Rosalind famously loved animals and threw an abundance of parties for her rich friends to raise money for Living Ruff. That explained the charity’s annual donations of about $700,000, a tidy sum for such a small organization that had on staff one director, two full-time vets, several retired vets as on-call temps, a receptionist/vet tech, and a part-time cleaner.
It was still early, the sun barely risen, and Felicity hadn’t quite managed to get out of her cozy mellow-gray Lunya pajamas and into something befitting a corporate weekend warrior. She hunkered deeper into the warm blanket cloaking her on her couch and poked around a few more research websites on her phone.
She had determined it was unusual for any foundation to run its own charity hands-on rather than just cut a check to whichever organization did the closest work to what they endorsed. But apparently, Ms. Stone didn’t do anything by halves. Or perhaps she liked the power trip. After all, the board was headed by Rosalind and stacked entirely with her family and friends.
The director—the “sheepdog” Elena had mocked—was Rosalind’s husband, Harvey Clifford, an unremarkable man on the page with a background in bookkeeping who had married far above his station. Maybe his appeal would be obvious when Felicity met him, but so far she couldn’t see it. Little wonder, perhaps, that Rosalind had kept her own name after marrying the man.
A sound distracted her, and she glanced over to the balcony doors to see Loki creeping past on her way to the nearest lilly pilly.
Felicity’s eyes narrowed. “Hisss!” she called out loudly, flapping her arm to shoo her away.
Loki stopped, turned, met her eyes, then sat. And bold as brass began to lick her paws as though she hadn’t just been caught in the act of repeated interloping.
Picking up a cream and blue cushion, not even caring that its provenance was a French boutique…from actual France…Felicity hurled it at the glass, where it bounced off harmlessly.
Loki shot up the plant’s stem and disappeared into the ball of green at the top only to reappear a moment later, her white pom-pom face and huge eyes all that were visible.
“Oh, come on! You couldn’t even pretend to care I can see you?”
“Mreoow.”
“You’d better not use my lilly pillies as a litter box again, or I swear…”
What? What would I actually do?
Felicity sighed. Was it seriously the worst thing in the world if she couldn’t contain every element in her ordered life? She glanced back at the kitten. “Consider yourself lucky that I’m both solving a mystery and having an existential crisis.”
Loki merely ignored her and maintained her treetop vigil.
Giving up, Felicity returned to her work with a huff of annoyance. So far she’d dug up Living Ruff’s Form 990PF from last year. Charities had to supply these annual financial summaries to the Internal Revenue Service, which in turn posted the information online. With a final scan of the most recent 990 and still finding nothing obvious amiss, she called Thomas.
“Ms. Simmons?” came a disgruntled voice. “It’s six on a Sunday morning.”
“So it is. And if I were in Elena’s bad books for dropping the ball, I’d be very keen to get in her good books again by helping with a question she wants solved.”
That woke him up a little. “What question? What can I do?”
“Look into Living Ruff for me. Yourself this time.” She took another deep draft of hot chocolate. Not even close to the buzz her triple-shot espressos gave her, but she was trying to break bad habits. “Find out if they’re hiding anything.”
“What makes you think they are?”
“Elena donated $1.4 million last September. It’s only March, so too early for this year’s 990 to be submitted, which would show where that money went. But it went somewhere, if one news article is to be believed saying the charity’s about to fold. I need you to find out if they’ve been up to any funny business. Go back over all the 990s and anything else publicly available. You accountants know where all the figures are buried.”
“Yes, of course.”
“I need it COB Tuesday at the latest. Call me as soon as you know something.”
“There may be nothing to know. Peter’s preliminary investigation before Ms. Bartell donated found nothing irregular.”
“And Peter’s been in accounting for how long?”
Silence fell.
“Exactly. No wonder Elena is disappointed in you. So can I count on you, Thomas,” Felicity asked, voice silky, “to help Elena?”
“Of course.” Worry filled his voice at the reminder. “Always.”
“Good.” Felicity hung up without further ado.
* * *
“We’re here, ma’am,” Bartell Corp’s senior driver announced.
Felicity’s gaze flicked from her phone to the uninspiring washed-out two-story redbrick building in front of them. Graffiti tags littered the bottom of it. She sighed. Classy joint.
She glanced back at Amir as she gathered her things. It wouldn’t be long now and he’d be taking up Elena’s offer to relocate to Sydney to drive for her there. Quite the adjustment for him. Was it loyalty, Felicity wondered, or simply an opportunity for better weather that made him accept such an enormous lifestyle change?
Loyalty, probably. Elena had that effect on people.
Felicity found it hard to imagine anyone loyally dedicating themselves to her in the same way they did Elena. But honestly, as long as her staff did their jobs, she didn’t care whether they loved or hated her. She didn’t much think about them at all. It always shocked her that more people didn’t share her supremely logical view of the world.
It was still early, and the gleam of metal caught her eye. A grubby man with unwashed hair was shuffling past, pushing a shopping cart loaded with his possessions. He was the third homeless person she’d seen in as many minutes on the drive over. She pursed her lips. Would it kill someone to fix this situation? It was a failure of the system to have the South Bronx’s streets strewn with tired and miserable unfulfilled people pushing their worldly goods around. Honestly, how hard could it be to solve?
Next to the redbrick building was a vacant park, which seemed an ironic use of the word, since it had no trees or nature of any kind. Only concrete seating areas and a few square tables. What was its function? She frowned. Surely no one would willingly eat their lunch here to admire the view of—she squinted—three pawn shops, a donut establishment, and an eyewear office with a cracked window.
Illegally parked amidst all that concrete sat a white van half facing the street, marked Living Ruff. Well, it made sense they’d have their own vehicle, since outreach to the homeless was part of the charity’s mission statement.
She glanced back at the charity’s headquarters. A line of windows on the top level yielded no sign of life. The large shuttered window at the front below a worn sign that said Living Ruff NY also screamed “shut.”
