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I didn’t have that much in my wallet, but as I dug, Bubba held the money out to me. I glanced up at him.
“I’ll put it on my expense sheet.”
I took the money, then counted it out for Kirk. As I did, I thought about what he actually needed. A place to stay. “Maybe I can find you a room to stay in as part of your rent.”
He frowned at me. “I don’t go to shelters. They need those beds for the people with families.”
His words broke my heart. He was sleeping on the sidewalk to keep the bed at the shelter for a kid? I nodded. “Actually, I was thinking about something here in the building. So you’d be close if anything happened, like last night.”
Nic touched my arm. I knew what he wanted to say, but to his credit, he let it go.
“Anyway, let me see what I can do. I’m reviewing all the employees to make sure we’re paying market rate, so getting you a room might just be enough to keep me from paying you so much money and then you have to figure out how to keep it safe.” It was all a big lie, but if it kept Kirk from feeling like I was offering charity, so be it.
Kirk nodded. “We can talk about it. I have to go. The soup kitchen opens soon.”
We watched him hurry away. Then I opened the lock to the shop and locked it after the men had followed me inside.
“You’re getting rid of all of Matty’s employees because you don’t trust them. But you’re keeping the homeless guy who sleeps in your doorway?” Nic adjusted the closed sign.
“Your point?” If Nic told me it was too dangerous or that I didn’t know this guy well enough to give him a room, I’d point out the fact that he stopped someone from breaking in last night.
“You’re pretty amazing, sis.” He turned toward Bubba. “Let’s go watch for the movers.”
I went upstairs and found the employee list. I printed it off, then sent a copy to Detective Charles. Then I took the list back downstairs to our worktable. Maybe there was someone on Matty’s payroll that wasn’t making a ton and could be trusted.
Using the payroll records, I matched up all the names and what they were being paid. When I was done, Nic and Bubba were back from helping the movers and Trenton had brought our lunch. My stomach growled at the smell of the pizza. “I’m starving.”
“Me too.” Nic opened the boxes and put a couple of slices of an everything pizza on a plate, handing it to me. “How’s the employee search going?”
“There’s a few weird things. One, there are way too many employees for this size of store. Even if Matty was open six days a week, and from the sign on the front, he wasn’t, he didn’t need fifteen salespeople.” I counted the number of employees on the list. “One manager and one business office manager, but fifteen salespeople.”
Nic picked up the list. “A lot of these addresses are close. Maybe we should go and tell them about Matty’s passing. The funeral is this weekend, right?”
“Yeah, but isn’t it mean to say your boss is dead and you’re out of a job?” I took a bite of the pizza. “But on the other hand, if they invite me in to see if I’m keeping them on at the shop, maybe we can find some of the missing items. Or mark people off as suspects.”
“There’s a flaw in your plan. Just because they don’t show the pieces in their apartments, doesn’t mean they didn’t steal and sell them.” Nic pointed out.
I conceded the point. “I bet they’d keep some and showcase them. If you love working in an antique store, you love nice things. You couldn’t help yourself.”
Bubba raised his hand. I laughed and waved at him to talk. “Don’t you think it’s weird they haven’t shown up? I mean, you had that one lady the first day you came who was working, but since that time, no one has tried to come in to work. Unless you count the guy using his key last night. And he came after shop hours.”
Nic and I stared at him.
“What? Did I say something stupid?” Bubba looked back and forth from me to Nic.
“No. You said something really smart. Unless Sarah called all the employees and told them about Matty’s death, they should have shown up for their shifts. Or called. But it’s been radio silence.” I glanced down at the list again. “Several of these people don’t have a cell phone listed. Actually, none of the salespeople besides Sarah, who is really a manager, and this Mark Bennett have phone numbers in the system. There’s a number for Matty and the business office manager. But no one else.”
“Let’s go see if we can find these people.” Nic finished the last bite of pizza on his plate.
The first fourteen addresses were bogus. No apartment available or if there was, the tenant that answered the door told us they didn’t know the person attached to the address, or Matty. Theyhadheard about the antique store changing hands. Several asked when we were opening.
Now I knew how Matty was losing money. He’d been paying people who didn’t exist. I wondered if he’d known about the issue. Or if this was someone else’s scheme? We might never know, but I was going to call Detective Charles tonight and see if he ran into similar results.
Nic glanced at the list. “Well, we’re down to Sarah and this Mark Bennett. We know Sarah knows about Matty’s death.” He keyed the address into his phone. “Mark lives just a few blocks from here. Do you want to pay him a visit?”
“According to the schedule, he mostly works weekends.” I held out the hope that maybe he just hadn’t heard about Matty’s death.
“Which is a good reason to visit.” He pointed toward the next cross street. “It’s that way.”
