Fixed

by L. A. Kornetsky

  She placed the salad container on the table. “At least put some lettuce on that thing, pretend it’s not trying to kill you.”

  “Hey, I went running this morning. What’ve you done, health-wise?”

  “Took Georgie for her walk, and drank a lot of coffee,” she said, sitting down and placing the sandwich and some salad on her plate.

  “And stared into your magic machine. Find out anything more interesting about our list of suspects?”

  “Not a damn thing. They’re so boring and ordinary, it’s enough to make me suspicious of them, just based on that. Nice people, doing a nice thing to make the world a nicer place.” She sounded as disgusted as she felt.

  “Most people are nice,” he said. “Petty and judgmental, sometimes, but nice. You’re nice.”

  “I know.” She bit into her sandwich, gloomily. “It’s so depressing.”

  She hadn’t said it to make him laugh, but he did anyway.

  “Well, I spent the morning at the shelter,” he said, “and it was . . . interesting.”

  Good. Interesting was good. Well, it had possibilities, anyway.

  “Too much to hope for that someone confessed?”

  “Yeah, sorry. But I did get to talk to Roger Arvantis, who showed up unexpectedly, and the vet, whose schedule includes Sunday morning visits to the kennel itself, not just the clinic. So that theory’s confirmed. But he didn’t appear to go anywhere near the main office, even for coffee. The vet, I mean.”

  “And Roger?” She took a bite of her sandwich and waited. Tonica took his time, putting his thoughts together. She’d learned that rushing him got her nowhere.

  “Roger seems like a nice guy, somewhat vague. Part of that might have been his being sick, and maybe out of touch with the daily routine, but I think he’s just like that, you know?”

  “Like what?”

  Tonica made a face. “Hippy-dippy vague.”

  Oh. She knew what he meant then.

  “So is he on the suspect list, or off?”

  “Off, I think. Or at least, way down. Nora and Este both said that the grants had been his bailiwick before; they noticed money missing after Nora took over.”

  “All that meant was that he might have been hiding it before. Easy enough to do, if you handle all the money and your partner doesn’t seem to have a clue—or care. Absolute trust can drive people to stupid things.”

  “Okay, yeah. But he just doesn’t feel right for a petty thief.”

  She’d gotten Tonica on board because he could read people better than she could, so she wasn’t going to discount that; but she wasn’t ready to take the cofounder off the list just yet, either. Hell, she wasn’t ready to take Este off, even though the likelihood of either of them stealing from their baby seemed improbable as hell.

  “So a cautionary no to the founders, and our client, and a probable no to our security guard?” She waited, and then asked, “Anything else?”

  “Oh yeah.” His smile was less amusement, and more “wait until you hear this.” “I don’t know if it’s directly related, it could be utter coincidence, but we seem to have a bit of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ going on in the office.”

  Ginny raised her eyebrows. “Oh?”

  “Not that kind,” he said. “At least, I don’t think so. Nora started to say something about another problem they’d had, I presume recently, and then changed direction and kept it changed. And Margaret, the receptionist? Earlier, she’d started to say something about stuff that’s been going on that had everyone jumpy, and then clamped her mouth shut so fast and hard I thought she’d bite her tongue in half.”

  “Huh.” Ginny frowned. “So something’s going on under the happy-lovey-puppies-and-kittens exterior? That’s . . . interesting. And yeah, potentially relevant to our interests, because secret dirt and missing money are like peanut butter and jelly. But does that make Margaret a suspect, or a possible informant?”

  Tonica considered the question, his face doing that thing where he was obviously digging through his recall. For a guy who normally had an awesome poker face, his remembering face looked like he was chewing a lemon. “She wanted to gossip. Rather badly, I think.”

  “But she’d been warned off   ?” Ginny put her sandwich down. “You think Este warned people not to talk to us?”

  “She and Nora are the only ones who know why we’re actually there, and not only would Nora not have the authority to say anything, if she did, I think Margaret would start talking just to spite her.”

  “So maybe Nora said she should talk freely?”

  Tonica raised an eyebrow at her the way he did when he thought she’d overthought something.

  “All right, okay, fine,” Ginny said. “So she was told to shut up. Both of them were, probably. Which means probably Este, yeah, because nobody else would have the authority to do it.”

  “Except Roger. Who happened to be in the office . . . but no, he came in well after I talked to Margaret. And he sounded like he hadn’t been in for a while; he thought I was a new volunteer.”

  “I think we can agree that whatever is or isn’t going on, Roger’s out of touch with everything, and Este wants to keep him that way.” When Tonica nodded, Ginny went on. “Nora would be hard to pump for info if she’s already determined not to say anything, even to us. I think she’s too loyal to Este: she was so relieved that her boss wasn’t pissed at her, above and beyond not losing her job, she wouldn’t rock the boat anymore. Any way you could sweet-talk Margaret into spilling whatever it is she wasn’t supposed to say?”

  “Not without actually adopting a cat,” he said, and there was something in his voice that made her look twice.

  “Hah. You thought about it, didn’t you?”

  “No.”

  “You did!”

  “All right, I did. But it’s not gonna happen. Oh, and that’s the other thing. When I got there, I told you, I talked to the vet, Williams.”

  “Right. He can go into the kennels?”

  “Yeah, but not alone—none of them can, something about liability issues. I guess in case someone gets bitten, or something goes horribly horribly wrong and the ASPCA and PETA and the local news team van all show up at their door.”

  “But he doesn’t seem to have any interest or inclination in going to the main office, you said?”

  “No, I suspect he comes in, does his thing, and leaves—seemed like a busy guy. I also don’t see him as the sort to be filching money. He was wearing good-quality clothing—worn, but not worn-out, if you know what I mean. And he wasn’t getting his hair cut at the local barber’s, either. So he’s not hurting. I’m going to believe that he’s volunteering in good faith.”

  “Yeah.” Ginny pulled out her own records, not going to be outdone. “He’s partner at a clinic in Washington Park, so he’s not hurting for money. High-end pooches out there. And he drives a nice little Audi A6, not brand-new but still shiny, to go with his nice clothing. Usually someone in debt either has a flashier car or something more run-down.”

  “All that said, something weird did happen,” Tonica said, cutting into her confirmation, and one-upping her neatly. “Something you’ll be able to explain better than me, maybe.”

  Either one of them admitting that to the other, out loud, was unusual, so Ginny shut up and listened.

  “When I got there, he showed up, wanting to start his rounds early, but there wasn’t anyone to help him. So I volunteered.”

  “Clever of you.”

  He inclined his head, accepting the praise. “I thought so. Anyway, we started with the dogs, and every single one of them reacted badly to him. They were okay until we got them on the cart and then they snarled at him, or drew back, like they were afraid.”

  “Oh, that’s not good,” Ginny said automatically, more in dog-owner mode than investigator. “What was his reaction to their reaction?”

  Tonica closed his eyes, trying to remember the man’s exact reaction. “He seemed surprised by it, too. Surprised and
a little worried, I think.”

  “You’re thinking . . . what? That this is a clue?” She drummed her fingers, trying to place that into the puzzle. “A clue to what?”

  “I don’t know, but considering the man works with animals, and seemed to be familiar with all of them, even if he wasn’t handling them every day, it’s odd enough to pay attention.”

  “True. So I’ll add it to the Giant Spreadsheets of Doom.” His term for her databases, not hers, but she had to admit that the name was probably warranted. Between that, her tablet’s calendar function, and Post-its, she could keep her life organized. Mostly.

  “It’s worth noting, yeah, but seriously, Tonica, that reaction might just have been coincidence. Animals are iffy sometimes, and they can act weird for reasons that have nothing to do with what the person handling them did. Ask any professional animal trainer who’s ever gotten bitten. And, seriously, there’s no way to connect that reaction to missing money.”

  “Yeah, I know. It just stuck out, when everything else was so normal. I liked the guy, he seems like a nice guy—they all seemed like nice people—but this is the first off note we’ve found, and without it, we’re nowhere.”

  “We’re eliminating people from probable suspicion,” Ginny pointed out. “That’s not nowhere.”

  Tonica plowed on, so stuck on his theory he couldn’t drop it. “I mean, he’s a vet, he knows how to handle animals, and they know him, so why would they react badly? Maybe they know something?”

  Ginny sighed, the sound less annoyance than amusement. “Tonica, you know I’m all in the ‘dogs are smarter than most people think’ camp, but contrary to whatever you’re thinking, dogs can’t smell guilt. Or cash. Can you, girl?”

  Georgie, who had settled under the table in hopes of some scrap of food falling to the floor, lifted her head at Ginny’s voice and then, seeing there were no treats being offered, went back to ignoring them both. Her stumpy tail wagged once, though, as if to reassure them that she was in fact there, and content.

  “So what, that they just didn’t like his aftershave?”

  “Maybe. Or even his body chemistry that day. Like I said, animals are weird. Or”—Ginny raised a finger as she thought of something—“if he came from the clinic, maybe he smelled like antiseptic. . . . A lot of animals really, really don’t like the vet’s office.”

  “All of them? The entire kennel?”

  She made a face. “All right, point made. But I don’t know what we can do about it, short of interrogating the dogs, which even you’d have trouble doing.”

  “Yeah. People are no problem, but getting dogs to spill their guts, that I’m not so good at.” He looked under the table. “Georgie, can you do that? If we took you to the shelter, could you find out who took the money?”

  Georgie’s tail thumped again, and she looked hopeful, one ear perked up, as though she thought they were offering her treats.

  “Tonica. Focus, please?” Ginny shook her head, and wondered if she was the only adult in the room.

  * * *

  Ginny was looking at him like she thought he’d lost his mind, asking the dog for help, and never mind that she’d just asked the dog a similar question minutes before. Double standards going on there, just a bit. He wasn’t dumb enough to say that out loud, though.

  Teddy leaned back, stretching his legs out under the coffee table, the sole of his left foot poking Georgie, who didn’t even lift her head this time. Apparently he’d been judged nonthreatening enough that she could sleep while he was in the apartment. He wasn’t sure, but he thought that was a doggy compliment.

  “So what else do we have?” she asked. “I mean, we’ve knocked off half the people who work there, so . . .”

  “Their security people,” he said. “You said they hired an external company to do sweeps, right? We need to talk to them, too. And see if there’s any video footage. I did a quick recon of the space when I was there, and there are only two entrances: the front door, and a side door into the clinic. There was another door in the back office, which I suspect leads to the back alley, but it’s a fire door, so I doubt anyone’s getting in that way, unless someone left it open. I am presuming, although I don’t know for certain, that the clinic door is locked.”

  “Easy enough to check,” Ginny said. “And we should have done that already. Make note of it, Tonica: next time we get a theft case, we check security, first.”

  “How about next time we don’t take a theft case? Or any case, for that matter?”

  “Aw, come on. You’re not having fun?”

  “I want about seven hours of sleep, a solid lead, and another cup of coffee. Then I’ll be having fun.”

  Ginny’s mouth twitched in an almost-smile, and she looked away, but not before her expression betrayed her amusement. “All I can offer is the coffee.” When he nodded, she went into the kitchen, then returned with two mugs. He took one from her, tested the temperature, then took a sip. Slightly bitter—it had been on the burner a while, but the caffeine would do the job.

  “Thanks. So we can assume that nobody gets into the actual building without either having a key or going past Margaret. They have a display at the front desk that covers closed-circuit TVs in some of the shelter, but not all—and once you get past Margaret, the lack of any kind of security is somewhat terrifying. I’ve been in their back office twice now, once with you and Nora, and once by myself, and nobody stopped to question me the second time—even people who didn’t know me from John Doe assumed that I had the right to be there because I was there. Margaret’s their only line of defense. The password may reassure them everything’s okay up front, but it’s not exactly a secure space.”

  “We’re still thinking an employee or insider though, right? I mean, wouldn’t whoever went there need to know already that the money was there?” Ginny was doing the tap-tap-tap thing with her fingers that meant her brain was working overtime. Once he would have been hesitant to interrupt her: now he knew that she could listen just fine while she was thinking.

  “Yeah. It’s not like a store, where you assume they’re going to have cash somewhere. And anyone who went in just looking for something to grab would have grabbed other stuff, too.” Nora had said that only money was missing, and only in small amounts at a time. That marked against the idea of a break-in, unless it was the most patient penny-ante burglar ever.

  “So, we’re back to the original list of suspects.” Ginny sounded depressed, which was unlike her.

  “Hey. What’s wrong?”

  She looked at him, her internal through process broken. “What?”

  “Usually you’re chomping at the bit, ready to solve all the world’s problems, first girl in with the solution. So what’s wrong?”

  For a minute he thought she wasn’t going to tell him. “It’s not the job. Just . . . stuff. Thanksgiving. Dating.”

  “Oh.” He remembered her saying something about a new guy, second or third date-ish, and put the three words together. “Let me guess, your mom wants you to bring him over for a look-see?”

  Her entire face twitched, and he snorted in amusement. His mother would have done exactly the same thing, if he’d let it slip he was dating someone, and he was within reach.

  “And . . . no, or hell no?”

  Ginny shrugged. “No. He’s a nice guy. I like him. It’s just way too soon, and way too much.” She made a face. “I don’t want to talk about it, okay?”

  They worked together occasionally. That didn’t make them friends, though, and she’d already warned him away from her private life. Teddy let it drop.

  “All right, let’s start again from the top. We clear Nora off the list?” she asked, sliding her tablet into position in front of her and bringing up a file.

  “Yeah. I mean, we could go on the assumption that she was stealing it, and brought us in rather than the cops because she thought that we were incapable of actually nailing her for it, so she could say she’d done her best, but I think that’s paranoia and tri
cksy behavior above and beyond.”

  “Agreed.” Ginny tapped the screen, he presumed checking Nora off the list. “So what about Este and/or Roger? We agree that they’ve got the access and the knowledge . . . and it might have been going on for longer than Nora was aware, since she only noticed it when she took over the grant paperwork. One of them could have tried using the money as their personal petty cash fund, thinking that, Hey, they’re the boss, so why not?”

  “Not really in character,” Teddy said. “Not impossible, just . . .”

  “People tend not to act wildly out of character unless they’re pushed to it, yeah,” Ginny said, agreeing. “Maybe his illness? I mean, financially they’re doing all right, but medical stuff stresses people wildly. A little impromptu kleptomania on her part, maybe?”

  She looked disconcertingly hopeful at the idea of kleptomania.

  “Este could have shut us down without raising any suspicion, and she didn’t,” he pointed out. “So that probably drops her down on the list. And kleptomania usually manifests itself in the need to steal everything, not just cash. Nora would have mentioned if other things had gone missing.”

  “True. Maybe that’s what Nora and Margaret didn’t want to talk about? The fear that the boss has gone nuts?”

  He raised his eyebrows at her. “You’re a little too excited about that idea, Mallard. It’s possible. Probable, even. Not sure how I’ll raise that particular topic in discussion, but I’ll try.”

  Ginny made another series of notes, her fingers moving on the screen with a speed he was starting to seriously envy. “And Roger? You met him, I haven’t. Too hippy-dippy?”

  The term, in her voice, sounded almost clinical.

  “Too hippy-dippy,” he agreed. “But hippy-dippy doesn’t always mean honest.” He’d met a few light-fingered New Age types before. “You should take a look at the shelter’s financial records anyway, make sure that money wasn’t being siphoned off earlier, and Nora just didn’t look closely enough.”

  “Oh, joy.” She didn’t look joyous, despite her usual love of digging into actual facts. “You want me to talk Este into handing over their ledger? I’m going to have to go at least a year back, and I’m not even sure what I’d be looking for. Seriously, they get the check and then just pay it out. . . . That’s an incredibly stupid way of handling money, especially for a nonprofit. And I bet their cash-out records are crap. Or done on the back of napkins.”