by Erica Abbott
“Does anybody know what happened?” one of the men asked. “All Rita told us was that they found him in his car in the office parking lot.”
Jean sighed, trying to delay the inevitable disclosure. “That’s right.”
Rita cocked her head a little. “Did you talk to the sheriff about it? Can you tell us any more about what happened?”
Jean perched on the edge of Rita’s desk and addressed the worried faces around her. “I didn’t find out anything from the sheriff, but you’ll hear soon enough. I was the one who found him.”
The announcement was met with more frowns and soft gasps. Rita exclaimed, “Oh, no! How awful for you, Jean.”
The mental picture came back to her, turning her stomach sour. She wished more than anything that she could wipe from her memory the vision of the abstract painting splatter that was Todd’s blood, bone and brains on the driver’s-side window.
She told them what little she knew, omitting the worst of the details. “The police seemed to think it was a carjacking gone bad. They think Todd resisted and the car thief shot him.”
As she said it, Jean realized that the scenario seemed unlikely. Wouldn’t a carjacker approach the driver’s-side window? And why would Todd roll down the passenger-side window to a stranger?
One of the paralegals said in a trembling voice, “Do you think we’re safe? Going to the parking lot?”
“The police assured me they’ll be doing extra patrols to check the area. Until they catch the person who did this, they recommend that no one walk to the parking lot alone.”
“The buddy system,” one of the men said.
“Yes. Check with each other before leaving for the day for a while, okay?”
There were nods all around. Jean glanced around and asked, “Where’s the boss?”
“He went upstairs to tell the board,” Rita answered sadly. “He said he’d find out about the arrangements and let us know.”
Typical of him to leave his staff alone at a crisis moment like this, Jean thought. “This is terrible news for all of us,” she said to the group. “Maggie, put the phones back on the off-hours recording for a few minutes and let’s all go into the break room, okay?”
She led them into the small room that housed the coffeemaker, microwave, printers and the copier. Everyone who could find a seat sat down and the others crowded around.
“I feel awful about Todd,” she said simply. “And I know all of you do too. He was a genuinely nice guy and this is a horrible and senseless tragedy. I know we’ll all grieve for him in our own ways. What I’d like to suggest is that we do our best to try to go back to work for a while. When Del gets back, I’ll talk to him about closing the office—if not today, then perhaps on the day of Todd’s funeral or memorial service. Maybe we could all go together, as an office.”
This plan seemed to meet with general approval, several nodding heads giving their support. Jean continued, “We’ll take up a collection and make an office gesture of some kind, flowers or a contribution to his church or favorite charity.”
“I’ll start the envelope around,” Rita added quietly.
Jean gave her a grateful smile. “Thanks. I know it will be hard not to think about Todd today, so we’ll just do the best we can. If anyone needs to talk to me, I’ll be in the office all day.”
“Can you find out what’s going on with the investigation?” someone asked. “Have they arrested anybody or even have any suspects?”
“I don’t know the answers, but I’ll see what I can do,” Jean promised. “If I find anything out, I’ll send out an email. Okay, guys, thanks.”
After everyone else filed out, Rita stayed behind. She said softly, “I’m so sorry you had to come back to this, Jean. How’s your mother?”
“She’s out of immediate danger. It’s nice of you to ask. There will be a lot of rehab for her.” Jean shook her head. “Rita, this is unbelievable. Todd Moorman had to be the least offensive man on the planet. Who would kill him? And for his car, for God’s sake?”
“People kill for less than that,” Rita answered sadly.
“I know. I know they do, but it’s still just, well, unbelievable.”
Jean sat in her office a long time, staring at the pile of mail neatly stacked on her desk, seeing the blinking red light on her office phone. The work called to her but she had trouble getting going. How was she supposed to care about phone messages and emails when Todd was dead?
She shook herself and began to tackle the work. She cleared out her emails first, deleting most, forwarding a few and saving the three that needed a personal response. It constantly amazed her how few of the emails she received were actually important or relevant.
The stack of snail mail came next. Most envelopes contained copies of court documents that went into the “To Be Filed” tray on the corner of her credenza. A couple of letters that needed response went into the “In” basket. The most recent America Bar Association journal was set aside in the pile of professional material that she rarely seemed to have time to actually read. Everything else went directly into the recycling bin tucked in the corner.
Jean saved the voice mail for last. The telephone was her least favorite way of communicating at work. The written word was less susceptible to being misinterpreted or forgotten than conversations and she nearly always wished people would send her an email instead of calling her. Nevertheless, it was true that lots of clients still preferred to leave her voice-mail messages. With a sigh, she opened the notebook where she kept a phone log and hit the replay button.
Nine calls. Not too bad for four working days out of the office. As she went through them, jotting down names and numbers while noting the times of the calls, she prioritized them.
The three calls from outside attorneys would have to be returned later today. The one Del had forwarded to her would come first. County Clerk Netta Telford had called as well. Her problem would require a few minutes of research that Jean could delegate to their intern, but Jean would have to return the call to Netta personally. Del’s rule was that elected officials always got a phone call from her or from Del personally, one of the rules he had that made sense to her.
Human Resources had a quick question about a time sheet Jean had signed before she left and Purchasing had another problem with a contract that needed resolution. She returned both calls immediately and got them off her to-do list within a few minutes. She then forwarded a call from a vendor to Rita, hoping her paralegal would be able to answer some critically important question about their copier paper.
That left two calls from Friday. The first came in just before six that evening.
“Jean, it’s Lea. I just had a chance to talk to Rita. She told me your mother was ill and you had to leave town. I’m sorry I didn’t know sooner. If you need anything, please let me know.” There was a brief moment of hesitation on the recording before Lea continued, “Call me when you get back and let me know how you’re doing.”
That was all, but Jean played the message twice over just to listen to the warmth in Lea’s voice and the concern in her tone. Some part of Jean had been afraid that after their last conversation, Lea would be angry with her or upset. She found herself relieved that Lea still seemed concerned about her. Not that she was surprised, really. Lea didn’t seem like a woman to be petty or to have feelings that were easy to hurt. Jean admired her for that.
Jean finally erased the message without writing it down. She would remember to call Lea later without a reminder. She punched the button to listen to the last voice mail. It had come in at six thirty-five Friday evening.
“Um, Jean, hi, it’s Todd. Look, I now you’re gone and everything, but I thought you might check in and, ah, if you do, will you call me? I’m leaving the office now but anytime you get this message call me. We need to talk about the job, I think.”
He rattled off his cell phone number and hung up. Jean sat staring at the phone a moment and then played the dead man’s voice again.
Six
thirty-five. Todd had been shot in the parking lot Friday evening, probably minutes after leaving this message. She tried not to shudder at the thought.
What did the message mean? She couldn’t think what was so important that he wanted her to call him over the weekend. What job was he talking about?
Maybe his own job, she thought. Perhaps he knew he was in trouble at work and that she wasn’t happy with his performance, although she couldn’t imagine how he would have figured that out for himself. She hadn’t mentioned it to anyone and Jean doubted he had enough insight to see her displeasure. Perhaps he’d had a job offer from somewhere else? That seemed highly unlikely to her and even if it were true, wouldn’t he talk to Del instead?
She puzzled over it a few minutes more, but nothing came to her. The dilemma of what to do with the message remained. The content of the voice mail probably didn’t mean anything, but it occurred to her that it might at least establish some part of Todd’s schedule that evening for the police. She saved the message just in case and then picked up the phone.
She’d known to call the Tesóro Police Department on Saturday because the San Carlos County Sheriff’s Office only had enforcement jurisdiction in the unincorporated parts of the county. She could just call the detective at Tesóro directly, but her self-restraint in not talking to Lea for forty-eight hours was gone by now. She dialed Lea’s office number.
Lea’s assistant Vicki answered the office phone and said, not surprisingly, that Lea was out of the office. Jean left a message and then debated whether to call Lea’s cell phone. She finally decided Todd’s voice mail was important enough to justify the call and she dug out her own cell. Her office phone number wouldn’t show up on Lea’s caller ID and she wanted Lea to know who was calling.
“Hawkins,” Lea answered crisply. “Are you all right, Jean?”
“I’m fine,” she said. “I know you’re out of the office. Is it a bad time?”
“I would say yes to that,” Lea said. “And I’ll need to call you back later. But I got a call from Tesóro PD this morning. Courtesy call about a murdered county employee. Did you hear about it?”
“Oh, God, Lea. I know we have a lot to talk about, but I need to tell you something important.”
She could hear Lea restraining her impatience. “All right,” she conceded.
She thinks it’s personal, Jean thought. She hesitated for a long moment and then heard Lea’s phone end the call. Jean quickly dialed back and when Lea answered again, Jean asked, “Did you hang up? You didn’t say anything.”
“Sorry,” Lea said. “I always feel like an idiot yelling ‘are you still there?’ into a phone. I thought the call had been dropped.”
Jean said quickly, “I have to tell you that I’m the one who found Todd’s body. I decided to come into the office after I flew back on Saturday and saw his car in the lot and…”
She stopped, unable to continue. Lea said, “Jean, I am so sorry. Do I need to rearrange my schedule? I can be back at your office within the hour.”
Lea was offering to leave work to be with her? Jean’s earlier distress faded with the sound of the worry in Lea’s voice. “I’m all right,” Jean said. “And I know you’re busy. I called because even though I know your office isn’t handling Todd Moorman’s murder investigation, I have some information that might be of some help.”
“What is it?”
As she explained about Todd’s voice-mail message, she heard people talking loudly at Lea’s end of the phone call and then the noise faded as Lea presumably moved away.
Lea said, “You should absolutely talk to the detective assigned to the case. It will help to establish the time line of the evening. I’ll have…”
“Detective Munson,” she supplied.
“I’ll have him call you back about this within the hour,” Lea said shortly. “If you’re sure you’re okay—”
“I’m fine.”
“Then we’ll have to talk later.”
She hung up and Jean put the phone down on her desktop, wondering how she could ever have thought it was a good idea to turn down the chance to date Lea.
Jean returned to her list of work for the day. She made an effort not to think about Todd or her mother and especially not about Sheriff Lea Hawkins.
It was midafternoon before the detective from Tesóro PD showed up in her office with a worried-looking Rita at his elbow. “There’s a police officer here to see you,” Rita announced unnecessarily.
“Hello, Detective Munson,” she greeted him.
She hadn’t really seen him clearly lastnight, in the shock of her discovery. She’d never met a man who looked more like a basset hound. Faded brown hair cut short didn’t conceal his long ears with the largest earlobes she’d ever seen. They complemented his heavy jowls and wrinkled neck. Jean just managed not to look for the dog collar above his tie. His manner was as lugubrious as his face appeared. Jean wondered if he looked doleful because that was his personality or whether it was the other way around.
“I hope it was all right that I called the sheriff’s office first,” Jean said. “I wasn’t sure if I needed to bother you with this.”
“Did you remember something else from that night?” Munson asked.
“No. I had a telephone call from Todd, probably the night he was killed.” Jean played the message for him and he took careful notes. Then he produced a small digital tape recorder and had her play the message again while he made his own recording.
“How long can you save this voice mail on your system?” he asked.
“Messages are usually expunged after ninety days, but I can ask our IT department to save it longer for you.” Jean was pleased that she’d made the call to Information Technology to discover this information before the detective arrived.
He nodded, his jowls bouncing up and down in slow motion. “Ask them to save it. We made need it later. You’re sure it’s his voice, I assume.”
“Without a doubt.”
He pulled at one elongated earlobe. “So what was this job he was talking about?”
“I have no idea,” Jean admitted.
He gave her a mournful look, as if he’d already known she wouldn’t be able to help him. They spent a few minutes going over everything else she knew about Todd, which didn’t amount to very much. She didn’t think the information that Todd knotted his neckties badly would be very helpful in solving his murder.
“May I ask you a question?” Jean said as he stuffed his notebook and recorder back into his shapeless brown suit jacket.
“You can ask,” he said reluctantly.
“Was it really a carjacking?” The more she thought about the scene, the less likely it seemed to her. Of course, the thought that someone had killed Todd deliberately seemed equally improbable to her.
Munson shrugged. “No way of knowing. His wallet was still there and his wedding ring was still on his finger, so it’s hard to tell whether it was really a robbery or not.”
Jean winced. She’d forgotten that Todd was married. “His poor wife,” she murmured aloud.
The detective gave her a gloomy expression. “Yeah, she took it pretty hard.”
“Do you have any suspects?” Jean asked.
“I can’t really discuss that with you,” he answered as he lumbered to his feet. He offered a doleful handshake and said, “Thanks for your help.”
After he had gone, Jean got up and restlessly paced her office, idly straightening the books on her shelves as she thought about Todd Moorman. Something was niggling at the back of her mind, something important that had been driven into hibernation by her unexpected trip to Dallas and her focus on her relationship with Lea.
Worrying about it wasn’t going to make it easier to remember, she decided. Better to let it percolate in her brain for a while to see if the thought could come to the surface. She sat down at her desk again and reached for a case file.
Case file. She’d given Todd the Lambert case file to review and asked his opinion about the vi
ability of the lawsuit. Was that the job he’d been talking about? But what would have been so important that he’d asked her to call him over the weekend?
The last time she’d seen the file it had been stacked in the corner of Todd’s office. Was it still there? If someone killed him for it, it seemed unlikely—but there was only one way she would know for certain.
She walked down the hall. After the police had done a routine search of Todd’s office, someone had closed the door. As she expected, it was unlocked. None of the attorneys locked their offices, except for Del. She opened the door and went inside.
The Lambert case file was gone.
Jean stood frozen in the doorway, thoughts tumbling around in her mind like acrobats. It couldn’t be a coincidence, could it? Maybe the file had nothing to do with Todd’s death. Or maybe it had everything to do with it.
Jean searched Todd’s office, desk, his file drawers, his bookcase stacked with statute books and files as well. The Lambert file was nowhere in the office.
She went back out and asked Rita if she knew anything about the Lambert file. “No, why?” Rita asked.
“I’ll locate it,” Jean reassured her as she headed back to her office.
Why was the file folder missing? There must have been something in it that triggered Todd’s phone call to her, but what was it? If Todd wanted to talk to her about whatever he’d found in the folder, might he have taken the file home with him? The attorneys weren’t supposed to remove the folders from the office, but maybe he’d thought it was important to break the rules.
Jean dug out the business card Detective Munson had given her and called the number. He was out but she left a detailed message on his voice mail, asking about any file folders in Todd’s car or his briefcase.
There wasn’t much else she could do today. It was time to go home.
* * *
It was close to nine o’clock that evening when her cell phone rang. Jean thought it might be Munson, but the caller ID told her it was Lea.
“Are you at home?” Lea’s voice sounded weary.