After leaving Detective Lejeune in the conference room, Michael drove to Calvary Baptist Church. He spent the next several hours poring over the church’s financials again without even plying Mrs. Purdy with another pie. He explained he had urgent business and headed straight to Reverend Dean’s office.
Urgent, indeed. With Buckley’s confession of an illegal loan of sixty K, half a million bucks was still unaccounted for. And poor Pastor Dean didn’t have his pockets full of cash when he took his last breath on earth. The longer the money floated in the ether, the less likely it would be returned to the congregation. Buckley’s alibi would most likely check out. Lejeune wouldn’t have called if he had any doubt about that. Which brought up another reason for urgency. Michael wanted something to show Beth when she got back to town, other than a morning spent consorting with the enemy.
Although Price Investigations and the Natchez PD were on the same side, Lejeune calling him to view the confession videotape might not sit well with Beth. The new partner getting chummy with the old partner? That smelled like betrayal, whether they were on the same team or not. So Michael was glad to have something good to report when she called on her way back from Vicksburg.
“Hi, Mike,” Beth said in a chipper voice. “Did you miss me today?”
“More than I thought humanly possible. How did it go up north?”
“Despite bureaucratic wheels turning at the speed of glaciers, if the ME receives Reverend Dean’s body by Wednesday night, she’ll start the autopsy on Thursday, Friday for sure. Certainly before snow flies in the Bahamas. I’ve got friends with their ears to the ground. What did you do today—work on a tan to go with your new body?”
“It’s hard to improve on perfection, so I spent the day looking for the missing half-million dollars.”
“Good idea. I’m sure Alice wants the funds for the new school tracked down. As soon as that autopsy is finished, we should be able to lock up Buckley and throw away the key.”
“Let’s just follow the evidence and not jump the gun. Isn’t that what you taught me from day one?”
There was a hesitation before Beth asked, “What’s going on? Did something weird turn up today?”
“Where are you, Elizabeth?”
“Just outside of town on Route 61.”
“Good. Why don’t you come straight to my place? I’ll have a deluxe pizza, plenty of Coke, and a six-pack of orange soda so you can take your pick of what you would like to drink when you get here. I prefer to discuss this in person.”
“My protégé has gone mysterious on me.”
“All will be revealed when my assistant drops the black cloth. Come alone and make sure you’re not followed.”
“You better not be referring to me as your assistant.” Beth laughed as she hung up.
However, Michael was no longer smiling. With his interim boss on her way, he needed to choose his words carefully. Twenty minutes later, Beth parked on the street and pressed his buzzer. Michael watched her from his window but counted to five before buzzing her in. He heard her clattering footsteps long before she appeared.
“You sure do make enough noise in those clogs,” he said once she reached his doorway.
“I’m a noisy kind of girl.” Beth strode inside and flung her purse in the direction of his sofa. “What did you find out, Preston?”
“First, let’s take our gourmet cuisine and something to drink out to my verandah.” He hooked a thumb toward the sliding glass door.
Without a word Beth walked into the kitchen, put two slices of pizza on a plate, and popped the top on a Coke. “Lead the way.”
Michael duplicated her actions and headed to his tiny balcony overlooking the alley. Fortunately, the Dumpsters had been recently emptied.
Beth sat in a webbed chair. “We’re on your verandah with our cuisine, so spill your guts.” She tucked a napkin into her shirt.
“Ladies first. Why don’t you want to tell me about your eventful day?” Michael had to sit sideways to fit his legs behind the railing.
Beth swallowed a mouthful of pepperoni, mushrooms, and hot peppers. “I told you my news on the phone. Either you explain why Buckley dropped off your radar or I’m cracking one of your ribs.”
He clucked his tongue. “Wait until Nate hears about your politically incorrect behavior. Things won’t go well at your next review.” When steam began pouring from Beth’s ears, Michael delivered his semirehearsed speech about the videotaped interview that Lejeune had been unable to postpone.
“That skunk preferred me being out of town. But it probably was better that way—less chance of gunplay in the conference room.” Beth spoke more to herself than to him. “So Buckley’s off the hook for swiping the mega-amount. I doubt he would kill his friend over sixty thousand dollars. Plus a solid alibi will remove that possibility altogether.”
“Lejeune would have called by now if it hadn’t checked out. You’re not sore at me for seeing him alone?” Michael relaxed his neck and shoulders.
“Of course not. Like I said—Jack and I don’t play well together.” Beth took another bite. “You implied on the phone you discovered something interesting about the missing school fund. Talk, Preston, while I eat. This pizza is delicious. I might eat the whole thing.”
“When I learned Reverend Dean controlled the building fund for the last six months, I got a hunch this could be the key to his murder. I went through the church accounts again but saw nothing I hadn’t seen before. Reverend Dean wasn’t keeping those files up-to-date like Ralph Buckley had done during his wheeling-and-dealing days.”
“Go on.” Beth sipped her Coke without taking her gaze off him.
“Then I found something in Reverend Dean’s saved emails under the tab ‘Social.’ The other files were videos of the church bake sale, the membership open house, and last year’s harvest party.”
“The threat of cracked ribs is still on table.” She wiped her hands on a napkin, wadded it into a ball, and bounced it off his chest.
“I discovered a string of emails between the pastor and a nonprofit called Spare the Children. When Reverend Dean took control of the four-hundred-seventy thousand, he apparently invested it with an international charity. The website states their organization aims to save kids from starvation and abject poverty, and to prevent teenagers from falling victim to human traffickers. All noble causes to be sure. They offered investors one- and two-year bonds at an interest rate of twelve percent. Being from the financial sector, I can say normal bonds don’t pay that much. Only junk offerings with a high risk factor do that.”
“Thank you, Warren Buffett. Now get on with it.”
“When I googled this charity, I found several complaints from small churches in the South. Every one of those churches was clamoring to get back their initial investment.”
“Hold that thought. I’m going inside for an Orange Crush. Care to join me?”
“Yes, bring out two. They’re in the fridge.” Try as he might, Michael couldn’t wipe the smile off his face before she returned. “Shall I continue, Miss Kirby?”
“By all means.” Beth handed him a beverage and sat back down.
“Reverend Dean wrote many emails to this organization before his death. At first he praised the good work they did and how Calvary Baptist was proud to help such a worthy cause.”
“So Paul believed he was helping a good cause while earning twelve percent on the investment.” Beth’s expression registered recognition of what was coming.
“Exactly. He had loaned the money for a twelve-month period before they broke ground for the new school. Reverend Dean didn’t steal the money or hide it away. He invested it in what he thought was a win-win situation.”
“And he was too naive to smell a scam,” Beth concluded. “He wasn’t a thief. He just didn’t know any better.”
Michael didn’t need to affirm her deduction as Beth’s eyes filled with tears. When she dropped her face into her hands and sobbed, he thought he might cry too.
“Do you need a break or should I continue?”
“Continue.” Beth wiped her eyes with a napkin. “Please ignore my emotional breakdown.”
“Reverend Dean suspected something wasn’t right when they stopped sending monthly statements as promised. None of his emails had listed a person’s name, only the charity as an entity. Then a week before he died, he demanded to speak with the person in charge and left a phone number. He threatened to contact Mississippi’s attorney general and every watchdog agency for nonprofits in the country. In their final email, Spare the Children indicated someone would be getting in touch with him shortly. That’s the abbreviated version of the story,” Michael concluded. “I’m so sorry, Elizabeth.”
With tears streaming down her face, she met his eyes. “Why are you sorry? You didn’t steal the money, and you didn’t kill my pastor. You did well today, Michael—better than me. Tomorrow the waterworks will be gone, and then you and I will track down the real killer. Right now, I’m getting more pizza. This is the best I’ve had in a long time.”
Michael watched her until she disappeared into the kitchen. She was beyond a great mentor or the friend he never had. She was a unique human being, one he could easily fall in love with. And that scared the wits out of him.