Free Partnerships Can Kill: The Third Charlie Parker Mystery by Connie Shelton

onions,
and coffee greeted me when I arrived at the restaurant.
Unfortunately, I still felt stuffed from the night before. I did
accept a cup of coffee from Sharon, as she let me into David's
office once again.
    The place appeared untouched since the last
time I'd been there. Apparently the police had made their decision
without a whole lot of checking into David's life. The messages
from Tom McDonald at the IRS were still where I'd left them. I
wondered if Sharon would mind if I called the man under the guise
of being the accountant for the restaurant. It would be a way of
finding out whether the business was involved or not. It was still
early, though. Maybe I'd be better off to search through the mess
in the office a bit further first.
    I opened the lower desk drawer and ran my
fingers through the file folders inside. One was labeled "taxes."
Inside, I hit the jackpot. The restaurant had received two notices
by mail of an impending audit. They were dated three months
earlier. The phone calls had probably come because David had not
responded to the audit notices. I was glad I'd discovered this
before calling and making a fool of myself. I wondered what other
little surprises the files would yield.
    Specifically, I was interested in seeing the
financials for the business. I found it odd that the IRS would
already be getting around to an audit for a business that had only
existed for a year. They don't normally move that fast. Unless
there was something obvious to arouse their suspicions. I rummaged
through the rest of the files in the drawer, but didn't come across
any income statements or balance sheets. A similar search of the
clutter on the desktop didn't turn them up either.
    By this time, the breakfast crowd had pretty
well thinned out, so I took Sharon aside.
    "Did David keep financial records any place
besides this room?" I asked.
    She looked thoughtful for a minute. "I don't
think so. He did all his work here. I'm not sure I ever saw him
even take anything home to do on a weekend, or anything."
    I thought about the apartment. There hadn't
been any filing cabinets, and the small desk had contained only
personal papers.
    "Were you aware that the IRS had initiated an
audit of the business?" I asked Sharon
    Her eyes drifted toward the floor. I wasn't
sure whether I just imagined the slight hesitancy.
    "You mean the phone messages on his desk? I
assumed that had something to do with David's personal taxes. I
didn't think the business was being audited."
    Something about her statement sounded weak to
me. I couldn't put my finger on it, but I sensed she wasn't being a
hundred percent open about this. Had she and David been up to some
funny business with the books?

    Chapter 11

    "I need to find copies of the financials,
Sharon. I've searched the desk drawer and the mess here on top. Do
you have any other ideas?"
    She shook her head. "What would this have to
do with David's death, anyway?"
    "Maybe everything." My voice came out
sounding harsher than I had intended, but dammit, I hate it when
people close up. "His cousin tells me that David was very nervous
about something. He got the feeling it was something
financial."
    I held out the IRS notices, and looked her
straight in the eyes. "Look, I didn't know David at all, so I'm
having to go by what everyone else tells me. Most people deal with
life's little financial crises, and somehow they cope. But some
people just can't handle it. David might have felt the whole thing
closing in on him, and he might have seen suicide as the only way
out. I know you don't want it to turn out that way, but it might
just be what happened."
    Her facial muscles remained motionless, but
two large puddles formed in her lower eyelids. I waited. Sometimes
silence is the best way to obligate the other person to speak.
    Finally, her shoulders sagged. "I don't know
about any of this, Charlie," she said, a sob escaping between the
words. "David kept most of the financial aspects of this business
to