The Case of the Defective Detective Part 2

The name's Dixon.

Trixie Dixon, girl detective.

I cannot possibly begin to guess at the number of times that I have suggested that a prospective client

begin at the beginning, and on the whole it was good advice, if for no other reason than it

makes for a straightforward narrative. Like most excellent advice, it was easier to dish out than to

take because we had certainly skipped over it in the matter of Lawrence Braithwaite, former

gentleman detective,

and current first-degree murder suspect.

Perhaps it was for the best.

Braithwaite had told his story to Matt Dawson, Legal Eagle Extraordinaire,

and it was such a golden oldie it might as well have been blue skies.

He didn't do it.

This was all a terrible misunderstanding and so on.

If a person is going to change their circumstances dramatically, say by putting two slugs into his former business manager Michael Sabatinsky,

it was often good to know what else might have changed in their life recently.

For instance, had they recently been shut out of their own detective agency by a woman

scorned, whom, as befits that status, hell had no fury-like? Not long ago, Lawrence Braithwaite had

been a man who could have shot Sabatinsky in the head in the parade grounds on the 4th of July,

and still had reasonable doubt industriously engineered on his behalf.

Now he was a sad sack counting on people he actively disliked to save his fanny by using

something in which he had very little interest. The truth. Dawson had some tap dancing to do in front

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