I jumped when my phone rang, then smiled. Detective Michael O’Hare and I were a couple, although his job had kept him busy the last few nights. Besides, dealing with a grumpy sick person didn’t translate to romantic evenings. He did stop and bring me chicken soup though.
“Hi, Michael. How are you?”
He groaned. “Busy. You sound better. I hoped to stop by, but I may not make it.” He grunted. “We got an anonymous call directing us to Old Country Road. When Lahomes and Marina got there, they found a man, dead. Still trying to figure out who he is.”
“Oh, my.”
“I’ll catch up with you later.”
A quick check to see if anything popped up on alerts yielded no information, and I groaned when I opened my email. After being out sick both Friday and Monday with the flu, there were too many messages and each one required a response of some sort. Part of my grumpiness I blamed on allergies and a sinus infection. The rest was the day to day tedium of my job as HR Specialist at Foster’s Insurance.
I felt better, but not up to par. I scanned my email to see which would be simple and quick. My eyebrows rose when I spotted one from Lionel Smythe. He served as the chair, the overseer, and attorney for a foundation for women who were victims of domestic violence.
Set up by my late husband, Ted Noth, the foundation focused on education, services, and prevention related to domestic violence. I served as the co-chair as stipulated in Ted’s will, along with J. Colton Stewart. Ted had been Colton’s attorney dealing with theft of intellectual property at Colton’s technology corporation.
Lionel had also included Colton on this too short email. “Need to call a meeting. Let me know your availability.” That was followed by a scheduler app with dates and times for the next week.
I left the app up and replied all.
“What’s the purpose of the meeting, Lionel?”
Once I hit send, I studied the scheduler. Not a morning person, I confirmed late afternoon ones. I could do morning yoga, not morning people. Done, I hit submit and moved on. My phone pinged. It was Lionel.
“Stacie, we have a problem. Can you meet me some place? Starbucks?”
The man knew my weakness for skinny mocha latte. “Lunch? What’s up?”
“Noon. The one on Main Street. I’ll explain it when I see you.”
He disconnected.
I stared at my phone like it had the answers to all my questions. A glance at the clock, and I quickly let my friends know I had other plans for lunch. Most days, Jillian, Trina, Ronnie, and I ate at the table in my office, avoiding the noisy cafeteria.
Jillian, my best friend since college, worked in contracts and made sure I ate something nutritious. Trina in IT made sure all of us stayed connected, sometimes engaging her special, albeit questionable, skills. She was the bright and colorful friend.
Ronnie was the latest addition to our group. She’d worked for my husband, Ted, when he was murdered. She left that law practice and joined us at Foster’s. With a toddler, she rarely joined us for social events. Still, she’d taken up the gauntlet to teach me to cook.
Each of my friends replied to my message with some version of “why” and I answered, “Foundation business. Later.”
Before I left, my curiosity won out and I checked for another alert. O’Hare hadn’t mentioned the cause of death. Possibly, the man had a heart attack. Or was he murdered?
As I rushed out, Rosie tsked. “Having lunch with the hunky detective?”
Rosie’s my administrative assistant, an older lady who reminds me of Rosemary Clooney. She also has a crush on O’Hare.
“Afraid not, Rosie. See you after lunch.”
It was a short drive to Starbucks and I joined Lionel inside. An impressive attorney, he was short and slim, with a crewcut. As always, he wore a suit with a bowtie.
We ordered and sat down.
I chuckled. “This is much better than the place with tables and chairs that looked like vegetables.” We’d met there once and the furniture distracted me. “What’s the problem?”
His hands shook and he shredded his napkin. He glanced around and leaned forward. He whispered. “Someone left a message on the foundation line. About one of the grants we awarded last year. The caller claimed the agency overspent their budget and not all for the goals of the grant.”
“Don’t they turn in quarterly reports or something?” At Foster’s Insurance, I had to run weekly, monthly, and quarterly reports.
“We do get reports with outcome data throughout the year. We have a record of how many people attended the educational sessions, for example, and their evaluation of the programs. The agency that added more trauma staff? They provided us with numbers of persons treated, whether they returned to the abuser or not, if they filed a police report, how many sessions they attended, and pre-/post- measures of self-worth, anxiety, and depression, if possible. As for budget, it’s an annual report and the year isn’t up yet.”
“I think the obvious solution is to ask for all grantees to submit a financial report. And make sure for all future grants, there is a financial report along with the outcome report quarterly. In their grant application, they indicated how the money would be spent. It shouldn’t be hard to determine if they did what was approved.”
“I know. I wanted to run it by you and Colton first. The meeting is to be sure we’re all on the same page for the next round of grants. At least one of those agencies with a grant already contacted me to see if they could get a renewal. We’ve never discussed that possibility.”
“Okay. Check in with Colton on this, but my suggestion? You email all three agencies we gave money to and ask for an itemized report of their spending to date, ASAP. You can frame it in the context of the next round of applications.”
“Thank you. I’ll check with Colton.” He leaned back.
We finished lunch and I drove back to work. I chuckled as I got off the elevator and found O’Hare waiting at Rosie’s desk.
“Hi, Detective. Is there a problem?”
“I need to touch base with you. Besides I missed you.”
He leaned over and kissed me.
Rosie squealed. For a long time, we’d hidden our relationship from her. That all ended when she caught him kissing me and likened it to kissing Santa Claus.
“Let’s go to my office and you can fill me in.”
Excerpt from Ventures, Vengeance & Murder. Copyright © 2025. All rights reserved.
