Excerpt: 501(c)(Murder)

"This is from that event I went to on Saturday," she said. "In retrospect, and since you've probably heard things went poorly for the organizers after the event, I was wondering if you saw anything weird in this letter."

Lisa quirked an eyebrow. "Went poorly? As in the founder and guiding hand was mugged and shot? You call that went poorly? You sure have gotten jaded since Danny started getting serious with that cop."

Sally smiled. "Well, it seemed a more polite way to put it," she said. "But, anyhow, it's been bugging me for a couple of days. This doesn't look right but I can't put my finger on the problem."

Lisa turned the document over and held it up to the light while she checked for a watermark. "It's cheap paper," she observed, "which makes sense. It looks good but feels cheap. And the signature is genuine, which is a little odd but not completely." She read the text. "Wow, they're sure hyping themselves. I don't blame them, but it seems extreme. We don't make that kind of claims, and believe me, I'm good at hyping the organization. Oh, and the special offer you talked about isn't on here. Is there any chance it was only sent to special people?"

Sally shrugged. "Could be but why me? I'm not one of their biggest contributors. I'm not sure I ever contributed to this Institute before. So you think this is normal, just more hyped up than I'm used to?"