Free No Police Like Holmes by Dan Andriacco

gets paved over for parking. Decker was in.
    â€œDon’t you know it’s a Saturday?” I joshed.
    â€œWhat the hell,” he said, “you think I work full professors’ hours - two classes a week and all summer off?”
    He had a printed form in one ham-like hand and a pen in another. Paperwork always makes him grumpy.
    Without waiting for an invitation, I sat myself in a stuffed chair in front of Decker’s Formica-topped desk. The desk is a huge thing, not elegant but practical. The framed photo on top pictured Decker’s wife and four kids. The girl, Cindy, is a student at St. Benignus. There wasn’t anything else on the desk except a LIEUTENANT J. EDGAR DECKER nameplate, a telephone, a laptop computer, a fancy pen holder, and a piggy bank made out of a coffee can by Decker’s third-grader.
    â€œHow’s Cindy doing, Ed?” I asked.
    â€œMostly B’s.”
    â€œGood.”
    â€œNot good enough. She’s smart, should be getting straight A’s. You didn’t come here to talk about my daughter’s academic career, Cody.”
    â€œWell, I did hope we could discuss this Chalmers Collection case. It’s kind of politically sensitive for me because of Ralph and the corporate sponsors and the bad press, if you see what I mean.”
    Decker grunted. He didn’t want to hear about campus politics.
    â€œSo,” I continued, “I was hoping you could tell me a little more than you did on the phone.”
    He exhaled a bushel of air. “Means of entry still unknown. Somebody got in and out of that room with the goods clean as a whistle. It’s weird, man.”
    â€œAnything else taken?”
    He shook his head. “No. Pfannenstiel ran the inventory for us last night and this morning. Spent hours on it.”
    â€œHow about fingerprints?”
    â€œPretty useless. We picked up partials from Chalmers and his wife and Pfannenstiel, of course, and a lot of unknowns. But hundreds of people must use that room every week.”
    â€œSo what’s your best hope?”
    â€œOff the record?”
    â€œSure.”
    â€œBeats me. A lot of crooks get nabbed when they try to fence the goods, but this time...” He shook his head again. I knew what he was thinking: No ordinary fence was going to handle this kind of merchandise.
    â€œCan’t you do something visible,” I said, “just so Ralph and his friends in the business community know that something’s being done?”
    â€œInvestigations aren’t supposed to be visible, Cody. But how about this: I can send my team in to interview everybody at this...”
    I scotched that idea before it was even out of his mouth. “No, thanks, Ed. There are a couple of people you might want to keep an eye on, though.” I explained about Hugh Matheson’s antagonism toward Woollcott Chalmers, apparently exceeded only by Graham Bentley Post’s lust for the Chalmers Collection.
    â€œSounds pretty thin for me to do anything,” Decker said.
    â€œI know,” I admitted gloomily. “Well, I’ll be seeing these people around. I’ll let you know if I come up with anything more solid.”
    â€œYeah, you do that.”

Chapter Eleven - Power Lunching
    So there I was, practically commissioned by Lieutenant Ed Decker himself to investigate this crime as well as challenged into it by Mac. And what had my brilliant brother-in-law been up to in the meantime?
    Lunch.
    At least, I assumed so. According to the agenda for the colloquium, chowing down had been underway for half an hour.
    I did a quick-step to Muckerheide Center, to the President’s Dining Room on the same floor as the Hearth Room. The luncheon crowd already had thinned out considerably from what it must have been, though, and Mac’s corpulent form was nowhere in view. Off sleuthing somewhere? Doubtful. I did see Bob Nakamora heavy into conversation with a student I recognized as one of