On our way back to the meeting room, we agreed that I would snoop around Caron’s office after the detectives left. I suspected that the detective agreed to let me do this knowing I would do it with or without her permission. Since this was a murder, the laptop would be taken as potential evidence. I know all the passwords in this place and gave Caron’s to Bailey. She left her partner questioning the suspects and rushed upstairs to Caron’s office. It might not have been kosher, but Bailey was going to be perusing that computer before anyone else got their hands on it.
Bailey asked about Caron's job. I don't know who said it first, but 'follow the money' seemed to be what we needed to do, and Caron was in charge of fundraising for the museum. Donations came directly to her office. Some of those donations were substantial. The way they had it set up was that Macey opened the mail for Caron. Of course, she did. Caron would have conniptions if she were to get a paper cut, right? Macey made copies of the checks, entered them into the database, prepared the deposits, and gave them to Caron along with a thank you letter that asked for more money. Caron insisted that Macey copy each check onto its own piece of paper. Caron never let Macey make a bank run. I’d always thought it was because Caron wanted to keep Macey chained to her desk, but now my mind was running wild with other thoughts.
The tip of Bailey’s tongue protruded from the left side of her mouth as she entered the login and passcode for the database. She typed using only two fingers.
“You’re welcome,” I said.
Her eyes never left the screen. “For what?” she asked.
“The logins and passwords?” I said in my best Valley Girl imitation.
“Oh, yeah, that. Thanks,” she said absentmindedly. "I'm going to need to get into her email files, too."
“Look. If I’m going to help you, you’re going to have to at least treat me respectfully.”
“Or what? You’ll haunt me forever?” She pointed her laser stare at me as she spoke. “I can send you to the next world at any time, you know. So, stop with the demands.”
“You can what?” I hadn’t screamed this much in as many years as I could remember.
“Stop screaming or I’m sending you there immediately,” she said. She turned her attention back to the computer screen, but I wasn’t ready to let this go just yet.
I said, “What do you know about the next world? Is it a world? Heaven? Elysian Fields? Valhalla? What?”
“Dunno.” She moved the cursor around and was not paying me the attention my question warranted. Anger boiled up in me, and I put my hand on her shoulder and spun her around to face me. I liked the powerful feeling it gave me.
Bailey sighed mightily. “You’re not going to leave me alone with this, are you?” she asked. Not waiting for the answer she already knew, she said, “If you help me with this case, and by that I mean you will be quiet for at least five minutes while I try to think, then I will answer as many of your questions as I know the answers for.” She stared into my eyes for what felt like a full minute. “Deal?”
“Deal.” I moved so that I could see the screen and followed her as she searched the files.
“What are we looking for?” I asked.
“That was not five minutes.”
“Smarty pants,” I said.
“Could you give me three minutes?” She held up three fingers which went right through one of my eyeballs. Of course, I didn’t feel a thing, but still. Rude, much? She must have felt the chill people seem to get when I move through them because she put her hand under her leg to warm it.
“Three minutes seems like a very long time. I have input, you know.”
She emitted one of the loudest and longest sighs I’d ever heard, swiveled the chair around and said, “Two.”
“Can’t you just say, yeah, it’s a world, or no, it’s not?” This seemed quite reasonable to me.
“I don’t know. OK? Now, can I work?”
Admitting she didn’t know, or putting me off? How could I tell? It was becoming clear to me that she would only help me if I could come up with something that would move her case along, so I drifted out of the office and over to Macey’s desk. The woman kept it clutter free. Nothing was out of place. I kept thinking about that requirement of Caron’s to put each check on a separate sheet of paper. Seemed like Caron could conveniently lose a few copies and deposit the checks into a different account. But Macey entered the receipts first.
I drifted back to Bailey’s side. “Did Caron have the security rights to void Macey’s work?”
Bailey jumped at my words.
“Don’t sneak up on me like that,” she said.
I must say, it made my little heart glad to know that I could rattle her cage. I must have given my glee away, because Bailey pointed her index finger into my nose and said, “Wipe the grin off.” I begged her to answer my question. She said she couldn’t even remember what I said, so I asked again.
Bailey’s tongue sneaked out of the side of her mouth. She banged on the computer some more and pulled up a screen showing user’s rights.
“Bingo,” she said. “I think you may be onto something here. Macey makes a copy and enters the amount into the system. She then gives the copy of the check to Caron. Caron voids Macey’s entry, leaving no trace, destroys the copy of the check, then deposits the money into her own account. I wonder if she would shred the copies.”
“Shredder box is down the hall. Everyone drops the items to be shredded into a container, and a guy comes every two weeks, takes the container to a secure location, where they shred all the paper at one time. Shredder guy is hot, too. He has arm muscles you wouldn’t believe. And when he bends over? Oh my. It’s funny how Macey always seems to need something from that room when he’s picking up the box. I said all this as I floated beside Bailey. I could tell she wasn’t interested in the Shredderator’s butt. She was sprinting down the hall.
“Show me the container,” she said.
“It’s locked.” I didn’t want her getting too excited. We went into the storage room, and I pointed out the box with the big bolt.
She ripped her phone out and sent a text.
“What did you send?” I asked.
Bailey smiled for the first time that day. “Asked for bolt cutters.”
“Cool.”