Murder in the Dorm by C.G. Prado

loss of his money, which, by the way, still hasn’t been tracked down. McDermott had time to do a lot of transfers and squirrel it away somewhere. As for someone else being involved, that’s pretty obvious but we haven’t a clue where to start looking. And before you say anything, we found no reason whatever to look at Kim Berger.”
    “So it looks like it’s all done, except for the money. What sort of figure are we talking about?”
    “Our forensic types did an estimate based on the amounts on that list we got and figure Kelsey and McDermott were messing around with a million to one-and-a-half or maybe two million.”
    “Finding the money isn’t your responsibility, though, is it?”
    “No; that’s for the forensic accountants to do, if they can.”
    “Did you find out about McDermott’s account with Raymond, Teller?”
    “Yes. It was relatively modest and he only did day trading in standard tech stocks. There were no seriously large deposits. I think five thousand was about the biggest single deposit McDermott made, aside from opening the account with just over ten thousand. She did admit that her mother had been scammed but said or at least claimed she has no idea of who did it. I know you thought she had some involvement, but Guy and I can’t find a single thing to connect her to Kelsey or McDermott beyond her handling activity in McDermott’s account.”
    Charlie understood then that he’d gotten all he was going to get from DeVries, so when she glanced at her watch he told her he shouldn’t keep her. She rose and gathered her bag and coat.
    “Goodbye, Charlie. I do hope the next time we talk it won’t be about a murder. Take care.”
    With that DeVries was gone and Charlie sat over his now cold coffee. Rather than have another cup, he paid the bill and left. At home he gave Kate the gist of what had transpired.
    “You’re not satisfied.”
    “No. First of all, there’s a ton of money missing. Second, there’s whoever pointed the shooter in McDermott’s direction. I still think Berger may be involved, but without more information, I just don’t know what else I can do.”
    “Tell you what, you go and open some merlot while I nuke some of that chorizo stew we made and we’ll forget about the case for a while.”
    Charlie thought that an excellent idea and went for a bottle.
    Sunday morning Charlie slept late and it wasn’t until eleven that he was showered and dressed. Kate was making noises about doing some food shopping, remarks he carefully ignored. She liked the relative quiet of markets on Sundays while he preferred not to go out and certainly not to wander around the aisles of a market.
    “Look, we’ll make a deal. Forget about the shopping and I’ll take you to lunch. Okay?”
    “Okay, but I really do have to get some muffins for breakfast.”
    After a brief stop at a shop, Charlie took Kate to a sushi place that, like most other Japanese restaurants in Kingsford, was really owned and run by Koreans. It struck Charlie that the place had a broader selection of sake than the Eggnest had of wine.
    “I know we were going to forget the case, but just let me say this. Somebody getting DeVries’ suspect to do in McDermott establishes there’s a third party. At least there’s someone who knew about the scam. I may be wrong about it being Berger, but I’m right about there being a third party.”
    “Charlie, there’s one way to make some progress, though it’ll take a little courage. Why don’t you invite Berger to lunch and just be frank about your doubts. You don’t have to put her on the spot or anything. You can just admit you thought she might have been involved and put the emphasis on there being a third person involved. She might have something interesting to contribute.”
    “I think that’s a good idea. And I promise that if I don’t get something out of talking to her, I’m going to forget the whole thing. After all, I didn’t know Kelsey or McDermott, so I really