“Come on, boy,” I said, tugging lightly at the leash. “Time to go back to work.”
“Bye, kitty,” the deputy said. Diesel rewarded him with a few trills as we moved toward the door.
Outside I blinked a few times, adjusting to the afternoon sunshine. Kanesha’s manner still rankled, but I supposed I shouldn’t have expected anything different. At least I had given her two new potential suspects to consider.
Back in the car, I drove to the college library and parked in the lot behind it. Diesel and I entered the house through the back door, near the staff lounge. I was thirsty, and I figured Diesel might be also. I led him into the lounge, unoccupied at the moment. I found an oversized mug in the cupboard and filled it from the cooler. I drank it down quickly and then refilled it and set it on the floor. Diesel lapped at the water. When he was finished I would wash out the mug in the sink.
“Hello, boys. What are you two doing here this afternoon?”
I looked up to see Melba Gilley in the doorway of the lounge. She advanced with a smile, a mug in her hand.
“There’s something I want to check on upstairs,” I said.
After she exchanged further greetings with Diesel, Melba filled her mug with coffee and took a sip. She made a face. “This has been sitting here awhile. But it’ll have to do.” She sipped again. “You talking about all those boxes? What the heck are they anyway?”
“They’re full of Godfrey’s papers,” I said. “He had them shipped last week.”
“Without even waiting to see if we’d take them.” Melba laughed. “Typical.” She shook her head. “I never dreamed when I called you last night that he was dead. Bizarre.”
“Yes, it is.” Diesel was finished drinking. I took the mug to the sink and turned on the hot water. Raising my voice over the sound of the water, I continued. “The whole thing is really bizarre. Godfrey probably ticked off a lot of people, but who hated him enough to kill him?”
“The Lord only knows.” Melba moved closer to the sink. “Maybe one of his ex-wives sneaked into town and did it.”
I squirted a little dish soap in the mug and scrubbed it with a brush. I gave it quick rinse and set it upside down on the draining board.
As I dried my hands on a towel, I said, “That’s possible, I guess, but why would one of them have waited until now to do it? I think it’s somebody right here in Athena.”
“You’re probably right.” Melba poured the remains of her coffee out and set the mug in the sink. “You think you’ll find anything interesting in Godfrey’s papers?”
“I might. I’m sure they’ll be interesting,” I said.
“Maybe there’s a clue to his murder.”
Before I replied, we both heard a floorboard squeak out in the hall.
Melba and I exchanged glances.
I waited a moment to see if whoever was in the hallway entered the room. No one did.
I took a step toward the door. “Who’s there?”
There was no answer.
EIGHTEEN
The floorboard creaked again, and then we heard the sound of footsteps in rapid retreat.
I strode over to the door, about six feet away, but whoever was listening to our conversation had disappeared. I walked down the hall and around by the stairs, but I still didn’t see anyone. Nor did I hear anything other than the muted sound of street traffic.
Melba and Diesel had followed me out of the staff lounge.
“That was peculiar.” Melba frowned. “And kind of creepy.”
“It was definitely odd.”
“I’m going back to my office and keep an eye on the door.” Melba stepped past me, smiling uneasily. “Don’t turn your back on anyone.”
I picked up Diesel’s leash. “Don’t worry. I won’t.”
I waited until Melba disappeared into the director’s office suite. “Come on, boy. Let’s go upstairs.”
Before I unlocked the door of the archive office, I checked inside the storeroom. Nothing seemed to have been disturbed. I shut the door and examined the lock. It looked sturdy enough, like the one on the office door.
The eleven boxes in the office hadn’t been touched, as far as I could tell. Diesel started sniffing around them again, and I had to push him gently away in order to uncover the unnumbered box. When I pulled it free, I restacked the three cartons that had been on top of it before picking it up and setting it on my desk.
Diesel hopped on top of the middle tier of boxes and watched while I cut open the box. After I pulled out the wads of paper used for packing material, I found several smaller boxes and trays of computer disks and even a couple of thumb drives. The disks probably contained the texts of Godfrey’s books and perhaps some of his correspondence.
I wondered why the box hadn’t been numbered. Perhaps this box hadn’t been intended for inclusion in Godfrey’s archive.
The master inventory in box number one ought to answer that question. I moved around my desk to check. The box I wanted was underneath the one Diesel was sitting on. I moved him aside to the sound of annoyed chirping.
I extracted box one and set in on the floor. I retrieved my scissors from the desk and cut open the box. Right on top, under more packing material, lay a small report folder labeled “Inventory.”
Back at my desk, folder in hand, I sat down and began skimming through it while Diesel played with the discarded packing material on the floor.
Calling these few sheets of paper a master inventory was a gross overstatement. Each box was listed, but there was little detail of the contents. Godfrey’s assistant had merely listed categories, like fan letters, business letters, reviews, awards, newspaper clippings, contracts, review copies, books in English, books in other languages, convention programs, and speeches. Nowhere in the inventory did the words disk or diskette appear.
It seemed fairly clear to me the box of disks had been shipped by mistake. Otherwise it would have been numbered and included on the inventory. The number of boxes in the inventory matched the quantity of numbered boxes received.
What should I do with it? Send it back to Ms. Enderby in California?
I found the two letters on my desk and scanned the one from Gail Enderby. There was a phone number included. I might as well call her and ask.
I used my cell phone, rather than the office phone, because I could never remember the long distance dialing code I was supposed to enter to authorize a call.
The call went to voice mail after five rings. A perky, young-sounding voice informed me that Gail Enderby was on vacation, and her stated return date was a couple of weeks away. She gave no alternate contact information. I wondered if she had seen the news yet about her boss’s death. I left a message, asking her to call.
That was that. The disks were in my custody for now. I replaced the packing material and re-taped the box. Instead of putting the box back with the others, I put it behind some shelves a few feet away from my desk. Perhaps the mysterious eavesdropper had spooked me, but the disks might be valuable. As long as I was the only one who knew they were here, I might as well keep it that way.
I picked up box one and placed it on my desk. Consulting the inventory list, I saw that this box contained fan mail. Curious, I pulled out one of the folders, dated twenty years ago, and began leafing through it.
The first couple of letters were full of praise for Godfrey.
“Trapped kept me up until three in the morning,” one fan wrote.
Another one said, “I had to get up and check all the locks in the house when I finished Midnight Killer.”
On most of the letters I examined there were notes that indicated when Godfrey responded, though copies of Godfrey’s answering letters were not in the folder.