The Dead One Sits

SYNOPSIS Fenton, Pettigrew & Cohenstein is one of Chicago’s most prestigious large law firms, headed by the even more prestigious Graybourne St. Charles. One morning a naked teen-aged prostitute is found dead sitting at his desk. Not entirely naked though. She has shiny black high-heeled thigh high boots on. Inside them is found a purple brooch. Who does it belong to and how did it get there? And what was our glorious Graybourne doing with such a person? Who done did it? No cooperative soul comes forward to say I dood it so Bumper Lohman, the great big nobody Managing Partner, is told to clean up the mess and bad PR. He sets out to do so and in the process we find that scum does indeed rise to the top as we take a disrespectful look at the bonkeroonies who populate the legal system. Along the way we take a tour through parts of Chicago, past and present, and see why the Devil is afraid to go there. The victim is Wendy Laymen a/k/a Ivanna Rubbadem, a teen age temptress who works as a cover for the ZoomShot messenger service. She came in to the firm offices around ten at night, ostensibly to make a delivery. A lot of the top partners are involved. Steven Stonegold says he left a pass to let the victim in. Because, he says, he was in Seattle. In any event he says he was only doing a favor for Lincoln Beale who, in turn, says he was asked to let her in by Wanzer Levin. Beale had to be in New York so he asked Stonegold to let her in. Levin says she was going to deliver a document to him and he could not be there. The distinguished St. Charles says he was at his club. The gun the victim was shot with belongs to St. Charles. He says it was stolen. The brooch belongs to Sean Featherbottom, the young poofy associate who admits he saw the victim come in. He says she asked for Levin’s office and he told her where it was and then left the building. So how did she get his brooch? In her boots? And what would Poofy be doing with her? Anyway, his alibi doesn’t hold up. So Poofy – explain yourself. Fingerprints are all over. In the victim’s blood are found the prints of Stonegold and St. Charles. In St. Charles’ private washroom are Featherbottom’s. Did they gang up on the victim? That would be something that should be censored so this book could not be published if that was the case. Has a way been found around the censorship laws? Or do no such laws exist so that very well could be the case? What a mystery! For more donniesyellowballbooks.com