Suspects

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Ryan leads me to the second floor of the building and I'm impressed when he strides into a decent sized office at the center of the hallway.

"F.B.I gets fancy privileges here, don't they?" I ask as I take in his paper covered desk and colorful white board that takes up an entire wall of his office. He smirks as he says, "I'm here to help on Poppy's case since the Hollis police department consists of about ten men. So yeah, I get a few upgrades."

I glance to his desk and say, "Well, when you get a permanent office, I will have to get you an obligatory silver framed picture of your girlfriend."

He laughs as he pulls something out from the side of his computer. He hands the small brown frame over to me and I see a press picture from Founder's Day beneath the glass panel. In the picture, Ryan and I are receiving our two-step trophy and we are smiling while holding hands. It's the first picture I've seen of us and we look pretty damn happy together.

"Margery over at The Herald dropped that by as a welcome to the neighborhood gift the first week I was here. They snapped that while covering Founder's Day," Ryan says as I stare at the heart-warming picture. I gotta love southern hospitality sometimes.

I hand the frame back to him and he sets it next to his computer again. I'm glad to see I have a space in his office.

"So what's up?" He asks me as I drop into a plush chair on the other side of his desk. My eyes gaze to his scribbles on the white board and I see he has Historical Society at the center with a big blue ring around it. I point to it and say, "Is that for Poppy's case?" He slightly turns to the white board and replies, "You probably shouldn't read any of that."

I look back to him and say, "Well I see you have the Historical Society circled. Have you questioned everyone from the club already?"

Ryan sits back into his computer chair and I note his reluctance to answer my question. I quickly add, "Maybe I should be more specific. Have you questioned Arthur Huxley yet?"

His emeralds narrow as he says, "What makes Arthur seem suspicious to you?"

"I can't put my finger on it exactly. But something seems off when it comes to him as Treasurer."

"What makes you say that?" Ryan asks and I shrug.

"He doesn't seem to be diligent in all of his duties. He's a stickler when it comes to spending the club's money but he isn't taking inventory of who is donating and how much is getting donated."

"What do you mean?"

I take a deep breath before I say, "According to Lucy, both Poppy and Arthur were in control of keeping tabs on guests, donations and charity funds. Now that Poppy is gone, we can't find a paper trail of who donated to the society back at the fundraiser last month. Arthur claims he just collected and deposited the funds but he didn't keep track of who it came from. Which to me, seems suspicious."

"Maybe he thought Poppy was keeping all of those records," Ryan says and I nod.

"Yes, which is another reason I am here. I didn't know if you could tell me if Poppy had any of the fundraiser's information on her laptop or if you found anything that looked like donor lists while searching her stuff."

Ryan stares at me for a moment before saying, "We found Historical Society documents on her laptop. I couldn't tell you exactly if it was donor lists or what exactly was found."

"You wouldn't know what to look for though," I say before asking, "Do you have any copies of what you found? I need to create a guest list for the re-opening and it would help to have the donor lists so I knew who to invite. This is why I am coming to you. If you don't have it, I have to go to her mother and I would rather not have to ask her to go through all of her dead daughter's things again."

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