Miranda James - Murder Past Due

“Sure thing,” Rick said. “Here.” He handed me a penknife.

I took it and slit open the envelope with the blade and returned the knife to Rick. I extracted the contents, two pages of heavy bond paper.

The top sheet, bearing last Wednesday’s date, was a letter from one Gail Enderby, apparently Godfrey’s administrative assistant. Ms. Enderby explained that she had prepared the boxes for shipping per her boss’s instructions. Each box, she said, contained an inventory of its contents, and box number one—I glanced over at the pallet, and the boxes I could see did bear numbers—contained a master inventory.

With the amount of time all this would have taken to organize, Godfrey had evidently been planning this donation for several months.

The second sheet was a letter from Godfrey himself, dated the day before his assistant’s note. He proclaimed his intent to donate his papers to the Athena College archive. He didn’t mention giving any money along with the papers to cover the costs of processing and housing the collection, but at least this letter ought to give the college clear ownership.

“Good news?” Rick asked when I looked up from the letters.

“Yes. Now I feel like I can answer your question about what to do with these boxes.”

“Great. Where do you want them? Over in your building?”

I eyed the pallet, trying to estimate how much space I had in one of the storage rooms allotted to the archive. “Could you have the boxes numbered one through ten put in the office? I think the rest of them will fit in the archive storage room.”

“No problem.” Rick glanced at his watch. “My guys’ll be having lunch soon. How about they get ’em up there by two? That do?”

“That’s fine.” I was itching to get into box number one and take a gander at Ms. Enderby’s master inventory, but that could wait. “Thanks. I really appreciate it.”

Rick smiled, and I climbed down from the loading dock and rejoined Diesel in the car.

We sat there for a moment as I stared at the boxes above us. How bizarre this was. And yet, how typical of the man.

Godfrey, with his irrepressible ego, was so sure the college would want his papers, he had them boxed and ready to go. What would he have done yesterday, I wondered, if someone had told him the college wasn’t interested?

He would have found a home for them somewhere, but in reality, Athena College, like most private schools these days, couldn’t afford to turn down a gift from a prominent alumnus like Godfrey. Athena would accept anything in the hope that more money would follow.

Diesel rubbed against my arm and chirped loudly, interrupting my train of thought.

“Let’s go home for lunch,” I said, scratching his head. “Then we’re going to come back this afternoon and take a look at those boxes.”

I drove us home and, once we were in the kitchen and I’d taken off his harness, Diesel headed straight for his litter box in the utility room. I went to the refrigerator, feeling a bit peckish. After the big breakfast I’d had, I didn’t want much for lunch.

Azalea had anticipated that, for I discovered a bowl of salad with mixed greens, chopped egg, and cheese sitting on the top shelf. Add some of Azalea’s homemade thousand island dressing to that, and it would be just fine.

I prepared my salad and filled a glass from the pitcher of fresh tea on the counter and took them to the table. Diesel came back and settled on the floor near my chair. The house was quiet, and I figured Azalea had probably gone to the grocery store, one of her usual Wednesday activities.

About fifteen minutes later, finished with lunch, I put my dirty dishes in the sink. Upstairs, I brushed my teeth while Diesel lolled on my freshly made bed. When I first moved back I had made it myself on the days Azalea was due, vaguely embarrassed to have her doing it instead. She quickly informed me that if she wanted me to do her job she’d let me know, and after that I left the bed-making to her. She did it even better than I did anyway.

I glanced at the clock—a few minutes before twelve-thirty. There was no sense rushing back to the archive, because the boxes wouldn’t be delivered for at least another hour or so. Spotting Godfrey’s latest book on the bedside table, I decided I might as well read a bit of it to pass the time.

I picked up my reading glasses and the book and settled into a comfortable armchair near the window. Diesel appeared to be sound asleep, for which I was grateful. Sometimes he insisted on sitting in my lap while I read, and that could get uncomfortable because of his weight.

Godfrey’s book was titled Moon of the Hunter . I skipped reading the jacket blurb because sometimes it gave away too much of the plot. I turned past the title page and started reading his acknowledgments. I always found them interesting. Occasionally an author gushed, thanking everyone he knew. Others made poignant remarks about loved ones. Sometimes they were just plain funny.

Godfrey was pompous. He thanked his various agents—in New York, Hollywood, and London—along with members of his staff in California, including Gail Enderby, for ensuring that his life ran smoothly. He mentioned a couple of technical experts he had consulted, and that was it.

The last time I’d read one of his books was probably six or seven years ago, and as I read the first page, I remembered why I stopped. The graphic violence in the opening paragraphs was shocking in its intensity, but somehow compelling. I didn’t like the fact that I found it compelling and wanted to read further. But I ignored that and kept turning the pages. Godfrey knew how to pace a story.

A hundred pages later I remembered to check my watch. It was now almost quarter to two. By the time I reached the archive, the boxes of Godfrey’s books and papers should be waiting for me. I stuck a bookmark in the book and laid it aside, albeit a bit reluctantly. Moon of the Hunter was the story of a serial killer who lured young women to his isolated cabin in the mountains of east Tennessee and the determined sister of one of his victims who was intent on tracking him down and killing him.

I could easily have sat in the chair and finished the book in another couple of hours, but my curiosity over Godfrey’s boxes won out. I got up from the chair, stretched, and approached the bed.

“Come on, boy, let’s go.”

Diesel yawned and rolled over on his back. I reached down and rubbed his stomach. He purred loudly in appreciation.

“I’m not going to stand here and do this for the next two hours.” I gave him a final rub and withdrew my hand. “Come on.”

A few minutes before two, I unlocked the door to the archive storeroom. Rick’s assistants had delivered the boxes, and there was little open space left in the room now. I did a quick count while Diesel sniffed around the boxes. There were forty-four of them, all numbered. Boxes one through ten should be in the office.

I pulled Diesel away from his perusal and headed down the hall to the archive. Inside, the lights on, I dropped Diesel’s leash, and he began inspecting the boxes stacked on the floor in three piles in front of my desk. Diesel hopped on top of the first pile of three, and then I realized there were eleven boxes, not ten. The other two piles had four boxes each.

Then I noticed that ten of the boxes were numbered, one through ten, but the eleventh box didn’t have a number.

That was interesting. It had to be part of the shipment, because Rick didn’t mention any other delivery for the archive today.

I moved forward to pull the eleventh box from the bottom of the center stack but my cell phone rang. I pulled the phone out of my pocket and glanced at the number display. It was the sheriff’s department. I answered and identified myself.