Beware False Profits Part 22

We hung up, and I sprinted for the door. As I was getting into my van, I thought I heard the phone ring again. I backed out as fast as the law allowed.

Cilla was alone at the file cabinet when I walked through the door of the Helping Hands executive office. Today she wore a tight blue T-s.h.i.+rt with black jeans and flip-flops. Her toenails were a glittery scarlet, and I noted a tattoo peeking under the hem of her jeans. I wondered if Joe had been attracted to her, or if there had been something sizzling between them? I'd come away from our last conversation sure that Cilla was in love with Joe. But did Joe know it? Were the two of them having an affair? Somehow I didn't think so. Again, Joe was just too responsible.

"Cilla?"

She spun around and almost left a flip-flop behind. "Aggie? I'm sorry. You startled me."

"You were a million miles away."

"Worrying about Joe, I guess. Where the h.e.l.l is he?"

"That's part of the reason I'm here."

The reception area was surprisingly roomy. The walls were a b.u.t.tery cream, and both of the windows wore attractive plaid curtains that coordinated with a sofa sporting half a dozen needlepoint pillows. A rust-colored armchair sat catty-corner and all the bookcases, file cabinets, and end tables matched Cilla's oak desk.

"Wow." I walked over to the sofa and picked up a pillow. "Let me guess. Maura did these." The pillows featured fruits and vegetables and were beautifully designed.

"She decorated the whole room and bought the furniture." Cilla made that sound like one of many sins.

Except for the boxes stacked high around the edges, the room would be an almost perfect place to work. I had noticed more boxes in the outside hallway as well. I was surprised Maura hadn't draped them with handwoven tapestries.

I pointed. "Not enough room in the warehouse?"

"The temperature there's quite a bit higher than the temperature here. We can't afford to keep it as low as we should for some food supplies. Anything that needs to be kept cool but doesn't need refrigeration ends up in our offices. Sometimes here, sometimes the conference room, sometimes Joe's office." She inclined her head toward the closed door just beyond us.

"At least you always have snacks available."

"You'd be surprised what ends up in the office building. Fresh baked goods. Chocolate and other candy that melts."

"Yum."

"It goes out as fast as it comes in. Right now these boxes have day-old doughnuts to serve at a party for the community gardeners tonight."

"It seems pretty quiet up here." I had noticed there were more offices farther along the hallway.

"It's traditional for people to take time off after Mayday! Of course this year with Joe gone, that means the few of us who are still here are swamped. But you didn't come for chitchat, did you?"

I heard the message. She was busy, and I needed to get straight to the point. I joined her at the filing cabinet and opened my purse. "I found these papers in Hazel Kefauver's pocket." I explained about the rummage sale. "I wonder if you'd look at them and tell me why Hazel had them?"

Cilla took the papers and quickly scanned them. "I think this is her handwriting." She handed them back to me. "They look like something she copied, maybe from the warehouse files? Or maybe they're notes from a board meeting?"

"Why would she copy something like this?"

"Well, it looks like a list of donations. Maybe the board was discussing expiration dates or moving inventory around at a meeting, and she wanted the facts."

Since no one else was around, I felt free to continue. "Put aside your better instincts. Let's pretend Hazel really was trying to find some problem here. Right before she died she told me there were some big developments in the wind for the food bank. I got the feeling she wanted to expose a problem."

"I told you she was out to get Joe."

Unfortunately I had a photo at home to confirm that. "Maybe there was more to it. Or maybe Joe was involved in something."

"Don't you think I'd know? He's a straight arrow."

I didn't point out the tiniest little kink in that arrow, the monthly trips Joe had lied about to everybody.

"Okay, then think like Hazel," I said. "You find these figures and they seem important enough to copy. Why?"

She considered a moment, then shook her head. "I think you have to ask the guys in the warehouse. Chad will probably know."

"How do Chad and Joe get along?"

Something changed in her eyes. She had seemed perfectly open, but now some part of her was locking up for the afternoon.

She closed the file drawer just a shade harder than she should have. Then she went to her desk and squirted a few drops of hand lotion into her palms, as if to stall. I recognized the jasmine scent, which seemed to be an intrinsic part of her.

"I guess they work well together," she said as she rubbed her hands together. "Chad's something of a goof-off, but Joe knows how to make him toe the line without being obvious about it."

"I'll take this over to the warehouse then." I inclined my head. "But I get the feeling you're not fond of Chad?"

"I really can't say more. I don't want to lose my job." She paused. "Not that I'll want the job if Joe doesn't come back. They'll probably make Chad director, and I don't want to work for him."

I persisted. "You don't like Chad?"

"He's not Joe. What can I tell you?"

I heard more than a simple preference. "How about why you'd really prefer not to work for Chad?"

She hesitated. "Okay. Because I think Chad has wanted Joe's job for a long time. Chad's doesn't pay that well, although I guess that doesn't matter because he comes from money. His parents are loaded, and they give him everything he wants. His salary is pocket change. You should see his apartment, his car..."

"Then why would he want a harder job?"

"Prestige. And the work might be harder, but a lot of it is public relations. He's good at charming people. It's second nature. What women haven't already gone to bed with him might flock to his door."

"Ouch. That sounds personal."

"Don't look at me. I've had the chance but not the inclination."

"Cilla, why should wanting Joe's job, which sounds pretty natural, make Chad a bad boss in the future?"

"I would always wonder if he helped the process along."

"You mean you think Chad might have something to do with Joe's disappearance?"

With every sentence she sounded more disgruntled. "No, but he might have slipped a word or two to Hazel or other board members about problems here. And knowing him, he would do it in such a sneaky way they didn't even realize what he'd done."

"What problems?"

"I really don't know anything specific. I could even see Chad making stuff up, dropping hints to make Joe look bad."

"But you've never seen or heard him do that or heard Joe complain?"

She gave a single shake of her head. "I just know that in his personal life, Chad's a loser. He's a love 'em and leave 'em kind of guy, only by the time he leaves, the women are glad to see him go."

Now Cilla's tone bordered on bitter. I wondered if this was more personal than she had admitted. Or maybe she really was just being protective of Joe. But I could tell this subject had come to a close.

I wanted to get into Joe's office in the worst way. If he paid his bills here, as I guessed, he would pay them from his own computer and desk. Everything and anything personal would be filed there.

"I guess that's Joe's office?" I nodded toward the closed door.

"When he's here that door is always open. Joe has nothing to hide."

"Have you looked through his files? To try to find anything that might help us figure out where he's gone?"

"Then I'd be as bad as Hazel Kefauver. I keep that door locked and n.o.body gets inside."

I was tempted to ask Cilla to give me access, but as much as she wanted Joe to come home, she hadn't been as helpful as I hoped. She had appointed herself Joe's guard dog, and n.o.body was going to mess with Joe on her watch, including me. He would return and find everything exactly the way he had left it.

If he returned.

A buzzer sounded, and Cilla grimaced. "Darn. They need me downstairs in the store. They always buzz if they have a problem at checkout. Are we done?"

"Not quite, but I can wait a few minutes."

"It might be longer."

My gaze flicked to one of the end tables. "You've got magazines."

"Okay. Just make yourself comfortable. I'll get back as soon as I can."

I don't necessarily believe things happen for a reason. To me the world seems chock-full of incongruities. But occasionally, everything just falls into place. Call it the "tickle" fingers of fate, some cosmic force with an irrepressible sense of humor. Sculptors don't chisel that grin on Buddha's face for nothing.

I was just feet from the locked door of Joe's office. I had time alone. Along with Hazel's pocket money I was carrying her keys in my purse-on the off chance I ever saw Brownie Kefauver again.

I didn't let myself consider what to do next. If I had, I would have bolted to my van. From the weight of Hazel's keys I was guessing she'd had access to every room in the buildings. After a few heart-stopping moments of trial and error I found the right one.

In a moment I was inside Joe's office.

I closed the door and stood with my back to it. This room was as tastefully decorated as the reception area. Joe's desk was larger than Cilla's. Instead of vegetable pillows there were paintings of farmland with grazing cows. But the impression was indistinct, because in a moment I was racing to the filing cabinet.

The top file drawer had personnel records and reports to the board for years past. I closed it and moved on to the second. This one was filled with files about other similar programs, and grant proposals.

I opened the third drawer. The first hanging folder was labeled "Bills," the second "Receipts."

I was overjoyed to see that credit card statements were neatly filed by month in the second folder. When Joe came back I would ask for organizational pointers.

I pulled the statements and started through them, listening as I did for footsteps on the stairs outside the reception area. With the door shut I wasn't sure I would hear Cilla's approach, but I really didn't want anyone who just happened by to find me rifling through Joe's files.

I started at the back of the file. The last statement on Joe's Visa card had only gone through the end of March. I found charges in New York. The Chelsea Inn, a couple of restaurants. I thought Joe had tried to conserve funds, since not one meal totaled more than fifteen dollars. On a handy pad I jotted down the names of every Manhattan business he had used, then did the same for February's statement. Joe also had an American Express card, but nothing interesting turned up on it.

I paged through the rest of the bills, paying special attention to his phone bill, but the bill was too old to help me trace him now. I couldn't find any long-distance calls to or from New York and guessed that he had used his cell phone for those. Maybe he paid the cell bill automatically, because there were no records here. I finished with a folder marked "Tax-deductible Receipts," but again, nothing turned up.

Time was pa.s.sing quickly. Cilla had been gone for more than five minutes, and I knew that at the most, I had just a few more. I closed the drawer and opened the bottom one. What I wanted to see most of all were copies of bills Joe had submitted for reimburs.e.m.e.nt. My luck was holding. Halfway back I saw a folder labeled "Expenses."

I perched on the edge of Joe's desk and opened this folder. These were as neatly compiled as the credit card statements, with receipts or copies of receipts clipped to each page. I checked and rechecked the file and my relief grew.

At no time had Joe charged any of his New York trips to the food bank.

Once a month Joe left to attend meetings at Funds for Food. Only there was no Funds for Food. He could easily have charged every penny to the food bank and gotten away with it-at least as long as he got away with the trips themselves.

But Joe was a stand-up guy. He was living a lie, but he wasn't asking anyone else to pay for it.

This was an interesting ethical problem. Joe had lied, but if I was right, Helping Hands hadn't paid any price for it except his occasional absence.

More interesting was whether Hazel Kefauver had gone through these same records, made the same observations, come to the same conclusions, and realized something strange was going on in New York.

Was this what had brought her to the p.u.s.s.ycat Club? The fact that Joe wasn't charging the food bank for his trips? Had that been a red flag? From his credit card statements she would know the hotel he usually stayed in. She would know where he ate and shopped. Had she gone to New York to snoop, hoping to catch him in a lie that would be grounds for dismissal?

But if she learned the truth, why hadn't she told anybody when she returned? What else had she hoped to learn first?

My time was up. If I stayed even a minute longer, I would probably be caught. My hands were perspiring and the still small voice inside me, the one I was supposed to cultivate, was screeching like a hungry toddler. Letting myself into Joe's office was one thing, but lying about it? I so didn't want to go there.

I replaced the folder and crossed the room. I cracked the door and listened. I thought I heard footsteps. Go? Stay?

Go! I slipped through the door and saw, with relief, that I was still alone. I managed to lock up and pocket Hazel's keys just seconds before Cilla came through the doorway.

She looked annoyed. "I'm sorry. A volunteer jammed the cash register. It's easy to do because it's so old, but of course Hazel Kefauver told us we couldn't buy a new one."

"Not a problem." My heart was beating so fast I was afraid she could hear it. I spoke louder. "I didn't mind waiting. But I really ought to get out of here and let you get back to work. I just had one more question. This probably sounds silly, but did Joe get a lot of annual leave?"

"Yeah, a lot. The board could never give him the kind of raises he deserved, so they gave him more vacation time. It was no skin off their noses, because he never took it all anyway. He and Tyler used to go camping for a week in the summer, but that was about all. Maura didn't like to leave her garden for long. So if they went away, it was just overnight. She was perfectly happy staying in Emerald Springs and taking care of their house and yard."

I wasn't surprised. Not only had Joe not charged his expenses to Helping Hands, he had probably counted those days against his vacation time, even if they didn't show up on any records.

I flashed her a smile. "Okay, I'm done here. Thanks for your time."

"I'm sorry I couldn't be more help with those lists. I did think of one thing, though."

"What was that?"

"Well, Joe told me once that there are two kinds of people in the world. The kind that takes things at face value and trusts that for the most part, the world's a good place."

"He was talking about himself," I said.

She nodded. "Then there's the kind that examines every little thing, picking it apart, searching through the debris, because they're convinced that something terrible will turn up if they just look hard enough. Joe said Hazel was that second kind of person, that it was in her nature. He thought eventually she would dig up some problem or other here, because she wouldn't be satisfied until she did."

I was afraid I was that second kind of person, too, although I wasn't looking for something negative as much as I was looking for truth and justice. But linking my own actions to Hazel's made me wince.

"Joe sounds like he was pretty tolerant," I said.