“Fine. You were right, I was wrong, blah blah blah now let’s go upstairs and see what that person was after.”
“Uh, don’t you think we should call the cops first?”
“What? And tell them we were breaking and entering and caught someone else breaking and entering?”
“Fine. Maybe that’s not the best idea,” I conceded. “We’ll go upstairs, see what the person was after and see if we find anything else, then when we leave we’ll leave the door open and someone will call the cops. But make sure not to touch anything, we don’t want to leave our fingerprints anywhere.”
“You two are just a pair of criminal masterminds, aren’t you?” Bee asked as she darted past us and up the stairs.
“Oh be quiet, you. I didn’t see you helping when that guy was running out the door.”
“And what exactly did you want me to do if I did stop him?”
“I dunno. Claw his face so we had his DNA or something.”
“You watch way too much TV, Angela,” my cat scolded as I reached the top step of the stairs, Sophie right behind me.
Sure enough, there were two bedrooms on this level, one on each side of the hallway, and a bathroom at the end of the hall. I crept towards the first bedroom, but it just had a double bed that was still unmade, an empty dresser, and no other furniture. It had to be Tony Nyman’s room.
“This house is depressing,” Sophie murmured into my ear as she looked over my shoulder into the room. I nodded in agreement. It didn’t really look like Tony Nyman had much of a life right now.
We moved to the door of the other room, and instantly knew we’d hit the jackpot. I gasped as I looked into the room.
Nyman had obviously been using it as a study. A big IKEA desk lined one wall, and there was a filing cabinet in the other. But more importantly were the hundreds of sheets of paper on the floor. The whole place had obviously been ransacked. This must have been what the person we’d caught was doing; they were going through all of Nyman’s things to try and find… something. I didn’t know what. But it was way too much of a coincidence; it had to be related to his death.
“Oh man,” Sophie said as she moved past me and into the room.
“Careful,” I warned her. “Don’t touch anything.” I rolled my eyes as Bee walked over all the sheets of paper delicately, as cats do, then settled on an empty piece that had obviously fallen from the printer sitting on a table to the side.
“Yeah, yeah, don’t worry mom, I’m totally not going to get nailed by the cops for this,” Sophie told me, grabbing a piece of tissue and using it to move pieces of paper as she glanced at what they said. I grabbed a tissue of my own and started to do the same.
For around twenty minutes Sophie and I sorted through the papers in silence, the occasional rustle of a sheet the only sound as we were both on high alert for anything out of the ordinary after what had happened.
And I had to be honest: what I’d found was pretty disappointing. There were bank statements showing Nyman had about $50 in his checking account at any given time, and around $400 in a savings account. Not exactly a one percenter.
There were insurance forms – it turned out he had a bad hip – and other generic stuff like old W4s, but nothing explosive. Nothing that would give us any idea why anyone would want to kill him, unless his insurance company decided they really didn’t want to pay for some of his physiotherapy bills anymore.
Eventually I let out a loud sigh.
“This is so stupid. I don’t know about you, but the most interesting thing I’ve found out about Tony Nyman is that he shops on Amazon a lot.”
“Well, that’s still more than I’ve got,” Sophie replied, throwing her hands up in the air. “Let’s face it, whatever the person was here looking for, they either ran off with it, or they never found it. But there’s nothing here that’s going to tell us who killed the dude. Or anything else about him, really.”
“It always sucks when you commit a felony for nothing,” I deadpanned, and Sophie laughed.
“Let’s go back to the vet clinic. The next appointment’s in half an hour, so we don’t really have any more time here anyway.”
“We make a terrible Nancy Drew team.”
“Yeah, we do. But this was only our first idea. We’ll figure something out.”
“Hopefully something a little bit more legal, next time.”
“Hopefully!” Sophie replied, sauntering ahead. Bee jumped on my shoulder as we left the house and headed back for the car. I really had no idea what to do next.
Chapter 9
“You did what?”
Charlotte’s shrill shriek cut through the sound of the TV – I actually looked at the windows, worried they might shatter – and Bee sent a look of pure disdain her way.
“Calm down,” Sophie told her. “It’s not that bad.”
“Not that bad? You committed a felony. You guys could go to jail.” Ok, it had definitely been a good idea not to tell Charlotte what we were going to do before we did it.
“Relax, Char. No one’s going to jail. Well, we’re not, anyway. No one even knows we were there. There are like, four houses on that street, and everyone was at work anyway. No one would have seen us, and we had a good excuse to be in that area.”
When Charlotte had gotten home that afternoon she wanted to know if anything had come up with regards to the murder. Sophie had told her about our little excursion out to Tony’s house, and she wasn’t taking it very well.
“I can’t believe you guys. I can’t believe I’m related to you,” she told me, glaring my way.
“What?” I asked. “Besides, Sophie hasn’t even told you the worst part yet.”
“Oh God, it gets worse?” Charlotte asked, and Sophie and I looked at each other. We had to tell her.
“There was someone already in the house when we got there, who had broken in. He ransacked Tony’s study, and ran out of the house when he heard us.”
“YOU WERE IN THE HOUSE WITH A MURDERER?”
Well, damn. To be honest, I’d never actually thought about it that way. Given the way Sophie looked at me, it was obvious she hadn’t either.
“Whatever, Charlotte. It’s fine. We’re fine. Whoever it was ran out without us seeing them.”
Charlotte collapsed onto the couch and put her head in her hands.
“I can’t believe you guys. I mean, it’s one thing to want to try and find clues about who killed Tony Nyman, but you guys were in a house with a murderer. You could have been killed so easily. Oh my God. I live with crazy people. Full on, batty, crazy people.”
“Oh you’re such a baby,” Sophie told her, collapsing onto the couch next to her. Hearing my stomach growling, I headed towards the kitchen to make dinner. I’d grabbed some focaccia on the way home and was about to make a killer flatbread for dinner.
Sophie joined me in the kitchen and opened a bottle of wine.
“I think we’re all going to need this tonight,” she declared as she poured out three generous glasses. I grabbed one with gusto and took a sip, enjoying the smooth taste of white wine as I swallowed.
“Awwww yeah,” I muttered as I continued on with the cooking.
Charlotte came over and grabbed a glass, then sat at one of the stools by the breakfast bar, watching me cook.
“So,” she started, taking a second sip of wine. “What did you guys find out while you were out breaking the law?”
Sophie and I glanced at each other.
“What? What was that look?” Charlotte asked. “Oh no. You guys didn’t find anything, did you?”
I shook my head. “It turns out Tony Nyman is either the most boring man that ever lived, or whoever was in the house took the important stuff with them.”
“Well, when he was running away did you see him holding anything?” Charlotte asked. I tried to think back, then I shook my head, slowly.