Laurel with only three months of the school year left but we really did not see any other option. However I do think he will do really well in Chicago. The school is a little more progressive and I think that Will likes my parents a lot, possibly even more than his own grandparents (I hate to say that). My parents have been and will be so much more interactive with him than his own grandparents. They will take him places and do things with him plus he will grow up with culture from the city like I did. He will have opportunities to go see museums, plays, movies, operas, ballet and live music. Also to see and play sports. He is such a great kid, I was telling him about all of the opportunities and he was excited about all of them.  At first he was not too sure of the opera or ballet but he said he would give it a try at least once.

After Bet’s body had been found, Jerry spent a lot more time with me. It was good for me because I had such an empty hole in my life now with both Bet and Will gone. My heart just hurt, I could not stand it but every day the pain got a little better. Jerry was great to hang around with at this point you could say we were officially dating. Jerry is a very handsome man, tall, athletic build; clean cut with dark wavy hair and brown eyes (his eyes always have a twinkle of mischief in them). Plus we had so much in common with him working for the Sheriff’s Office and me being a private investigator that grew up with a dad who was Police Chief of the Chicago Police Department.

A few days after Bet was found, Jerry shows up at my house to introduce me to his new little friend. He got a little blood hound puppy that he was going to train to locate missing people and to help with other investigations. The little puppy was so cute, all tiny and warm! Because she was so sweet he named her sugar. Sugar went everywhere with him, even to work plus Sugar and I became fast friends.

After the funeral for Bet the attorney for the estate contacted me and let me know that there were some important matters to discuss with me regarding the will. I went to Attorney Wendell Townsend’s office later that day. He had said that JT put a clause in his will that stated Bet would get all of the cars/trucks (JT had owned 3 cars and two trucks) unless something happened to Bet, in that case the cars would be passed onto the investigation firm. Wow, that would prove to be very helpful when it came to doing surveillance. The other important matter was that I would oversee the horse riding school that Bet ran. I will be the supervisor and watch over things until Will turned 21 and then at that time he would be the supervisor and caretaker (he will be brilliant for this because he was always his mom’s assistant and knew so much about the horses). It was written so I would make the profit and be able to keep it since I was the supervisor and caretaker of the school until Will was of age to do so. In the meantime I had to put an ad in the paper as soon as possible looking for a new teacher for the horse riding school. Again Jerry stepped up to the plate here since his aunt had a horse riding school and he spent his whole life around horses he was in charge of doing the interviews for this position.

The next thing to fall into place was the investigation firm. All of a sudden it got busy; I had investigations coming out my ears! I ended up working about 6 ½ days a week. I would go into work at the office and work every day for a few hours that way I would be available to take calls in the morning, and then in the evening do the investigations. Soon I was starting to burn out fast and had to rethink things, especially since I did not have Bet as my office gal any longer (bless her heart). So I ended up putting an ad in the paper, looking for a full time office helper. I started the ad on a Monday and ran it through Friday. I had at least one to three gals come in every day for interviews. I finally had it narrowed down to my three favorites. I would make my decision the following Monday and notify the person I picked via phone.

To be continued….