Harriet and Lauren stayed rooted to their spots until ten minutes had passed and it became obvious Officer Nguyen wasn’t coming back anytime soon. Harriet stood up and leaned to her left so she could see around the quilt in the front window.
“Looks like Detective Morse’s is headed this way.”
Lauren came to the counter beside her. Detective Jane Morse was a quilter and the only woman in the Foggy Point Police Department detective squad. They watched as she parked her car and approached the shop.
“Good, maybe she can let us out of here. I’ve got a video conference later, and I’d like to do a little prep for it.”
“I wonder if James will be able to get his menus.”
Lauren looked at a work table beside Daniel’s desk.
“Is that them?”
Several bundles of printing were stacked neatly on the table, each with a slip of paper on top. Harriet went to look and checked out the bundle that was the right size to be menus. James’s name was on the job ticket.
“I could slide them into my bag,” Lauren said. “No one would be the wiser.”
Harriet shook her head.
“If this does turn out to be a crime scene, we’d both be in big trouble.”
“It was just a thought.”
“And what thought was that?” Detective Morse asked. She had come in while their backs were to the door. Both jumped at the sound of her voice.
“Nothing,” Lauren said a little too quickly.
Morse crossed to the counter.
“What have you two gotten yourselves into now?”
Harriet sat back down in Daniel’s chair.
“Like I told Officer Nguyen, we were just trying to pick up James’s printing order. Daniel wasn’t out here, but we heard the printing machine. I know it’s probably not legal for us to go into the workroom, but I was just going to stick my head in the door and call out to Daniel to see if he was there.”
“And Harriet saw him hanging from the rafters, so we shut the door and called you guys,” Lauren finished for her.
“Wait here while I see why they need a detective at an apparent suicide,” Morse told them.
“If it’s a suicide, why do we have to wait here?” Lauren said to her back as she disappeared through the connecting door.
Harriet pulled her phone from her pocket and tapped out a quick text to James, apprising him of her current situation. She knew he wouldn’t see it until things slowed down after the lunch rush at the restaurant but wanted him to hear it from her. He knew she’d planned on picking up his printing, and she didn’t want him to hear about the trouble from one of his customers.
Lauren checked her messages then paced the width of the office area a few times. Harriet looked idly around the desk in front of her.
“I wonder if he left a suicide note.”
Lauren stopped pacing.
“It can’t hurt to look. You check the desk; I’ll take the computer.”
Harriet pulled open the flat drawer in the middle, using her shirt sleeve to cover her hand as she did so. It contained pens, pencils, paper clips—the usual small office supplies. The top drawer on the right held pads of pre-printed invoices, receipts for cash purchases, and business cards.
“This is interesting,” she said as she pulled open the second drawer on the right.
Lauren turned away from the computer screen.
“What?”
“We’ve got a regular pharmacy in drawer number two.” She took a tissue from a box on the desk and used it to pick up one of the amber bottles. “This one’s Triumeq.” She set it down and picked up another. “Descovy,” she read before dropping it and picking up another. “Retrovir.”
“Whoa, that last one is an HIV drug. The rest of them probably are, too. Are they in Daniel’s name?”
“They are,” Harriet replied. “There’s no reason we should have known that, but it does add to the possibilities, I guess.”
Lauren returned to the computer.
“Why would someone commit suicide if they were being successfully treated?” she wondered aloud.
Harriet went back to searching the desk.
“Maybe no one wanted to be in a relationship with him because of it.”
“I find that hard to believe in this day and age.” Lauren frowned and slid off the stool she’d been sitting on in front of Daniel’s computer monitor and bent down below the counter. “Well, this is interesting,” she said in a muffled tone.
“What?”
Lauren slid the side panel off the computers tower.
“I think Morse is going to want to see this. Someone has removed the hard drive from the computer.”
It was another thirty minutes before Detective Morse reappeared.
“They took Daniel out through the back delivery doors. If you ladies don’t have anything else to tell me, you’re free to go.” She headed for the door but stopped when neither Harriet or Lauren moved. “Is there something else?”
Lauren cleared her throat, stalling while she figured out the best way to tell Morse she’d been touching the computer.
“Umm…well, I thought you might want to know if Daniel left a suicide note on his computer, so I just tapped the enter key to see what might come up.”
Morse closed her eyes and put her hand on the side of her face.
“It’s probably useless at this point to tell you two to stay out of police business. But, okay, what did you find?”
“Nothing.” Lauren answered.
Morse’s eyes opened wide.
“All right, so you touched one key and found nothing. What aren’t you telling me?”
Lauren squirmed on the stool.
“Well, when I hit the enter key, I got no response at all, so I thought I’d check the tower and see if it had been turned off.”
“Had it?” Morse interrupted.
“Yes, but that’s not the significant part. I slid the side panel off just to have a peek, and someone has removed the hard drive.”
“That is interesting.” She thought for a minute. “Please tell me you didn’t touch it with your bare hands.”
“I used a tissue.”
“Make no mistake, I would prefer it if you wouldn’t meddle in police business, but thank you for not leaving prints on what may turn out to be evidence.”
Harriet leaned forward in the chair.
“Have you confirmed Daniel committed suicide?”
“You know I can’t talk about an ongoing investigation. I guess, having said that, you might conclude there is an investigation to not talk about. That remains to be seen at this point. The ME is going to do an autopsy before declaring the cause and manner of death.”
“Well, that’s interesting,” Harriet said.
Lauren stood up.
“Shall we go?”
“I don’t suppose there’s any chance I can take James’s print order,” Harriet said to Morse.
“Not until we process the scene. If we process it.”
“Great. I guess I’d better break the news to James.”
“Shall we go in person?” Lauren asked. “I mean, we did miss lunch and all.”
“Sounds good to me.”