“Come on.” Sandy stroked Emily’s back, petting her like a cat.
“Well, if you’re really able to do it. With the funeral expenses and so on, I’m feeling a little pressed. I wonder if you could make me a small loan, just until I can straighten things out. I haven’t been able to untangle our finances yet. Phil didn’t tell me some things I probably should have known, and it’s taking time.”
At the word loan, she felt Sandy’s hand stop on her back, then felt her withdraw it. “That’s Dave’s field,” Sandy said. Emily could hear from her voice that she was glaring at her husband, ordering him to handle this.
“I’d love to, Emily,” Dave said. “What we’ve got is kind of tied up right now, and locked in, but I might be able to help you out with a few ideas. I assume he had life insurance.”
“We did at one time, term policies for both of us. But they were really for Pete, and when Pete died, I think Phil may have stopped paying the premiums.”
Dave didn’t pause. “You’ll get his retirement, of course, and there’s no tax for you because you were his wife.” Dave looked very cheerful about that.
Emily didn’t tell him that whatever retirement plan Phil had was gone. She just wanted this conversation to end.
“Then there’s the house.”
“I hadn’t thought about moving.”
“Well, think about it now. If you’re alone, you don’t need three bedrooms, a den, and an office.” He looked around. “Even places like this have gone way, way up in the past few years. I think you’ll be surprised.”
“I guess so. I’ll look into it. I’m sure everything will be fine.” Emily wished fervently that she had not asked them for help.
“And then there’s Phil’s car.”
“His car?”
“Well, one woman doesn’t need two cars, and I assume his is the one you’ll sell. Hey! You know, we’ve been looking for a good used car for Charlotte to take to school. I’ll bet we can make a deal that’s good for both of us.”
Emily caught Sandy wincing and shaking her head. Emily said, “The police still have it. Phil was shot in his car.”
“Oh!” Dave said.
Sandy rose. “Emily, we’ve just got to go. As I said, please call me if you need anything.” She bent over, patted Emily’s shoulder, and headed for the door, not looking to see whether Dave was following.
Once a few guests had left the house, the others seemed to feel that they had been released. They began to move toward the door in numbers. If they felt any obligation to Phil Kramer, they seemed to feel that they had now discharged it; and if they felt any sympathy toward his widow, they judged that the kindest thing they could do for her was to give her a chance to rest.
When she was alone, she lay on her bed, and closed her eyes.
Suddenly she sat up. She couldn’t lie here like this. She had to do what she could to find out what had happened to Phil. She stepped out of her black dress, put on a pair of jeans and a pullover top, poured the contents of her small black purse into the one with the long shoulder strap that she used every day, and went down to the car. She could rest when it was her turn to be dead.
5
Emily was in the office sitting at Phil’s desk and examining files. She remembered Phil’s peculiar filing system from the old days when she’d worked with him. He kept the bottom drawer of each filing cabinet for guns and ammunition, on the theory that if he ever needed a firearm in a hurry he would already be ducking down low behind his steel desk. The top drawers were what he called “overhead” drawers: They contained bills and payment records for utilities, the building mortgage, the time sheets and payrolls. He kept them there just to give snoopers a sniff of something real, but useless. The next set of drawers were an odd assortment of ancient billing files interspersed with files that were fake-folders full of junk mail. By the time an interloper had gone this far, he would be too tired and exasperated to face the second row of drawers from the bottom, which looked just like all of the others, but which contained real case files, past and current.
Phil had been secretive.
Emily had examined the dozen most recent case files before she heard the sound of a key in the door of the outer office. She was ter-rifled. The killer must have known today was the day of the funeral. What did he want? It was too late to turn off the lights, so she ducked behind Phil’s desk, opened the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet behind her, and took out the gun Phil had left there. She heard the door rattle a little as she looked at the pistol frantically, found the safety, and switched it off. She put her eye to the side of the desk and watched as the door swung open.
Ray Hall walked into the office, looked around him, a puzzled expression on his face. He reached into his coat.
Emily called, “It’s me, Ray. Emily.” She got up from the floor, sat in Phil’s chair, and hid the gun in a lower desk drawer so he wouldn’t see it.
“Oh. You scared me. I was pretty sure we had left the lights off.”
“You had,” she said.
“Why aren’t you home?” He walked to the door of Phil’s office and stood there.
“Why aren’t you?”
“I’m meeting the others here. We talked at the funeral, and we thought we’d come in.” As he spoke, Dewey Burns and Billy Przwalski came in the door, stopped, and looked at Emily and Ray. A moment later, April Dougherty arrived.
They whispered to each other in the outer office, and then came to the door of Phil’s glass cubicle. Ray Hall stepped inside with Emily and the others crowded in after him.
She lifted the dozen case files out of the file drawer, set them on Phil’s desk, and said, “Thanks. I’m grateful to all of you for coming in.”
“We talked after the funeral, and we thought we might come in and see what we could do about collecting Phil’s things for you. We didn’t expect you to be here. But since you are, maybe we can finish the job today and close up the office.”
“Close up the office?” Emily said.
Ray shrugged. “Yes.”
“Thanks for your offer. You’ve all been really kind, and I know things look bad right now. At the moment I don’t have the money for this week’s paychecks, but I do intend to make everything right as soon as I can.”
“That’s okay,” Dewey Burns said. The others nodded, then stood where they were, looking uncomfortable.
“I can see you’re all waiting politely to hear me say thanks for everything, and good luck in your next job. That’s not why I came in today. I’m here to work.”
“What?” Dewey Burns said.
“I said I’m here to work.”
“Here?” Bill Przwalski said. “At the agency?”
“Phil’s gone, Emily,” Ray Hall said gently. “The agency is bankrupt.”
“I’m afraid I can’t just let it go at that, Ray. Phil not only cleaned out the agency’s accounts, but he also emptied our savings, let his life insurance go, and-as far as I can tell-cleared out whatever money he had set aside for retirement. I don’t know why he did. I don’t know why he was killed. But I find that all I’ve got left is this business. I’ve got to try to run it.”
Dewey Burns said, “You can’t run a detective agency without a license.”
“You and Ray both have licenses, and Billy’s halfway there.”
Ray Hall said, “Emily, this is probably not a great idea. It’s true that technically, the agency still exists, and since you’re Phil’s heir, you own it. But running it is a different story. It’s not an easy business, and with the bank accounts gone, the assets aren’t much-a few lastgeneration computers, some steel filing cabinets, and a reputation that depended on Phil’s credibility. You would probably be smarter to sell it.”