Free A Body to Die For by Kate White

the cheek before he left, but she stood there motionless, as though she were playing a game of freeze tag.
     As soon as I heard George’s footsteps at the far end of the corridor, I asked her gently if everything was okay.
    “I don’t want to burden you, Bailey,” she said. “You’ve been dragged into this mess enough.”
    “It’s not a burden, Danny. Please.”
    “It’s just… well, George didn’t stay near Boston last night. He drove back and spent the night at
our
house. He was there during this whole terrible mess. After you left this morning, I called the house to leave a message for
     him, and I almost died when he picked up the phone.”
    “Why did he change his plans?” I asked evenly, trying not to reveal that the hairs on the back of my neck were now standing
     at attention.
    “Apparently dinner fell through at the last minute, and he decided to just get in the car and drive straight back. He got
     in around eleven, and he says that since I’d told him I had the start of a headache and was going to turn in early, he was
     afraid to call and wake me. I know he was simply thinking of me, but the whole thing just upsets me.”
    I didn’t like what I was hearing. For starters, I’d learned the hard way to react with alarm whenever a man overexplains or
     uses the expression “I was afraid to….” George’s rationalizations might bug me even on an ordinary day, but this was no ordinary
     day. A woman had been murdered last night, and George had been missing in action. Yet I didn’t want to say anything that would
     freak out Danny. I’d have to keep my eye on George and let my gut guide me.
    “You’re going to need George big-time over the next weeks,” I offered. “Why don’t you just chalk up last night to crossed
     signals and move on?”
    My words of semi-reassurance appeared to calm her instantly, and she relaxed back in her chair. I asked her if she was up
     for digging into the financial records. She insisted that she was, and I went through what Bud had told me, suggesting that
     we start by looking at all the vendors used by the spa. If we saw anything suspicious, we’d pull out the actual bills.
    While she accessed the computer files we needed, I pushed the office door shut and dragged an extra chair back around next
     to hers. For the next half hour, we reviewed the list of all the vendors used by the spa and how much they’d been paid. There
     were suppliers of everything from massage tables and oils to candles and heating pads, and Danny was familiar with many of
     them because she’d been intimately involved in the initial setup of the spa. I asked her how the billing process worked, and
     she explained that when an invoice came in for something used exclusively by the spa, it was given to Josh for his authorization
     and then initialed by the business manager.
    “It sounds to me like you’re pretty on top of this,” I said.
    “Yes and no,” she replied. “I’m a good businesswoman. But I’ve gotten sloppy looking at things related to the spa because
     Josh has done such a great job. I used to initial the bills, but I don’t anymore.”
    In the end we spotted no red flags. There were at least a dozen vendors Danny
didn’t
recognize, but she said it was perfectly reasonable that Josh would have added new vendors over time, based on the needs
     of the spa. And as she pointed out, none of the checks cut to the new vendors were for an excessive amount.
    “It’s still worth investigating,” I said. “Is it possible for you to glance at these bills today and see if they look kosher?”
    “The business manager is off Saturdays, but I can go through the bills in his office. It’s all pretty organized.”
    What
I
wanted to do, I told her, was go through the files of all spa employees.
    “There’s not much in them,” she said. “Just their application, reference letters, some insurance stuff.”
    “That’s okay. You never know what might jump out. By the way, this