Too Sweet to Die by T. Doyle (the false prince .TXT) 📗

rings. The left one had a reading lamp and charging cord. The right nightstand had a bottle of water. “His charging cord is on the bedside table.” I picked up the cord, went to the front room and grabbed his tablet, and then returned to the office.

“What’s that?” Ray asked.

“His tablet. I tried to turn it on. It’s got a screen lock.” I put it on the bed with the textbooks.

Ray grunted and stacked piles on the desktop, one of photo envelopes, one with greeting cards, and a pile of USB cords and batteries. He handed me the cards. “Check through these for names of friends and family.”

“Okay.” I sat down on the bed and opened the first card. “You really think the sheriff won’t investigate?”

He scrubbed his hand over his face. “Anyone from the sheriff’s office come out to talk to you again?”

“No.”

“Ask to have the keys to investigate the cabin?” One eyebrow rose, and his rapid-fire questions urged rapid fire answers.

“No.”

“Ask you to stay out?”

“No.”

“Then yeah, they’re done. This place should have been dusted and taped off five minutes after you left. Nobody’s been in here but us.” He leaned back, the chair tilted too far, and he slapped his hand down on the desk to steady himself.

“Did you investigate many homicides?” I asked.

“Not too many. Mostly I broke up fights and filed stolen goods reports.” He turned back to the desk.

“Did you like it?” I asked.

“Nope.”

The curious in me wanted to ask why, and how he was shot, but I ignored that, because if he wanted to tell me he would. I could totally be less meddling and stop the momming.

He pushed the contents in the drawer around and then tossed a bunch of keys on top of the desk. He sorted through the other things, pulling out a few business cards and setting them on the desk. I hadn’t noticed the cards earlier.

He nodded and put the part back in the desk drawer. “Is this your desk?”

“No, Oscar bought it at a yard sale.”

“Uh-huh.” Ray pulled the drawer out of the socket, and examined the back and bottom. He reached his hand inside the drawer space and retrieved a crumpled paper.

I inched closer, holding my breath.

He flattened out the creases of the letter-sized paper. It was a syllabus for an English course. He added the syllabus to the toss pile. “Were you expecting a note from the killer?”

“It’d be nice,” I admitted. I was crowding Ray, and he was looking at me like I was an idiot. I ignored the heat of embarrassment slinking up my neck.

I read through the cards Oscar saved. “Besides the ones from my family, there’s a couple of Christmas cards from his Nana Robles. It looks like Oscar started saving birthday cards when he turned ten. I found one for every year, until he was eighteen. He has one from his parents, and one from each set of grandparents. On his eighteenth birthday, only his Nana Robles sent him a card.”

“What happened?” Ray faced me.

“He came out to his parents. They kicked him out. He still had three months of high school left. Luckily, he’d been working part-time and bought a car on his own. We offered him the cottage, rent-free, and helped him move in.”

Ray frowned. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you were close to Oscar. I just thought he was your tenant.”

“He went to school with Ann and Drew. He was Drew’s teammate and in his Boy Scout troop for years. When we heard about his situation, we helped.”

Ray scrubbed his beard. “Let me see the note with the initials again.”

The abrupt change of subject stopped me from getting morose. I handed the note to Ray.

“Did Oscar work part-time at Tyler’s?”

“Yes, during the school year, full-time over the breaks. Tyler gave him a part-time job in high school. I really thought Oscar wanted to be a lawyer, but he studied marketing instead.”

“Do you think he has student loans?” Ray handed the paper back to me.

“Yes. He refused to let us pay tuition.” I pointed to the first line of the note. “The first line could be $12,000 in student loans.”

“Does that sound right? How much is tuition these days?”

“In-state with scholarships is about that. And if this is a ledger and these are payments, then he still owes $6800.” I pointed to the numbers with initials. “But where is he getting the payments from? And why pay it off now? Student loans aren’t due until after you graduate.”

Ray handed me a folder. “Check through his tax returns. See if you can find how much he was paid by Tyler.”

I took the folder and flipped through the paperwork. It was a paper-version of a junk drawer with manuals, receipts, and his tax returns.

“Do you recognize this place?” Ray waved a photo of a mailbox with clematis tangled around the post.

“No.”

“Was Oscar taking a photography class? The rest of the pictures are around town, too.” Ray squinted at one and flipped to the next.

“He never mentioned a photography class, and I never saw him with a camera either.”

I found Oscar’s W2 from last year in the folder. I scanned the numbers. “He made $10,000 from Tyler last year.”

Ray studied the ceiling. “That’s close to $700 a month, for the .7 net line.”

“Maybe.” I closed the folder and put it on top of the textbooks and tablet.

“Bring those back to your place, too.”

I opened the closet and found an empty wardrobe box, nestled behind four folded boxes. I pulled out the smallest box. “Did you find packing tape?”

“Yeah.” He pulled a business card stuck to the roll of packing tape off and then handed it to me.

I taped the bottom of the box and packed the books, cards, tablet, and tax folder.

Ray spread out the business cards on the desk. “Did Oscar like sports?”

“He watched them on TV. He played soccer with Drew, but he wasn’t exactly an athletic type.”

“Uh-huh. This is the third card from a casino. Most people don’t get