The thin vanilla fragrance seeping from my office outlet plug-in was supposed to soothe frazzled nerves, but it just made me hungry. The “soothing” pale gray-blue walls weren’t working either. Bree had chosen everything in my office during her brief feng shui obsession. I was, apparently, immune to the laws of Chinese metaphysics.
I answered as many angry emails as I could with personalized responses before switching gears. I cracked my knuckles and adjusted my glasses. “How to get rid of squirrels.” I typed the words into a search engine as I spoke. Dozens of links returned. Poisons. Sound and motion deterrents. Traps. Scarecrows. Predators. I marveled. There was an entire industry dedicated to removal of wildlife from homes and communities. Until that moment, I’d thought wildlife was an asset. Instead I discovered inconceivable dollar amounts of damage done by the little beasts.
I flipped my buzzing phone over to check the screen. Maybe Clive had already sealed the boathouse attic and my troubles were over.
It was a set of text messages from Bree. Did you mail the invitations? I made a list of florists and links to arrangement examples I like for centerpieces. Check your email.
I sent her a thumbs-up emoticon response.
Amidst the morning turmoil I’d forgotten to contact Dante’s assistant about lunch. Jake had asked me to apply self-control on the matter of Dante’s death, and I’d agreed, but setting up a brief chat with a mutual acquaintance was completely within the parameters of self-control. If the murder happened to come up, there was little I could do other than engage in the conversation. I opened an instant message window and typed out a request to meet.
My phone buzzed again. Jake’s face appeared on the screen.
I bit my lip and kept typing. If I didn’t answer, I wouldn’t have to lie about what I was doing. Lying was bad, ignoring was good. I’d return his call right after lunch.
Fifi exploded into the office with enough energy to send me headfirst to the ceiling. “Good morning!”
I pressed my back to the chair and gripped the armrests. For the briefest moment, I thought she was Jake ready to bust me for meddling.
She dropped her bag and kicked off five-inch heels. “Isn’t it a beautiful morning? The sun is shining. Birds are singing.”
That’s what I’d thought, too. She should give it a minute before she got too attached to the notion. I waited for my pulse to come down, peeled my fingers off the armrests and pressed Send on my message to Lara.
Fifi did little showgirl kicks at her seat. “I just looked at the most perfect apartment. You’ll never guess where it is.”
“Where?”
“In your building!” She pounded her feet into the tight-woven carpet. “Can you believe it? The penthouse mirroring yours will be ready any day and all I need is a contractor to make it exactly what I want it to be. It’s a total blank slate right now. Drywall. Subfloor. Nothing else. Not even interior walls. I can literally choose every single thing about it.”
“That sounds exhausting.”
“You mean amazing?”
Not even a little. “Yes.”
She went back to imitating a kick line.
At least she hadn’t brought a party horn.
My laptop dinged. Lara accepted my invitation for coffee, but her workload was insane, so she had to eat at her desk.
No problem.
I picked up gyros and Greek fries from a place downtown and headed her way. I had to roll my window down to circulate the meat-scented air away from my face. Lemon juice, feta and oregano-doused fries called to me, tempting me to eat and drive. The odds of eating my meal en route without crashing or ruining my dress were zilch. So, I suffered.
I salivated all the way to the tenth floor.
“Mia!” Lara met me in the hallway with a stack of files. Her royal-blue wrap dress matched the carpeting. Her hair was sleek and gray, bobbed at her chin and wedged in the back. Her eyes were puffy and the makeup was nearly gone. “I was on my way to the copier, but that can wait. Come in. Oh no! Did you get gyros? You shouldn’t have!”
I followed her into a conference room where she dumped the files into a heap on a massive black table and unloaded the food bags with gusto. “I was going to offer to share my salad from home or order in. I didn’t accept your invitation as a way of bilking lunch.” She slid my food across the table with a methodical flick of her wrist.
“Don’t worry about it. I wanted to do this. Besides, I nearly ate both on the way.”
“Well, I wouldn’t have blamed you.” She spread a napkin on her leg. “How are you? I’m so glad you called. Can you believe he’s gone?” She peeled the foil back on her sandwich and bit into the folded pita, eyes closed.
I was already there. Tzatziki sauce clung to the corner of my mouth. “I’m as shocked as anyone. I found him. Did you know that?”
Lara ran the pad of her thumb under each eye and sighed. “No.”
“Yeah.” I wiped my lips and distracted my heart from the weighing emotion.
Framed pictures of people in suits covered the conference room walls. The people stood shoulder to shoulder with a smiling Dante. Some of the photos had plaques at the bottom. Some had hospitals and museums in the background.
Her bottom lip quivered. “I’m so thoughtless. I should be asking if you’re okay.”
“Grandma’s a mess. The community’s afraid there’s a killer living among them. It’s been a rough few days.”
Lara blinked glossy eyes. “Absolutely horrendous.”
“You’ve been his right hand for a decade. How are you holding up?”
“Oh, you know, staying busy. Keeping my mind off the details. There’s so much to do without him. I’m contacting all his appointments to cancel and letting everyone who’s waiting on money know it’s not coming. I’ve got to get in touch with his bank contacts so they don’t push loans through with his co-signature. I’m not sure if I’ll be paid for this or if I should go home and look at the want ads or what.”
I forked a French fry and nodded, hoping she’d continue. Pressure seemed to build in the room. “I’m sorry. I wish I knew what to say but everything that comes to mind feels inadequate and stupid.”
A tear slid over her cheek. “Thanks.”
“You know what bugs me?” A recurring thought slithered into mind. “I wish I knew what made him call Grandma that night.” I set my fork aside. It seemed most likely that he’d needed money for an escape, but if he was in the laundering business, he probably had access to cash. “Why drag her into his mess? They didn’t keep in touch outside birthday and Christmas cards.” As far as I knew. Maybe Grandma wasn’t telling me something? Why call a friend who thought you were an angel if you were on the run from someone like Terrance Horton?
“Maybe he wanted your help?”
“Mine?” I wrinkled my nose. “No. He called Grandma, not me. I hadn’t seen Dante since high school. I barely recognized him.” I bit my tongue.
“It’s okay to be frank with me, Mia. Everyone knows you’re involved with the police somehow. You’re in the papers every few months. You solved two murders. Maybe Dante hoped Mary would ask you to help him.”
“With what?”
She lifted and dropped one hand, mystified. “We’ll never know.”
Lunch expanded in my stomach and turned to lead. Had Dante wanted my help? What could I do for him? “The local papers made me out to be more instrumental than I was. I’m not involved with the police. I’ve had a run of bad luck. Nothing more.”
She dipped her head. “Are you undercover?” Her whisper cut through the quiet space.
“No. I’m a hindrance. Ask anyone in Homicide.” Or at the marshals’ office...maybe at FBI Cyber Crimes, too. “I’m a mess. I couldn’t have helped him. I don’t think that’s it.”
Her expression turned angr
y. “Then why are you here?”
“I don’t know.” Memories of my every misstep in previous cases stampeded through my mind, reminding me of how I’d nearly gotten myself killed by butting in. What could I do besides muck up Jake’s investigation?
Lara pushed away from the table and walked out of the conference room.
I hurriedly cleaned up lunch, puzzling through what had happened and how I could fix it.
Lara returned with a kick of her foot, arms full. The door swung open and banged the wall. She marched inside and set a massive laptop on the table where my gyro had been. “I don’t know what you’re up to, but I believe you helped solve those cases like the papers said. You’re scary smart. Even if you didn’t help the police those times, I want you to help Dante now. This is his private laptop. The detectives haven’t come for it yet, but they will. They took the desktop from his office Saturday morning.”
My fingers twitched with the urge to log in and uncover Dante’s every secret. I did my best to look unaffected, but ideas mounted in my brain and spilled over. My mind sectioned off. Deciding the possible passwords. Wondering if I should call Jake and walk away. Longing to hug Lara for this gift. Hugs weren’t my thing, so I gave her a thumbs-up and started typing. I’d tell Jake about this the next time we spoke. “Why didn’t you give this to the police when they took the desktop computer?”
Lara fell onto the chair beside mine. “Dante didn’t always associate with the nicest people, and to be honest, I wasn’t sure if the men who came were really the police. I searched their names online when they left, but when they came, I froze. I was still processing the fact Dante had been murdered and hoping the men in front of me weren’t the ones who’d done it.”
Understandable. “I’m going to sweep his history and files, save anything that looks promising to an external memory device, and ask you to call the detective who came for the desktop. Did he give you his card?”
“Yeah. Detective Dan Archer. Handsome. No ring. You should be here when he comes back.”
That was a big no. “You know what? Maybe don’t mention we’ve talked.”
She frowned. “Okay.”
My fingers flew over the keyboard, willing the accounts into submission. Demanding all they knew. “Let him know you found this laptop. Tell him he can have it if he wants it. I don’t want you to get in trouble for withholding evidence. I’ll see what I can make of his files.”
“Anything you say.”
I dug a thumb drive from my purse and shoved it into the laptop port. The little silver US Marshal star stared at me in disappointment. Jake had given me the drive as a gift last fall. Now, I was using it to snoop where he’d asked me not to. “Shut up,” I mumbled as I transferred another line of files. I’d come clean to Jake. He could have any information I had. As soon as I had a quick peek.
I left the office an hour later with a smoking thumb drive. I’d saved his heated emails, personal calendar and sites he’d frequented. Also a few pictures. I kept anything I wanted to take my time with.
I dashed along the sidewalk to my car, one hand on the pocket with the USB drive, until I saw them. Two dead wet mice lay on my windshield.
Chapter Ten
I followed the Ohio Wiring van from the highway to Horseshoe Falls. Perfect timing. I waved to Bernie as I stopped behind them at the gate. She smiled and chatted with the driver a minute before raising the lever for us to pass. I rolled in on their exhaust and zipped into the clubhouse parking lot. The van kept going.
I dialed Jake as I hurried down the hall to my office. The call went straight to voice mail. Probably for the best, I didn’t have time to talk anyway. I copied the thumb drive contents onto the cloud via my laptop and hurried outside to greet the wiring guys.
Nervous energy coiled and burned beneath my skin as I bustled along the cobblestone path from clubhouse to boathouse. I needed to talk to Jake. Not just about the files I’d found on Dante’s laptop. There was also the mice. My chest tightened at the memory. One mouse in the grass and gravel was a possible coincidence. Two on my windshield was a message. Instinct said I’d caught the killer’s attention, but I’d barely talked to anyone about anything. Dante was a family friend. For all an outsider knew, I’d visited Angelina to give my condolences. Lara and I were online friends. So what if we’d had lunch? It wasn’t logical that I’d be followed already. I was innocent. Maybe the mice were unrelated. Maybe I’d upset someone else without knowing and they called in a dead mouse deliveryman. Like sending flowers, but when you’re mad. I shook my hands out hard at the wrists, hoping to toss away some anxiety with each flick. I especially didn’t like the fact that the mice were wet, as if the person who drowned Dante enjoyed that sort of thing.
Maybe Jake was right. I’d barely gotten started and already I was in the crosshairs. Or maybe Jake was wrong. Maybe the killer saw me pull Dante from the water and talk to the cops. Maybe I’d sealed my fate the moment I jumped into that lake.
I stepped off the path onto emerald-green grass and pulled in settling lungfuls of heady summer air. Wildflowers and backyard gardens perfumed the world inside our walls. Walls I chose to believe kept me safe, despite what had happened at the lake.
Residents milled around the white logoed van near the boathouse. Knots and clusters of onlookers sprinkled the lawn, some craning their necks to see up a silver ladder leaning against the boathouse.
Clive climbed down and hung a hammer into a loop on his tool belt.
“How’s it going?” I gripped the rattling aluminum to steady him as he reached the ground.
“It’s a losing battle.” He turned his khaki ball cap backward and huffed. “The wildlife’s running this joint. I’m thinking napalm could help.”
A collective gasp rolled through the crowd.
I waved hands. “He’s kidding.”
The look on his face suggested I was wrong. “Something’s torn up the whole attic. Soffit’s secure now, but it’ll be down again tomorrow. All winter I replaced the soffit. Over and over. It’s a nightmare in that attic. Poop and hair everywhere. The insulation is destroyed. We need to call our insurance guy and get that taken care of.”
Thank goodness for insurance. “What about the squirrels?”
“A-bomb?”
“Be serious.”
He shook his head. “They aren’t up there now. It’s not like they’re sitting around waiting for something.”
I stepped away from the ladder. “Have you spoken to the wiring guys?”
The boathouse door swung open and a pair of men in matching white polo shirts and black slacks crossed the wide wooden porch in our direction. Labels over their pockets identified them as Ohio Wiring Technicians.
The taller one with black wavy hair stopped in my personal space. “Mia Connors? I’m Trey. I think we spoke on the phone.”
“Yes. How’d you know it was me?”
He shot Clive a look. “Someone described you to me.” His smile was charming. His cologne was enticing and his vibe was straight womanizer.
I looked past him to the smaller, less cocky man standing at a normal distance. “Everything okay up there?”
“Not really,” the second guy said. “It’s pretty filthy. We needed masks and coveralls to install the cables this weekend. We’re going to need them again to replace the distressed wires.”
“Were you up there today?” Their crisp white shirts said otherwise.
“Didn’t need to be,” Trey said. “Got a good view from the ladder. Something gnawed through your network cable at the main access point. Without a physical connection to the internet, the main access can’t send the signal to the repeaters we placed around the community.”
I held a palm between us. “I know how the mesh network works. I sent your company the plan. If I had time, I would’ve done it myself.”
He laughed.
I stared. “Something funny about that?”
“What about the squirrels?” a voice called from the crowd.
Clive turned on the mob. “There are too many of them. We need to thin the population.”
A murmur spread through the onlookers and morphed into an ugly growl.
I lifted my hand. “Can we put a pin in this? No one will touch the squirrels in the next ten minutes. Hold your pitchforks.” I turned to Trey. “Can you fix the wiring or not?”
“Yeah. We have to come back with the right equipment.”
“Why didn’t you come with the right equipment? I told you what I thought had happened when I called.”
He smirked. “Most times we follow up on a call like this, the system’s unplugged or in need of a reboot.”
Of course he’d assumed I didn’t know what I was talking about. I was a woman. I couldn’t turn it off and back on again without his help. I ground my teeth and locked my attention on his partner. “When can you be back with a replacement cable? And can you get the job done while the attic’s in that condition or do we need to clean up the space first? We’ll contact the insurance company, but that’s going to take time and these people want wireless now.”
“We can get it done.” Trey moved toward the van. “We’ll get our gear and come back.”
“Thank you.”
He popped the door open and hesitated. “Won’t be the last time we replace the cable if you’re keeping animals up there.”
I turned my back on him.
Clive lifted a cell phone to his ear. “Marcella? This is Clive. I’m on my way over. You got time to talk about the squirrels?” He moseyed to his golf cart and drove away.
Smart. She’d take care of the insurance claim and settle the people.
I faced the crowd. “Something chewed through the network wire. That’s why it went down right away. Apparently some local wildlife made the boathouse attic their home last winter and they chewed through my network cable last night. Clive thinks it was squirrels. We’re going to try to get rid of them, but the network will probably continue to have problems until we do.”
A Geek Girl's Guide to Justice (The Geek Girl Mysteries) Page 11
