The Investigators, Inc. The Case of the Widow’s Mansion. Chapter 1. The Widow.

Well, everything seems to be back to normal around here after our last case. That one really knocked us down a lot and we needed time to recover from it. The girls that had been drugged are better and doing quite well now. They are presently enjoying a couple of weeks with Carine and Benson at their country hotel in England.

Benson and Carine will be more active in our team from now on, though perhaps in a more quiet way, if that makes sense. Whenever anyone from the team is injured, they will spend a week or two at the hotel for some final recovery time before coming back to active duty on the team. So Sky and Trisha are there with the other girls too as are Aari and Aasta. Aari is the new name for Major.

Since Aasta is supposed to be from Finland, it made sense that her father should be too. And it just happens that Major speaks Finnish fluently, as does Aasta. Trisha would have stayed home with me, but I need to go on a business trip to the US and talk with a man that hopefully will be suitable to manage Baldwin Corporation for me.

Rock, John, Mac, Frank, Crystal, Catalina, Cinnamon, Kyan plus Muffin and Snow are coming with me. I just wanted the guys originally, but decided to bring the others too. I mean, Sky decided the others should come along, she felt that just having the guys would be trouble. Not sure what she meant by that. I decided then that the remaining 6 girls would go to the hotel as well, I did not want to leave them alone at the chateau.

Just another hour and we will be landing at the airport in Dallas, Texas, where our businessman lives. I certainly hope this works out, I know nothing about managing such a huge corporation. I will still have the final say in what happens at Baldwin Corporation, but without the headaches. And we have made sure that no one can find out that I am the real owner, otherwise criminals far and wide would be kidnapping people from our team to collect ransom, and that just would not work.

Before landing I called the man and asked if I could bring a few of my team along with me. He said that would be fine, he would like to meet them, and maybe get some advice from us about something. I should have realized what that would mean. Our meeting went very well, he was a retired man and had managed a large corporation before.

He left us alone for an hour so we could talk things over, although we did not need that long. It was obvious he would be perfect for the job and I told him so when he returned. Then he asked me if we would help a friend of his, a widow, with a problem she was having at her house. He said it would be best to let her tell us what the problem was, if we did not mind that.

I asked if he had a photo of his friend, just to make sure we talk with the right woman. He did, and he showed it to me. The cats were sitting on my lap looking at the photo with me. Meowy.=Oooh, she old. Meow,meow.=Shhh, human people sensitive about age. Kat took the photo next, then looked down at Snow. “How would you like to sleep alone tonight?” she asked.

Snow shook her head quickly from side to side. Meow,meow.=See, told you. “You could always join her Muffin,” added Kat. Muffin’s eyes got big, then she looked at Snow. Meow,meow?=How you like me to bite tail? Snow flips her tail to her other side. I just laughed. I think our host was wondering what was going on.

“Just curious,” I asked, “but how old is the widow?” “Oh, she is 26,” he said to us. Kat picked up Snow. “26 is not old,” she whispered in her ear. Well, we were soon on the road driving to the widow’s house, just a short drive away. We were told. People over here think differently about things it seems. Three hours later we stopped outside of the “house” and checked to make sure we had the right address. We did.

We turned into the long driveway and stopped in front of what I would call a mansion. It looked as big as our chateau. The grounds around the mansion had seen better days, but the mansion itself looked very nice. We had 2 large vans waiting for our use at the airport, from Baldwin Corporation, which was a good thing considering all the luggage we had.

An older man, the butler, met us at the door and said we could leave the vans parked where they were. The widow met us right away and introduced herself as Jackie Winslow. Her husband died just 3 months ago, they had been married 2 years. He was 35 and had died of a heart attack. Apparently she did not believe that though. Now it really begins to get interesting…

To Be Continued.

©2023 Steve McLeod.