by Elaine Macko
Monica stared at me. “No. Of course not. They found my prints on some papers Elvira had.”
I gave an audible sigh. “That must be the computer printout. But no. I want to know why you lied to me.”
Monica’s face flushed and she turned back to her terminal “What are you talking about?” Her fingers pounded the keys while white data flashed across the blue screen.
“You told me you didn’t know Mrs. Scott well, but you had coffee with her several times at the restaurant down the road. And now your prints show up on something she had in her purse.” I waited for Monica to answer but she didn’t say anything. “Well?”
Monica stopped typing. “She wanted me to print some stuff. Those papers. So she asked me to meet her at the coffee shop after work.”
“Why couldn’t she ask you here?”
Monica shrugged and pushed an errant piece of hair out of her face. “I don’t know. She called one afternoon and said she had something to discuss in private.”
“When was this?”
“About six, seven weeks ago.”
“Didn’t you think it a bit odd?”
“Yeah. I did, but I thought maybe it might have to do with a performance review or something.”
“Surely Sandy would have been in on something like that.”
“Probably, but Elvira said she wanted to see me so I went.”
“And?”
Monica sounded exasperated. “We met in the restaurant and she started asking me about the new system and what it can do and what kind of reports it can produce. She asked if I could print out certain data for the past two years but not to let anyone else know.” Monica again pushed a strand of the copper hair over her ear and scratched the tip of her nose. “So I printed what she wanted and a few days later we met and I gave it to her.”
“You didn’t ask any questions?”
Monica shook her head. “No. Look, she asked. She never said what she needed it for. Maybe Mr. Poupée wanted it.”
“Did you tell anyone else? Did you mention it to Sandy?”
“No. She said not to so I didn’t.”
“Why did you lie?”
I had no authority whatsoever and Monica had no reason to tell me anything she didn’t want to tell me, especially when I barged in accusing her of being a liar. But then the young woman shrugged, the shoulders of her baggy sweater drooping down her arms.
“I don’t know. I didn’t want to get involved. It happened over a month ago. I never put the two things together—Elvira’s murder and the printout. Now the police are asking about it” Monica leaned forward in her seat and looked me straight in the eye. “They found it in her purse, which I guess is kind of strange, don’t you think?”
“Yes, I guess. Of course, it’s odd how she asked you to print them up in the first place.” I shook my head and leaned back in my seat.
“They were just figures. Maybe Elvira did a lot of work at home,” Monica speculated.
“I think Mrs. Scott planned on getting some training on the new system. Do you think she wanted to check it out so she’d have a feel for it when her training started?”
Monica scrunched up her face. “Makes sense. She always struck me as someone on top of things.”
I thought a second and shook my head. “Probably not. It’s all too clandestine if she just wanted to check things out. She’d have no reason to be so secretive. So why ask for a printout of a specific time frame? No, she wanted something specific.” I groaned. “Unfortunately I have no idea as to what it could have been.”
Things were getting complicated. Instead of solving anything, I managed to add a few more questions to my list. And from what Monica told me, despite the fact Mrs. Scott may have been sick, it still seemed something at work caused her trouble. I headed back to my temporary office. I needed to pull out my notebook and take a serious look at all the stuff I had found out so far and put it into some sort of order.
“Well, if it isn’t Nancy Drew. Ron, have you met our company spy?” Mitch Monahan said as I approached the office.
“I’m not a spy.” Somehow I managed to keep the annoyance out of my voice—but just barely.
“Ron’s the other designer,” Mitch explained.
I extended my hand to Ron. “It’s very nice to meet you.”
“Ron, I can take these out to the factory for you,” Mitch offered, taking a large envelope from Ron’s other hand.
“Okay. Nice to meet you, too, Alex.” Ron turned and headed back to his office.
Mitch opened the door to the factory. “Want to walk with me?”
We entered the factory and I averted my eyes from the spot police tape now marked off. I hadn’t been out here since that night and the sight of the chalk markings on the floor startled me.
I followed Mitch to a small copier I hadn’t noticed before. He made a copy of one of the papers in the envelope and then turned to me.
“I’ll show you around.” He gestured to the cavernous space housing the manufacturing part of Poupée.
“I talked with Joanne. So you two are dating. Why didn’t you say anything?”
Mitch paused and looked at me. “I didn’t see where it had any connection with the investigation. It’s not a secret. Everyone here is aware of it as far as I know.”
“Fair enough. Though a few things you said and a few she said don’t make a lot of sense.”
“Such as?” Mitch asked, as we walked slowly along a pathway that had been set up away from all the machinery.
“Well, I got the impression you liked your job and Mrs. Scott,” I said over the noise from the machines. “And you liked working here, but that’s not how Joanne presented it. She didn’t like Mrs. Scott one little bit. You failed to mention that yesterday.”
Mitch bent close to my ear. “In general, yeah, I like it here. I didn’t think it would do me any good if it got around that I planned to leave and start something on my own. Especially since that probably won’t happen for some time. As for Joanne, I knew once you talked with her, you’d figure out for yourself about her feelings for Elvira.”
I leaned close to Mitch. “You didn’t have any problem pointing the finger at Emmanuelle.”
Mitch gave me a sheepish look but didn’t say anything.
We kept walking around the perimeter of the factory and as we neared some glass-enclosed offices, I could see through the window that Jerry and Richard Sheridan were having a discussion—a heated one, by the looks of it. Unfortunately I couldn’t hear a thing.
“This is the assembly area,” Mitch said. “We make the plastic pieces ourselves, but the metal joints for the arms and legs and the heads are made somewhere else. We do the assembly here. The eyes and hair are made elsewhere as well. Over there,” he pointed to the far right, “is where the painting is done. On the older models, the eyes are still hand painted. I don’t know how much longer we’ll be doing that model. The new sculptured look and the ones with the changeable eyes are the thing now. Over there along that wall are the offices for the foreman and the purchasing agent.” He gestured to the left. “There’s the break area. That about does it. The shipping area is in the very back.” Hold on a minute, I just have to drop these prints off.”
Mitch walked to one of the small offices a few doors down from where the two men talked and put the envelope on a desk. A few minutes later we returned to the offices.
Joanne poked her head out the doorway just as I turned into my office. “Mitch. Can I talk with you for a minute?”
“Sure. Nice to see you again, Alex.” He smiled at me, walked into Joanne’s office, and closed the door.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
I reached in my purse for the notebook anxious to write down that Jerry and Richard were having a fight, when the phone made me jump.
“Alex, it’s Dad,” my father, Harry Harris, said. “I need you to run over to Mills Pond.”
“What’s going on?” I asked as panic crept into my voice. My ninety-two-year old grandfather
, my Dad’s father, had recently moved into a care home after living for several years with my uncle Jack and his wife.
“Your mom is volunteering at the hospital today and I still have a bit of my cold. The home discourages people from coming if they have a cold. Guess they don’t want forty-five seniors running around with drippy noses.”
“Dad, what happened to Grandpa?”
“He took off into the woods behind the home and they need someone to coax him out. That’s all I know.”
“It’s okay. I can run over.” I hung up the phone, threw the notebook back in my purse, and ran out the building.
My grandfather, Lawrence Harris, had been an accountant for the phone company. For as long as I could remember the man had worn a white shirt with a wool vest over it, even to the dinner table. He had an endless supply of bowties and they supplied a bit of color in a wardrobe that consisted of mostly browns. He and my grandmother, who died ten years earlier, had been wonderful grandparents, but Sam and I always had a thing for Meme, and vice versa. Grandpa had been more stern and reserved and it wasn’t like him to make a fuss or stir up trouble.
I pulled into the driveway of Mills Pond, and a few minutes later greeted the day manager. “We just don’t know what got into him,” Mrs. Pritchard said as we wound our way through an endless corridor. “He just up and decided to take some bird feed and go fill all the feeders in the gardens. We didn’t even know he went out until he stopped to fill the one right outside of Lucy McDermott’s room. When she pulled open her blinds her screams brought us running.”
“I don’t understand.” I quickened my pace to keep up with Mrs. Pritchard. “Do you have bird feeders in the woods?”
We arrived at a door leading out to the snow-covered gardens. Mrs. Pritchard pushed open the door and ushered me outside and down a path. At the bottom of the path she stopped and pointed to a spot between two large firs.
“There. I’ve got to warn you, it’s not a pretty sight.” A small smile formed on her lips and I turned from her and looked toward the woods.
“Samantha!” my prim and proper grandfather shouted from the woods.
I peered through the snow-laden branches and let out a shriek. Lawrence Harris stood with a bag of birdseed clutched tightly against his chest. He stood buck naked except for a pair of boots that looked like women’s and a bowtie knotted snuggly around his most private part.
I put my face in my gloved-clad hands and groaned. “Jesus.”
No matter how old you are, the sight of a family member of the opposite sex naked can traumatize you like nothing else. Thank God for my mother who came to my rescue arriving at Mills Pond about ten minutes after we managed to get Grandpa Lawrence settled back in his small apartment. The sight of his naked body mesmerized me in a horrifying way.
Grandpa had always been very thin. Thin doesn’t look so good when you’re ninety and the skin is loose and saggy and your coloring borders on pasty. Add to the fact that he was also a prude. Or so I thought. Maybe Grandma Harris kept him reined in all those years and now he felt free to be himself.
I gladly relinquished sentry duties to my mother who held grandpa down while the nurse removed the rubber band holding the bowtie to his anatomy—so snuggly, in fact, that it had cut into the skin and caused bruising. Yuk.
I picked up a sandwich on my way back to the factory and ate quietly while mentally working on my list of suspects—a welcome diversion from the past hour.
“‘There are a lot of lies going around…and half of them are true’,” I quoted. “But which ones, Winston? Who should I believe and who should I not?”
Reaching into my purse for my notebook I pulled out the latest paperback in a series of farm mysteries Millie had loaned me. This one, The Skull Beneath The Combine, looked particularly gruesome. I tossed it back in my purse and pulled out the notebook turning to a blank page. I wrote Dolly and started to erase it but then reconsidered. I realized with a jolt that Dolly might have cleared her husband in my eyes, but she had managed to put herself on the suspect list. Dolly as good as admitted she had been jealous of Mrs. Scott’s relationship with her husband. Maybe those feelings never went away and if she found out Mrs. Scott arranged to meet William at the restaurant, perhaps she had been overcome with jealous rage. I reluctantly wrote the word jealousy under the motive column I added and mentally banged my head against a wall.
“Argh. I’m supposed to be eliminating suspects not adding.”
Next I wrote Andy’s name. Under the motive column I wrote none—that I had come up with so far. Andy seemed fond of Mrs. Scott and grateful she arranged his schedule to accommodate his courses. Next to Ruth’s name, I also reluctantly wrote the word none and then reconsidered. Ruth mentioned a client Mrs. Scott had been attracted to, but hadn’t Ruth also been attracted to the man? She didn’t appear to be jealous, but then I didn’t know Ruth well enough to decipher whether she was a skilled liar. In the column marked alibi, I suddenly realized that while I had one for Andy, I had nothing for Ruth. I hadn’t even questioned where Ruth was at the time of the murder. Another mental banging of my head. This detecting stuff was harder than it looked.
Jerry Gagliano’s name was the next one I wrote and it included a motive next to it—jilted lover. Probably not an accurate description but I strongly suspected Jerry felt like a jilted lover. At least Ruth had implied that. Ruth again. I really needed to speak to the woman.
Emmanuelle’s motive seemed a bit trickier. Pondering exactly how to word it, I finally wrote, Mrs. Scott uncovers truth. Exactly what that truth amounted to, I had no idea but in due time I would be able to amend the wording. Did I mention I’m an optimist?
Something caught my attention and I looked up and rolled my eyes. “Oh, you again,” I said to Detective Van der Burg.
“We keep running into each other.”
“Well, don’t let me stop you.” I took another bite of my sandwich and squinted at him hoping to achieve a menacing look.
“What’s that you’re working on?” He twisted his head to get a better look at my list. “Still trying to thwart the crime?”
“It’s nothing. Just some thoughts.” I covered the meager list with my arm.
Detective Van der Burg let out an exasperated sigh.
“Hey! Don’t start with me,” I snapped. “I’ve had a busy day and I’m tired. The police suspect me of killing a woman I hardly knew. They’ve also got a family friend of mine at the top of their list. I keep adding suspects to my list instead of eliminating them. Everyone is lying about something, my business is in crisis, my grandmother can’t play bingo at her church because she cheats, and my grandfather is an uncircumcised exhibitionist!” I paused and took a deep breath. “The last thing I need is you coming in here and sighing.”
“Your grandfather is an uncircumcised exhibitionist?”
I balled up the paper bag my sandwich came in and threw it at him. “Get out!”
Detective Van der Burg flashed a smile and despite my very agitated state, I found it extremely sexy.
“See you around.” He turned and walked out the door.
“Wait!” I jumped up and ran around the desk, smacking right into him.
He put his hands on my arms in an attempt to steady me. “You need to make up your mind. Do you want me to get out or stay?”
“I, uh, I have something for you.” I disengaged myself from his grip and went behind the desk where I would be safe and picked up the pad I had pilfered from Mrs. Scott’s kitchen. “I found this on Mrs. Scott’s kitchen table.”
“You what?” The detective’s face turned a nice shade of rose.
“I found it in her kitchen. I checked for her mail so Mr. Poupée could pay her bills and I found it.” I handed it over to him.
“It’s a grocery list.”
I smirked. I couldn’t resist. “Yes it is. With some doodling on it.” I folded my arms while Detective Van der Burg turned the pad a few degrees to get a better look. I gave him a couple of seconds t
o study it and then I couldn’t stand it any longer. “She wrote something in shorthand. Right here.” I walked around the desk and pointed. “It says, could it be MS.” I waited for that to sink in.
“She had MS?”
“I don’t know. It looks like she at least thought she might.”
“So that’s why she wanted to speak with Mr. Poupée in private.”
He looked so pleased with himself having figured this all out, that I hated to burst his bubble.
“That’s what I thought at first, but I still think something here bothered her.” I told him about my conversation with Monica, a lot of which he already knew, having discovered her fingerprints on the printout. I had to give him credit for that one, but then he had a whole crime lab at his disposal.
“I think I’ll take this and have our own expert tell us what it says.” He looked up and saw me roll my eyes. “Not that I don’t trust you, but how do I know you didn’t fake this to try to throw suspicion off yourself? I still can’t figure out why you didn’t see that shovel.”
I picked up a sheet of paper from the desk, balled it up and threw it at him. He walked out and a second later I heard him ask Ruth if Joanne returned from lunch.
I waited until I heard him leave the building and then went out to the lobby where Ruth sat alone at the reception desk, alphabetizing a stack of papers. She looked cheerful today, dressed in black slacks and a bright red sweater.
I leaned on the counter. “Ruth, the other day you mentioned Mrs. Scott becoming quite friendly with one of the clients.”
“Yes, that’s right. Oliver Absher.”
I phrased the next question gently. “I got the impression you liked Mr. Absher as well?”
“Oh, he’s a wonderful man,” Ruth gushed. “Always so pleasant on the phone. Very polite.”
“You really liked him?” I said with a glint in my eyes hoping for a we’re-best-girlfriends-so-tell-me-all look.
Ruth blushed slightly. “Well, I guess you can say that, I mean, I…” Ruth stumbled over her words. “I found him attractive, and kind, but he was a bit old for me. Not that he’s old,” Ruth added quickly, “but I’m in my forties and Mr. Absher must be in his sixties. I thought he and Elvira made a nice couple.” Ruth paused. “To be quite frank about it, after my divorce I’m just not ready for another romance.” Ruth smiled and her eyes twinkled. “On second thought, if you know any nice guys in their early forties, let me know.”