“This is your friend from the college financial department,” Jack said. “Are these files from her office, do you think?”

“Probably,” I said. “It occurred to me that they might have something to do with the embezzlement scheme.”

“Could be,” he said. “I’ll get Ashok to look at them, too—if they’re related to the college financial system, he might recognize the formats. There is one thing I can tell you. If you look in the properties, you can see that Nadine Hanrahan’s the owner of some of these files.”

I was surprised at what a fierce sense of relief I felt at hearing Nadine’s name.

“Not Karen?”

“No. Of course, all that means is that they were created on Nadine’s computer,” he said. “And that’s just some of the files.”

Still, I wasn’t sorry at the possibility that the chief might be seeing something to implicate Nadine.

“Anything else I can help you with?” Jack asked.

I thought about it for a moment. It occurred to me to check on how accurate some of Sandie’s local scoop was.

“Okay, maybe this is a weird question,” I began.

“Weirder than usual, or just Meg weird?”

“If that’s an insult, I’m ignoring it.”

“Actually, it’s a compliment. What’s the question?”

“I need some information about an Aubrey Hamilton. That’s Aubrey, with a B.”

Keys rattled.

“I can find several of them,” he said. “What else do you know about him?”

“Well, that’s the question. Is he a him, or a her? The one that lives in Caerphilly County, that is, and has something to do with the Belle Glade Bird Farm.”

I heard keys rattling again.

“You’re right. Her. Ms. Aubrey Hamilton. Owns the property next to Hiram Bass’s—I see you’ve been meeting the neighbors. Widowed or divorced about five years ago—at least that’s when the property changed from joint ownership with a Martin Hamilton to sole ownership by her. Yes, obit for Mr. Hamilton around the same time. I’m not finding anything about a bird farm, though. Not anything current, anyway.”

“That’s odd. Then again, maybe she wouldn’t be inclined to advertise her business around here.”

“Like maybe she doesn’t have a business license?”

“You have such a devious mind. I was only thinking that maybe there isn’t a big market locally for canaries and cockatiels. Maybe she sells them wholesale to pet stores, or something. What would you do if you wanted to sell birds?”

“I’d put up a Web site, of course,” he said. “Which she hasn’t done.”

“But if you’re not very computer-oriented, maybe you go where the bird fanciers are. They must have shows and magazines and such. I can start there.”

“At a bird show?”

“At the bookstore. I’ll buy a few bird magazines. See what I can learn about canary farms and cockatiel breeders.”

“Sounds like a plan. Anything else I can do?”

“I’ll give you a call if I think of anything.”

Of course, as soon as I hung up, I thought of something else he could have done. But at least this computer chore was something I knew very well how to do. I went into the home office, turned on my computer, and logged into the real estate listing service Michael and I had used so much when we were trying to find a place to buy. I couldn’t help feeling a brief sense of relief that at least we weren’t back in the tiny basement apartment where Michael had lived during his bachelor days, struggling to find anything for sale in town that we could even hope to afford.