“Is she the type to kill her golden goose?” I looked out the window and saw her standing by her car, yelling to someone on her phone.

  “What, you think she killed Matty?” Now Nic watched her as well.

  “I think it’s worth a question to Detective Charles to see if the grieving ex-wife had an alibi. Did the judge reveal who Matty’s heirs were? Please tell me it’s not her.”

  “According to the judge, but not to be discussed elsewhere, the ex-Mrs. Goldstein is going to be very disappointed in her inheritance. Matty’s lawyer told me that Matty said she’d drained him for years when he was alive so when he died, he didn’t have to hear her complain.” Nic nodded to the window. “The ex-Mrs. must have a salon appointment because she’s leaving.”

  “Or her lawyer told her to get out of here before it looked bad to the judge.” Bubba said as he walked back into the foyer. “I just checked the garage and the outside sheds. Nothing that looked like what could be on your list. He does have a nice cherry red 65 Mustang convertible I’d give my right arm to own.”

  “Good thinking to check the outbuildings.” I stood and looked around. “Did we check the basement and attic too? Matty was a hoarder, at least with antiques.”

  “I checked the attic and Bubba volunteered to do the basement. No missing items in either.” Nic opened the door for the movers. “We deserve lunch for this.”

  I checked items off the list as each time the movers left the house to take something to the truck. They handed me the stickers on their way out. “And that’s the last one that’s here. The movers will be at the shop in thirty minutes or so. I need to be there to let them in. The joy of owning your own business.”

  “I run a business and I get to eat lunch,” Nic commented. He held up his hand to stop my next remark. “I’ll send Trenton to get us food after he drops us off at the shop. We’ll probably have to eat after the movers finish. Do you have room in the loading area for all this?”

  “This and more. Bubba and I moved around things yesterday to make sure it was cleared.” I tucked my lists into my tote. “I’m not sure what I’m going to do without your help, Bubba. Maybe I need to actually hire some employees.”

  Nic held the door open for me and we stepped from the cool air-conditioned house into the muggy heat. And it was still technically morning. I missed my Seattle weather. Just not the job or the ex-boyfriend.

  “Are you sure you can’t keep on any of Matty’s crew? Hiring is hard right now. I hate you to have to hire an all new staff.” Nic waited for Bubba to step onto the porch and then locked the door. He pocketed the key.

  “I can’t afford to pay them what Matty was paying and stay afloat. So unless they want to work for a standard wage, I won’t be bringing them back. And, with all this stock missing? I’m a little skeptical that some of it isn’t in their homes. If Matty did it, maybe it was a common practice.” I smiled as Trenton opened the back door of the limo. “Thanks, Trenton. You must have been bored out here. We should have brought you in on our scavenger hunt.”

  He shook his head. “Your brother asked me to watch the woman and the other car. When she left, I read. I always carry a book, just in case. I enjoy thrillers.”

  I climbed in the car and as I waited for the other two to get inside, I dialed Detective Charles. I guess I was more of a mystery type. At least in real life. “Hey, thanks for picking up. I have a question.”

  “With as big of a butt as I felt yesterday about blaming that homeless guy for the break in, I thought I should answer so you could dress me down for my assumptions.”

  “I think your beat cop led you down that path. It’s okay, I get it. But that’s not why I’m calling. Did you run the ex-Mrs. Goldstein’s alibi? Any way that she’s our killer? Matty just came into a lot of money, maybe she needed an influx into her personal accounts?” I saw Bubba grin at me. I ignored him.

  “She was our first and best suspect. The only problem was she was out of town the night Matty was killed. At a spa getting a weight loss treatment. At least that’s how they described it to me when I called to verify. They had a private nurse with her all night since the treatment can be a little intense on the digestive system. If you get what I’m saying.”

  I shuddered. I definitely didn’t want to lose a few pounds at that cost. “Okay, but she could have hired someone. Set herself up for an alibi.”

  “True. And that’s why she’s not off the list, I’m just not seeing any paper trail or money exchanging hands. I still need the employee records. Can you get those to me today? Or do I need to stop by the shop. I know you’re busy getting ready to open.”

  “I’m just leaving Matty’s house and I’ll be in the shop in, twenty…” I looked at Trenton to confirm and he waved his hand back and forth, indicated around twenty. “Make that thirty minutes. I’ve got to work with the movers but then I can email it to you or you can come get it.”

  “Email it to me to the address on my card. I’m a little swamped in paperwork today.”

  I dug into my tote to check and came up with the card. “I’m sorry I’ve taken so long. I’ll get this to you as soon as I get back and into my office.”

  “No worries. I should have used it as an excuse to come see you today, but like I said, I’m swamped with follow ups on Matty’s murder.”

  I wasn’t sure how to respond to that. Or what it meant. I took a breath and assumed he was just being friendly. “I’m sure I’ll see you soon, anyway. Thanks.”

  After I hung up and put my phone away, I realized both Nic and Bubba were staring at me. “Oh, he says that the ex-wife has an alibi, but she’s still on the list. He needs the employee list as soon as possible, so don’t let me forget to send that when I get back.”

  Nic smiled and leaned back. “He seems chummy with you. Are you sure there isn’t something else going on?”

  I felt my brow furrow. My mom had always yelled at me to stop letting my emotions show on my face. It’s going to freeze that way or worse, cause lines making you look older. I think it was just my normal reaction to Nic’s teasing. “He’s investigating Matty’s murder. That’s all.”

  Nic laughed. “If you say so.”

  I watched as Bubba turned his head and looked out the window. What had I said wrong now?

  9

  When we got to the shop, Kirk was out front, pacing. His face lit up when he saw me.

  “Matty hasn’t come to pay me yet. Can you call him?” He held out his dirty hands. I didn’t think he even noticed the action.

  “Oh, Kirk, I’m so sorry. I’ll pay you today for Matty. I had somewhere else to be this morning and I forgot. How much was Matty paying you for security?”

  Nic cleared his throat but I shook my head, hoping he wouldn’t interrupt. Kirk was skittish, especially after last night’s incident.

  “Fifty dollars a week. Four ten-dollar bills, ten one-dollar bills. Not too much so I’d be attacked, but I can pay my locker rent and still have money to buy food.” He kept his hands out.

  I didn’t have that much in my wallet, but as I dug, Bubba held the money out to me. I glanced up at him.

  “I’ll put it on my expense sheet.”

  I took the money, then counted it out for Kirk. As I did, I thought about what he actually needed. A place to stay. “Maybe I can find you a room to stay in as part of your rent.”

  He frowned at me. “I don’t go to shelters. They need those beds for the people with families.”

  His words broke my heart. He was sleeping on the sidewalk to keep the bed at the shelter for a kid? I nodded. “Actually, I was thinking about something here in the building. So you’d be close if anything happened, like last night.”

  Nic touched my arm. I knew what he wanted to say, but to his credit, he let it go.

  “Anyway, let me see what I can do. I’m reviewing all the employees to make sure we’re paying market rate, so getting you a room might just be enough to keep me from paying you so much money and then you have to figure out how to keep it safe.” It was all a big lie, but if it kept Kirk from feeling like I was offering charity, so be it.

  Kirk nodded. “We can talk about it. I have to go. The soup kitchen opens soon.”

  We watched him hurry away. Then I opened the lock to the shop and locked it after the men had followed me inside.

  “You’re getting rid of all of Matty’s employees because you don’t trust them. But you’re keeping the homeless guy who sleeps in your doorway?” Nic adjusted the closed sign.

  “Your point?” If Nic told me it was too dangerous or that I didn’t know this guy well enough to give him a room, I’d point out the fact that he stopped someone from breaking in last night.

  “You’re pretty amazing, sis.” He turned toward Bubba. “Let’s go watch for the movers.”

  I went upstairs and found the employee list. I printed it off, then sent a copy to Detective Charles. Then I took the list back downstairs to our worktable. Maybe there was someone on Matty’s payroll that wasn’t making a ton and could be trusted.

  Using the payroll records, I matched up all the names and what they were being paid. When I was done, Nic and Bubba were back from helping the movers and Trenton had brought our lunch. My stomach growled at the smell of the pizza. “I’m starving.”

  “Me too.” Nic opened the boxes and put a couple of slices of an everything pizza on a plate, handing it to me. “How’s the employee search going?”

  “There’s a few weird things. One, there are way too many employees for this size of store. Even if Matty was open six days a week, and from the sign on the front, he wasn’t, he didn’t need fifteen salespeople.” I counted the number of employees on the list. “One manager and one business office manager, but fifteen salespeople.”

  Nic picked up the list. “A lot of these addresses are close. Maybe we should go and tell them about Matty’s passing. The funeral is this weekend, right?”

  “Yeah, but isn’t it mean to say your boss is dead and you’re out of a job?” I took a bite of the pizza. “But on the other hand, if they invite me in to see if I’m keeping them on at the shop, maybe we can find some of the missing items. Or mark people off as suspects.”

  “There’s a flaw in your plan. Just because they don’t show the pieces in their apartments, doesn’t mean they didn’t steal and sell them.” Nic pointed out.

  I conceded the point. “I bet they’d keep some and showcase them. If you love working in an antique store, you love nice things. You couldn’t help yourself.”

  Bubba raised his hand. I laughed and waved at him to talk. “Don’t you think it’s weird they haven’t shown up? I mean, you had that one lady the first day you came who was working, but since that time, no one has tried to come in to work. Unless you count the guy using his key last night. And he came after shop hours.”

  Nic and I stared at him.

  “What? Did I say something stupid?” Bubba looked back and forth from me to Nic.

  “No. You said something really smart. Unless Sarah called all the employees and told them about Matty’s death, they should have shown up for their shifts. Or called. But it’s been radio silence.” I glanced down at the list again. “Several of these people don’t have a cell phone listed. Actually, none of the salespeople besides Sarah, who is really a manager, and this Mark Bennett have phone numbers in the system. There’s a number for Matty and the business office manager. But no one else.”

  “Let’s go see if we can find these people.” Nic finished the last bite of pizza on his plate.

  The first fourteen addresses were bogus. No apartment available or if there was, the tenant that answered the door told us they didn’t know the person attached to the address, or Matty. They had heard about the antique store changing hands. Several asked when we were opening.

  Now I knew how Matty was losing money. He’d been paying people who didn’t exist. I wondered if he’d known about the issue. Or if this was someone else’s scheme? We might never know, but I was going to call Detective Charles tonight and see if he ran into similar results.

  Nic glanced at the list. “Well, we’re down to Sarah and this Mark Bennett. We know Sarah knows about Matty’s death.” He keyed the address into his phone. “Mark lives just a few blocks from here. Do you want to pay him a visit?”

  “According to the schedule, he mostly works weekends.” I held out the hope that maybe he just hadn’t heard about Matty’s death.

  “Which is a good reason to visit.” He pointed toward the next cross street. “It’s that way.”

  They walked two blocks farther into the quarter, then turned left down a one-way street. Nic leaned close and glanced behind us. “We’re being followed.”

  “I know. It’s just Kirk. He’s been behind us since we left the shop.” I didn’t turn back since I could see the guy’s reflection in the glass window of the restaurant as I walked past. “He’s harmless.”

  “I’ll tell the police that when they are investigating your death in that rat trap of a building.” Nic pointed to an arched entryway with an iron gate. “Mark lives in that building. Upstairs, in 201.”

  We stepped into the entryway which led to an interior courtyard with a fountain. The temperature dropped and I could feel the coolness that the water added to the air. Sarah Stiner sat at one of the tables. When she heard our footsteps, she wiped her eyes, then hurried past us, not speaking. I turned to go after her, but Nic held me back.

  “One problem at a time. Let’s see why she was here talking to Mark.”

  We walked up the narrow stairway and went down the open hallway to the door with 201 on the front. Nic knocked and the door was thrown open.

  “I told you to leave me alone. It’s not my fault you didn’t take care of your own future…” A small man in a Nike t-shirt with a scruff of beard stared out at them. The small living room behind him appeared to be furnished in priceless antiques from the area I could see. “Sorry, I thought you were…”

  I stared at a lion bust on his foyer table, number five on the missing list, and interrupted him. “You thought we were Sarah? Why was she here?”

  Mark ran his hand through his thinning hair. “She’s upset about what happened to Matty. Can you blame her? We worked together for over five years. We’re more than just co-workers.”

  “Are you lovers?” Nic leaned against the doorway, looking way more casual than I knew he felt.

  “What? No. We were friends.” He paused and I could see the wheels turning in his head. “I guess it doesn’t matter now, but our friend Sarah was in love with the boss. It was hard to watch, her being so head over heels and him being totally oblivious.”

  “So they weren’t a couple? It was all one sided?” I watched his face for reactions.

  “Who knows. I don’t get into other people’s business.” He glanced back into the small living room. “Look, I’m job hunting so unless you’re here to tell me I’m one of the ones you’re keeping on, I need to end this conversation.”

  “So you know who I am. I’m having some issues finding your coworkers. Do you have any update on them?” I figured Sarah must have delivered the news. “And, can you tell me why you were being paid twice or more salary that’s normal for your position?”

  A smile curved his lips. “You are into the details, aren’t you?”

  When I didn’t respond, Mark shrugged. “What can I say, Matty was generous to a fault. And I’m really, really good at what I do.”

  Nic took my arm. “I suspect you are. Let’s go. There’s nothing here.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Mark curled his fist and stepped closer.

  Bubba stepped in the space between Mark and Nic. “I don’t think you want to do that.”

  I could see the discussion going on in Mark’s head before he dropped his arm and uncurled his fingers. He hadn’t seen Bubba standing there. Now, he didn’t like his odds. He grabbed the door. “Just leave. There’s nothing more I want to say to you.”

  As we made our way out to the street, no one spoke. We were almost back to the shop on Royal when Nic mumbled, “He’s hiding something.”

  “You mean beside the fact he has at least one if not more of the missing antiques from the shop in his apartment?” I stopped walking, grabbed my notebook out of my tote. “Let me write down what I saw so we can check it against the inventory list. Then I’ll call Detective Charles again.”

  Nic paced on the sidewalk, waiting for me to finish. “I don’t believe she was just there to grieve. She’s part of this.”

  I tucked the notebook back into my tote. “You think Sarah killed Matty? Or Sarah and Mark killed him?”

  “I think either scenario is a good bet. Of course, there’s no proof.” Nic sighed and leaned up against the wall. “You need to keep yourself safe. I’m not feeling good about this situation.”

  “I knew Matty was gone.” A voice to my right side said, “Check the video.”

  I saw Kirk standing by the corner watching us. “Did you say something?”

  “Matty installed cameras. He knew there was something wrong with the store. He hired me to watch at night, but I didn’t see anything.” Kirk shook his head. “I must have fallen asleep. Stupid, stupid.”

  “There are cameras inside the store?” I took a step toward him which was the wrong thing to do. He ran out into traffic.

  “Stupid me, stupid me.” He chanted as car horns blared as he darted in between two cars.

  After Kirk got safely across the street, I met Nic’s gaze. “Let’s go find these cameras.”

  It took us a while to find the closet where Matty Goldstein had set up the rest of the security system. Four televisions were showing the main show room, the outside, the back door, Matty’s office, and the conference room. Nic glanced at the system. “I don’t want to mess with this. Call your friend the detective.”