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Nic stepped in between me and the woman. “My name is Nicolae Ardronic. This is my sister, Eddie Cayce. She purchased the building and the business yesterday from Mr. Goldstein. I take it you weren’t informed of the change of ownership?”
The woman’s eyes widened. “Matty, I mean, Mr. Goldstein sold the store?”
“Yes.” I held up the ring of keys he’d give me. Then I heard a noise from the back. “Who else is here?”
Sarah shook her head. “No one. I open the store Mondays through Friday’s exactly at eight. I don’t work weekends. I just saw Matty yesterday. Why wouldn’t he have told me?”
I was wondering the same thing but I was still worried about who else was in the building. “I heard something in the back. Are you sure there’s no one else here?”
“That’s probably Harry.” Sarah sank into a nearby chair and put her head in her hands. “I’ve worked here for over ten years. What am I going to do now?”
“Who’s Harry?” Nic put a hand on the woman’s shoulder. “Can I get you a glass of water?”
Sarah nodded. “Thank you, that would be nice. There’s a small breakroom at the back, past the accounting office. And Harry, well, he’s the building ghost.”
I met Nic’s gaze. Of course, there was a ghost. The building was probably original to the founding of New Orleans. Every building had at least one story that the tourist trade used to build up business for the nightly ghost tours. “I’ll go get the water.”
“Eddie, be careful. She’s not wrong.” Nic glanced around the shop.
I tried not to roll my eyes in front of my brother. He’d been taught by our father the family fortunetelling business. I knew it more for the con than the connection to some so-called other side. Besides, with my new ‘power’ if there was someone here, I’d know. Nic was better with real people. He didn’t have Grandma’s extra shine.
I made my way to the door marked, Employees Only, and pushed my way through. Apparently, Matty Goldstein had been a little too excited about his big payoff to deal with his employees yesterday. Hopefully, I could get ahold of him today and have him break the news to the rest of the staff. I’d rather hire my own crew than take over ones that had been loyal to the aging dealer. But if I had to keep a few, I could work with that.
For not the first time, I wondered if coming home after the breakup had really been the best idea. There were other cities where I could have bought a failing antique business. Probably cheaper too. But I’d been drawn home. Now I had to deal with the consequences. At least here my ‘power’ wouldn’t be looked on like a curse.
I passed by a small office and then pause at next. From the sign over the door, the break room was the next doorway. The sign on this door said,Conference Room. I pushed open the door and stood dumbstruck. A man sprawled face down on an oriental rug, stained crimson with blood. From the thinning hair and large size, I thought I’d found the man I’d handed a check to yesterday.
Matty Goldstein wasn’t going to be telling his employees anything about the sale. He was dead.
* * *
“Areyou sure the building sale was completed?” The detective in a bad suit asked me for the third time. I sat in the employee break room, drinking coffee and going over the events that had led me to purchase the store for the last hour.
“I handed him a check. We signed the documents. The title company was filing all the paperwork. The sale was complete.” I glanced over to where Nic sat, working on his phone. He’d cancelled his appointments for the day and now was waiting for me.
Bubba stood in the corner, hands behind his back, watching the door.
“Okay, we’ll be in touch. The coroner has taken the body to the morgue and the crime scene guys have finished their work.” The detective, Boone Charles, closed his notebook and handed me a card. “I’ve written down the items we took out of the conference room on the back. It’s your receipt, although I don’t think you’re going to want that rug back.”
“So you’re done here? We can clean up and open?” I took the card and dropped it into my tote. I didn’t want to sound insensitive, but on the other hand, I’d begun to look at the company’s books while we waited for the police to finish. We needed sales to keep going.
“Not today you’re not.” Nic stood by my side and handed the detective his own card. “Thank you for being so quick on this, Detective Charles. If you need to talk to my sister, she’ll be staying at my house tonight.”
The man stood and shook Nic’s hand. Then he looked down at me. “Sorry that your first day back turned into such a disaster.”
“It’s not my first day back, I’ve been here for a few weeks. I’m staying at the Monteleone.” I felt like I was babbling. Looking at my brother, I could see the concern in his eyes. “But I guess not tonight.”
Boone stepped toward the door. “It’s still a shame.”
After we were alone, Nic turned me toward him. Bubba stood outside the door. “Are you sure you’re, okay? You found a dead body.”
“Maybe in shock a little. Man, this is not how I planned to spend the day. I was going to pull up the inventory list and go through it all, making notes on where and what condition everything was in.” I followed him out to the hallway, pausing at the elevator. “Hey, can we at least look for his records? These sales records I found in the business manager’s office are making me a little nervous. According to this, the store hasn’t had a sale over two hundred dollars in over a month.”
Nic glanced at his watch. “Of course. I’ve had your car taken to the compound. Annamae’s making dinner for us. Bubba, stay on this floor and watch the front door, please.”
Which was code that I didn’t have much time. Nic had learned the art of speaking without being direct from our father. It drove me crazy.Say what you mean and mean what you say. That had been Mom’s motto for years.
Fifteen minutes later, we’d gone through the office without finding much of anything. Nic pointed to an empty cord. “Maybe the police took his electronics.”
