Миранда Джеймс - No Cats Allowed

First, however, I decided to check my work schedule for the coming week. I wanted to see if Lisa, Delbert, and Cassandra had made appointments as I had requested. If they had communicated with Melba, the appointments would be on my calendar.

I logged in to the college network and opened my e-mail. I scanned the messages, but there was nothing urgent. I clicked on the calendar and examined it. I focused on Wednesday. I saw appointments with Lisa and Delbert, but none for Cassandra.

She was obviously determined to defy me. I had told her to make an appointment through Melba before the end of the day, and she hadn’t done so.

I wasn’t going to put up with this.

All right then, Ms. Brownley . Time for a little hardball .

I composed an e-mail to her that wasted no words. I also copied Penny Sisson on it. The message read:

You have failed to make the appointment for Wednesday as I requested. I will expect you in my office at nine o’clock Monday morning, and I will request that a representative from Human Resources join us to discuss your insubordinate and unprofessional behavior.

I signed it simply, Charles Harris, Interim Director, and sent it. I sent a follow-up to Penny to explain why the message was necessary and to request her presence at the meeting.

Cassandra could always claim she hadn’t seen the message, I realized, so I looked up her office number and called it. I left her the exact same message on her voice mail.

The challenge had been issued, and I was curious to see what she would do.

Would there be another incident like the smashed windshield? A bullet fired in my direction? Or perhaps something worse?

I had better be on my guard.

THIRTY

The following day, Sunday, passed quietly, at least in terms of the murder investigation. Diesel and I had a leisurely morning with Stewart, Dante, and Haskell. Stewart insisted on cooking breakfast, and I didn’t argue. He made us bacon and cheddar omelets, one of my favorites. He made sure to fry extra bacon for Diesel and Dante. Everyone stepped away from the breakfast table thoroughly satisfied.

I thought about opening the laptop and doing a bit of work, but then decided I deserved a day off, especially after the last several days.

We had a delightful potluck family luncheon and had to put the leaf in the table to accommodate the four couples. Haskell appeared a bit uncomfortable at first, but my children and their spouses soon made him feel like a part of the family. Sean and Laura had accepted Stewart almost as an uncle. I tended to look on him as the younger brother I’d never had, and since Haskell appeared to be in the picture for the long run, he became part of the family, too. Diesel and Dante were beside themselves with so many hands willing to stroke and scratch and hand out tidbits.

I looked at Helen Louise at the other end of the table and thought how beautiful she was, and how amazingly lucky I was that this exceptional woman cared for me as much as I cared for her. She caught me looking and smiled. We shared the moment while the conversation flowed around us.

After lunch, with the table clear and the kitchen clean, my children and their spouses departed. Stewart and Haskell headed upstairs with Dante, leaving Helen Louise and me to ourselves. With Diesel, too, of course.

We snuggled on the sofa in the den and chatted. Diesel lay beside Helen Louise with his head in her lap. I kept the conversation away from anything to do with work, either hers or mine. Instead we talked about a trip we hoped to take in mid-May. Neither of us had been to Italy, and we planned to see Florence, Siena, and Rome.

Late in the afternoon Helen Louise reluctantly took her leave. She had to plan her menus for the coming week, and Diesel and I walked her to her car on the street. We nodded at the policeman sitting in the car near hers, and I was thankful for the extra security.

Once Helen Louise was under way, Diesel and I hurried back into the house. I had debated calling off today’s lunch, but none of the family would hear of it. They all insisted on coming as usual. I prayed for a quiet day, and a quiet day we had.

I only hoped it wouldn’t be the calm before the storm.

* * *

Diesel and I made it into the office on the dot of eight thirty. Melba was there before us. After we exchanged greetings, I told her about the situation with Cassandra Brownley.

“Let me check my e-mail,” Melba said. “She might have e-mailed me after we left the office on Friday.”

I was willing to bet she hadn’t. She certainly hadn’t replied to my e-mail from the weekend. I had checked this morning before breakfast, and again a few minutes ago, on my phone.

“Did you get a response from your friend in accounts payable? I really need to see those files this afternoon.”

“I’ll check that, too,” Melba said. “I’ll get the coffee started and be right back.”

I nodded. Diesel accompanied Melba to make the coffee, and I unlocked my office door and turned on the lights. I halfway expected to find it in shambles or filled with bugs, either live or plastic, but everything appeared to be as I had left it on Friday afternoon.

Once my computer was awake and I could log on, I checked e-mail again. Still no response from Cassandra. I checked for voice mail on the office phone, but there was none. I glanced at my watch—eight thirty-nine. I opened my briefcase and pulled out my own thumb drive, onto which I had copied from my laptop all those files I’d found on Reilly’s thumb drive. I had decided earlier I didn’t want to lug my laptop to work and back.

Melba appeared in the doorway. “No e-mail from Cassandra, but Margie Flaxdale, my friend in accounts payable, did e-mail back to say she would have the files ready for you to look at. You won’t be able to remove them from their offices, but you can look at them there.”

“Thanks for checking,” I said. “Have a seat for a moment. I need to bring you up to date on a few things.”

Diesel came around the desk to meow at me. I was sure he wondered why we were here, instead of in the archive office. The window here didn’t have the wide sill he was accustomed to upstairs.

“You’ll have to find a new place to nap for a while,” I told him. “We’re going to be in this office for at least a couple of months.”

He meowed again, as if to express his displeasure, and then walked back around to the desk to stretch out on the floor by Melba.

She grinned at the cat. “What’s been going on?”

I filled her in on the weekend’s events, and she paled when I told her about the gunshot.

“Lunatic,” she said. “Thank the Lord you weren’t hurt.”

We discussed the incident a few minutes longer, and then I noticed the time. Four minutes before nine. I mentioned it to Melba, and she rose.

“I’ll keep an eye out for her,” she said before she walked back into her office.

Moments later I heard another person speak to Melba, but it didn’t sound like Cassandra. Then Penny Sisson walked into my office.

“Good morning, Charlie,” she said.

I returned the greeting and asked her to have a seat. “Thank you for coming, but as you can see, Ms. Brownley has not shown up.”

“No, she hasn’t,” Penny responded. “She called me fifteen minutes ago to inform me that she was ill and would not be at work this week, nor the first part of next week. Her physician has put her on complete bed rest for the next seven to ten days.”

To judge by Penny’s stony expression, she was not pleased with Cassandra’s delaying tactics. Diesel lightened that expression, however, by greeting Penny with a meow and a rub against her legs. Penny patted him and smiled.

“I reminded her, of course,” Penny went on, “that she would have to have a note from the doctor before she would allowed to return to work after an extended period of sick leave, and she assured me she would have one.”