by Ellery Adams
At the next exit, she turned off and arrived at Westerly Car Rentals. It seemed the owner’s wife had spilled not coffee but tea this time into the company copier. Fortunately, the liquid hadn’t fried the electronic components, so Cooper cleaned up the interior of the machine, and warned Mr. Holland yet again that employees really shouldn’t have drinks around the copier.
Her next stop was at an office downtown. At the front desk she was met by a tall, white-haired security guard.
“I have orders to stay with you until the job’s done,” he said. “If you’ll follow me . . .”
Cooper fell in step behind him, remembering the last time she was in the office. “I don’t recall needing an escort the last time I was here. That was quite a while ago, but I think I can remember my way around, if you need to go.”
“Afraid I can’t do that. We had a situation with a water delivery man who started snoopin’ in one of the offices, so we don’t allow any non-employees to have free reign.”
“That’s too bad.”
“It’s a drawback, for sure. If I could, I’d let you find your way by yourself. We know your employer, and we like him, so I hope you know it isn’t personal. It’s just the new procedure.”
“I don’t mind at all. I find myself behind a desk a lot of the time, so it’s nice to have company,” Cooper replied, glad to hear that Make It Work! had a good reputation among its clients. Mr. Farmer would be happy to know it, too.
She set down her tool kit beside the copier as the guard leaned against the nearby wall.
“Is this interesting work?” he asked, looking on.
“I certainly think so.”
“Not a line of work you usually see women in,” the guard commented. His eyes widened as he realized his mistake. “I don’t mean that women being in your line of work is a bad thing, you know. Just saying you don’t see it a lot. I think a woman can do anything she’s got a mind to do.”
Cooper laughed. She’d met her fair share of chauvinists and sexists, and it was obvious by the guard’s manner that he was neither. “You’re absolutely right . . . on all counts. There aren’t a lot of women in this line. And I agree that a woman can do anything she’s got a mind to.”
He visibly relaxed, his concern assuaged. “My niece is a firefighter, you know,” he said, standing a little taller with pride. “That’s not an easy line of work for a woman, either, but she knew from the time she was little . . .”
As the guard continued to tell his story, Cooper smiled and nodded, getting along with her work. She removed from her tool kit the tools she knew she’d require and set them on the floor in a neat row. But when she reached for her screwdriver, her fingers touched the cool plastic of the case. She turned and looked in the tool kit. The screwdriver was gone. She looked through the other tools, doing a quick inventory, hoping she’d simply put it in the wrong place. Her other tools were all accounted for. Where was the screwdriver?
She’d used it yesterday, and then . . .
Mortified, Cooper realized what she’d done. She’d used the screwdriver at Sphinx and it was still there. In the office. On the floor beside the copier.
She’d never left a tool at a work site before. She flushed with embarrassment, hoping the guard didn’t see.
But he did. He paused his story. “You all right? You look a mite ill.”
Cooper forced a smile. “Not ill. Just . . . remembered something. Please, go on.” She reached for a different screwdriver. While it would work just fine, she would still have to find time to retrieve the lost tool.
She finished the job as quickly as she could, but not before she learned all about how the guard’s niece had gone from being a little girl who wanted to fight fires to being a grown woman who actually did. Once in her truck, Cooper compared her repair schedule to a mental map of Richmond. In two more stops she’d be close to the Sphinx office, so she could pick up the missing screwdriver with minimal time lost.
Then she stopped and smiled. She’d wanted an excuse to visit Kenneth and ask about his alibi. She’d needed a legitimate reason to stop at Sphinx during work hours. She’d prayed that God would give her a sign.
If this wasn’t a clear-cut sign, she didn’t know what was.
Fortunately, the next two stops were quick. The first was an easy fix, and the second a hopeless case she referred to Ben for a lease.
When Cooper reached Sphinx, she parked in the lot and hurried toward the door. Dave and Nala were out in the courtyard again, the same as yesterday, engaged in a shouting match. Unlike yesterday, though, Cooper didn’t have the time to politely wait for them to finish. She needed to retrieve her screwdriver and get Kenneth’s alibi, all while hiding her motives from Kenneth, and all very quickly so she could get on with the day’s repairs.
She paused at the edge of the courtyard, in plain view of Dave and Nala. They were in front of the door, right where she needed to go. Cooper took a deep breath, as if preparing to dive headfirst into a shark tank, and as courageously as possible pushed forward, unable to block out the vitriol.
“Me? You’re upset with me for being gone last night?” Dave was so intent in his shouting that he didn’t even notice Cooper’s approach. “Because you’re out of the house all the time! Who are you out with anyway? Or are you gonna try to tell me you’re by yourself? Because I wouldn’t believe that no matter—”
“I’m not out of the house all the time,” Nala replied, matching Dave’s volume and venom. “If you were ever there, you’d know that. But you! Every night at the Black Boot Tavern. Every single night of the week! Do you have any idea what it’s like to know that your husband would rather spend every night at the bar than with you? It’s humiliating!”
“That’s humiliating? At least you know where I am.”
Ducking between them, Cooper mumbled, “Excuse me,” and made a mental note of the bar Nala mentioned. If Dave really did make a habit of patronizing the Black Boot, Quinton and Bryant might be able to find him there to inquire about his alibi.
By the time Cooper got inside the office, she felt as though her ears had been assaulted. The angry shouting echoed in them, making her dizzy. How could two people fight so often and so vehemently? Cooper said a quick prayer, asking God to never let her understand it, and ventured further into the office.
With Dave and Nala out front and Christine still at the station, Cooper expected to find Kenneth and Mandy hard at work, but the office was empty. Mandy wasn’t at her desk, and Kenneth wasn’t anywhere to be seen.
“Great,” Cooper muttered. “All this way and I won’t get to talk to him.”
She hurried over to the office machines and got down on all fours. The glint of metal winked at her from underneath the color copier.
“There you are.” She slid her fingers under the machine and grabbed hold of the handle. “I thought I might find you here.”
With the screwdriver in hand, she stood and brushed off her uniform front. Looking up, she met Kenneth’s gaze. He was just outside his office, a file folder in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. His eyes were glazed over and red. He looked as though he hadn’t slept at all.
“Can I help you?” he asked.
Cooper panicked. Why was she here again?
“It’s Cooper, right?”
She nodded. “Yeah, I . . . uh . . . I left a tool here. I hope you don’t mind, but I needed to come back and get it.”
“Did you find it all right?”
Cooper held up the screwdriver for him to see.
“Good. Sorry you had to come all the way out here for a screwdriver.”
“It was my own fault.” She glanced around. “The office is pretty empty today.”
Kenneth looked around the office, his brow raised, as if he’d only just realized no one was there. He sipped his coffee, thinking. “Let’s see. We had a big meeting this morning with an important client, and we’ve got another meeting this afternoon, so everybody’s taking a little break. I think Dave, Nala, and Mand
y went to lunch. And Christine . . . Well, you know where Christine is.”
Cooper toyed with the tool, twirling it in her hands. “I don’t know about you, but I’m still in shock over that.”
“You mean about Christine getting arrested?”
“I don’t believe she did it. Do you?”
Kenneth stared into his coffee mug for a moment. “If you’d asked me a few weeks ago, I wouldn’t have believed any of this was possible. Now . . .”
“But Christine?” Cooper asked. “Do you really think she’d hurt anyone?”
“I guess not. Maybe. I don’t know.” He waved for her to come closer. “Come into my office. Let’s talk.”
He sat at his desk, and when Cooper entered, he said, “Close the door.”
She did as he asked, taking a seat in one of the plush leather chairs across from him. She sank into the well-cushioned seat. Either Sphinx was doing very well or Kenneth simply had very expensive taste in furniture.
“I realize no one else knows why you were really here yesterday,” Kenneth began. “And I won’t tell them, if that’s what you’d prefer. Furthermore, I fully understand if you feel the need to look into the situation, given what happened to Christine. However, if you’re going to come in here and investigate, you need to keep me apprised of what’s going on.”
“That sounds fair to me.”
“I also want you to know that I’m on your side. I want to find Sinclair’s killer just as badly as you do. Probably more.”
“I doubt that.”
“Don’t misunderstand me. I’m sure you’re more concerned with freeing Christine, but I’m more concerned with finding a killer, regardless of who it turns out to be. That being said, I really don’t believe Christine did it.”
Cooper felt a wave of relief wash over her. “But a minute ago you sounded like you weren’t so sure.”
“I was being cynical. Let me put it this way. I don’t believe Christine killed Sinclair, but I wouldn’t bet my life on it.”
Cooper’s relief diminished somewhat. Having Kenneth as an ally was better than making an enemy, though, meaning she needed to be even more careful about how she broached the topic of alibis. Kenneth couldn’t think he was in her sights as a replacement for Christine behind bars.
“How’s her brother handling all this?” Kenneth asked, his voice thick with what sounded like real concern.
“To be honest, not well at all.” A dose of candor might make this go easier. “He’s scared and upset. So am I. We’re trying to figure out how to prove her innocence.”
“Sometimes easier said than done. I’m surprised she doesn’t have an alibi. Wasn’t she with someone else from the office?”
“She met Mandy for supper, but that was after Sinclair’s death. At the time his watch stopped, Christine was watching one of the street performers juggle chain saws.” Cooper leaned forward. This was the perfect moment. She could slip in the question of his alibi without ever directly asking about his alibi. “I don’t suppose you saw her and can vouch for her whereabouts.”
Kenneth shook his head. “I spent most of that time on the phone with a big client. As much as Sinclair wanted that day to be all play and no work, it just wasn’t feasible. Let me tell you, conference calls are not easy to accomplish at a loud festival. I did catch sight of Dave at one point, walking around looking grumpy. I’m not even sure what time that was, or where he was headed. So unfortunately, I really can’t vouch for anyone. Wish I could.”
A conference call. That would be easy enough to prove. “Well, it was worth a shot,” Cooper said with a shrug.
Kenneth grew quiet, and Cooper sensed it was time to leave. Just before she stood to bid him farewell, he reached down to his bottom desk drawer. From it, he produced the ledger from Sinclair’s office. He set it on the desk and began to drum his fingers on it. “Do you know what this is?”
“Sinclair’s ledger. You showed it to us yesterday. Why do you ask?”
“Because I was up all night looking at it, searching through it, trying to make sense of it. I didn’t get much rest.”
That explained the red eyes and the glazed-over expression, but Cooper could see that there was more than simple exhaustion in his face. She noted the lines by his mouth and the pallor in his cheeks. “You found something, didn’t you?”
Kenneth turned his gaze from the ledger to look Cooper in the eye. “I did.” Abruptly, he broke eye contact, staring at his mug and dragging his finger around the rim. “That is, I think I did. I’m not sure. I might have.”
Cooper fought the temptation to make a remark about the lack of clarity, and instead offered a kind smile. “What is it you think you may have found?”
“I think money is missing.”
“Missing? As in gone from the company?”
“Gone. Without a trace.”
“And you’re certain it’s not just in another column or something.”
Kenneth shrugged, brow furrowed in uncertainty. “I’m as sure as I can be, but I’m no accountant. I suppose I should take the ledger to that inspector from the police station—McNamara.” He shook his head. “I don’t want to cry wolf if it’s nothing, though . . . especially if checking into the ledger detracts from finding the killer. Wouldn’t that be a waste? Besides, I’m not comfortable handing it over until I know what it means.”
“It means somebody took money, doesn’t it? What else could it mean?”
Again, Kenneth stared into his mug.
Cooper waited for a response, but when one didn’t come, she leaned forward in her chair, curious to hear what was going through his mind. “Is something else bothering you, Kenneth? Something you’re not telling me?”
He drew in a deep breath. “At about three this morning, after I’d discovered that funds were missing, I started thinking about the implications. The police inspector’s initial idea was that Sinclair killed himself.”
“Considering what happened to Christine, I’d say he’s past that suspicion.”
“Yes, but here’s the weird thing about the ledger.” He folded his hands on his desk and sat up a little straighter. “We keep all of the books electronically, but Sinclair also liked to keep a separate ledger by hand, as I told you. According to the ledger, money is missing, but according to the electronic books, everything is normal.”
“Let me see if I understand this correctly. The computer software doesn’t show that money is missing?”
He nodded. “I don’t know what that means, and I hate to think what the police will make of it. What if they think Sinclair took the money?”
“I wouldn’t have thought of that.”
“You weren’t up at three o’clock thinking about it.”
Cooper said nothing. He did have a point.
He continued. “At this point, I’m not sure if I should go straight to the police or if I should try to figure out the significance of the ledger before I go to them. I’d rather know the whole truth before I involve the officials.”
“It sounds like you’ve made your decision. You want to know the truth first.”
“Yes, but who can I trust to look at the ledger and give me an honest report?”
Cooper slid the screwdriver into her pocket. “I happen to have a good friend who’s an accountant. I could take the ledger to him and see if he’d mind taking a look. What do you think?”
Kenneth’s expression relaxed, and he almost smiled. “I think that’d be great! I’ll get you a printout of the electronic copy, too. I can’t thank you enough.”
“Don’t thank me until I have some news for you.”
“At least let me thank you for looking at the printers. They’re working like new again. I made a note to call your company and get you on retainer for when we need repairs.”
Cooper grinned. All in all, it was turning out to be a very successful visit.
10
At a little before seven a.m. Saturday, Cooper’s eyes popped open, and as hard as she tried, she couldn’t ge
t back to sleep. She spent a good half hour lying in bed, resting, while her cats, Moses and Miriam, pounced at each other and bounded over her. When they finally slowed down, she rose and dressed at a leisurely pace, meandered down to the kitchen, and slowly ate breakfast.
Mama and Daddy were out making cookie deliveries, and Grammy was in her room doing her morning devotional, having been out late at a church potluck. That left Cooper alone to fend off Popeye, who was a little too interested in her bacon and eggs. She finally gave in and broke off a crispy piece of bacon for him, dropping it by her feet. He gobbled it up without even chewing, then sat back and smiled, his tongue hanging out of the side of his mouth.
She checked the time. Not even nine o’clock yet. And she didn’t have plans until after lunch. She was meeting Nathan and Quinton at the hospital to visit John and see how he was coming along. After visiting last Sunday with Savannah and Trish, Cooper hadn’t been back to the hospital, but Savannah and Trish both had. Monday night, Savannah went with Jake. Tuesday, Bryant took a turn. Wednesday Quinton went in, undoubtedly bringing a dessert with him. Thursday, Trish and her husband, Phil, visited after making an unproductive trip to the IHOP to try and find John’s dog tags. And last night, Savannah and Jake dropped by a second time. So far, none of them had actually been there when John was awake, but the doctor assured them this was due to his heavy-duty pain medication and not because he wanted to avoid having company.
Maybe today would be the day he’d finally be coherent. What a nice surprise that would be! If John was awake, and she, Nathan, and Quinton could talk to him, maybe it would take Nathan’s mind off of Christine’s situation for just a little while. There was nothing Nathan could do for his sister at the moment, and a distraction would do him good.
Until she met them at one, however, Cooper’s day was wide open, and it was shaping up to be quite lazy. She took her morning cup of Joe out back and admired the perfect blue sky. Three little hummingbirds flitted through the air, enjoying Mama’s flower bed. Columbus watched them with obvious interest.
