CATch a Killer (A Millie Holland Cat Cozy Mystery Series Book 2) Read online

  “Okay, I accept that, mostly because I don’t feel like arguing with you anymore, and I’m going to have to trust that you’ll stay out of hot water.” He held out his fries, offering her some, but she shook her head. “Is there anything else?”

  “Not right now. But I’m sure I’ll be back in touch when I do have more.” She stood. “You really should watch your cholesterol better. Deep fried goodness only tastes good for a short time, and then, all you can do is flush all of it out of the system and hope some vitamins and a low cholesterol diet save your life.”

  She stood and said goodbye, ready to get home now. She liked being able to get out and about, but she was most comfortable in her own little space. By the time she got there, she felt drained, and she instantly reached into the cabinet for some Emergen-C, just in case she was coming down with something. She rarely got sick, keeping up with her vitamins and being very sanitary. She also didn’t come in contact with many people, and she managed to avoid big epidemics. But when she did fall ill, it was the end of the world. She didn’t deal well with being under the weather, and her cats were not happy children when she was that grumpy.

  She drank it in some lemon tea while sitting on the couch in a bit of a trance, trying to add everything up. Her initial instincts about Carlisle’s friends had been completely off base, and now, she had no idea if anything was going to come of her latest information. Perhaps the police would uncover some illegal activity by Mr. Whitman, and that would offer some sort of clue. She had no idea if Anna had been right about her boss or not, but at least it was a reasonable possibility, even if Millie hated to think him capable of such things.

  Grant pawed at her knee, and she patted her lap, inviting him to jump up. When he did, she stroked his fur from head to tail, making him purr loudly. “I guess you can’t count on anyone anymore, can you?” she asked him.

  Viggo jumped up beside her, protesting vocally as he rubbed up against her arm. She laughed. “I’m talking about humans, my darlings. Of course, my children can always be counted on to be stubborn and sassy, with all the love at just the right time.” She sighed. “If only the two legged individuals in this world had a sense of loyalty and morals.” Finished with her tea, she pushed herself up off the couch and went to work, deciding she was going to prepare herself a good, solid dinner.

  She put together a casserole and turned on the oven to heat, humming to herself the whole time because the apartment was suddenly too quiet. She chalked it up to finding out about Margaret and feeling ineffective in this investigation. Even the cats were quiet, and she assumed they felt her energy. She didn’t exactly feel down, but she certainly wasn’t up, either. She hoped the nice dinner would help ease her mind and put her back on track.

  Chapter 5

  On Friday, Millie donned a somber black pantsuit and attended the funeral for Daniel Carlisle. She kept quiet and hung toward the back of the crowd, taking an opportunity during the service to step into the foyer and snap some pictures of the guest log book with her phone. She slipped out before the procession headed to the gravesite, not having yet been noticed and not wanting to risk that possibility.

  Gordon Whitman’s memorial service was set for the following morning, and while she loathed to wake up early on a Saturday, she had high hopes that there would be people attending both that could be considered suspects. After all, if there was a connection between the two of them, that spelled trouble instantly.

  Unfortunately, Margaret’s funeral would be tomorrow as well, but it was out of state, and she couldn’t justify the trip. She’d ordered a huge floral arrangement and made a hefty donation to a children’s home in the area in Margaret’s name, knowing her friend would appreciate that, as would Doug and his family. She only wished she’d had a chance to say goodbye.

  Deciding not to mope about it anymore, Millie drove away from the funeral home and headed to a little café where she could get a salad and soup and feel comfortable being alone. But as she sat down with her meal, her phone rang, and she sighed at the annoyance. Any other time, she might have been excited to hear from Detective Marx, but when she was truly looking forward to solitude and wanted to forget about the investigation for a few minutes, she wasn’t particularly thrilled.

  “Hello?” she answered, letting her irritation ring through just a bit.

  “Hello, Millie. It’s Detective Marx. Am I interrupting something?”

  “I just sat down to lunch, Detective, but I have a few minutes. What is it?” she asked, too curious to actually ask him to call back later.

  “Well, I just got the analysis back from those files you gave me. I thought you might be interested in what our guys found and put in the report.”

  Millie sat up straight and put her fork down. “I’m all ears.”

  He hesitated, and when he spoke, she could hear the excitement in his voice. “It looks like your friend at the jewelry store was onto something. The numbers don’t quite add up, and it looks like someone – and we haven’t tracked down who yet – was scraping just a little off the top, starting about two years ago. Everything was straight till then, but two years of pennies adds up fast.”

  Millie buzzed with excitement. “How much was taken?”

  “Somewhere, there’s either a wad of cash or a bank account to the tune of over $750,000. If it was put in a savings account of some kind, it’s probably close to $100,000 more.”

  It wasn’t quite a million, but it was a lot of money, and that meant it was for a purpose. Gordon Whitman hadn’t needed it for himself; with all the businesses he owned, he was loaded already. So, what did he need to pay off? What sort of trouble had he stirred up that required such a sum of money he couldn’t take from his usual stipend?

  Then again, maybe it wasn’t Mr. Whitman. After all, he did have all that money, and it was entirely possible the confrontation had nothing to do with a robbery. Could Whitman have figured out who was stealing the money and had an altercation over that? It sounded entirely plausible and made her want to go back to the drawing board to see if any of Whitman’s employees over the last two years had any connection to Carlisle.

  “Can you trace the account?” she asked.

  He cleared his throat. “Millie, we can handle it from here. This is the best lead we’ve had yet, and I am incredibly grateful to you for handing it over. But we’re going to take it from here. I have people who can track where the money went, if it was in a bank account. If not, there are other ways to find it. I just need you to sit back and wait, and when the time comes, I’ll be sure to give you some credit where it’s due, okay?”

  “I’m glad to hear it, Detective. I just want you to know I’m not doing this for recognition. I’m doing it as a concerned citizen, and I’m going to continue to help any way I can. I’m going to eat my lunch now, but thank you for telling me all this. I look forward to speaking again soon.” She hung up and picked up her fork, diving into her salad, her appetite suddenly ravenous. She had a new perspective, and she thought this time, there was a much better chance of uncovering a plot.

  She ate quickly and hurried home, tossing treats at her exuberant cats and sat down at the computer without even changing out of her dress clothes. She was antsy and grew irritated waiting for the computer to boot up.

  Finally, the screen popped up, and she dove in, pulling up her notes with all the names and an internet window. She had information on Carlisle; now, she wanted to see if there was anything that connected him to someone working for Mr. Whitman. Of course, the jewelry store employees were the most likely suspects, but she was going to check the employees at his other stores as well.

  Two hours later, she rubbed her eyes, tired from looking at the computer screen, and pushed back from the desk. Her cats had been incredibly patient with her, and they deserved some attention while she mulled over what little she’d found. There wasn’t a lot, mostly because Daniel Carlisle came from Miami, while most of the others hailed from a local neighborhood. However, there were some intere
sting things, though she didn’t know if she should consider them related to the case or not.

  One woman who worked at the little southern food restaurant Whitman owned, Alicia Hernandez, had come from Miami and was around the same age as Carlisle. They’d attended the same high school, but Millie couldn’t find any criminal record on her. If she’d been involved in anything Carlisle and his crew did, she had to have been underage so the records were sealed, or not caught. And Miami was a huge area with large populations in every high school. Just because she’d been a freshman when Carlisle was a senior didn’t mean they ever crossed paths, much less ran in the same circles.

  Several others in Mr. Whitman’s employment had all gone to the same high school locally, but their ages were spread out so it would take some work to hunt down yearbooks and see if any of them had played football together or been in band or some other club together. She had a feeling that Dale Lynnwood and Owen Marshall, the guys at the pawn shop, likely knew at least a couple of the other people they worked with. After all, it was a bit of a niche market, and you didn’t just come by a job at a place like that. It required certain knowledge and a certain personality, and usually, you landed that sort of position through a referral.

  Addy Pennington was one of those the two guys had to know; she’d been in the same graduating class, and it wasn’t a large class. And it looked like, prior to working at the pawn shop, she’d held a job in the building Carlisle worked security for. Again, it didn’t mean they were all connected, but it was worth following up, considering it was probably the biggest coincidence she’d found yet. It didn’t hurt that Addy’s position at the building had been as a receptionist for the independent bank and accounting firm that occupied the ground floor.

  She may not have been a bank teller or an accountant, but just working in that sort of office granted knowledge of how it worked. In Millie’s mind, the only missing piece to that puzzle was motive. Did either Daniel Carlisle or Addy Pennington have something on Gordon Whitman as blackmail worthy of a large sum of money? Or did either of them know any of the employees at the jewelry store and come to collect their portion of the skimmed funds?

  She considered going to the jewelry store to talk to Anna again. She could show pictures of all the people she’d started to consider as possible suspects and see if Anna had ever seen any of them or happened to know if any of them knew another employee. She just wanted to be discreet about it. After all, she didn’t want to scare the young girl, and she didn’t want to raise the attention of the police department and Detective Marx by snooping around and alerting potential suspects.

  She wondered if they were considering every employee at the jewelry stop a person of interest, at least, since they would have the most access. But she imagined they were running into the same snag she had, trying to figure out where Carlisle fit in. She scooted back up to the desk to finish going through the list, now that her eyes weren’t stinging anymore. She still had about eight people to cross reference, and she was going to finish her research before she quit for the day.

  She came to Anna’s name and felt stupid even looking at her as a suspect. The girl was the last person she would have fingered for the job, and when her record came up clean, Millie wasn’t surprised. She was a little curious about how her parents were going to help her get the loan she needed, as she’d stated, considering it didn’t look like they were well off at all. In fact, the girl still lived at home, in a neighborhood with rent control and lots of Section 8 housing. She felt the girl trying to pull herself out of the lifestyle, but she just couldn’t imagine where she was going to get the money.

  Maybe there was something she didn’t know, or maybe Anna just had a pipe dream. After all, no one knew yet if the shop was even going to be up for sale. She understood the starry-eyed gaze into the future, with plans and aspirations that so many could never achieve, no matter how hard they tried. But other than a question of funding for something that was likely over the girl’s head, she couldn’t find anything questionable, and she couldn’t attach Anna to Carlisle. And if Anna was involved in funneling the money, why would she have given Millie the information that proved it?

  Pursing her lips, she moved on to the next name on the list, Evan Sherman. He sparked her interest when she saw that he’d worked security prior to coming to the shop. It was the same company as Carlisle, though he’d been assigned to a completely different post, and paperwork didn’t link them in any way, with the exception of their paychecks coming from the same place. Of course, that didn’t mean they’d never met or talked. They could have struck up conversation when they went into the office to pick up a check or at some sort of meeting they had to attend. There were tons of possibilities, and she made a note to have the detective check into Evan Sherman.

  That was the last thing she found, and she had to quit. Until Gordon Whitman’s will was read, she didn’t have anything to go on. She had to know if he’d left the shop to someone, donated the inventory somewhere, or put it all up for sale. She was also interested in the sale price. Wouldn’t it be a coincidence if the price was somewhere around $750,000? That would point to whoever was funneling the money out as the murderer easily.

  She stretched her arms over her head, and five fuzzy felines stood from where they’d been napping and stretched their own legs. She smiled down at Newman, who had practically been laying across her feet. “I hope I can walk. I think you might have put my feet to sleep with your heavy gut.”

  He purred and rubbed his head on her shoes, as if to try to bring back feeling in apology for causing her harm. She petted him. “Thank you, sweetheart.” The other members of her little family were headed toward the kitchen table and prancing circles around it, and though it wasn’t quite time for their dinner, Millie gave in and fed them. She was a bit hungry, too; salad and soup didn’t last very long in the stomach.

  She decided to treat herself and pulled a frozen gourmet pizza out of the freezer. She didn’t eat pizza often, but she felt she could celebrate being so diligent and actually helping the police find a trail to follow. She set the oven to heat and trod into her bedroom. She still hadn’t changed, and she planned to wear the same outfit to the memorial service tomorrow. As she pulled on a pair of jogging pants and a sleeveless shirt, she chided herself; she’d forgotten about the pictures she’d taken of the guest list earlier.

  The first order of business with those would be to cross reference the names with Daniel Carlisle, as well as Evan Sherman. If Evan had shown up at the funeral, it would go a long way in giving probable cause so the police could bring him in for questioning. And if any of the other names she’d gotten matched employees at any of Gordon Whitman’s businesses, she would have even more to hand over to Detective Marx.

  Chapter 6

  Millie was excited, and she could barely contain herself. She checked the time and knew it was late, but she assumed police officers pretty much lived their lives on call, especially when they were working a case like this. She had to call Detective Marx and tell him what she’d found. She might even hit the jackpot tomorrow at the Whitman memorial, and she was anxious for the morning to come.

  She dialed with anticipation, and when the detective answered and didn’t sound surly, she was exponentially thrilled. “Good evening, Detective. I wanted to share some incredibly interesting findings with you.”

  “Millie,” he said in a warning tone, “didn’t I tell you to let this go?”

  “I didn’t do anything dangerous, my friend. But I’ve found a plethora of information and, after sorting through it, I think I might have something useful.”

  She could almost picture him pinching the bridge of his nose and shaking his head. It was a typical mannerism, and the thought made Millie smile. After all, once he heard what she had to say, he was going to be a lot less irritated. “Okay, Millie, tell me what you’ve managed to uncover.”

  She pulled out her notes. “Addy Pennington used to work in the building where Daniel Carlisle worked
security. She left that job about a year ago for a position at one of the pawn shops owned by Gordon Whitman. She also graduated in the same class as two of the guys who worked there already, who are known for previously running jewelry on the black market. I know none of that ties into the embezzling, but maybe they’re two different crimes. I think this probably the biggest connection yet.”

  There was a moment of silence, and as she looked down at Coraline, whose whiskers went back and forth in a tick-tock motion, she smiled, the Jeopardy song playing in her head. “This woman works with Carlisle first, maybe talks about low pay and how they wish they could hit the jackpot.

  Carlisle mentions he’s got a history of theft, and they start talking more seriously about it. The girl is still in touch with her old high school buds, and they work for Whitman, so they know the ins and outs of the businesses. They don’t want to hit the pawn shop because it’s their home turf, and it would be too easy to finger them. So, they choose the jewelry store and rely on Carlisle to get them in. They’ll run the jewelry on the black market, and the girl will get her cut for arranging the operation. Done deal.”