Free The Red Brick Cellars: A Tolosa Mystery by R.W. Wallace Page B

attention. She picked up the ruined envelope with shaking hands to double-check the lack of return address and search for a note accompanying the photos. Nothing. She put the envelope back down on her desk and shoved her hands between her thighs to make them stop shaking. A few deep breaths and Catherine set into action. She picked up her phone and pressed speed-dial to ring her boss.
    “What?” Mathieu replied on the second ring.
    “I have something big,” Catherine said. Her voice shook. She cleared her throat. “Can you come to my desk, please?”
    A storm sounded in Catherine’s ear as her boss blew into his phone. “I’m really busy, Catherine. You come in here.”
    Heart still going at top speed, Catherine forced her voice to stay calm. “I don’t want to touch this any more than I already have, Mathieu. I’m going to call the police when I’m done talking to you, but I thought perhaps you’d want a look before they get here.”
    Two seconds of silence. “I’ll be right there.” He hung up.
    Mathieu loomed in front of Catherine’s desk. “This better not be a prank,” he warned. One ill-considered joke and she was apparently also labeled a prankster now.
    Catherine pointed at the photos on her desk. “I just received this.” When her boss reached out to pick up the one closest to him, she stopped him. “Please don’t touch. The police are going to want to run fingerprints.”
    Her boss frowned, but complied. He walked around the desk to stand behind her, then leaned over to study the photographs. “Is that…?”
    “Yes,” Catherine whispered. “The dead mayor.”
    He eyed the remains of the envelope and the rest of her desk. “You haven’t told anyone?”
    “No, I called you at once.” Narrowing her eyes at her boss in suspicion, she added, “And I’m calling the police right now so they can check this for fingerprints.”
    “Of course you are,” Mathieu replied, but he tapped two fingers on his chin, his mind clearly elsewhere. “I’ll get Clément over here to secure a copy of the pictures before the police take them away.” He nodded to himself, the impressive muscles of his neck flexing. “And Arnaud will need to see it for—”
    “Oh no,” Catherine interrupted. “Not happening. This was addressed to me. I’ll be the one to do the article.” She got out of her chair to make her boss’s height a little less imposing, making sure to stay between him and the pictures.
    Mathieu stared at her, his jaw-muscles clenched. His arms were hanging down to his sides in that way rugby players had; hands not touching anything since the muscles of their arms forced everything away from the torso.
    Catherine stood her ground. “I’d rather throw the pictures in the trash than give them to Arnaud.” She pointed in the general direction of Arnaud’s desk. “He can continue to cover the political impact of Monsieur Saint-Blancat’s death and I’ll follow this lead, which will focus on going after the killer, not the repercussions on the city of Toulouse.”
    Her boss breathed out heavily. “Fine. But you run everything by me before showing it to anybody else.” He pointed at Catherine and leaned closer so she could smell the minty Tic Tacs he was so fond of on his breath. “And you be nice to the Saint-Blancat family, both during research and when writing the article. Pierre Saint-Blancat was on very good terms with le Midi Républicain , and I intend to honor his memory.”
    “Fine,” Catherine replied. She briefly wondered how her boss intended to honor the old mayor’s memory while publishing a photo of his dead naked body, but decided to bring that up when it was time for publication.
    Satisfied, Mathieu moved off to tell Clément to copy the pictures without touching them, and Catherine picked up the phone to call the police. While she explained to the man on the other end of the line, she couldn’t help keep a smile from spreading across her face. She hoped the smile