Confessions of a Red Herring

by Dana Dratch

  Walters shook his head. “I’m afraid that’s not going to cut it, Miss Vlodnachek. Everett had been concerned about your work performance for some time. He had decided, after your little outburst on Friday, that your services were no longer required here. I’m afraid I have no choice but to honor his wishes.”

  Was he kidding? Trying to pass the buck to a dead man? Even for C&W, that was a new low.

  “The only thing I did Friday night was tell Everett Coleman that I would not sleep with one of his clients.”

  The hand cracked against my cheek so fast I never saw it coming. If Margaret Coleman ever decided to give up being a comptroller, she could make a bundle on the MMA circuit. I couldn’t feel the left half of my face.

  I took a step back and kept her in my line of sight. She wasn’t going to catch me off guard again.

  Walters just shook his head sadly. “I’m very sorry you feel the need to make up stories, especially about a good man who isn’t even here to defend himself.”

  “Margaret’s doing a pretty good job in the defending department,” I said, rubbing my cheek. How much would it hurt when the feeling came back?

  Walters put his hands behind his back and bent forward slightly, using a conspiratorial tone. “Whatever else you may have done, you clearly have no respect for this firm, our clients, or even the truth. You are no longer welcome here, and you need to leave immediately.”

  Now I was pissed. And sorry that there was a closed conference room door between me and that digital recorder. There’s no way it would pick up this little conversation. I shot a glance at Margaret to make sure I was still out of arm range before I let fly.

  “Let me get this straight. You’re firing me for not sleeping with a client? Are you aware of a little thing called the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission? It maintains that I can expect to keep my job without turning myself into a whore. And if my employer should try to turn me into a whore, then I can sue and take every nickel, every dime, and every stick of furniture in his overpriced office. And just so we’re clear, I’ve already told the police everything that went on at that client dinner Friday night. Every. Single. Thing.”

  Walters pushed the owlish black frames up onto the bridge of his nose and acted as if he hadn’t heard me. “You have shown a total lack of regard for this woman, your boss’s widow. You are unqualified. You have been completely unwilling to even attempt to learn this business. You obviously don’t understand your role here. And, frankly, you haven’t gelled with the team.”

  He paused to nudge his glasses again. “I’ve also heard some very disturbing reports that you have, to put it mildly, conflicting loyalties.”

  I glanced over at Margaret. She was serene again, listening intently.

  “Conflicting loyalties? I told Everett Coleman there was no way in hell I was going to sleep with a client. There’s absolutely nothing conflicted about that.”

  Walters shook his head. “My partner wanted you to move on because, aside from being incapable of doing your job, he had also learned that you hadn’t left your former employer.”

  OK, at this point, Margaret could have hauled off and hit me again, and I wouldn’t have felt a thing.

  “We can’t prove that you did what the police believe you did,” he said evenly. “Though they seem to be making excellent progress on the case. Regardless, since you never truly worked for us, you may want to think long and hard before you apply for unemployment. Fraud is something that we, and the government, take very seriously.

  “I should also let you know that I’m having the firm’s attorneys look into possible sanctions against you. If you persist in spreading this malicious gossip, we’ll have to add slander, and possibly libel, to our list of grievances.”

  “You’re suing me?” Un-freaking-believable.

  He nodded. “We’re in the process of documenting the fact that you never left the employ of that newspaper. An exposé on the public relations industry, indeed. At the very least, we’ll expect you to return the salary we’ve paid you. Depending on what sorts of irregularities our people uncover, we may also have to contact some friends of mine at the IRS.

  “Of course, if you or some minor editor made a mistake, I’m sure the leadership at your newspaper will do the right thing once we bring this to their attention. But if they continue to keep you on, they’ll be liable for much harsher reprisals. Ones which we’ll have no choice but to pursue.”

  Son of a bitch! He wasn’t just firing me. He was making sure that the editors at my old paper could never rehire me. If they did, they’d give credence to his inane story. And open themselves up to a huge lawsuit.

  The chunk of chocolate in my stomach had turned to lead. There was no truth to any of this. But once the rumors started, my career would be over. I’d be radioactive. No paper would touch me. Ditto any public relations firm.

  In the cutthroat world of P.R., killing the boss could be overlooked if you brought in the bucks. But penning an insider exposé was a definite no-no.

  “I suspect, since my partner was a very smart man, he may have had even more documentation than we currently possess. That may very well be why you killed him.”

  Margaret, playing the moment for all it was worth, clamped her hands to her face and staggered away.

  I was tempted to blurt out that each of them had a better motive. Along with a few of the juicy details. But the reporter in me wanted solid evidence—real proof—before I revealed what I knew.

  “That’s a lie. And you both know it.”

  “There is a security guard waiting in your office,” Walters said, reaching for the conference room doorknob. “Please gather your things and leave.”

  Chapter 8

  After a rough week, or particularly bad day, the gang at the newspaper would usually go out for a beer. So what do you do when you’ve had the worst day in recent memory, you’re totally alone, and it’s not even 11 A.M.?

  After a night of no sleep, I decided to go home. To bed. And, depending on how things looked in twenty-four hours, I might get up then.

  Someone must have taken pity on me because when I got home, the house was empty. Quiet. Peaceful.

  I headed straight for my bedroom and locked the door. I didn’t want to deal with Nick. Or Gabrielle. And definitely not the two of them together. I just wanted sleep.

  I changed into a plaid flannel nightie (and I use the term loosely), that Baba gave me for Christmas five years ago. “Keep you warm ’til you get man,” she had said with a wink.

  It hung like a sack, covering me from neck to ankles. Lest anyone forget I was a girl, there was a ruffle around each wrist and another around the hem. “Good, sturdy cloth. Last long time. Won’t shrink,” Baba had said proudly.

  God forbid it should shrink. Someone might actually be able to find me in it.

  But I loved it. It was soft. Comfortable and comforting, like a hug from Baba. And right now, I needed it.

  I flipped on the TV to some generic talk show, just for background noise, curled up in a ball, and pulled the coverlet up over my shoulders. I fell asleep almost instantly.

  But even my dreams were tortured. First, I was back in college, taking a test for a class I’d never attended. Later, thin, ugly gray monsters with owlish glasses were chasing me. The faster I ran, the closer they got. At one point, I was at Everett Coleman’s funeral. Except they had him laid out on the bar at The Barclay. He sat up in his coffin, pointed at me, and announced that I had killed him. I dropped my martini glass, and it shattered into a hundred pieces.

  Somehow, I sensed that the sound of breaking glass had come from outside my dream. Outside my door. I sat bolt upright in bed, heart pounding.

  “Nick? Gabrielle?” Dead silence.

  I called again, thinking they must not have heard me. “Nick? Is that you?” No answer, but a definite scuffling sound. And something that sounded like heavy breathing.

  Oh, shit.

  Had whoever killed Coleman come for me?

&nb
sp; Normally, I’d phone the cops. But after yesterday, I was half afraid that if I called attention to myself, they’d find a reason to lock me up for good.

  I also didn’t want to be murdered in my bed. I grabbed the phone off the table. Who could I call? Everyone I knew was at work, hours from here. Nick was God-knows-where. We didn’t have Neighborhood Watch. And all my neighbors thought I was Jackie the Ripper.

  I reached under the bed and pulled out my father’s old Louisville Slugger, picking off dust bunnies. Dad didn’t believe in guns, especially with a house full of kids. But he did believe that the sight of a six-foot-two-inch, former college lacrosse star swinging a league-approved bat would deter most potential perpetrators. And he’d been right.

  So I wasn’t six two, and I’d never played lacrosse. I could still do some damage. Besides, it made me feel a little less alone.

  The house was still. The scuffling had ceased.

  Click. Click. Click. Click. Like someone drumming fingernails on my hardwood floors. And it was getting closer. Then it stopped.

  Silence. I clutched the bat tighter and dialed 9-1 on the phone.

  Scratching. Someone was actually scratching at my bedroom door. Half of me wanted to throw it open and let whoever-it-was have it with the baseball bat. The other half wanted to dive out the bedroom window.

  Rowr! Rowr! Rowr! Rowwwwwrrr?

  I went to the door, opening it a crack. It was snowing. In my house.

  Something small and furry ran past, dragging something bigger, as it rained down white fluff outside my door.

  A second glance revealed that the larger mystery object was actually one of my couch cushions. The pricey ones that came with the couch. And the smaller something was a dog. A little, fawn-colored puppy who was tugging, gnawing, and jumping on said cushion. Making it snow all the harder.

  I sagged against the doorjamb, leaned the bat against the wall, and forced myself to start breathing again.

  “Hey,” I said, addressing myself to my furry intruder. “Do you mind?

  I think I’d have been less surprised to confront a space alien. “And where did you come from, anyway?”

  Really, where? The neighbor’s yard? The chimney? FedEx? To paraphrase the old rap song, “Who let the dog in?”

  He paused and considered me for a split second. Then he trotted down the hall, turned and ran pell-mell toward the cushion. At the last second, he pounced—sending another wave of stuffing into the air.

  “Ruff! Rowr? Rrrrr!” With his teeth, he tugged at a piece of stuffing still stubbornly attached to the pillow. The devil dog had oversized white ears that seemed to move independently, like fuzzy satellite dishes. Along with a single-minded hatred of my sofa.

  Sporting a green cloth collar with two tags, he had to belong to somebody. I bent down and fingered the tags. The first one stated that his name was “Lucy.”

  OK, her name.

  The second proclaimed that Lucy had been vaccinated for rabies. Well, good for her. But what was she doing in my house?

  Lucy pulled away, sniffed at the baseboard, then squatted and peed. Finished, she glanced over at me and bounded off.

  “Damn!”

  Heading to the kitchen for paper towels, I surveyed the wreck that had been my living room. The breaking glass I’d heard? A crystal vase that had been in my mother’s family for generations.

  My sofa cushions were scattered across the floor—an amazing feat considering that they were three times the size of the dog. A second one had been gnawed so badly that there was a trail of stuffing across the living room.

  And right smack dab under the middle of my oak and glass coffee table, nestled on a peach-colored throw rug, was a small pile of poo. A little hostess gift from my uninvited guest.

  Pretty much the only thing she hadn’t vandalized: a tower of mailing boxes in the corner that hadn’t been there earlier this morning. I examined the one on top. Still sealed, it was addressed to a name I didn’t recognize. Odd.

  There was no sign of Lucy the Destroyer as I slammed around the house cleaning up various messes—literal and figurative. Not a bark, not a whine, not a growl. Not even the “click, click, click” of her malicious little nails on my polished hardwood floors. Which was a good thing because I was royally pissed and making no secret of it.

  I shoved the bigger pieces of stuffing and foam back into the cushions, and followed the trail of foam crumbs with the vacuum cleaner. But I had to shut it off to move one overstuffed chair away from the wall. That’s when I found her.

  Wedged between the chair and the wall, she’d made a nest with the blue cotton blanket I’d left on the sofa when I fled the house this morning. She was curled into a ball, head to tail, quivering. Next to her were a few of the treasures she’d pilfered during her stay. One of my running shoes. An empty pie plate that hadn’t been totally empty when I tossed it in the trash last night. An old gym sock—Nick’s?—with a hole in it. And the stuffed toy I kept in my home office to squeeze or throw in times of angst. One plush ear was damp and ragged from chewing but, other than that, Stress Bunny was remarkably unscathed.

  Lucy raised her head, looked at me, heaved a big sigh, and set her head down on her paws again.

  I stroked the back of her head. One ear rotated. I gave it a scratch. She sighed again. A little less dejected this time?

  I patted her soft, silky back. Her fur was the color and texture of a young doe. Reddish golden brown. Velvety.

  “Look, I don’t know where you came from, although I have a pretty good idea. But I’m sorry I was so grumpy. I’ve had a very bad day, and that’s not your fault. You’re really very sweet. When you’re not trashing my home and all.”

  She nibbled my fingers, then rolled over, exposing a round white tummy replete with swirls of puppy fluff.

  “Do you want a belly rub?” The tail started to wag. Lucy might be the puppy, but up to then, I’d been the one in the doghouse.

  I gently scratched the fuzzy tummy, and she thumped her leg in bliss. All was forgiven.

  Chapter 9

  I hated to admit it, but Walters had rattled me.

  If the man did what he promised—which was basically what he did for a living—I was toast. I’d never work again. Pay back my last three months’ salary? I’d be lucky to make the mortgage next month.

  But sitting on the floor with the pup curled in my lap, something clicked. I decided it was time to, in the words of the philosopher Dr. Phil, “take back my life.” And after a light lunch of reheated sweet-and-sour chicken with rice for Lucy and me, I got down to business.

  I figured I’d attack my current problem the same way I went after a story: talk to everyone I could, gather the facts, and take plenty of notes. Besides, reducing the details to keystrokes (file name: “Who Killed Coleman”), made it seem a lot less personal.

  My trip to the office hadn’t been a total waste. I’d come up with a few really good suspects. By my clock, it was time to let the world know that I had been the least of Everett P. Coleman’s worries.

  I called Trip’s cell but got voice mail. Since anything connected to the newspaper office was subject to prying eyes and ears, we’d decided that I would phone his cell to leave the highlights of whatever I discovered. He’d dig for more details, too—and leak some of the juicier bits to our intrepid crime reporter, Billy Bob Lopez.

  That’s when I noticed the red light on my landline was blinking. Fast. Three messages.

  I hit *98.

  “Hey, Alex, it’s Billy Bob from the newsroom. Man, it sounds like you’re having a rough week. Call me.”

  I hit “7” and erased it. If it wasn’t still on the phone, it never happened.

  The second message started.

  “Alex, it’s Billy Bob. Give me a buzz. We need to chat.”

  Delete.

  “Alex, it’s Billy Bob. Don’t mean to be a pest, but the cops are calling you ‘a person of interest.’ I know there’s more to it than that. Call me.”

 
When this first happened, there was no way I’d have talked to him.

  News is like sausage. Once you see how it’s made, it’s a lot harder to swallow.

  To be fair, a lot depends on who’s doing the reporting—and the editing. I know Billy Bob is a decent guy as well as a first-rate reporter.

  And after this morning, I wondered if it might be a good idea to at least get my side of the story out there.

  Second step to reclaiming my life: I dialed Richard Holloman, my new attorney.

  The guy is a legend in D.C. I’d read about him a couple of years ago, when he represented some high-profile defendants. Crime reporters hate him. Unlike some lawyers who crave media attention, Holloman shuns it. And them. Even more galling, he’s smart enough to do it in such a way that gives them absolutely nothing to quote. Not even a “no comment.”

  That he was willing to take my case was a miracle. And Peter’s doing.

  My big brother might be three states away and in the middle of his busiest season of the year, but he came through for me. Two phone calls and he got me a one-man dream team. If he hadn’t, I’d probably still be sitting in that bleak little room with the peeling paint and the one-way glass, drinking bitter, lukewarm coffee out of a Styrofoam cup.

  When Holloman rolled into the station yesterday, it was a toss-up who was more shocked, me or the cops. Peter had already briefed him on the case—such as it was—and agreed to pick up the tab.

  Of course, I promised Peter that I’d repay him. But knowing I might be out of work soon, I’d felt like a total fraud.

  Through the whole thing, Holloman’s attitude had been totally reassuring. Basically, we were in “wait and see” mode. If the police came up with something and actually charged me, then he’d swing into action. If not, I was to keep my mouth shut and go on with my life.

  It was still technically the lunch hour, so Holloman answered his own phone. “Kill anybody new today?” he said in a deep Virginia drawl. Like a lot of the politicians and attorneys I’d run across, I noticed he could layer on the accent, as thick as he wanted, at will.