Art and Arsenic (Veronica Margreve Mysteries Book 2) by Valerie Murmel Page A
Authors: Valerie Murmel
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inherit the gallery then? Or you do?” The tactless question came out before I realized what I was saying. Internally, I was kicking myself for bringing up inheritance so soon, and in front of the obviously-grieving daughter who just hours ago found out about her father’s death.
Pauline didn't seem to notice the faux-pas of my inquiry. She nodded.
“Fifty-fifty. Half of it goes to her, half to me.”
9
“Ok, well…” Even after my etiquette breach, I didn’t want to discuss the topic of Fred Nordqvist's estate further with the daughter of the deceased. I mumbled, looking down: “I’m sorry for your loss… I’ll go update the website now.” For some reason, I noticed with extreme clarity that Pauline had a tattoo at the top of her right foot – a sort of a circular design that reminded me of electron orbitals from college physics. “And… you know, I will do anything that I can to find the truth about your father's death.”
Pauline blinked at me through the tears in her dark eyes. “Thank you. I really want to know what… what actually happened. You can call me or email at the gallery address if you want any info, or anything that you think will help.”
I hugged her, and told her that I would.
Then I started walking to the back office. Detective Johnson called me over when he saw me heading there.
“What did you talk about?”
“I offered to update their website, to say that they’ll be closed. Connie” – I indicated the woman with the back of my hand – “said closed till Tuesday. Is that OK? Do you need to take a back-up of what’s on that computer, before I do anything?”
He thought for a second.
“Yes. I’ll watch you take it, just to make sure you don’t do anything funny.”
The yellow police line was up across the office door. I paused in front of it, and turned back to Detective Johnson.
“Would it be possible for me to go into the office? I need to connect to the computer that’s in there.”
He scrunched up his nose – he was not fond of the idea, then sighed:
“OK. We already got the prints from everything in there.”
With my escort, I ducked under the police tape. While doing that, I looked down to watch where I was going, and remembered what Detective Johnson had told me in the morning. That Alex had found Fred’s body here. There was a chalk outline of the body behind the desk and to the side of it – as if he fell when trying to get up. I stepped around gingerly, under the watchful eyes of the policeman, and instinctively tried not to look at the floor at that spot.
Johnson made an involuntary movement forward when I sat down. I realized that I was sitting in the same chair Fred sat last night – essentially, the place he died. Inwardly, I froze – and then, intently and deliberately, promised myself to help figure out what happened to him, in any way I could. Outwardly, I opened my laptop and logged in to the server.
With Detective Johnson standing over me, I took a back-up of the system as it was, compressed it, copied it to a thumb drive and handed it to him. He pocketed it, and motioned a young policeman over his shoulder to come to the office – to keep an eye on me in there. I tried to smile at the officer, introduced to me as Martins, reassuringly, and continued with my work.
I checked the website – still up, and no attack traffic coming in. So Linda didn’t start the tool running again. Because of my conversation with her yesterday – or because that there was no need, as Fred was dead?
I noticed that there was slightly higher traffic today than yesterday – perhaps people heard about the death? Or maybe art lovers or just people in search of something different to do on the weekend, looking to check out some galleries on a Saturday afternoon? I backed up the previous versions of the website files, made the changes to the opening time, reviewed them again and published
Pauline didn't seem to notice the faux-pas of my inquiry. She nodded.
“Fifty-fifty. Half of it goes to her, half to me.”
9
“Ok, well…” Even after my etiquette breach, I didn’t want to discuss the topic of Fred Nordqvist's estate further with the daughter of the deceased. I mumbled, looking down: “I’m sorry for your loss… I’ll go update the website now.” For some reason, I noticed with extreme clarity that Pauline had a tattoo at the top of her right foot – a sort of a circular design that reminded me of electron orbitals from college physics. “And… you know, I will do anything that I can to find the truth about your father's death.”
Pauline blinked at me through the tears in her dark eyes. “Thank you. I really want to know what… what actually happened. You can call me or email at the gallery address if you want any info, or anything that you think will help.”
I hugged her, and told her that I would.
Then I started walking to the back office. Detective Johnson called me over when he saw me heading there.
“What did you talk about?”
“I offered to update their website, to say that they’ll be closed. Connie” – I indicated the woman with the back of my hand – “said closed till Tuesday. Is that OK? Do you need to take a back-up of what’s on that computer, before I do anything?”
He thought for a second.
“Yes. I’ll watch you take it, just to make sure you don’t do anything funny.”
The yellow police line was up across the office door. I paused in front of it, and turned back to Detective Johnson.
“Would it be possible for me to go into the office? I need to connect to the computer that’s in there.”
He scrunched up his nose – he was not fond of the idea, then sighed:
“OK. We already got the prints from everything in there.”
With my escort, I ducked under the police tape. While doing that, I looked down to watch where I was going, and remembered what Detective Johnson had told me in the morning. That Alex had found Fred’s body here. There was a chalk outline of the body behind the desk and to the side of it – as if he fell when trying to get up. I stepped around gingerly, under the watchful eyes of the policeman, and instinctively tried not to look at the floor at that spot.
Johnson made an involuntary movement forward when I sat down. I realized that I was sitting in the same chair Fred sat last night – essentially, the place he died. Inwardly, I froze – and then, intently and deliberately, promised myself to help figure out what happened to him, in any way I could. Outwardly, I opened my laptop and logged in to the server.
With Detective Johnson standing over me, I took a back-up of the system as it was, compressed it, copied it to a thumb drive and handed it to him. He pocketed it, and motioned a young policeman over his shoulder to come to the office – to keep an eye on me in there. I tried to smile at the officer, introduced to me as Martins, reassuringly, and continued with my work.
I checked the website – still up, and no attack traffic coming in. So Linda didn’t start the tool running again. Because of my conversation with her yesterday – or because that there was no need, as Fred was dead?
I noticed that there was slightly higher traffic today than yesterday – perhaps people heard about the death? Or maybe art lovers or just people in search of something different to do on the weekend, looking to check out some galleries on a Saturday afternoon? I backed up the previous versions of the website files, made the changes to the opening time, reviewed them again and published
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