05/04/2025 Snippet, TOM VARGAS AND THE CASE OF THE MEDDLING PRIEST.

The title may not work out.

Senor Lomax was the kind of man who goes through life without a first name. Sure, he had one — but even his friends wouldn’t use it. It’d be undignified, and Senor Lomax was a very dignified man.

Right then he was mixing that with shots of ‘worried,’ and his liver was starting to complain. It was bad enough that Senor Lomax led us both in to the broom closet that was his office for a private chat. There was only one chair for visitors, but Father Miguel wouldn’t have fit in it anyway. He tried not to loom, but it didn’t quite take.

“An inventory was made of the safe deposit box,” he tried to assure me, or maybe himself. “Five years ago. I was given a list, I checked it, everything looked in order. I… did not have a statement to that effect notarized.”

“Why?” I thought about adding more, but I figured that was the gist of it anyway.

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