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“Oh, baby, I don't think that's a good idea. . . .”

But neither was leaving Georgie here without her morning walk. That was bad dog ownership, and Ginny had spent the past year learning how to be a good dog owner. Big brown eyes stared at her, and Ginny relented.

“Oh hell, it's not like the shelter blinked when we brought you with us last time, right? And God knows when I'll get back, and you do need to be walked.” The shar-pei thumped her tail once as though in agreement.

“Okay, girl, let's go.” She shoved a few treats and a poo-bag in her pocket, slipped her tablet and wallet into a bag, and snapped the leash to Georgie's collar.

It was cool outside, predawn, but not actively cold. By the time they made it all the way downtown, Ginny had warmed up and woken up, while Georgie was practically prancing in excitement at walking somewhere other than their usual route.

Now that her brain was less sleep-fuzzed, Ginny was wondering why the hell she had agreed to come down. Yes, Nora was in a panic, and Ginny knew that panic brought out her not-so-deep-seated need to fix all things. But they had been hired to investigate missing money, not dead bodies. Unless the guy had died with his hand in the till . . .

The neighborhood the shelter was in was usually quiet, especially at this hour. But today there was a crowd outside the shelter, mostly people who had been out jogging or walking their dogs, or coming off shift and having breakfast-for-dinner at the local diner, and who couldn't resist the siren call of a cop car and ambulance. Ginny assumed
the ambulance, anyway: by the time she got there, it was long gone. But the uniformed cops remained, as did yellow tape strung up in the parking lot. She'd always thought was just a TV cop show conceit, but apparently not.

“Ginny!” Nora, on the other side of the official line, wrapped in a long coat, her unbraided hair a tousled mess, waved her hand. The man who had been talking to her, not a uniform, but clearly Official in some capacity, didn't look thrilled at the interruption. Ginny waved back but stayed where she was, indicating via hand gestures that she'd be there when the cops were done with their questions.

As Tonica often reminded her, they had no official status, and they'd learned the hard way that once a dead body showed up, you were either a cop, a suspect, or a problem.

Problems had a way of becoming suspects. Better to wait.

In the meantime, Georgie was straining at the leash, as though she had scented old friends inside the building. Or maybe she just wanted to be where all the excitement was happening. Ginny pulled her away, distracting her with the presence of a friendly poodle-mix who wanted to exchange sniffs.

“What happened? Who died?” Tonica came up along the sidewalk, with a takeout coffee in his hand. He scanned the front of the clinic, and she could see his brain ticking away the number of cop cars—two—and cops—three uniforms visible plus the guy who was probably a detective, still talking with Nora. There was also a single news crew; a woman holding the camera and an Asian man in front of it, talking earnestly.

“Nothing high-profile,” he said, making a quick assessment. “So we've got a dead body, but not anyone important, or otherwise bludgeoned to death with a stray cat.”

“Teddy. That's sick.”

“What, the dead body, or death by cat? Okay, both, I get it. Hey, Georgie.” He bent down to scratch behind her ears. “So who died?” he asked Ginny. “Your text was short on detail.”

He was wound up this morning, bouncing on his feet, and taking almost furtive sips of his coffee, exactly the state she'd tried to avoid. He looked like an oddly healthy junkie, sneaking his fix.

“How much sleep did you get last night?” she asked him.

“Considering I got woken up at five-fucking-ayem by a text telling me we had a dead body?” he asked, still petting Georgie, and not looking at her. “Nowhere near enough. Who died?”

Ginny shook her head, deciding to let him deal with his own caffeine jitters. “The bookkeeper.”

“The who?”

“Yeah, that's what I'm wondering. I didn't even know they had a bookkeeper. He wasn't on any of the employee or volunteer lists we got, and Nora sure as hell didn't mention another person. I guess I would have found out when I asked for the ledgers, huh? Oh, sorry about that, there's someone
else
who has access to the inner office, and oh yeah,
all
of our money, whoops!”

*  *  *

Teddy heard that tone come into Ginny's voice, and despite the hour and the news, his mood brightened. There was the acerbic diva he'd first gotten to know, not the thoughtful, softer version he'd been seeing recently. He was way more comfortable with Mallard in this mood. “I think Este mentioned a bookkeeper, when we first met her, but no mention of him on the employee lists, so I just . . .” He shrugged. “So, what are we doing here, anyway? If this has anything to do with the event we were looking into, the cops are going to be all over it—and they're going to want us
out
of it.”

She was too smart not to have thought of it herself, but she bristled anyway, her cool exterior cracking a little with indignation. “You want us to just hand over our information to them and walk away?”

“Yep.” He didn't think they were going to, though. Just a hunch.

“You know people, Tonica,” she said. “What do you think the odds are that anyone in there has mentioned the missing money to the cops?”

He thought about what he'd seen, what he'd heard, and what he'd managed to suss out. “Slim to none,” he told her.

“That's what I thought, too. They're going to try to keep it some little thing, ignore it as much as they can, even now, thinking that somehow they're protecting the shelter. And hey, I can see the logic. Far more likely this was an actual break-in gone wrong, and whoops, there's this guy there in the middle of the night, and a robber becomes a murderer-by-accident . . . and not our problem.”

“You know, though, a bookkeeper?” Teddy said thoughtfully. “When we're looking into missing funds? The odds of it not being related are—”

“Slim to none,” she repeated. “Yeah. And that makes it our problem. Damn it.”

“So what do we do?”

Ginny stared at the small circus in front of them, watching as the news crew finished up and rolled out, and the rubberneckers slowly drifted away. “Damned if I know. Play it by ear? Maybe we're wrong, and they're spilling their guts to the cops right now, telling them everything.”

“Yeah. Maybe.” He was about as convinced of that as she was, which was to say, not at all.

Eventually, bored with watching the front door, they wandered over to the local café and grabbed some coffee, coming back in time to see the last squad car pull away. There were still people wandering round looking official, but the bulk of the investigation seemed to have followed the body off-site.

The moment she saw them, Nora rushed over to where Ginny and Teddy were standing. Georgie had settled comfortably at Ginny's feet, apparently no longer interested in the shelter or the crowds.

“Oh, I'm sorry,” Nora said, “I didn't think, they kept asking us questions, and I didn't know what to tell them. Come on, Este's inside; they insisted we all be kept separate while we were talking, although I don't know why, none of us were even here!”

She kept talking, gesturing madly, as the three of them
followed her through the double doors and into the shelter's lobby. Este was there, still talking to an older man in uniform, although he didn't seem to be interrogating her. Este looked her age, having obviously thrown on her sweatshirt and jeans in even more of a rush than Ginny, and not bothering with makeup. Her silvered hair showed definite signs of bedhead, and her face was lined, but she managed to smile when she saw them come in.

The cop turned, just enough to see who she was looking at, and his face deepened its scowl. “And who the hell is this?”

Este stood, graceful even then, and patted the cop on the shoulder as though he were an old friend. “Concerned members of the shelter family,” she said. “Thank you both for coming down. I assume Nora called you?”

Teddy heard the faint note of disapproval in that question, even if Nora—and, thankfully, the cop—didn't. Or maybe he was projecting.

“Yes. Terrible . . .” Ginny's voice was professionally smooth, like she'd been a funeral home worker in another life. For all he knew, she had. “For all the good the shelter does, for something like this to happen . . . We just wanted to come and offer our aid, if there was anything you needed.”

“If we're done, here?” Este said to the cop, who made a noise like Georgie muttering and got up.

“Yeah, we're done. You all stay in town, until we tell you that you can go anywhere. And don't touch anything in the office.”

He left, and Este turned to them, her eyes wide. “I didn't know they really said that.”

Her voice was a little too close to hysteria for Teddy's comfort. “They do. And they mean it. But you'd be here anyway, right?”

She focused on that, nodded. “They said it was all right to keep the shelter running; they've moved the . . . the body, and taken photographs and so much else, but . . . oh, poor Jimmy, what a terrible way to die.”

“What happened?” Ginny demanded. “And—” Teddy gave her a quick glare; he wasn't sure if she caught it, but she did stop herself from demanding to know why Jimmy hadn't been on the list she'd been given, to check out backgrounds and alibis. “What happened?”

“The police say that he must have had a heart attack, or maybe a stoke. He just fell over. He was working in the office, and he was leaning back and the chair collapsed under him. . . .”

“So not murder?”

“Oh, no, nothing like that!” Este looked somewhere between horrified, as though she'd never thought of murder, and relieved that she could quash that idea immediately. Teddy couldn't blame her for either reaction.

Nora shook her head, looking slightly embarrassed now. “No, oh God no. I overreacted when the police called me. I was just so flustered, and I thought, well, you two are investigators, so . . . But no, of course it's not murder. But how horrible, to think that he might have been there for God knows how long, maybe needing help, and—”

Nora had a ghoulish streak in her, Teddy decided.

“Este? I think—oh.” Roger came out through the office door, and stopped at seeing the small crowd there. His gaze flickered over Nora and Teddy, stopped to linger on Ginny, a slightly puzzled expression on his face, and then down to Georgie before returning to Teddy.

Teddy knew he was busted even before the man opened his mouth.

“You're not here for any would-be patron,” Roger said. “What's your game, and why are you harassing my staff   ?”

Maybe the man wasn't quite so hippy-dippy after all.

“Roger. It's all right. They're . . .” Este dropped her gaze, and her voice faltered under his glare. Interesting.

“They're investigators,” Nora said, falling on that particular grenade. “I hired them.”

“Investigators.” The way he said it made Teddy think that wasn't a surprise to the other man. “Because of Jimmy?” Now Roger looked befuddled. “But that just happened . . . and the police said that was a terrible accident.”

“No. Because . . .” Nora faltered, too, then went on. “Because money's been going missing, Roger. From the grant fund. I didn't want to tell you. We didn't want to worry you while you were still recovering.”

“You hired investigators to look into our finances?” He turned from Nora to glare at this partner. “Este, you approved this?”

“Don't use that voice, Roger,” she warned, her voice cold. “You weren't here, and I was. Nora was impulsive, but what would you rather we do, report it to the police?
Bad enough they had to come in now—we can play Jimmy's death for sympathy, a terrible loss to the community, if need be. But someone stealing from within? There's no way to spin that—and we couldn't just keep ignoring it!”

Roger, Teddy noted, seemed more horrified that someone was looking into the missing money than he was about someone he knew dying a few hours before. Not hippy-dippy at all, once the surface was scratched. The timing might be wrong, but he really wanted to have Ginny look into this guy's alibis and finances, now.

The guy was still talking. “Nora . . . it's wonderful that you care so much about the shelter—God knows, Este and I appreciate your dedication. But hiring investigators? I hardly think that's necessary. Especially without checking with us first. Anyway, now that the police have been called in, and with Jimmy's death, it's no longer necessary.”

“You think Jimmy was taking the money?” Este sounded horrified. “He took over the books—for free—when you got sick. He's saved us so much money, volunteering—why would he steal?”

“Excuse me,” Ginny said, stepping into the conversation. “This Jimmy, he wasn't with you very long?”

“No, only about six months, since Roger had to step back. He's a CPA, works for a local firm. A friend of a friend, you know how it goes? He came in after hours to go over our books and make sure everything was going smoothly, so nothing got tangled come quarter-close.”

“So he knew about the money, and the vet's payouts.”

“I suppose so, yes. The payments are all on the ledger.
But there's no way he would . . .” Este's voice trailed off as she realized that any objection she might raise was the same they'd already raised—and rejected—to exclude the rest of the volunteers, too.

Everyone had to be considered. And someone who had opportunity to know exactly what money was there had to be considered first, even without motive.

“Maybe whoever stole it came back, and Jimmy caught them, and they killed him, hit him over the head or poisoned him or something.” Nora's face had a vaguely disquieting glow to it, as though the thought that someone she knew might have been murdered was an exciting development. Their client definitely had a ghoulish streak. It went badly with her crunchy-granola exterior.