CATch a Killer (A Millie Holland Cat Cozy Mystery Series Book 2) Page 3

  She couldn’t really find anything that would implicate Whitman’s ex-wife, though, so she crossed that idea off the list and realized she was running out of paths to explore. At a standstill, she went to the bathroom to take a shower and dress for the day. She’d never gotten out of her pajamas and robe because she’d been so anxious to dive into her research. But she had a strict policy about that, and she swore that, unless she was sick, it didn’t matter if she was going anywhere or not. She was not allowed to stay in her pajamas all day.

  Coraline jumped in the tub just as the shower spray turned on, and the cat launched herself onto Millie’s chest, yowling and meowing. Millie had to pry her off and wrap her in the dry towel she’d intended to use for her own shower. Millie stroked her head in comfort and gave her a look of exasperation. She set the bundle of cat and towel on the end of her bed, Coraline starting to growl in angst as Millie reached for another towel and checked the water temperature.

  She made the water slightly hotter than usual, her muscles sore from spending almost the whole day yesterday at the computer, and she stayed under the water longer, knowing she needed all the help she could get because she intended to do the same today. And since she had no idea which direction to go yet, she thought she’d take the time to look up the episode of her show she’d missed.

  She also took her time picking her clothes. She wanted to be presentable – that’s just who she was – and comfortable at the same time. She chose a pair of capri sweats and a loose cotton blouse with floral print that felt light and decent enough to wear in public. Millie rarely wore scrubby clothes, unless she was doing a spring cleaning or giving the cats a bath, one of her least favorite tasks.

  Satisfied, she combed through her hair and applied the blow dryer for a very short time, not wanting her hair to be wet for long but also not wanting to cause damage from excessive heat.

  She returned to the living room, poured herself another cup of coffee and sat down at the computer, logging onto the television channel’s website and looking for the episode of her show she needed to watch. The cats gathered around her, taking up positions as if they had to watch as well, just as they did on the couch every night. The next hour was intense, and when it was over, she felt satisfied, as well as grateful there had been no interruptions.

  Now, she had the real work cut out for her. With a sigh, she decided she was going to have to see if any of the suspects on her list had gone to high school or college with Carlisle, or with each other, for that matter. She could skip his hooligan friends as a youth, since they were obviously already connected. Besides, she’d turned those names over to Detective Marx already. That reminded her to check in with him later, and she put a note on her calendar so she would get an alarm. Otherwise, she would bury herself too deep in her searches and forget.

  She was halfway through the list and feeling a bit overwhelmed, as well as frustrated that nothing was turning up, when her phone rang. With only three people who might call her – Doug, Detective Marx, and her editor, Beth – she didn’t hesitate to answer, and she didn’t bother to look at the caller ID. “Hello?”

  “Ms. Holland, it’s Detective Marx.” She found herself smiling broadly. She hadn’t expected to hear from him; she’d figured she would have to call and ride him for answers. “I wanted to let you know I followed up on those names you gave me, and Joseph Cota has recently moved into the area. But we brought him in for questioning, and his alibi checks out. Art Buckley lives in New Jersey now and doesn’t appear to have left the state for at least two years. But I do appreciate the information you gave me.”

  Millie hid her disappointment. “I’m glad you followed up, and I thank you for letting me know what came of it. I do have one more name you might want to look into. One of Carlisle’s coworkers lost his job recently and is still out of work. If he still has a gun, he would be a prime candidate.” She gave him the name, as well as the names of the two employees at the pawn shop.

  “Ms. Holland…Millie…I thought you had a day job. In fact, I started reading your column. You’re quite amusing. But the point is, I think you have enough to do. I don’t want you wasting your spare time doing something I can have one of our desk jockeys doing. Again, I can’t put you on my payroll, and we don’t expect pro bono work around here.” The detective sounded flustered. “I think you should find another hobby.”

  “I respect your opinion, Detective, but I disagree. If you have men there doing the same research I am, why have you not already looked into these names? Why am I the one giving you leads? I think maybe your men are overpaid.” She paused but didn’t give him time to respond. “I hope those names get you further than the first set I gave you.” She hung up, not wanting to hear anymore protests, and Viggo sniffed in approval, twitching his whiskers. “That’s right, it’s all public information isn’t it? I can access anything I want!”

  She went back to her search of college rosters, but she didn’t find anything of interest, so she turned away from the pet project and decided she needed to get out of the house for a bit. Something was bound to spark an idea, if she could just find a little stimulation. She shoved her feet into a pair of sandals and rubbed heads as the cats lined up for love. “I’m not going to be gone forever, darlings, though I know you’ll be counting the minutes anyway. Behave while I’m gone, and I’ll give you some treats when I get home.”

  She locked up and drove out of the parking lot with no real destination, through her stomach was starting to growl and she knew she needed to find something for lunch. She drove into the downtown area and found herself parked at the building where Carlisle had been working security. Taking a deep breath, she got out of the car and roamed the ground floor, trying to catch sight of as many of the guards’ guns as she could. She was trying to determine if there was a standard issue gun they carried or if it was a personal preference. Unfortunately, she didn’t know a lot about guns.

  As far as she could tell, they were different. They could have been the same caliber or various versions of the same gun, but the hilts all looked different from each other. She left, a bit confused, and headed for a Subway shop nearby, mulling over what she’d seen. If she knew what caliber bullet had killed each of the two men, she could narrow down a search to only guns that fired such a caliber and see if she couldn’t identify any of the guns she’d just seen, but she doubted Detective Marx would be that forthcoming with information. She’d just have to go through images of guns at random, maybe starting with the most popular ones, and see if she could recognize any of them.

  Chapter 4

  Millie couldn’t help herself; before going home, she dropped by Whitman’s jewelers to see if the shop was open. Strangely enough, the scene of the crime was completely cleared, with no blood stains, no police tape, and no media. There were no obvious gawkers, only shoppers casting furtive glances at the floor as if trying to determine exactly where the bodies had fallen.

  That didn’t matter to Millie; the exact location and position didn’t tell her anything about who else might have been involved, and the thought of trying to imagine them there only served to give her a creepy feeling. What did interest her was the clerk behind the counter in front of her. Ava Johnson, a young woman who had helped her with her purchases a great many times, seemed to be running the show. Millie strode up to her, ignoring the niggling reminder of Detective Marx’s warning not to try to talk to anyone.

  Anna smiled at her first, so she felt the invitation was open. As far as anyone was concerned, she was just another shopper, and it was better that way. She had a feeling they would be more forthcoming with her than they would a man with a badge. Even if she only got one detail the police hadn’t, it could potentially be that detail that broke the case wide open.

  “Good afternoon, Ms. Holland. How are you today?” Anna greeted brightly, though her eyes were sad and her face lined with despair.

  “I’m doing alright. I’m so sorry to hear about Mr. Whitman. What a tragedy!” She patted the g
irl’s hand where it rested on the counter.

  “I know. We’re all having a very hard time with it. But with the police having finished scouring the place, the other employees and I decided Gordon would want us to come together, clean up, and keep the business open until other arrangements were made.” She frowned. “We’re hoping that, somehow, Gordon made provisions for the place to keep going. None of us want to go looking for another job. We’ve all been here too long.”

  Millie nodded sympathetically. “It’s hard enough to lose someone you’re close to. When it turns your life upside down, it only gets worse. And really, it shouldn’t have happened. I can’t imagine what Mr. Whitman was doing here that time of night.”

  Anna’s gaze darted to the left, and Millie recognized it as either a sign of deception or a precursor to a confession. Leaning forward and dropping her voice to a stage whisper, the girl said, “I closed that night, and Gordon showed up as I was about to lock the door. I asked why he was here because it was unusual, but he seemed really distracted. He said something about the bank deposit, but we only make that drop once a week, on Saturday mornings. I’m worried that he was into something bad, and it’s all going to fall back on us.”

  Millie raised an eyebrow. “What sort of bad thing would he have been into?”

  Anna shrugged one shoulder. “I don’t know, but the fact that he mentioned money makes me nervous. If this place gets sold, my parents are going to help me get a loan to buy it because I love it so much. But first, I want to go through all the accounting and make sure he didn’t, you know, cook the books.”

  Would Gordon Whitman have been the type to do that? Maybe, but if anything, with so many lucrative businesses, Millie thought he was more likely to cheat on his taxes than to embezzle or flat out cook the books. Still, there was always a possibility. “You know, that could take a really long time. I mean, there are two decades of records, and I don’t even remember when everything became computerized.”

  Anna chuckled softly. “Actually, all the old paperwork was both scanned and entered in manually. I was the one who suggested it, and Gordon let me choose the software system and everything. I spent almost a year getting it all in order, and then I started working the store again on a regular basis. I audited it as I went, so everything up to that point is good to go. I just have to go over the last four years.” She looked nervous, and Millie wondered if she was afraid she’d find millions of dollars missing or if she just dreaded going back to audit everything.

  Either way, Millie saw an opening. “You know, I’m a genius with financial stuff. I could take a quick first glance at all of it and see if anything seems out of place.” She’d done balance sheets before. How hard could it be to look at electronic versions? All she needed to identify was missing money or mislabeled payments.

  The girl looked uncertain. “I don’t know, Ms. Holland. I mean, this whole thing has me all kinds of worried about what’s legal and what’s not. I’m not sure anyone should see the financial records outside of the company. What if Gordon was taking money to pay a debt or something, and it caught up with him before he could pay it off? Wouldn’t this be evidence?”

  Thinking fast, Millie used that to her advantage. “Well, I have an idea. I am very good friends with a detective at the local precinct. I could take him a copy of the files, ask if anything like that would be useful in the investigation of Mr. Whitman’s death, and either way, I can ask a favor and have him and his team take a look to see if you’d be buying into trouble.” It was a true statement, although she certainly wasn’t going to mention the friend she would turn the files over to happened to be the lead investigator on the boss’s murder.

  Anna actually looked relieved. “I would love it if you could do that for me!” She ducked under the counter and came back up with a flash drive in her palm, blushing. “I actually just made a backup of all the files this morning, thinking that I should get started.” She leaned in confidentially again. “I don’t actually suspect anyone here of being involved in anything underhanded, but you never know. I wanted a copy of everything before anyone could get in and change something.”

  Millie took the tiny device and held it to her heart. “I’ll guard it with my life and get it back to you in one piece. Hang in there, Anna. Everything will be alright.”

  She nodded sadly and then gasped. “Oh, I’m so sorry. You probably didn’t come in here for all of that nonsense. Is there something I can help you with? We just got in some new handcrafted turquoise bracelets from Arizona.”

  Millie took a few minutes to glance over them and chose one that was mostly silver with a couple of turquoise charms. She paid, wished Anna a good afternoon, and promised to bring the drive back and let her know what she found out. Back in her car, she debated going home, but she was too excited to show Detective Marx what she’d managed to get her hands on. If Gordon Whitman, a man she had truly believed to be above reproach, had gotten into trouble in one way or another, and he’d begun to funnel money from the business to dig himself out of it, that would be the lead the police needed that would point them in the direction of whoever had come calling.

  It put an entirely different spin on the case, she thought as she headed toward the station, praying the detective was there. Whoever had come was either there to collect money or steal jewelry to cover the debt or payoff silence or some such offense. That still didn’t explain Carlisle’s presence, and it wasn’t necessarily the right conclusion to draw, but it seemed like a significant possibility.

  She strode purposefully through the station, the same kid as before now offering her a nod and a smile in greeting. She scanned the bullpen and didn’t see Detective Marx, and she pouted. “What are you doing here, Millie?” came a voice behind her, and her spirits lifted as she turned to see the detective, who was apparently just arriving back from picking up his own lunch, considering the bag with the golden arches in his hand.

  “Well, I have something just as delicious for you as that cheeseburger you’re carrying,” she replied.

  He grunted. “It’s a chicken sandwich, and I doubt anything is going to beat this.” He motioned toward the desk he’d sat at before. “Come on, let’s hear it.”

  She frowned as she followed him. “If you got promoted, why haven’t you gotten an office yet?”

  He snorted. “Only chiefs and captains get offices. Sometimes, if they’re really lucky, sergeants get a big desk.” He sat down heavily, and Millie took a seat lightly in the chair across the desk from him. “So, I guess we’re here to talk business, even though I told you to back off just a few hours ago.”

  She smiled sweetly. “Young man, just because I find information that can help you doesn’t mean I went looking for trouble. I was perfectly safe, and actually, I just went shopping. Can you really blame an old, lonely woman for getting chatty with a sales clerk she’s known for years?” It wasn’t often she played the old or the lonely card, and she couldn’t remember ever using them together before, but in this case, she needed all the cushioning she could find.

  “Really? You were just shopping?” He didn’t buy it for a minute.

  She held out her arm with the new bracelet, frowning indignantly. “Yes, I was shopping. I believe I told you I knew Mr. Whitman because I shop on a regular basis at Whitman’s Jewelers. I went by on a whim, wanting a new trinket and dying to see if everything was up and running again. I just happened to be talking to Anna, my favorite clerk, and she mentioned that she’s thinking of buying the business but is concerned there are some things behind the scenes that aren’t legit. We talked for a bit, and upon her request, I brought you a copy of the financial files. The last four years, she says, are the most important, but all of them are here.”

  She passed the flash drive to the detective, who stared at it for a very long time. “You’re telling me this woman volunteered to hand over all the possibly incriminating evidence of funneling or laundering or embezzling, just because she doesn’t want to have to pay Whitman’s back t
axes, when and if the place goes up for sale?”

  “Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying. Detective Marx, policemen are a force to be reckoned with. You can be insanely intimidating. But you should remember that old saying about getting more bees with honey. A badge scares a lot of people, and Anna was obviously terrified this would somehow come back and bury her. She needed a gentle, leading hand that wasn’t demanding. I guided, but it flowed like a normal conversation.” Millie thought maybe this time she got the message through.

  “Is this like your process of elimination theory? It’s just an inference and not a proven fact?” Detective Marx shoved half his burger in his face and swallowed quickly, leading Millie to wonder if he chewed and if, without chewing, he could taste what he was eating. He shook his head. “It’s not that simple, Millie. I wish it was. Now, next time you seem to find yourself wandering, try to assure you don’t talk to people about the case. I gave you a chance to make the decision on your own, Millie. Don’t make me put a guard on your apartment until this thing blows over so you can’t get out.”

  She held her head high and looked at him over the bridge of her nose. “You do what you need to do, Detective. I wasn’t aiming to talk to anyone,” she reiterated, becoming more and more comfortable with half-truths. But it bothered her, and she had to hold back a desire to spit the bile out of her mouth. Still, it came down to the fact that she couldn’t be completely honest with the detective or he would definitely follow through with the threat to basically put her on house arrest.