Nun Too Soon (A Giulia Driscoll Mystery Book 1) (17 page)

Twenty-Eight

Zane’s face shifted from incredulous to horrified to nauseated.

Giulia and Sidney laughed.

“I’m totally making a print from mini-Sidney’s placenta,” Sidney said. “Giulia gave me the kit at my baby shower.”

The door opened and Jane Pierce came in, dressed in black trousers and a bright red sweater.

“Someone normal,” Zane said. “Thank the gods. Come here, please, and prove I’m not alone in the world. Have you ever heard of...this?”

“Of what?” Jane walked up to Giulia and Sidney.

Giulia turned her tablet to face Jane, without explaining the image.

“Oh, yeah. Placenta art. My tattoo artist transfers them onto mothers in whatever size they want.”

Zane escaped to his desk, placing his monitor between himself and the three women. “I am scarred for life.”

Giulia tried to stop grinning and failed. “I love my job. Jane, I’m extremely relieved you showed up. Zane—good Heavens, you two rhyme. I promise not to start giving instructions in iambic pentameter. Zane, I forgot to ask you to make up a timesheet for Jane.”

“Did it Friday before I left.”

“Anticipating my needs again. And yet you still question my hiring acumen. Sidney, I leave Jane in your hands.”

“No prob. Pull up my client chair, Jane. There’s a lot to learn, but I promise it’s all organized.”

Giulia turned a wide-eyed, incredulous gaze on her.

Sidney made a repentant face. “Mostly organized.”

Zane stood. “I can tell you the discovery now, Ms. Driscoll.”

“Excellent. Come into my sanctum.”

Zane dragged Giulia’s client chair around next to Giulia’s own desk chair. “You’re already reading it?”

“It’s a sanity break from The Roger Fitch Show.”

“Okay. Close those files and bring up the surveillance videos.”

“Which ones?” Giulia clicked several windows closed.

“Start with the week of November fifth, two years ago.”

She double-clicked on the requested video file. Sharp black-and-white digital footage showed her the tops of several heads in the bookkeeping department, plus their desks and computer monitors. The screens pixilated, but otherwise all the elements were crisp and identifiable.

Zane pointed to a shaved brown head. “That’s Leonard Tulley. He’ll get up and go over to Loriela Gil’s desk...now.”

Tulley stood and walked to a larger desk in front of a wide window. Loriela Gil looked up and appeared to listen to and answer a question. She smiled without sincerity, the careful expression of an impersonal manager dealing with a subordinate.

“She doesn’t like him,” Giulia said. “When I spoke with him on Thursday, I got the impression he was jealous of losing his chance at her to Fitch.”

Zane brought his face closer to the screen. “I don’t see that.”

“That’s okay. What next?”

“Week of December fifteenth, same year.”

In this video, Loriela bent over a redhead’s desk. Giulia leaned away from the screen and narrowed her eyes. “Is that...yes, it is. Autumn Tate.” Tate’s fingers whitened on the pen she held. Loriela’s index finger poked at the printouts on Tate’s desk. She poked again and again, while Tate nodded and her fingers gripped tighter and tighter.

“She’s one of my original five embezzlement suspects...If Loriela rode her like that, she may have stolen to prove she was smarter than her boss thinks.”

“That’s why I pulled this week,” Zane said. “She wasn’t on my list originally, but look at this progression.”

For the next half-hour, Zane piled video on top of video. Len Tulley spent an inordinate part of each week hovering at Loriela’s desk. Her smiles never got warmer. As the surveillance dates closed in on the last week of March before her murder, she stopped bothering to hide her impatience with Tulley.

Giulia opened the accounting files that corresponded with the last three months before Loriela’s death.

“Zane, have you worked some analysis magic that connects Loriela’s emasculation of Tulley to the embezzlement? Please say yes.”

In reply, Zane got out of the chair and went to the connecting doorway. “Sidney, can you explain what you think you found with the surveillance videos and the purchase orders?”

“If I can heave myself out of this chair...Thanks, Jane.” The sound of casters and a chair thumping against the wall. “You come too.”

Both women lined up behind Giulia.

“Oh, you’ve already got the ledgers up.” Sidney read the dates. “Not those. Go back to two summers earlier. We saw something that coincided with a Fourth of July sale of their retail stock.”

Giulia minimized all the open files and found the ones for the end of the July Sidney wanted.

“Whoever designed their bookkeeping system is either clueless or devious,” Sidney said. “We went for clueless first, because they still do business transactions with paper checks. But Zane came up with two companies a little bigger than AtlanticEdge who are still into paper too. So we voted for devious because, well, they had to hire us. See the multiple entries for software purchases the last week of June? Now go to the scanned purchase orders for that same week. Good. Now open the check images from the bank deposit.”

Giulia manipulated all three windows until they crowded side by side on her monitor. “What am I looking for? No, don’t tell me. Let me see if I can spot it.”

She stared at one after the other. The ledger entries added up, at least in her head. When she enlarged the check images she compared the numerical dollar amounts versus the handwritten amounts.

“I didn’t realize AtlanticEdge sold to this many smaller local businesses, but it makes sense. They’re big on keeping money in the community.”

She turned her scrutiny on the purchase orders. “The numbers match. The delivery dates match the entries in the ledger. The dollar amounts match.” She pushed the heels of her hands into her eyes. “Too much staring at computer screens. Give me a second. Sidney, do you need to sit down?”

“Kinda. My ankles keep puffing up like water balloons.”

Zane gave up the client chair to her. Jane dragged over Giulia’s empty trash can and placed it upside down under Sidney’s feet.

“Ohhhh, yes. That’s what they needed.” Sidney eased herself into a slouch. “This’ll calm my back for about fifteen minutes.”

“I promise not to take that long,” Giulia said. “You’ve challenged me. Nobody say anything until I either spot something or give up.”

She enlarged the first purchase order by date and its companion check. They looked identical to her. The next ones. Same result. She got through ten when the phone rang.

Zane picked it up at Giulia’s desk. “Good morning, Driscoll Investigations.”

A familiar voice spoke on the other end.

“I’ll see if Ms. Driscoll is available, Mr. Fitch. One moment, please.” He hit the hold button.

Giulia sighed and held out her hand. Zane took the call off hold.

“Giulia Falcone-Driscoll speaking. How may I help you, Mr. Fitch?”

“I want to apologize for that mess on Saturday.” He actually did sound apologetic. “Can you meet me someplace? I’d like to explain things.”

Giulia couldn’t come up with an excuse. “It’s almost ten o’clock. I have a brief window in half an hour. Where would you like to meet?”

“Colby’s office is too far, huh? What about we take advantage of the weather and talk under that spiky abstract thing they call art in front of the library?”

“Fine. I’ll meet you there at ten-thirty.” She hung up.

“You know,” she said to her three employees, “I never thought the relatively minor sins I’ve committed would merit this kind of punishment.”

Sidney giggled.

“I can quote the Buddha on karmic balance,” Zane said. “My sisters and brother would lecture you about the Rule of Three.”

Jane kept quiet until Giulia twisted around in her chair. Then Jane said, “Don’t look at me. Best I can come up with is ‘it pays the bills.’ My ex would blame it on Mercury Retrograde. He was famous for never taking responsibility.” She gulped. “Uh—not that I mean you’re not owning your own actions—er—sins, or whatever. I mean, um, what I was trying to say...”

Giulia dropped her face in her hand and laughed. “Jane, stop worrying. But try not to answer the phone ’til you’re used to working under pressure, even the light pressure of this place.” She straightened up. “Okay, everyone quiet again ’til I nail this.”

She enlarged a purchase order with an attached order for a refund on unsold stock. Nothing there. She closed them at the same moment her brain said that it had seen something “off.” She reopened the two scans.

“Son of a gun. The handwritten amount was one-zero-three-zero and it’s been changed to one-zero-eight-zero. I can see the place where the other half of the eight doesn’t quite match up.” She shrank the document to its original size. “But when I look at it like this, it’s seamless.” She opened the ledger page. “The wholesale amounts would have less than,” she scrolled down to an actual order for one thousand thirty units, “two hundred dollars’ difference.”

She tapped her nails in a syncopated rhythm on her desk.

“If I were going to rip off my prosperous employer, two hundred bucks is nothing,” she said, mostly to herself. “But similar amounts skimmed often enough over the course of two-plus years, invested in a high-yield...no, no, that’s traceable. Gambled with? Played the stock market with? Never enough to trigger an alarm during a cursory check of the books, so they could keep stealing until they decided they had enough. Do thieves ever feel they have enough?”

She swiveled to face Zane. “This is the first mistake you caught?”

“Yeah. Once I figured out what it was, I dragged Sidney onto it and we split June, July, and August of that year. Then we had to close up for the night because you said not to pull overtime unless we cleared it with you.”

“No, no, you did the right thing...” Giulia stared at the documents on the screen. “When did old Mr. Howard have the stroke that forced his daughter to take over the company?”

Zane ran out to his computer and his fingers tapped his keyboard. “May twenty-third, last year.”

“She was defending her thesis for her MBA then, right? Right. Dad was in the hospital, worry over that. Yanked from the intensive thesis process to wrangle nearly one thousand employees and a company worth half a million. She’s twenty-five years old. Most, probably all, of the employees are older than her. She’d let them do their thing because it worked for Dad all these years. Zane, when does their fiscal year close?”

Zane reappeared in the doorway. “January thirty-first.”

“Did someone complain about their bill or did she finally have time to look at the books? One after the other? Or did our embezzlers play with the numbers to shut the customer up? Both, I bet.”

She closed the documents. “Zane, Sidney, you guys are fantastic. Sidney’s training, so Zane, can you keep digging into the scans, now that you know what to look for? I’ve got to listen to Roger Fitch spread himself. Again.”

“Already blocked out the day for it.”

“Perfect. I’m going to bury myself in all things Silk Tie Murder until 3:30.”

“What’s happening at 3:30?” Sidney said.

“We might be unwilling TV stars.”

Twenty-Nine

Giulia walked as fast as she could through the crowded sidewalks. She could see the roof of the art museum now across the stupidest, most dangerous intersection in the city. She’d perch beneath the sculpture’s variegated spikes and try again to see it as a chrysanthemum, like the artist’s plaque claimed.

“Hey, thanks for meeting me.” Roger Fitch’s boisterous voice appeared without warning out of the crowd.

“Good morning. Let’s get out of this crush before we discuss Saturday.”

They formed a two-person wall, pushing to the edge of the sidewalk as buses and delivery vans whooshed past. The light opposite turned yellow. A taxi sped up, the light turned red, and with a shout Fitch stumbled into the street. Giulia grabbed his arm and yanked him out of danger back onto the sidewalk. The taxi leaned on its horn and kept going. Giulia sat down hard. Fitch landed next to her.

The other people on the curb crowded tighter around them.

“Are you okay?”

“Idiot cab driver!”

“Somebody call 9-1-1.”

“Nah, they’re not hurt. You’re not hurt, are you, lady?”

“Back off, people. Give them some air.”

Traffic zoomed past. Giulia pulled her trembling feet farther in from the curb. Her hands shook from the adrenaline rush too.

“Are you all right?” she asked Fitch. “What happened?”

Fitch looked up at the faces all around them. “Somebody pushed me. Who pushed me, you sons of bitches? Let go of me, Driscoll.” He jerked himself free of Giulia’s quick cautionary grip.

At the word “pushed” Giulia’s brain rattled back into its professional gears. “Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure. Somebody shoved me right between my shoulders. How the hell else would I fall off a three-inch curb?”

He got to his knees, then his feet. The half-dozen concerned bystanders gave him more space.

“Now you recognize me? Yeah, I’m supposed to be the Silk Tie Killer. So what? Ever hear of innocent until proven guilty? Ever hear of the justice system?”

Giulia reached up and put her hands on his arm again. “Mr. Fitch, this isn’t a good idea.”

He shook her off. “Which one of you tried to commit murder by taxi? Huh? Got the guts to look me in the face?”

Two women at the outer edge of the circle faded away, their steps lost in the traffic noises. The light turned green for the second time since the near-accident. A mother picked up her preschool-age son and crossed the street. Two men in suits followed, then an older woman with a purse big enough for an overnight trip. By the time the light shone red again, a new group of people surrounded Fitch and Giulia, still giving them breathing space.

“You okay, lady? Need a hand?”

Giulia smiled up at the teenager in a hoodie and ripped jeans who probably should have been in school. “Thanks, no. I’m okay.” She clambered up, checked her purse, and rubbed her tailbone.

“Mr. Fitch, this serves no purpose. Let’s get over to the museum’s lawn.”

She waited a four-second gap in traffic to cross the street and made for the gray steel chrysanthemum without checking for Fitch. When she sat on one of the green benches beneath the sculpture, Fitch sat beside her a moment later.

“Don’t start,” he said. “Somebody shoved me. I can’t prove it. That doesn’t make me a liar. It’s no secret I’ve got a lot of haters in this town. Any one of them would love to hurry me down to hell and save the taxpayers the cost of the trial.” He rubbed his left shoulder. “Feels like somebody tried to pull my arm out of the socket.”

Giulia gave him a tight smile. “You’re welcome.”

“Huh? What are you talking about?” He stopped rubbing. “Wait a minute...I’m not a speed bump right about now because somebody dragged me back onto the sidewalk. You?”

“Yes, me.”

“Sheesh. Thanks. Didn’t mean to be an asshole. Got caught up in the moment.”

“You’re welcome,” Giulia said with less ice this time. “I agree that you won’t be able to prove someone pushed you into traffic. My advice is not to waste time in speculation. Let’s concentrate on the reason you hired us in the first place.”

“Good girl—woman. First, though, I want to apologize for what happened with Tammy and Angie on Saturday.”

“I might suggest you not string two women along simultaneously, but that’s your business.”

He looked rueful for the first time since the initial meeting in Colby Petit’s office. “Things got away from me after the indictment. Lousy day for
The Scoop
to track me down. Perfect timing for them. Kanning and his stooge hugged the walls while I tried to pull my girls off each other, then the mike and the camera swooped in. I kicked those bloodsuckers out as soon as I could, but Angie ran after them, talking a mile a minute.”

“So it wasn’t you who gave my name to
The Scoop
?”

“Oh, uh, no. I wouldn’t sic them on anybody, including Madre Cassandra, and that’s saying a lot.”

“Well, they’re stalking me at home and at church. I’m not looking forward to five o’clock today.”

“Why? Oh. You think they’ll be outside your door.”

Giulia would’ve sworn on her mother’s grave that Fitch was thinking,
That means they won’t be outside mine.

A taco truck pulled up to the curb in front of them and started to set up for the lunch crowd. Beef marinated in cumin and chili powder saturated the air. Giulia wondered if they had enchilada fixings in the freezer for supper.

She brought herself back to Fitch on the bench next to her. “You’ll be pleased—or not—to hear that both Henri Richard and Lacy Maples are no longer on our informal list of suspects in Ms. Gil’s murder.”

“Shit. How come?”

“He moved to Chicago long before last April and she was in the hospital with appendicitis for the week surrounding the murder.”

He didn’t bother to hide his annoyance. “Who does that leave, then?”

“Leonard Tulley, Shirley Travers, Colby Petit, and you.”

He blustered. “But I told you—”

“Mr. Fitch, I’m in charge of this case. No possibility is excluded until I obtain definitive evidence to the contrary. If this is unacceptable to you, we can terminate the contract and I’ll bill you through the court for time spent.”

He flinched. Giulia patted herself on the back.

“No, no, of course I don’t want to fire you. Who else can pull my ass out of the death chamber?” His charming smile flashed out. “I need a beer to celebrate my escape from death. Want to join me so I can toast my life-saver?”

“Thank you, no. I have a busy morning still.” She stood. “Hopefully I won’t be watching myself get ambushed by
The Scoop
this afternoon on TV.”

He chuckled. “There’s no such thing as bad publicity, Ms. Driscoll.” His head swiveled in the direction of the food truck. “I want a taco.”

“Good morning, Mr. Fitch.”

“See you later.” He walked toward the open side of the truck.

Giulia started back to her office, thinking that if the death penalty loomed over
her
, she’d hit Common Grounds twice a day for a new flavor of coffee.