Welcome to Mysteries to Die For. I am TG Wolff and am here with Jack, my piano player and producer. This is a podcast where we combine storytelling with original music to put you at the heart of mystery, murder, and mayhem. Some episodes will be my own stories, others will be classics that helped shape the mystery genre we know today. These are arrangements, which means instead of word-for-word readings, you get a performance meant to be heard. Jack and I perform these live, front to back, no breaks, no fakes, no retakes (unless it's really bad, then he makes me start all over again.)

This is Season 1. The first half of the season comes from my book Widow’s Run, which was published in 2019 by Down & Out Books. If you love clever, sharp-edged mysteries and thrillers, check out Down & Out on the web. www.downandoutbooks.com

Today’s episode builds from the previous. You have to listen in order for the story to make sense. Start with the episode called “What a Lovely Corpse you Have” and catch up to us from there. We’ll be here for you. We’ve listed a cast of characters in the show notes to help keep track of the players.

To recap, our hero, Diamond, has faked her death, burying the mainstream, suburban professional she was to resurrect her CIA cover. Why? She needs to do what the police won’t, investigate her husband’s death. In the last episode, Diamond arrived in Rome, Italy and met with a statuesque woman harboring security footage of that fateful night. Liberating the footage was easy, watching it was another story. Two surprises emerged. First, another nerd-food scientist, Francisco Thelan, died the same night as Gavriil. And, second, before his death, Gavriil had given another woman his room key. Her teenaged cyberlord, Andrew Dixon, unearthed the name and address of the woman suspected of being Gavriil’s lover, Ilsa Duma-whatever. A friend of Gavriil’s sister, Ilsa had shared only books with Gavriil. His notebook had gotten mixed in with her books. When she discovered it two days later, she attempted to return it, only to discover Gavriil had died. With the notebook now in her possession, Diamond turns to the other piece of information Dixon found—the license plate number of the car that killed her husband.

Today’s story is about family, the price of secrets, and a business deal gone wrong. This is Episode 7: Where Does an Elephant Hide the Evidence?

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Characters with episode of introduction

Lead characters:

Diamond, our hero. Recently widowed. Recently (fake) killed herself. On a mission. (E1)

Gavriil Rubchinsky. Russian-born, nerd scientist specializing in quinoa. Diamond’s husband. Died May 14, 2018. The reason for Diamond. (E1)

Ian Black. Average, ordinary, white man. Extraordinary purveyor of anything, anywhere, anytime. (E1)

Sam Irish. British agent. Formerly worked with Diamond. Pissed she died without him. (E1)

Andrew Dixon. Seventeen-year-old genius delinquent currently surfing Diamond’s couch (E4)

Mystery characters:

Enrique Torres. CIA agent who trained and worked with Diamond. Can’t believe a candle took her out. (E1)

Alexei Rubchinsky. Russian-born, nerd scientist specializing in the body. Diamond’s brother-in-law. (E2)

Dr. Quili Liu. Gavriil Rubchinsky’s successor, a Chinese-born, nerd-scientist who also loves quinoa. (E2)

Buford Winston. Blow hard leader of the super-lobby Ag Now! who is funding the quinoa research. (E2)

Montgomery Rand. Minor league con man. Reported genius who doesn’t have the brains to use what God gave him. (E3)

Carlo Giancarlo. Diamond’s Italian translator and partner in...