Epilogue

Just two months after I closed the Leclercq case, Chief Madden was convicted of illegal detention and acts of torture. The soldier that they had arrested and held for the rape and murder of a diner waitress was proven innocent of the crime.

Several of the city commissioners were ousted from office as they were found out to be embezzling money from various city funds. It never reached up to Chairman Coyle, who came away looking like a daisy amidst the scandal and corruption of city hall. I had a sneaking suspicion that a certain, powerful madame with all the right connections had something to do with keeping Coyle clean.

As for Claudia and me, well, she asked me after a month of us being together to define what we were. I told her that she was my best steady, and we have decided that we are an item now. She still likes for me to protect her from time to time, but I have also spent some time teaching her how to handle a gun, and she took to it like a duck to water. She is now unofficially the secretary for Lane Investigations, and my gal Friday.

True to her word, Isadore pulled some strings before Madden was relieved of his duties and made sure that the murder investigation was swept under the rug. The Albuquerque Journal described the death as happening in a nearby alleyway and that it was a mugging gone wrong. The fact that he was a mafia hitman was never made public.

As for me, I’m still living each day by the bottle that I drink.