Poisonous Paws: The Secret Library Cozy Mysteries by CeeCee James

Author:CeeCee James [James, CeeCee]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-09-28T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

That night at bedtime, Hank climbed on my lap and, in the process, blocked my view of the phone. He sniffed the screen. I swear he wanted to see what was so interesting that stole my time away from him.

Mikey needed money, didn’t he? I remembered the desperate expression on his face when he tried to sell the car. And that black eye….I sighed, and Hank licked my finger.

Dwayne’s Dealership. Mikey said he had been there for ten years. I decided to reach out to the manager. Maybe I could pretend to be hiring Mikey and was searching for a referral.

I checked the time. Nine o’clock was pretty late, but I figured I could leave a message. I looked up the number for the manager, a guy named Carl, and made the call. As it rang, it occurred to me this guy could be the man Mikey met with earlier. That would be awkward, and I rethought the message wording.

Surprise jolted through me when a man answered the phone. “Carl, here.”

“H-hello,” I stammered, my little script erasing from my head. “I didn’t expect anyone to answer.”

“You called me, I answered. We have late hours in the summer.”

“Oh, I see.” His voice sounded different than Mikey’s friend’s. It gave me the bolster I needed to bluff like crazy. “Mike Dee left your name as a reference. I wanted to ask you about his character as a work reference.”

“Wow. I’m surprised Mikey used me as a referral.”

I winced. I should have realized Mikey left the job poorly. There was nothing to do but to forge ahead and keep up the sham. “So it says here that he worked there two years ago?”

“Two years? That’s it? I feel like it was much longer than that.”

“I see.” Strike two. I struggled to come up with the next question. Lucky for me, Carl carried on.

“Good ol, Mikey.” He chuckled. I eased out a breath and felt hopeful. “He wasn’t all that bad. In fact, in the beginning, his performance was quite impressive. I had every expectation he would move right up in the company.”

“Really?”

“Sure, he was always on time, informative, inventive. The guy took care of himself, too, in shape, health-conscious. Used to nag me about my fast food meals.”

That had me cringing since it didn’t match the man I saw staggering about on the front porch. “Really? Did he drink?” There it was, smooth me giving up more information than a prospective boss ought to know.

Luckily, Carl didn’t catch on.

“Yeah, we’d go out for a few after work. All of us guys did. It was a great way to let off some steam after dealing with customers all day. But he never let it get out of hand, other than a few losses at pool.”

“So why isn’t Mikey there now?”

“Usual story. Personal problems. In the end, his troubles brought him down. They turned out to be more than he could handle.”

“I see. His family?”

Now he was catching on. “What’s it to you?”

“We have a good counseling program.

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