The Temporary Detective

by Joanne Sydney Lessner

  “That’s ridiculous! Who would have sex in an office bathroom during an emergency drill?” Frank scoffed.

  “She got the idea from your last temp, who used to do it in Starbucks bathrooms with her boyfriend. And you agreed to it. See? The letter ‘S’ next to the word ‘Drill’ in her date book. It stands for sex, and you were the one she wanted it with.”

  “You don’t know that. It could stand for anything. Like Stan!”

  Isobel nodded. “That’s what I thought at first. But look at what she’s written the day before. The letter ‘P’.”

  Isobel looked around at the raft of baffled faces.

  “Delphi? Detective Kozinski?” she prodded. “Surely, I can’t be the only woman who does this! Well, I’m not. Obviously, Doreen did it too. What do you ladies write? A ‘P’? A checkmark? A circle around the date…?”

  Delphi shook her head, perplexed, but after a moment she caught on. A second later, Detective Kozinski’s lip curled in a knowing smile.

  “I thought so,” Isobel said. “We all keep track of when our periods start.” She riffled back through the pages of Doreen’s calendar. “Look. There’s a ‘P’ every month. And sometimes you write down the letter ‘S’ for sex, so if you skip your period, you can see if there’s a chance you might be pregnant. Or you might also jot down the letter to represent a noteworthy and exciting encounter coming up, like in this case.”

  Delphi sat up suddenly. “No jelly!”

  Isobel nodded. “That’s what did it. When you were talking about breathing from the diaphragm, I remembered Doreen’s.”

  “I still don’t get it,” Detective Harvey said.

  “Doreen wasn’t going to let anything as mundane as her period stop her from her own personal porn flick,” Isobel explained. “Office bathroom sex? It’s like doing it on an airplane, only better. She must have been fantasizing about it for weeks. She wasn’t using her diaphragm for birth control—she was using it for flood control.”

  Isobel watched, amused, as the men squirmed in their chairs. “That’s why you didn’t find any jelly in her cosmetics bag,” she said to Detective Kozinski. “I thought you were wrong, and she must have been taking her diaphragm out.”

  “No,” said Detective Kozinski, “we were pretty sure she was putting it in. There were no traces of semen or jelly.” She gave a wan smile. “I just assumed she hadn’t read the accompanying literature thoroughly.”

  “This is bullshit!” Frank finally exploded. “Maybe you’re paranoid enough to write down that kind of stuff, but there’s no way of knowing that’s what Doreen meant except to ask her.”

  “It’s not bullshit.”

  It was Stan who spoke, in a miserable voice.

  Isobel turned to him and asked gently. “How did you know it was Frank?”

  Stan looked down at his fingernails, which Isobel noticed for the first time were painted a lovely plum. “The skirt.”

  Frank opened his mouth and started to say something, but thought better of it.

  “The photo of the person in the skirt leaving the building the day Doreen was…the day of the murder,” Stan continued, talking to his hands.

  “Go on,” Detective Kozinski said.

  He looked up and met her eye. “It was my skirt. I keep, um, extra clothes at the office. Sometimes it’s just easier, because my roommate…well, he knows, but it freaks him out. So sometimes I go out straight from work, like tonight. Anyway, I had a fairly new wrap skirt in my office, and I went to look for it—I wanted to wear it a few nights ago—and it was gone.” He glanced at Isobel. “You asked me what I was looking for. It was the skirt.”

  Stan cleared his throat and faced Frank. “Your wife came in that same day wearing it. I asked her where she got it, and she said she had so many clothes, she couldn’t even remember. I’d stepped in the hem once with my heel, and there was a little rip that I’d never bothered to mend, so I knew it was mine. Then I remembered the security photo. At the time, I never thought it was my skirt, because I knew it wasn’t me. But then I put it all together. Frank wore my skirt, and then he took it home where Audrey must have found it.”

  “And why exactly did I need your skirt?” Frank asked.

  “It would have been easy enough for you to sneak into the bathroom during the drill without anyone noticing. But you wore the skirt and a big jacket and a scarf for a little extra protection coming out. You knew Paula and I would be checking the floor, including the bathrooms, and you had to get past us without us realizing it was you. It didn’t have to be a complicated disguise, just enough so in all the chaos, we wouldn’t remember seeing you. And you probably had to…cover up…blood.”

  Frank waved his hand dismissively. “As evidence goes, that’s pretty flimsy.”

  Stan’s face hardened. “I also knew how Doreen felt about you. She told me what she wanted to do, although I didn’t know she’d gone as far as to plan it,” Stan said. “I tried to convince her to go after your money, like everybody else. I mean, that’s what I really needed. But she thought if you slept with her, you’d give up Audrey—and men—for her. Just like Conchita is always trying to change me. I tried to explain to Doreen that it didn’t work that way with you any more than it did with me. And I knew from—”

  “Stan,” Frank warned.

  But Stan went on, undeterred. “I knew from the one night you and I spent together that you were curious about my dressing up. I told you that I kept clothes in my office. Even Doreen didn’t know that.”

  Detective Harvey was fuming. “Why didn’t you come to us?”

  Tears welled up in Stan’s eyes. “Because I wanted to …” He swallowed hard and tried again. “Frank killed the only person who ever loved me for who I am. And he killed my best—my only chance at happiness. Those things Doreen did were all to help me. I didn’t know how to help myself.” Stan gave a hollow laugh. “I wanted to settle the score for her, even if she would never know I did it. Because if hadn’t been for me, none of this would have happened.”

  Isobel hesitated. Part of her wanted to let Stan’s story end there, but she knew there was more to it.

  “There’s another reason you resolved to poison Frank tonight, isn’t there?” she prompted.

  Stan gave a weary sigh. Isobel continued.

  “When Frank called Mr. Jeffards to push for Paula, he told Jeffards about you. That’s why Paula got the promotion.”

  Stan nodded, and as he spoke, his voice caught. “Given the choice, Jeffards would rather have a real woman in the job than…than someone like me.”

  The click of Detective Harvey’s handcuffs fell into the silence as he locked them around Frank’s wrists.

  “Frank Lusardi, you are under arrest for the murder of Doreen Fink. You have the right to remain silent…”

  Detective Kozinski cuffed Stan, and her reading of the Miranda rights echoed in counterpoint with Detective Harvey’s. Stan’s tears gave way to sobs of grief, which he was unable to choke back.

  At that moment, Felice stirred from her alcoholic stupor and sat up against the banquette.

  “Whaz goin’ on?”

  James, seated next to her, answered quietly, “Frank and Stan are being placed under arrest.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Felice straightened up for a moment and squinted at the two men, who were being helped to their feet by the police officers. “Well, you’re both fired!” She collapsed back onto the bench.

  Detective Harvey turned to Xavier Barques. “Can you decant that into a clean empty bottle with a top?” He indicated the glass of Amaretto. “I’ll take the glass as well.”

  “Of course.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Barques. We’re extremely sorry this had to happen here.”

  “Not at all! But don’t be surprised if some of the plot elements in my next movie seem familiar,” he said with a wink.

  Detective Kozinski picked up the Filofax with a napkin and slipped it into an evidence bag. She looked appraisingly at Isobel. “Maybe your next temp job sho
uld be with us.”

  Isobel turned to James. “Is the NYPD a Temp Zone client?” He shook his head. Isobel smiled at Detective Kozinski. “Sorry. But thanks anyway.”

  “Too bad,” Detective Kozinski said, sounding like she meant it. She followed Detective Harvey toward the front door, where Dexter and the other two police officers were waiting with Stan and Frank.

  Xavier Barques stood up. “Your bottle service tonight is on the house,” he said grandly, in his mellifluous, accented voice.

  For the first time all evening, the knot in Isobel’s stomach relaxed. “Thank you. I know we weren’t exactly good for business tonight.”

  Xavier dipped his head graciously. “On the contrary. You know what they say: there’s no such thing as bad publicity.”

  “You know, I didn’t realize you were Xavier Barques,” Isobel said.

  “I am, indeed.”

  “I love your movies! Particularly your last one.” Isobel reached into her shoulder bag. “Can I give you my picture and résumé?”

  FORTY-EIGHT

  “So Frank killed Doreen because he couldn’t bear the thought of having sex with her?” Sunil asked, setting aside the dessert menu.

  “Basically,” Isobel said. “And he truly believed he wouldn’t get promoted if the head of the company knew he was gay.”

  “There are laws that protect against that sort of thing,” Sunil said.

  “But companies don’t always follow them,” Delphi pointed out.

  “And this Jeffards is apparently a little behind the times,” Isobel said.

  Delphi shook her head. “I feel bad for Stan.”

  “Did he think Frank would like him better in drag?” Sunil asked.

  “It wasn’t that,” Isobel said. “He wanted to reveal himself in his true form, prepared to do right by Doreen and by himself.”

  “What I still don’t understand, though,” Delphi said, “is why Stan didn’t just turn Frank in.”

  “People will do all kinds of weird shit for love,” Percival said.

  Sunil laughed. “And you know this…how, exactly?”

  Delphi patted Sunil’s hand. “Best not to ask those questions of Percival. Just accept the fact that his intellect surpasses that of us mere mortals.”

  “And how is everything over here?” Carlo placed his hand on the back of Delphi’s neck. “How is the food and service from this end?”

  “Food’s fine, service is lousy,” Delphi said. “These other girls aren’t nearly as good as me.”

  Carlo grinned. “Just as I thought. Although I haven’t tried them all.” He winked and moved away toward the next table.

  Sunil turned to Isobel. “Well, I forgive you for not calling me. I didn’t realize what you were in the middle of. And I’m sorry I made that crack about your survival job being more important than your career.”

  “No, you were right. For a few moments there, it was.” Isobel couldn’t suppress a momentary pang. “And the girl who got the part…she’s good?”

  “Not as good as you would have been, but she’ll do.”

  Isobel looked at her watch and tugged Percival’s sleeve. “You’d better skip dessert. You don’t want to miss your flight.”

  “Right.” Percival pushed his chair away from the table. “It was great to meet you guys. Thanks for taking such good care of my sister.”

  “I’d love to introduce you to my sister,” Delphi said. “All of them.”

  Isobel followed Percival to the coat check, where he retrieved his jacket and backpack.

  “Not a word to Mom and Dad, right?”

  “Are you kidding? And tell them I went to a nightclub?”

  They both laughed, and Isobel hugged her brother tightly. “I really hope you come to Columbia next year.”

  “Iz, I just wanted to say that I think he seems like a really interesting guy.”

  She looked over her shoulder at Sunil, who had inched his chair closer to Delphi’s. “He is, but not my type, really. I think Delphi’s coming around—”

  Percival snorted. “Not Sunil, silly. James. I don’t know what the story is with that wino chick, but he’s totally into you.”

  “James? That’s crazy!” protested Isobel.

  “I was watching him when you were talking to the police. His face was wide open, and it wasn’t just admiration I saw. And don’t think I didn’t notice you helping him ‘just say no.’”

  Isobel shook her head in astonishment. “You don’t miss a trick, do you?”

  “Sorry. Can’t help it.”

  Isobel hugged him again. “I love you. Fly safe.”

  She took her time returning to the table. It seemed ridiculous, except that Percival was so rarely wrong.

  Isobel pushed open the door to Temp Zone and caught the eye of a middle-aged woman with graying hair, who was standing by the copier in the cramped foyer.

  “Come on in. Are you looking for temp work?”

  Isobel closed the door behind her. “Actually, I’m already signed up with you. My name is Isobel Spice, and I’m here to see—”

  The woman’s face lit up. “Of course! Our very own temporary detective! You’re quite the celebrity around here.” She extended her hand. “Anna Brackett. I know Ginger wants to meet you.”

  “Is she the redhead? I met her the day I came in.”

  “Ginger? Isobel Spice is here!”

  Within moments, Isobel was surrounded by James, Anna, Ginger, and two other reps, who shook Isobel’s hand vigorously in turn.

  “In all my years in the recruiting industry, I’ve never had anything like this happen before,” said Ginger.

  “I’m glad to know office murders are rare,” Isobel said.

  Ginger peered unapologetically at her. “James tells me you’re very clever and a good secretary into the bargain.”

  Isobel glanced at James, who looked simultaneously amused and embarrassed. “Thanks. In my experience, James usually knows what he’s talking about.”

  “I’m very impressed,” Ginger went on. “I hope you’ll stay on with us. Not that we have any intention of trading on your notoriety.”

  From the way she said it, Isobel could tell that Ginger planned to do exactly that, a fact that James confirmed once they were alone together in his office.

  “I can already hear her on the phone with the next potential client.” He mimicked Ginger’s voice. “We’ve got the girl who solved the case of the skewered secretary, but she costs extra.”

  Isobel laughed. “And let me guess, neither of us will see any of the extra?”

  “You know it.”

  They smiled at each for a moment, until James cleared his throat and looked away. “There’s something I haven’t had a chance to tell you,” he said.

  “What?”

  “The woman who answered my phone the night you called…”

  “The one who said you never wanted to speak to me again?”

  “Yeah. That was Jayla, my girlfriend. I mean my ex-girlfriend. I know you thought it was Felice. The thing is, um, this is a little embarrassing.” James picked up his nameplate and ran his sleeve over it. Isobel couldn’t help but smile.

  “That day we argued in the diner, I was really angry at you,” he said. “No, I was angry at myself. I don’t know, I was just…it pushed me over the edge and I…” He exhaled forcefully. “Wow, I don’t know why this is so hard for me to say.”

  Isobel was tempted to make a witty response but, in a rare moment of restraint, chose instead to keep silent.

  James cleared his throat and continued. “I fell off the wagon that night, big-time. Jayla found me—she has, um, had a key to my place—and right before I passed out, I heard her take your call. I never tried to explain or apologize for what she said, because…well…I didn’t want you to know that I fell off the wagon because of what you said.”

  Isobel’s words came out in a rush. “I should have called you to apologize as soon as I realized you were right about Nikki. But I thought you told the w
oman on the phone to blow me off, so I didn’t.”

  “I know. It was a big mess.”

  “No, that’s only partly true,” Isobel said. “You’re being honest with me, so I should be totally honest with you. I didn’t want to admit I was wrong. I think I knew from the start you were right about Nikki.”

  “I tried to tell you the other night about Jayla…”

  “But you were on a date with Felice.”

  “Yeah. But you should know there’s nothing going on between Felice and me.”

  “Why should I know? It isn’t any of my business.” She hesitated for a split second. “Is it?”

  “The point is, she asked me out and I was mad at Jayla, so I said yes. I’m sure you figured out that Felice has a drinking problem. I actually got her to an AA meeting last night.”

  “Really? What happened?”

  “I pretended it was a date just to get her there, and she was pretty pissed at first. But I think it might take.” James readjusted his clean nameplate. “When it was my turn to speak, I talked about how I don’t want to be dating anyone at all right now. I think she got the message.”

  “Oh,” said Isobel, feeling oddly disappointed in Percival.

  “Yeah,” said James, sitting back in his chair. “I haven’t been sober very long. I need to take some time to figure myself out, you know?”

  Isobel caught his eye and held it. Was this part of the confession or was he trying to send her the same message he sent Felice? Either way, it was clear he wasn’t interested.

  “I understand.”

  He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Look, nobody here knows about my being in AA, so you won’t mention it, right?”

  Isobel nodded solemnly. “Sure. That’ll be a hundred bucks a month.”

  He laughed, which was some consolation.

  “I wonder how everything went down at InterBank this morning?” Isobel continued.

  “They’re doing away with Procurement Support entirely.”

  Isobel’s eyes opened wide. “Seriously?”

  “Paula and Conchita were the only ones left, so it wasn’t much of a department anymore. Conchita’s replacing some other secretary who’s taking maternity leave.”