Миранда Джеймс - No Cats Allowed

“Good evening,” a voice called from behind us. “If you’re looking for Mr. Vanderkeller, I haven’t seen him around lately.”

We turned to see an older man, probably in his seventies, walking a large German shepherd on a leash.

“Good evening,” I said, and introduced myself. “I used to work with Peter, and I hadn’t heard from him in a while. My friends and I thought we’d drop by and see how he’s doing.”

The elderly man didn’t introduce himself. “He’s always kept to himself. Never has been much for talking to his neighbors.” The dog whined, no doubt having scented, or heard, Diesel and Dante in the car not far away. “Quiet, Schnitzel,” he said.

“So you haven’t seen him lately?” Stewart asked.

I looked around for Haskell and didn’t see him. Where had he got to? Then I spotted him lurking behind the hedge. I figured he didn’t want to risk the neighbor seeing his gun. Good idea. The old gentleman might go home and call the police if he saw a man with a gun.

“No, sure haven’t.” The man scratched the side of his nose. “Reckon the last time wasn’t long after New Year’s Day. Saw him putting his garbage out one morning when Schnitzel and I were walking past.” He paused. “Come to think of it, haven’t even seen his car going in or out, either.”

“Thank you, sir,” I said. “I guess we’ll go knock on the door and see if he’s home.”

“I hope he’s all right,” the man said, suddenly sounding worried. “I guess I ought to’ve checked on him, but he’s always been so darn funny about that kind of thing.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Stewart said. “We’ll check on him. You and Schnitzel have a good evening.”

We waited until he was about fifty feet down the walk before we joined Haskell on the other side of the hedge.

“Were you checking out the house?” Stewart asked in a low tone.

“Yes,” Haskell said, “and I’ve already called 911.”

“Why?” Stewart and I asked in startled unison.

“There’s a body hanging in the kitchen, and it’s been there for quite a while.”

THIRTY-FOUR

Had I been a drinking man, I would have gone home that night and probably drunk an entire bottle of, well, something. As it was, I had to make do with a mug of warm milk and three aspirin.

As I was the only person present who was acquainted well enough with Peter Vanderkeller, I was asked to provide a tentative identification.

I say tentative because, well, Peter wasn’t in the best condition after hanging in the kitchen for two months. I was pretty sure it was him, but to be absolutely positive they would have to use his dental records, or something. There was a note with the words I’m sorry scrawled on them. Not much of a suicide note, and I didn’t believe it for a minute.

For one thing, Peter wasn’t a tall man, and there was no chair or ladder anywhere close enough for him to stand on, in order to hang himself from the exposed beam like that. The killer hadn’t thought that one through.

It would be a long time before I would be able to remember poor Peter without wanting to be ill in the bushes, the way I was that night.

Last night, really, though mercifully it somehow seemed more distant this morning. I’d had only about five hours’ sleep, and I was up by five thirty trying to put the purchase orders and invoices back into their folders. I was going to hand them over to Kanesha later, along with a summary of my thoughts that led me to wonder about Peter and his whereabouts.

The news of Peter’s death would not be released for several hours yet. Kanesha wanted time to investigate my suggested leads further before the announcement was made.

I still wasn’t sure who had murdered Peter, or exactly why. Had he stumbled on the embezzlement and made the mistake of confronting the embezzler, who then decided the only way to avoid exposure was to kill Peter and make it look like he had committed suicide?

I had another sip of coffee. One sticking point was the overspending. Those invoices, all from legitimate companies for legitimate resources—unlike those from Global Electronic Resources—were authentic, I felt sure. Checking with the companies concerned would show that, but the question was, who okayed the purchases and when had they asked for the invoices?

The process would have taken a few days, if not a week or two, I thought. That argued premeditation on the killer’s part, because it took time to set up the apparent motive for Peter’s suicide.

The whole thing was cockeyed, a bizarre smokescreen created by the embezzler in order to hide his—or her—theft. I had yet to prove there had been theft, but investigation by the proper authorities into the Global Electronic Resources company would prove it was a fake. I was sure of that.

It was set up cleverly, though, and it had to involve more than one person. Whichever librarian was responsible—Cassandra, Lisa, or Delbert—had to have an accomplice in accounts payable. The vice president of finance had given me a quick lesson on how the college paid for such things as library resources. The vendor had to be set up in the accounting system. Otherwise there would be no payment issued. To be an approved vendor required certain paperwork, and someone had to have filled it out. The likeliest accomplice was therefore a person in accounts payable.

The only person I knew there was Melba’s friend, Margie Flaxdale, and I had met her only the once. I didn’t know how many other people worked in accounts payable, but the embezzler had to be working with one of them.

Peter Vanderkeller was the first murder victim. Oscar Reilly was the second. Why was Reilly murdered?

Because of his background in finance, I had to assume. He was made interim director because of the budget problems, and he presumably had the smarts to figure out something was fishy about the purchase orders and invoices. Had he then figured out who was responsible?

He must have. Being the man he was, perhaps he’d tried to blackmail the embezzler, and extort the ill-gotten gains from that person. The embezzler decided to kill again, to avoid exposure and to keep what he or she had stolen. Reilly was lured to the basement, probably knocked over the head, and then pressed to death between the shelves.

Okay, that made sense, even though my argument was still built on a series of if s. I tried not to think too much about the method of Reilly’s murder.

The third murder victim—Porter Stanley. How did he fit into the picture?

The best I could come up with was that he either witnessed the murder, or Reilly had told him about the embezzlement scheme and had named the perpetrator. Stanley had then contacted the killer, no doubt expecting that with his size and intimidating personality, he could easily take over with Reilly out of the way.

Except that Stanley was shot to death, and there was no sign of his sister’s jewelry anywhere. Had he recovered it from Reilly? If Reilly actually had it. I figured he must have. I wouldn’t put anything past him, least of all stealing from his ex-wife and her wealthy family. I was sure he felt they owed him that much.

I spent nearly two hours getting all my thoughts organized in an e-mail to Kanesha, and when I finally clicked Send, I was ready to take a long, hot shower. Maybe the tension in my neck and shoulders would ease without my having to take more aspirin.

Dressed and ready for work, having breakfasted, I made the decision to leave Diesel home today. Haskell was still on guard duty, and Azalea was there, too. Between them, they would give him attention, and maybe he wouldn’t be too upset with me. I was worried about what could happen on campus today, and I felt better knowing he was safe at home.