Evelyn David - Sullivan Investigations 01 - Murder Off the Books by Evelyn David Page A

you and he ate a meal together, took in a movie or something. I was hoping for some insight into the guy’s personal life.”
    “We had coffee a few times, but we talked mostly about work.”
    Mac nodded encouragingly. “Was he friendly with anyone else? Someone special?”
    Adams frowned and sat up a little straighter in her chair. “I have no idea.”
    Mac waited a moment to see if she’d add anything.
    She didn’t.
    Mac flipped to a clean page in his notebook. “Do you know if he got along with Vince Malwick?”
    “I think you can say that he didn’t have much respect for Vince,” Adams said, settling back in her chair.
    “What makes you think that?”
    “He said Vince Malwick was more concerned about the tops of his skis than the bottoms.”
    “Let’s pretend I don’t know anything about skiing.” Mac smiled. “What does that mean?”
    Adams shrugged. “Dan was saying that Vince was more concerned about how things looked than with how well things worked.”
    “When did he say that?”
    “About two months ago–when we were working on the current round of bid proposals.”
    “Did you agree with his assessment of Vince Malwick?” Mac asked. He held up his hand, “And no ski analogies, please.”
    “Vince was getting the job done–barely. But his methods were fast becoming obsolete.”
    “His accounting methods?” Mac asked with a grin.
    “That too,” Adams answered. She immediately held up a hand and smiled, “Just a joke. Vince wasn’t my type.”
      He chuckled, wondering what her type was. Maybe dinner might be a good way to…. Hold on. Think with your head, a whiny little voice that sounded a lot like his Junior High principal, reminded him. He had a job to do and Whiskey was waiting in the truck for him.
    “Did Vince have a type?”
    “He’s married, or was.” Adams smiled. “But you know that. Are you asking me about the rumors?”
    He wasn’t but he would have if he’d known about any rumors. “You’re very perceptive.”
    “The college grapevine had it that he was shopping around for someone to replace wife number two.”
    “Did you hear a name?”
    “Nope, but you can bet he was in the market for someone more my secretary’s age than mine.”
    “Do you think the current Mrs. Malwick knew?”
    Adams laughed. “I think the current or–is it former now–Mrs. Malwick was doing her own shopping.”
    Mac made a note to pursue that angle, even though a little voice in his head questioned Lenore Adams’ motives in telling him about Gina Malwick’s indiscretions. Was Lenore trying to redirect his investigation away from herself? “Again, did you happen to hear a name?”
    “No.” Adams paused, but then added with a smile, “But the talk is she attached herself to one of the trustees during the homecoming reception on Saturday.”
    Mac decided to get Lenore Adams back to the line of questioning that he’d planned to pursue. He could always track down Gina’s alleged affair through another source, a source that wasn’t also a suspect. “I heard that last Friday, Malwick and Thayer had a loud argument. Do you know anything about that? Something about the new computers not working?”
    Adams looked surprised. “Not working? What do you mean?”
    Before he could answer, Adams yelled, “JJ!”
    The girl instantly appeared in the office doorway. Mac wondered if she’d been listening to the conversation.
    “Have you heard any complaints about the new computer systems?”
    JJ shrugged her shoulders. “Yeah, a few. Did you know the Computer Doctors lost their maintenance contract?”
    “They didn’t lose it,” Adams snapped. “It’s frozen until the bookkeeping problem is fixed. Never mind that now. Who has computer complaints?”
    “The English, History, and Sociology departments lost data. Luckily their files were backed up by the university-wide system, so I walked them through recovery.”
    “How come I hadn’t heard any of this?” Adams said