Catnapped

by Gabriella Herkert

  “Roger that. How are you planning on finding out this information, if a paranoid and protective husband is allowed to ask?” It sounded like he was teasing, but I wasn’t absolutely sure. I didn’t want him parked in the lot, watching all day. There was no need to worry him unnecessarily, so I lied.

  “Don’t worry, Connor. I think I can handle these tasks from the office. What’s the worst thing that could happen to me here? I might get sued. Very scary.”

  “Strictly office work, right?”

  “Aye-aye, Cap’n.”

  “I’m a commander.”

  “Relax, Con. Strictly office work. Scout’s honor.” I crossed my fingers.

  “When you’re ready to come home, call and I’ll come get you.”

  I groaned. “You really are paranoid. I’m perfectly safe on the bus. It’s only thirty blocks or so. I’ll see you when I get home.”

  “Sara.”

  “Gotta run. Bye.”

  Following the money made complete sense last night, but after a day on the phones without so much as a glimmer of progress, checking out the players held more appeal. Somebody was out there killing Californians and leaving them in alleys for me to trip over.

  I turned to my laptop, linking to the Internet. I loved the information age. If the general public had any idea that all it took was a Social Security number and the right databanks to get birth certificates, death certificates, and everything in between, they’d stop giving them out to every eight-dollar-an-hour telemarketer who called. Yesterday’s check had been cursory. Today I was going for the dirt under their fingernails.

  I started with Jepsen: credit check, criminal records check, court records check. I ran his driver’s license, his last ten addresses, and, with a little luck, even managed to tap into a central clearinghouse database that tracked all the purchases the guy had made at his local supermarket: booze by the gallon, no fresh vegetables. What a surprise. I ran similar checks on Stuart Masterson, Millicent, and both Masterson kids. Stuart Masterson had less than I expected. He had majority control of Masterson Enterprises, valued in excess of a billion, but how anyone would know that about a private company I couldn’t tell. Masterson had eighty thousand in the bank, another two hundred thousand in CDs. Pretty tame investments for an eccentric billionaire. Maybe the rest of his fortune was offshore or buried in layers of trust funds and holding companies. Millicent had a bank account with eighteen thousand and change. No real estate, no debt. Not even a credit card. No sign of the trust and no extra millions lying around, unless she’d stashed them somewhere discreet. The Masterson kids had few assets, horrible credit, and no ownership in Daddy’s company. None. After a quick glance at my notes from the break-in, I also ran Mitchell Burke, the million-dollar winner in the Masterson death sweepstakes.

  “Damn, Sara. What are you printing? The Gutenberg Bible?”

  I jumped at Joe’s voice. His hands were full of papers, which he shoved in my direction.

  “You’re hogging my printer,” he grumped. “The least you could do is check to see if it’s out of paper. Why are you using my printer anyway? What’s wrong with the one in the hall?”

  The problem was, it was in the hall. In the open. My current course of action required a greater degree of discretion. Joe looked like hell. His brown suit, which even I knew wouldn’t make the cover of GQ, had unintended accordion pleats in complex, discordant patterns. The knot on his tie was pushed off to one side, and the material sported a mysterious darker patch I didn’t remember from previous wearings. His face was ashen, and his hands quivered with the fine tremor of too much caffeine.

  “When’s the bar exam?” I asked, changing the subject.

  “Next week.” Joe heaved a heavy sigh, his shadowed blue eyes ravaged by exhaustion. “Just check the paper next time, okay?”

  I got up and went to him, taking the papers and slinging an arm around his shoulders. I pushed him toward my empty guest chair. He slumped into it, closing his eyes. I leaned back against my desk.

  “Maybe you should take a couple of days off. Rest up before the big day.”

  “Can’t. Not with this thing exploding on us.” Joe laid his head back against the chair and I thought he’d drifted off to sleep.

  “And I still have that antitrust case besides,” he mumbled, his eyes still closed.

  “They gave you something new? Couldn’t it wait?” I leaned more comfortably back against the desk, trying to be as good a friend as he’d been to me about the black eye.

  “Gotta clear up the Masterson mess, then the antitrust problem, then the bar exam.”

  I stood a little straighter.

  “Stuart Masterson?”

  Joe rubbed his hands over his face before opening bleary eyes.

  “The same. You still working that missing cat?”

  “Yeah. What did you hear?” I moved to red alert but Joe still seemed half-asleep.

  “We’ve been sworn to secrecy.”

  “I’m included in attorney-client.”

  “I got the distinct impression she meant no chatting even amongst ourselves.”

  “She who?”

  “The lovely Elizabeth.”

  “You hate her.”

  “I fear her. It’s not the same thing.”

  I got up and walked around my desk, opening my drawer and reaching into my stash of Snickers, pulling a bar from the pile. I approached Joe, whose blue eyes sparkled with interest. In his weakened condition, he was no match for the call of caramel and peanuts.

  “C’mon.” I waggled the candy just out of his reach.

  “You can tell me. I won’t tell anyone.”

  His arm flashed out, belying his exhaustion, his hand grasping air as I jerked the Snickers farther out of reach. I’d seen his act before.

  “Quid pro quo, Joe. It’s Latin. Totally lawyerly.” I kept the candy in his line of sight but out of reach.

  “There’s no such word as lawyerly. Chocolate first.”

  I nodded before breaking the candy bar in two, ripping the paper and tugging as caramel stretched enticingly. I offered one of the pieces to Joe.

  “Half now, half after.”

  He took a second to peel the wrapper, then inhaled the treat. He licked his lips, then his fingers. I waited.

  “Talk.”

  “You really do have to keep this to yourself.”

  I crossed my heart with the remaining bribe. Joe stared at the candy bar as if he could see civilization after years in the desert. Chocoholics were all alike.

  “Did I ever tell anyone you were the one who spiked the punch at last year’s Christmas party? Even after Morris’s wife jumped up on that table and started doing the shimmy? Did I?” I let my indignation at his lack of trust come through.

  “Okay. Masterson Enterprises has a little accounting problem.”

  “An accounting problem? What sort of an accounting problem?”

  “The kind where the pension plan doesn’t get funded on time.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “It’s probably no big thing. Sometimes, with certain types of plans, the employer is a little late when making the contribution.” Joe shifted closer to an upright sitting position, smoothing the front of his suit. The wrinkles were undeterred.

  “I’m not sure that’s worth all the secrecy.” I handed him the reward, returning to my desk to get one for myself. I threw the wrapper into the trash and dropped into my chair.

  “Typical attorney paranoia. It’s not like Masterson Enterprises isn’t worth a ton of bucks. If worse comes to worst, they’ll just borrow from Peter to pay Paul. Right now we don’t want to have to deal with a bunch of irate employees. They probably don’t know yet, so we’re not talking, trying to keep the lid on until it gets straightened out.”

  I gripped the arms of my chair, a hint of understanding stirring my senses.

  “How much is missing?”

  “Not missing. Temporarily unaccounted for.”

  “Okay, how much is temp
orarily unaccounted for?”

  “The last two years’ worth.”

  I racked my brain in calculation. Math had never been my strong suit.

  “Two years times a couple of hundred employees. My God, Joe, that’s gotta be millions.”

  “For now, it’s just a clerical error.”

  I pulled myself closer to the desk, then pushed away. Rocking back and forth, I let my mind fly in a thousand directions. Joe seemed to pick up on my mood, sitting up and leaning toward the desk.

  “No one’s going to believe it’s a clerical error.” I took another bite.

  “It probably is a clerical error, Sara. Like I said, it’s not that unusual.”

  “If it were something nefarious, who would be on the top of your suspect list?”

  “It’s not.”

  “Just for fun, then. Who would you be looking at?”

  “Masterson, obviously. Others, who knows? The cat lady you’ve been checking out is dead. The longtime chief financial officer, a guy named Mitchell Burke, died several months ago. A lot of would-be bad guys are conveniently—or inconveniently, depending on your point of view—no longer among the viable suspects. But it doesn’t matter, Sara. I’m telling you, we’ll find the money. It’s missing, not gone.”

  “Mitchell Burke is dead?”

  “Yeah, car accident.”

  I digested that information with a bite of chocolate. Mitchell Burke was dead. Before or after that new will was written? Burke was dead. Millicent was dead. Another car accident. And then there was my alley guy. Not a car and definitely not an accident, but at the rate it was going, Seattle cemetery space was going to be harder to come by than a sunny day in February.

  “So what does Masterson say?” I asked.

  “He’s conspicuous by his absence.”

  “Have the cops been called?”

  “For a paperwork problem? No.”

  I finished my candy bar, licking my fingers. “You must really be in the loop to know all of the great Stuart Masterson’s business.” I grinned.

  Joe pushed himself up from his chair, his empty wrapper clenched in one fist. I extended my open hand, and he gave the paper to me. Turning, he shuffled toward the door.

  “I think people just forget I’m in the room.”

  I put his wrapper in the wastebasket, buzzing with the new information. Millions in missing dollars, a billionaire no one could find, one murder, a convenient accident, and a catnapping. Busy week. I paged through my research until I found Mitchell Burke.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  I parked at the curb and got out of the car. The Burkes’ house was a two-story Georgian with ivy-covered pillars. The lawn was neatly mowed, but the flowers along the walkway drooped. I stepped around a moldering pile of newspapers, pulled open the screen door, and knocked. No one came. I tried to peer through a shuttered window, then banged a second time with considerably more force. I leaned closer to the door, putting my ear against the wood just before it swung inward. I straightened.

  “Mrs. Burke?”

  “Who are you?” I guessed the woman was in her fifties, although the grayness of her skin and the dark circles under her eyes made her look years older. She was dressed in an old pink bathrobe and big pink slippers. I wondered if she was ill.

  “Mrs. Burke, I’m Sara Townley. I’m an investigator. I have a couple of questions about your husband.”

  Her pale blue eyes filled with tears, and her expression crumpled as she lifted her hands to her face. I didn’t know what to do. I hated when people cried. I reached out a tentative hand and patted at the shuddering chenille-covered shoulder.

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Burke. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “I just miss him so much.” She sniffled loudly, reaching into her pocket for a crumpled handkerchief.

  “I know.” What the heck was I supposed to say? I was glad to see that she seemed to be getting her control back.

  “I’m sorry, Miss . . .”

  “Townley. Sara Townley.”

  “Please come in.” She made a sweeping gesture with one hand, and I preceded her into the cramped living room. Most people didn’t just invite strangers into their houses anymore, and I was a little surprised she had. Then again, maybe she wanted to talk to someone about him. Grieve a little. Even a door-to-door psycho killer could lend an ear.

  The drawn shades left the room shadowed, but I could feel eyes on me from every corner of the room. The hair on the back of my neck stood up. As my vision adjusted, I could make out the room’s contents. Dolls. Dozens, hundreds of them. They sat on every table, in every chair, and on the fireplace mantel. Each was dressed with infinite care and an obvious attention to detail. I took a step farther. They were like one of those velvet paintings with eyes that followed you everywhere you went. I shivered. Mrs. Burke stepped around me and picked up two dolls from a nearby armchair, one a fair-skinned blonde in a long blue gown, the other a black infant in a fuzzy yellow sleeper. She cradled the dolls in her arms and moved to the couch, where she sank into a narrow gap between a three-foot-tall Raggedy Ann doll and a Cabbage Patch Kid.

  “I feel better when they’re around me. They’re the only family I have left.” Her eyes filled again, but the tears didn’t fall. She hugged the dolls closer to her chest and took a deep breath.

  “I understand.” I would have said anything to keep her from crying and to get out of this room as soon as possible.

  “You wanted to talk about my husband?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” I perched on the vacated armchair and pulled the notebook and pen from my pocket.

  “How long did your husband work for Stuart Masterson?”

  “Fifteen years.”

  “He was the controller?”

  “Yes. He was always so good with numbers. He used to say the world needed people to cross the t’s, dot the i’s, and add two plus two.” Another loud sniffle and a quick swipe with the handkerchief.

  “I understand your husband died in a car accident.”

  “Who did you say you worked for, dear?”

  “I don’t think I did. I work for the law firm that represents Stuart Masterson.” I reached into my pocket and handed her my card.

  She looked from the card to me and back again. “It wasn’t an accident.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “It wasn’t an accident.”

  So much for my stellar research skills.

  “I thought your husband died in an automobile accident?”

  “He was so upset. He had been for weeks before he died. There was something going on and someone killed him. He wouldn’t have left me like that. He was very upset those last few days.”

  “I thought the police called his death accidental?”

  “Oh, they did. Said the tests were inconclusive. He didn’t hit his brakes. They couldn’t figure it out. An accident or suicide.” She sniffled. “He would never have done anything like that. Not to me.”

  Suicide. Oh, man. What the heck was going on at Masterson Enterprises? I shifted in my chair.

  “That still leaves an accident,” I suggested as gently as I could.

  “Then why was he there? He didn’t have any reason to be on that road at night. He didn’t like to drive at night. He only did it if there was a business emergency. His secretary told me he didn’t have anything scheduled for that day. He would have written it down. He was always so meticulous about writing things down.” She leaned down to kiss the blond curls of the doll in her arms, laying her cheek against its head. It was hard to give much credibility to a grief-stricken woman who played with dolls.

  “You said he was upset in the days before he died. Do you know why?”

  “He wouldn’t tell me. Why wouldn’t he tell me? I would have supported him. Helped him. I was his wife.” Her voice warbled an octave higher. She set the blond doll down and moved the black baby to her shoulder, holding it up against her as if she were burping it.

  “Did your husband ever talk about Stuar
t Masterson or Henry Jepsen?”

  “He thought very highly of Mr. Masterson. Just a couple of weeks before he died, Mitchell told me he couldn’t believe how clever Mr. Masterson was. He said no one understood finance better, that Mr. Masterson had made a fortune from nothing. Even Mitchell didn’t understand how he could have been so successful.”

  “And how did your husband feel about Henry Jepsen?”

  She leaned back against the cushions and shook her head.

  “He didn’t like him. Mitchell said that without Mr. Masterson, Henry Jepsen would never have made it. Even so, Mitchell was so distressed about the lawsuit, one partner suing the other and all. Mitchell was putting together the numbers, you know. He was going to be the star witness. He was so proud to help Mr. Masterson like that.”

  “Did he tell you anything about the case itself? Maybe he mentioned some improprieties at Masterson Enterprises?”

  “No, nothing like that. He was putting together some documents for Henry Jepsen’s lawyers. He had to go and meet with them and answer their questions. He didn’t want to do it, but he said he had to. He got a notice to appear.”

  “A subpoena?”

  “Yes, that’s it.”

  “He never mentioned anything about the case at all?”

  “Not really, no. I wouldn’t have really known anything about it if Millicent hadn’t mentioned it.”

  “Millicent Millinfield?”

  “Yes. After my Mitchell died, she came to see me. She was such a dear. Really, a very sweet, kind woman. Then she died, too.” The old woman’s lips trembled, but she pressed them together and raised her chin.

  “When did Millicent come to see you?”

  “Two days before her own accident.”

  That couldn’t be a coincidence, but it had to be.

  “Do you have any idea where your husband was going the night he died?” I asked as gently as I could. “Could he have been visiting friends or relatives, maybe?”

  “No.” Her chin wobbled. She pressed her lips together and sat up straighter. “I was his only family. I don’t know why he was there, but I’m going to find out.”

  “How are you going to do that?”