Page 33 of Ghostly Bother
"What's wrong?" Franks stopped what he was doing and gave Angus his full attention.
"I don't know. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but I think Lance is pissed off that I asked him to talk to Eden. He got really quiet, then hung up on me with an excuse that he was busy." Angus shook his head. "Maybe he was busy, but it just felt like he was angry."
"Didn't you say his boss is on vacation and Lance is in charge this week?" Franks stood to refill his coffee. "Want some?"
Angus held out his mug. "Yeah, but he's never just hung up on me. Eden's been a pain, refusing to give us names or incriminating anyone she might have been working with. I didn't think it was that bad, but she keeps trying to insist Lance push me for information. He keeps telling her to hang out here if she wants to know what's going on." He took the cup of coffee Franks handed him. "Thanks."
"You need to run over there and talk to him?" Franks asked.
"Nah, if he is mad, I don't want to make it worse. And I really don't want to fight at work. It can wait until I get home later tonight. I just hate wondering if he's mad at me. We don't fight. I mean, we've had little arguments, but never anything I'd call a fight. This feels different."
"You're probably being paranoid. He's busy at work, and yeah, Eden's a pain, but I can't see him letting her get between the two of you. Go home on time tonight, get some take out for dinner so neither of you have to cook, and talk through it. I'm sure he's just stressed with Sam gone."
"You're probably right." Angus forced himself to refocus, though he couldn't rid himself of the feeling something was wrong. "So where are we on the case?"
"Interview with Cascade Electric CEO in ten minutes. He's one of the companies the audit found was offering bribes for contracts. Should be interesting since the audit report isn't out publicly and companies don't know yet whose names are involved. I'll let you play bad cop."
Angus laughed. "Won't be hard. I'm so tired of this case. Not to mention upset that any company would bribe another for contracts. I know it happens, but the best thing we can do is make sure the public is aware of everything once this is over so not only do these companies face criminal charges, but they lose all standing in the community as well."
"Yeah, I think we'll see a lot of businesses go bankrupt in the next year. Ones most thought were too big to fail. Cheat your way to the top and you fall hard." Franks tossed a wrapped candy at Angus. "Suck on that. Get the frown off your face, and your head on work. Things will be fine once you get home."
"I hope you're right." Angus took the candy and unwrapped it. All he could do was his job and let personal things wait until he had the time to deal with them. As badly as he wanted to think Lance had just been busy, he knew better. Something was wrong and he'd made it worse. He couldn't wait to get home and figure out exactly what was going on and find a way to fix it.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Lance glanced at Eden as he drove home. She sat in the passenger seat of his car, having not left his side all day. He was so tired. Other than when he went into the bathroom, she'd been by his side. At least today, she hadn't been talking the whole time, though she'd spent a lot of time questioning him on things or asking him to call Angus for any updates.
He'd hoped her being nice to the ghost who'd overdosed would mean she was changing her ways and having a bit of empathy for others, but he'd been wrong. She'd gone on a tantrum about how much drug addiction was costing the city and how much more money there would have been if she hadn't had to deal with cleaning up the streets and rehabilitation. While he agreed with her, he wasn't angry about it. It was something every city had to deal with. Their growing city wasn't as bad as other bigger areas around them.
Jeremy had shown up right before Lance was about to head home and explained he'd been helping Isaac follow his son around the last few days. Lance had the feeling Isaac reminded Jeremy of his father and some kind of friendship had formed between the two of them. While glad for it, he really missed having Jeremy around the morgue to run interference with Eden. He'd tried to get Eden to stay with Jeremy for the night, but she'd refused, insisting that she had to be with him in case Angus learned something. He was never going to get rid of her.
"Will Angus be home early?" Eden asked.
"I have no idea. I haven't talked to him since he called to ask if you were ready to give us some names to work with," Lance told her.
"I told you that I wasn't going to get anyone in trouble."
"Trust me, I know what you've said. I've told Angus what you've said. I don't know why he bothered calling to ask. We all know you're not willing to help solve your murder."
"I'll help, but I'm not taking others down at the same time," Eden objected.
"One of them might have killed you. It's not as if all those companies won't face charges later anyway. The audit will show who you were accepting bribes from. You could just save the police the time of having to weed through the audit or wait for information."
"I don't want anyone to blame me for their downfall," Eden argued.
"Then you shouldn't have broken the law with them. Besides, I've told you fifty times you're dead. No one is going to blame you or even think you're involved in how the police get their information. If you'd just tell us everything, we could weed through it and see if anything leads the police to your killer."
"No, I'm not going to do that. I might be dead, but I made promises to those people. We have a mutual trust that I won't break. I don't think one of them killed me. Why would they? They were getting rich off the contracts they got from me. As for the ones I didn't work with or quit working with, there were only two, and neither of them would risk everything they have on killing me. What good would it do? It's not as if a new mayor is going to make the same deals I did. The next mayor might do things by the book, then no one profits."
"Except the city of Fairway," Lance glared at her. "Maybe a group of underpaid city workers got together and planned your death. I know I get murderous when I see how much medical examiners in other cities make compared to my salary."
"You guys have everything you need. Not a single department went without. As for wages, if you don't like it, you can move." Eden shrugged.
Lance was furious. "Oh, sure. That might be possible for some, but most the city workers have families here. You want them to just pick up and have both parents change jobs, take kids away from their schools, from their friends? The whole time you're saying this is okay for others, you're breaking the law, and bringing in probably three times the amount of your normal wage."
Eden laughed. "Do you really think I'd risk going to jail for that little money? Trust me, I was making a lot more than that."
"Then where is it? I heard your personal accounts were larger than they should be with what you and your husband made, but not by much." Lance narrowed his eyes. "Overseas accounts?"
