Cockatiels at Seven by Donna Andrews Page A

could get away with working a back door, unless you had someone on the inside to help you cover up.”
    “That’s true,” Jack said. “Sorry,” he added to me. “But if I were the police . . . ”
    “You’d be looking closely at Karen,” I said. “So would I.”
    “Wow,” Ashok said. “Maybe Walker was smarter than he looked after all.”
    “Smarter, no,” Jack said. “Just sneakier. Look, if you hear anything else juicy . . . ”
    “I’ll tell you, right away.”
    “Tell Jack and me,” I said. I pulled a sheet from my notebook, scribbled my cell phone number, and handed it to him.
    “You bet,” he said, beaming again. “I’ll text some of my friends right away.”
    “Thanks, Ashok,” Jack said.
    Ashok shook hands with me and left with a positive bounce in his step, his fingers already flying over the keys of his cell phone.
    “Not good news,” Jack said.
    “No,” I agreed. “But useful news. Hang on, I need to make a call.”
    “I’ll check on Timmy.”
    “You don’t have to leave,” I said.
    “No, but I want to make sure your temporary toddlerhasn’t traumatized my programmers too badly,” he said.
    He slipped out of the office as I dialed Sandie’s number.
    “Financial Administration,” she said.
    “Hi, Sandie,” I said. “It’s Meg Langslow.”
    “I’m sorry, you have the wrong number,” Sandie said.
    “No, Sandie, remember me—I was in there this afternoon.”
    “It’s okay, Nadine, it’s only a wrong number,” Sandie said, her tone slightly muffled.
    “Okay,” I said. “I get it. You can’t talk right now. Can I call you back at another number?”
    “Just a minute, let me get my college directory,” Sandie said. “Do you have a pen?”
    After I assured her that yes, I had a pen, she recited a number. I jotted it down, Sandie reassured me that it was no trouble at all, urged me to have a nice day, and hung up.
    “Now that was weird,” I said aloud. “Something’s up.”
    “Up where?”
    I looked up to see that Jack was back.
    “At Karen’s office, by the sound of it.”
    “The police show up there, too?”
    “I don’t know—my source there wouldn’t talk to me. She did give me a phone number, though. I’m wondering how long I should wait before—”
    My cell phone rang. The display showed the number Sandie had just given me.
    “Hello?”
    “What did you do?” Sandie exclaimed. “Half an hour after you left, the police came in and they’ve been going through Karen’s files ever since and Nadine is just about ready to spit tacks!”
    To my relief, she didn’t sound mad. In fact, she sounded as if she was having a lot more fun than she had been before my visit.
    “I didn’t do anything,” I said. “I went home so Timmy could take his nap. I was just calling to see if Karen was back.”
    “Well, you must have done something. Did you talk to anyone before you came over here?”
    “I didn’t tell anyone I was coming over to see you,” I said. “That was an impulse. Poor Nadine! After she was so welcoming and helpful, too.”
    Sandie giggled.
    “Look, I should get back,” she said. “I’m only out here having a smoke, which I shouldn’t be doing because I’m supposed to be trying to quit, but that was the only way I could leave the office without it looking odd, and I guess backsliding’s a pretty normal thing to do, with all this going on. But Nadine will get antsy if I take too long.”
    “I appreciate you calling me back,” I said. “Let me know if anything else happens.”
    “Will do,” she said. “Yipes, I think some more cops are arriving. Bye.”
    “Damn,” I muttered. I looked up to see Jack raising one eyebrow quizzically. “The cops are also swarming all over Karen’s office. This is not looking good—Karen dumps Timmy on me, then disappears, her apartment is burgled or vandalized, and now they’re searching heroffice and her husband’s former place of employment and—damn!”
    “You’re thinking