No Cats Allowed

by Miranda James

  “Either the shooter isn’t a good marksman,” Haskell said, “or he never intended to kill Charlie. Maybe frighten him or only wound him.”

  I nodded. “That’s what I was thinking, after the first rush of sheer terror subsided.” I had a sip of my wine. “Otherwise, why did the shooter wait until I was about to come into the house to fire? I was a lot closer to the street for a couple of minutes, and surely if he wanted to kill me, he had a better chance of succeeding then, instead of when I was at the door, an additional fifty or sixty feet away.”

  Diesel tapped my leg with a large paw, and I gave him a bit of buttered bread. No garlic, only bread and butter. He chirped in thanks as he attacked his tidbit.

  “I see what you mean,” Stewart said.

  The doorbell rang, and Haskell stood. “That will be Chief Deputy Berry. I’ll go.” He walked briskly from the room.

  I had time for the last bite of pasta and meat sauce and a final sip of my wine before Haskell came back with Kanesha.

  “Were you hurt?” she asked.

  “Maybe a bruise or two from hitting the floor,” I said. My knees would be complaining before long. “Nothing serious, though.”

  Kanesha nodded. “Tell me what happened.”

  I complied with her request, and when I’d finished, she didn’t respond right away. Finally she said, “I wonder if the shooter was aiming to kill you or only frighten you.”

  “We were discussing that before you arrived.” I repeated the gist of the conversation.

  “Hard to say, really, but it seems to me more like a threat rather than an intent to kill.” Kanesha looked at Haskell. “Where were you?”

  He regarded her with his usual stony expression. “I ran home to pick up a few things. I was gone less than half an hour.”

  Kanesha shrugged and turned back to me. “I’ll check on the whereabouts of the suspects, try to find out what they were doing when this happened.”

  “Is your mother okay?” I asked.

  “She’s fine. The police are keeping an eye on her house. Melba Gilley’s, too, just in case. They should have the bullet out by now. I have to go. Y’all be careful.” She turned and walked out. Haskell followed her.

  “She’s in a bad mood,” Stewart said. “She can’t stand it when things like this happen. She’s definitely got control issues.”

  “That’s probably one of the things that makes her so good at her job.” I had a few control issues myself, and I could sympathize with Kanesha. “I hope she gets this sorted out soon. I don’t like feeling I’m in a state of siege, practically.”

  Stewart got up from the table and started clearing. Dante pranced around, still begging for food, but Stewart told him firmly the food was all gone. Diesel tapped my leg again. I had saved one last bite of bread and butter for him, and he accepted it happily before Stewart took my plate away.

  I got up and put my wineglass in the sink. Two servings of wine were my limit. Stewart and Haskell were welcome to the rest of the bottle.

  Haskell returned, stony expression still intact, and poured himself more wine after he resumed his seat. “They’re gone.” He drank down half the wine in his glass and set it aside.

  Interesting dynamics, I thought as I resumed my seat. Was Kanesha really angry with him because he wasn’t present when the attack took place? If so, it wasn’t fair. He couldn’t have known. I started to say something, then thought better of it. Haskell was intensely private, and I didn’t want to offend him. His relationship with his boss was his business, not mine.

  Stewart came over to him and laid a hand on his shoulder. Haskell looked up at him, and Stewart smiled. Haskell returned the smile briefly, and I could see the set of his shoulders change to a more relaxed position.

  I pretended to be busy giving Diesel attention, lest Haskell realize I had seen the interaction.

  “Seems like there isn’t much progress in this case.” Stewart sat across from Haskell and refilled his wineglass. “Any luck in tracing the gun that was used in the second murder?”

  “We’ve identified the type of bullet used,” Haskell said. “But since this state doesn’t require registration of firearms, for the most part, it doesn’t do a lot of good. Unless the suspects voluntarily reveal their firearms, we can’t do much.”

  “Unless you can get a search warrant,” Stewart said.

  Haskell nodded. “And even with a search warrant, they can conceal the weapons somewhere else. We pretty much have to find the weapons on them. In a lot of cases, that’s what happens, especially in domestic violence situations. Something like this, however, is much harder.”

  “That’s discouraging,” I said.

  “The way it is,” Haskell replied with a shrug. “How about you show me how your alarm system works? Long as I’m going to be here a few days, I’d better know how to set it and turn it off.”

  “I can show you,” Stewart said. “You haven’t changed the code lately, have you, Charlie?”

  “No, it’s still the same.” The six-digit code I used was my late mother’s birthday.

  Stewart rattled it off, and I nodded. “That’s it.”

  I stood. “Since you’re going to take care of that, I guess Diesel and I will head upstairs. I’ll bid you both good night.”

  They both said good night in return, and I was halfway up the stairs, Diesel at my side, when I remembered my briefcase. This time I did turn around and go down the stairs. When I walked into the kitchen, Stewart was standing behind Haskell, still in his chair, massaging the deputy’s neck and shoulders.

  “Sorry,” I said, “I forgot that I needed to get my briefcase out of the car. It’ll only take a moment.”

  The two men nodded, and I hurried past them to the door. I flipped on the switch for the garage light and went to the car. I grabbed the briefcase and hurried back inside, turning off the light and locking the back door. “Good night again,” I said.

  “See you in the morning,” Stewart called after me. He told Dante to stay, otherwise I think the poodle would have followed me upstairs for more playtime with Diesel.

  I found my sweet boy on the bed when I got upstairs. He was already stretched out, no doubt tired from all the attention from his small and enthusiastic canine friend.

  I put the briefcase on top of the chest of drawers and proceeded to change into my comfortable pajama shorts and T-shirt. I had about a hundred and fifty pages left in Lionheart, and I planned to read until it was time to call Helen Louise around ten.

  A quarter of a frustrating hour later, however, I discovered that not even Penman’s masterful storytelling could keep my mind from jumping back and forth from the twelfth century to the present. Reluctantly I set the book aside, marked my place, and let my mind focus on the events of the day. Particularly on the terrifying event of the evening.

  Had the shot been an attempt at murder? Or simply intimidation?

  What was the point of intimidation? To keep me from going back to the library and perhaps reneging on my acceptance of the temporary position?

  What good would that do, other than simply to delay the inevitable? At some point, the job would be filled, and the new library director would no doubt be asking the same questions about the budget that I would. If there were indeed problems with the budget other than those caused by Peter Vanderkeller, that is.

  I hadn’t found anything in my studying of the figures today, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t a problem concealed in them. I might have to dig deeper—a lot deeper—to find evidence of any malfeasance, if it was there.

  I considered the other unanswered questions.

  Why had Porter Stanley come to Athena in search of Reilly?

  How did the intruder get into the library administration offices without a key?

  Was there a connection between Stanley’s appearance and Reilly’s murder? Or only coincidence
?

  Hard luck on Stanley if it were the latter. Had he simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time? In other words, had he happened to witness Reilly’s murder?

  Were the pranks against Reilly the work of the murderer? Or were murderer and prankster two different people?

  After lying there a few minutes and going round and round over these questions, I decided I ought to write them all down. I often thought better, and more clearly, when I wrote things down.

  I got out of bed to retrieve a notepad and pen from the briefcase. I settled back against my pillows and began to record my questions. When I’d finished, I read through them again. Diesel never stirred the entire time. He really must be tired, I thought.

  I tapped the pen against the pad while I went over the questions yet again. As I did so, I noticed that the cap looked odd. I held it under the bedside light to examine it, and I realized that the cap contained a detachable part. I pulled it out and discovered that it was a thumb drive.

  How clever, and how useful. Then I noticed the pen bore the logo of one of the library’s longtime vendors. Vendors often gave away promotional items like pens, thumb drives, notebooks, and so on. This was the first of its kind that I had seen. It wasn’t mine, so it had to be one of the ones from the director’s desk.

  I looked at my list of questions again and ran down them. I tapped the pen against the paper a few more times. Then I stared at the cap of the pen. I pulled out the thumb drive and looked at it in sudden wonder.

  Could this be what the intruder had been searching for?

  TWENTY-NINE

  I suddenly thought of Edgar Allen Poe’s story “The Purloined Letter.” Was the answer as simple as that?

  One way to find out. Telling Diesel I would be back in a few minutes, I hurried downstairs to retrieve my laptop from the den. Quiet reigned on the first floor, with only a couple of lights on, and I figured Stewart and Haskell must be in Stewart’s rooms on the third floor. I scooped up the laptop and huffed my way back to my bedroom.

  I had to sit on the bed for a minute to catch my breath. Diesel watched me, one eye open, then he yawned and went back to sleep.

  Propped up in bed, I booted up the laptop, and when it was ready, I inserted the thumb drive. When the window popped up, asking what I wanted to do with the drive, I clicked on the option to view its files.

  There were several folders listed, along with a few files not in folders. The folder names were dates preceded by the letters FY, and I figured that indicated fiscal years. I clicked on the first one, for two years past, and viewed a long list of files; some documents, others obviously spreadsheets. I scanned the names of these, and they corresponded with what I had already seen on the desktop computer in the director’s office.

  Maybe this thumb drive was simply an ordinary backup, for the convenience of working offline perhaps. Otherwise the college network kept backups of everything, and there wasn’t much need for storage like this in the normal way of things.

  I examined one of the spreadsheets that consisted of the library’s master budget for two fiscal years before. It looked fine to me, but I would have to compare it to the file on the college network.

  I logged in to the network and then accessed the files linked to the account. It took me a few moments to find the directory I wanted, and then I had to scan the file names to find the right spreadsheet. I opened it, and then I went back and forth between the two.

  After a couple of minutes of this, I concluded the files were exactly the same. The same number of line items, the same figures in each. The file on the thumb drive was only a copy.

  I did a random check of three other files, and all turned out the same. Copies.

  I stared at the screen. Was I wasting my time on this?

  I examined the thumb drive’s directory more closely. I noticed a folder named Assets. I didn’t remember seeing a similar folder on the network drive, so I clicked on it.

  The resulting list contained more spreadsheet files, a few word-processed documents, a number of PDFs, and several pictures. I clicked on the pictures first, and to my amazement I found myself staring at the picture of a ring.

  This surely didn’t belong to the library. I knew there was no jewelry among the archival collections, other than a few military service medals donated by several families whose ancestors had attended the college before the Civil War.

  The ring looked expensive. The large center stone appeared to be a cabochon-cut sapphire surrounded by diamonds. The diamonds were not small, either. It was a gorgeous piece, and I wondered to whom it belonged.

  The next picture revealed a sapphire and diamond necklace, with matching earrings. The sapphires, though smaller in the necklace and earrings, were also en cabochon to match the ring. I counted at least forty diamonds among the three pieces, and I had no doubt this set was extremely valuable. The remaining four pictures revealed two bracelets, both emerald and diamond, three emerald rings with diamonds, and a handful of gemstones.

  The styles of some of the pieces looked old, and I speculated that most of them were antiques. How old, though, I couldn’t say.

  Was this what the intruder sought? These pictures of expensive jewelry?

  Where were the real items? I wondered. If they had been in Reilly’s office, had the intruder found them?

  Could they have been the reason Porter Stanley came looking for his former brother-in-law?

  My head was awhirl from all the questions. I had no answers, either. I realized what I had to do, however.

  I picked up my phone and speed-dialed Kanesha’s cell. The call went immediately to voice mail, and I left an impatient message for her to call me ASAP, that I had found what could be important evidence.

  After that, I copied the contents of the thumb drive onto my laptop. Kanesha might not like it, but I had a hunch I might find other useful information somewhere in the drive’s contents.

  I looked through the pictures of the jewelry again. I had an idea they might belong to Reilly’s ex-wife. Her family was wealthy, I recalled, and these pieces could have been handed down. If Reilly had stolen them, I could understand why Stanley had come after his former brother-in-law. Of course, he could have reported the theft to the police and turned it over to them, but maybe for some reason he had decided to handle it himself. I suspected Stanley had borne Reilly a healthy grudge and would have taken satisfaction in forcing the jerk to return the jewels to their rightful owner.

  Had Reilly returned them to Stanley? Was that where the two had gone, to retrieve the jewels after I left them together in Reilly’s office?

  My phone rang. Kanesha, I saw from the caller ID.

  As usual, she wasted no time on formalities. “What’s this important evidence you’ve found?”

  I explained about the thumb drive and its contents. “Do you think this jewelry has anything to do with the murders?”

  “It’s related,” Kanesha said. “I just heard from the police in Massachusetts. After his death was reported, Stanley’s sister told them she discovered that her most valuable jewelry—all family heirlooms—had disappeared. The family suspected Reilly, and Stanley came here to find him and retrieve the jewels.”

  “Did you find them with Stanley?” I asked.

  “No,” Kanesha said. “I’m pretty sure the killer has them. Whether they were the reason Stanley was killed, that I don’t know. It could simply have been luck on the murderer’s part to find them on the victim.”

  “If you can find the jewels, you find the murderer.”

  “Yes,” Kanesha said.

  “Are you going to come by and get the thumb drive tonight?”

  “I can’t, but I’m going to send someone. Expect him there in about fifteen minutes, twenty at the most.” She paused. “I presume you’ve already copied the contents.”

  “Yes,” I said, not completely surprised by he
r question.

  “I figured you had,” she said. “If you find anything else pertinent, let me know.”

  “Will do.”

  I put the phone down, powered down the laptop, and got up to set it on the chest of drawers with my briefcase. I removed the thumb drive, replaced it in the cap of the pen, and then went downstairs to wait for the deputy to arrive.

  This time Diesel accompanied me, but while I turned off the alarm, he ambled into the utility room. After a few moments I heard the sounds of litter being scratched. Next came quiet for about five seconds, and then the sounds of a cat eating dry food. With the house so still around us, it was amusing to hear Diesel attending to his basic needs.

  He finished and came to sit by my chair in the kitchen about five minutes before the doorbell rang. He chattered to me, alternating warbles and chirps with the occasional meow, and I wondered what story he was telling me. He had these moods when he gabbed like an effusive teenager, and I answered back as I considered appropriate. Anyone who observed this behavior in me would think I needed immediate psychiatric intervention, but another human with a talkative cat would no doubt understand perfectly.

  The doorbell cut the conversation short. I checked through the peephole before I opened the door. I wanted to be certain there was a person in uniform on the other side before I opened it.

  There was, and I did. The deputy accepted the pen, thanked me, and then departed. I reset the alarm, and we headed for the stairs. When we reached the second-floor landing, I glanced up to see Haskell peering at me over the railing from near the top of the stairs to the third floor.

  “Everything okay?” he asked.

  “Yes, just one of your fellow deputies coming by to pick up something. I’ll tell you all about it in the morning.”

  “Right.” The head vanished, and Diesel and I continued into my bedroom.

  I eyed the laptop and considered turning it on again and having another look at the contents of the thumb drive. But the day had been long enough, and it was nearly time to call Helen Louise. I would have time tomorrow to dig into those files.