The Louse’s office was also locked, but again, I made short work of it. Honestly, they needed to invest in better locks. Not that it would have made a difference since the employees were doing the stealing.
I shone my flashlight around, revealing an office even more luxurious than Roger’s. A plush, red couch sat along one wall with an expensive-looking oil painting hanging above it. The chandelier was crystal, and the wall sconces much more elegant than Roger’s. The books in here were expensive, leather-bound tomes that had never been touched instead of the cheap, heavily thumbed paperbacks in Roger’s office, and the desk looked like something appropriate for a man with a Napoleon complex.
I figured the place to start was the desk, so I pulled open the first drawer and immediately made a face. Sure, there was the usual tape, stapler, extra pens, and whatnot, but there were also several foil-wrapped prophylactics and a large tube of lube. Gross. August Nixon was a bigger louse than I thought. His poor wife.
The second drawer contained neatly labeled manila envelopes full of receipts, a flashlight with extra batteries, and a first aid kit. How practical. I pulled out some of the receipts, but there was nothing interesting. Mostly gas station fill-ups, business lunches, and the occasional stop for stationary supplies. There was certainly nothing to indicate how August Nixon had been robbing the museum blind.
The final drawer was locked. Voila!
Digging around in my purse, I brought out the yellow-handled screwdriver. It was one of those flat blade ones, perfect for jimmying open drawers. About five minutes, a lot of cussing, and several gouges into the wood later (which I felt rather guilty about), I managed to pop open the third drawer. I gave a sigh of disappointment. There was nothing there but more files.
I pulled them out one at a time. One held research notes on possible future patrons. Easy to understand why he’d lock up such sensitive information. Another held personal bank records. Probably trying to hide the true nature of their finances from his wife. Or maybe he just liked to have an extra set away from the house, in case the place burned down or something. That was writer’s brain for you. I could come up with all kinds of interesting scenarios.
I dug through the files until I hit the bottom of the drawer. Nothing. Now what?
I dumped the files back in the drawer and frowned as something struck me as odd. I stared at the drawer trying to figure out what it was. Then I realized. The inside of the drawer wasn’t quite as deep as it should be.
Pulling the files back out, I dumped them on the desk and knelt in front of the drawer. I pressed the bottom of the drawer gently. There was a bit of give. I wanted to cheer out loud, but that didn’t really jibe with this clandestine excursion, so I bit my tongue and felt along the edges of the drawer bottom. Sure enough, there was a little depression along the back. I pressed down, and the front of the drawer bottom popped up, revealing a secret compartment beneath the false bottom.
Inside was a little, navy blue, leather-bound notebook. A red ribbon marked a page near the middle. I snagged the notebook, letting the false bottom fall back into place. After replacing the files in the drawer and closing it, I turned my attention to my new find.
I grinned like a Cheshire cat as I flipped to the marked page. I had all the evidence I needed. How it would prove Portia’s innocence, I had no idea, but I needed to get this to Detective Battersea straight away.
Standing up, I started toward the door when a shock of pain lanced my skull. The floor rushed up to meet me a split second before everything went dark.
Chapter 16WTF
“MS. ROBERTS? VIOLA? Can you hear me?”
I swam slowly to the surface, consciousness taking over. I wished it hadn’t. My head throbbed like a marching band had taken up residence, and my stomach was a fraction of an inch from rebelling all over the carpet that my face was currently smooshed into.
I swallowed and turned my head slightly. My tongue felt thick. “Wh—what happened?” I squinted as the man’s face zoomed in and out of focus.
“You’ve had a bit of an accident, Ms. Roberts,” the man said. He had on a white shirt with some kind of patch on it. And was that a stethoscope around his neck? “We should get her to the hospital.” He turned to someone else standing behind him.
The “someone else” moved, and I recognized Detective Battersea’s forbidding expression. “I need to question her.” Oh, that wasn’t good.
“And you can,” said the man in the white shirt, “after a doctor’s looked her over. She’s likely got a concussion. Possibly a serious one.”
Bat grimaced. “Fine. But I’ll be visiting her at the hospital.”
I tried to drum up some irritation that they were talking about me like I was a non-entity, but I couldn’t manage. My head hurt too badly.
The man in the white shirt, along with a woman in similar clothing, loaded me onto a gurney. EMTs. They had to be. I still couldn’t figure out what was going on. An accident? What accident? And why was the detective there?
As they hauled me out on the gurney, I realized I was at the Flavel carriage house. It all came flooding back to me: the breaking and entering, snooping around The Louse’s desk, finding the notebook, and then getting hit on the head. I patted myself down, finding no sign of my discovery.
“The notebook!”
“Take it easy Ms. Roberts,” the woman shushed me. “You need to rest.”
“What notebook?” Bat leaned over me, looking grim.
I swallowed. “I found a notebook. It totally proved August Nixon was stealing from the museum. I was going to bring it to you.”
“Where is it now?”
“I don’t know. Probably whoever hit me on
