by Lois Winston
"We all need to pull double Erica shifts," said Cloris, a flaky croissant poised in front of her mouth. "She's shaken up something awful. That poor kid is about to have a nervous breakdown."
Just what I needed with everything else going on in my life, more Erica babysitting duty.
I eyed the croissant, my salivary glands kicking into overdrive. Not only hadn't I had time to dry my hair, I hadn't even downed my eye-opening morning cup of java, let alone breakfast. "Got any more of those?" I asked.
Cloris took a bite and spoke around the mouthful of flaky pastry. "Two dozen in the break room. Compliments of Cuisine a GoGo." Several crumbs landed on the forest green Kiss the Cook chef's apron that covered her 32AA bosom. One by one, she picked them off and popped them into her mouth. Cloris hated waste.
"Cuisine a Go-Go?"
"I kid you not. It's a new take-out franchise. Non-traditional fast food. Mostly French. You should try the escargot burger."
"Thanks but I'll pass."
She grinned. "Okay, so maybe escargot burgers won't catch on in Peoria-or even New Jersey-but the croissants are to die for."
"Not the best turn of a phrase under the circumstances," I said.
"Right. Sorry."
I scowled in the direction of my empty cubicle. Hopefully, Naomi could juggle the photo schedule. After all, it wasn't every day I found a dead body sitting at my computer. Besides, Batswin and Robbins had kidnapped my projects and supplies, and there was a croissant in the break room calling my name. Both extremely legitimate reasons why I couldn't go ahead with the scheduled photo shoot.
"So tell me about Erica," I said, making a beeline for the break room. Anything to take my mind off Ricardo, Marlys, and my other problems.
"She's worried the police will think she did it," said Cloris as she and Daphne followed behind me. "They've been questioning her in the conference room for over twenty-five minutes."
"I expect they'll question all of us," I said.
"For nearly half an hour?" asked Cloris. "They must suspect something. With me it was slam, bam, thank you, ma'am. In and out in no time."
"Me, too," said Daphne. "I don't think I was in there more than two minutes. But you know how Marlys treated Erica. If the cops get wind of that from anyone, Erica becomes Suspect Numero Uno."
"As soon as the police question her, they'll realize Erica isn't capable of squishing an ant, let alone whacking her boss," I said as we entered the break room, an oversized, dingy closet of a space, outfitted with a compact sink, mini-refrigerator, microwave, chipped Formica table, and four rickety plastic chairs.
I grabbed a Styrofoam coffee cup off the shelf above the microwave. "Besides, I'm pretty sure the police already have a suspect"
"Who?" they both asked at once.
I lifted the coffeepot off the burner, filled the cup with the last of the brew, and took a huge swig before I answered. "Me"
"Shut up!" cried Daphne, giving me a hard jab to my upper arm. The coffee cup flew from my hand, spattering over the counter and floor.
"Sorry! Didn't mean for that to happen." She ripped off enough paper towels to sop up all five Great Lakes and went to work on the mess.
I stared at the now empty coffeepot. My kingdom for a cup of caffeine!
"I'll make a fresh pot," offered Cloris, noting the desperation that I'm sure had telegraphed its way from my caffeine-starved corpuscles to my face. She pulled out the basket of used grounds and dumped them into the trash. "In need of a fix, huh?"
I grabbed a croissant, collapsed into a chair, and pushed a few strands of damp hair behind my ear. "Desperate enough to suck on unground beans."
"I don't get it," said Daphne, trashing the coffee-saturated paper towels. "Erica, I can understand. But why you, Anastasia?"
"Yeah, why you?" asked Cloris. "Naomi I could understand. She sure had reason to want the bitch dead. Not to mention Hugo after the way she walked out on him after he lost control of the company.
"Or Vittorio Versailles," added Daphne. "Remember how he threatened to kill her yesterday? But not you, Anastasia. Why would the police suspect you?"
"Yes, do tell."
I turned toward the entrance of the break room. Detective Batswin filled the doorway.
MOMENTS BEFORE, THE CROISSANT had sent my salivary glands into flood mode. Now my mouth had transformed into the Kalahari. During an extended drought. I forced myself to swallow. "Detective Batswin."
She wore the same tailored gray suit from last night, but she had traded the pinstripe shirt for a solid white one and the silver earrings for a pair of dream catchers. The long black and white feathers, falling nearly to her shoulders, echoed the light and dark shades of her hair.
"I think you and I need to have another chat, Mrs. Pollack."
I glanced at Cloris and Daphne. Both had gone as white as over-bleached poltergeists. They cast worried glances at each other, then at me.
"I'll bring you some coffee when it's done brewing," said Cloris.
I mumbled my thanks, then feeling like a dead woman walking, trailed Detective Batswin down the hall to the conference room.
Detective Robbins was waiting for us. Mighty Mouse had replaced Scooby-Doo as the crime-fighting cartoon character tie of choice, but the detective's grim expression of last night remained in place.
"Have a seat, Mrs. Pollack," he said, indicating the chair normally reserved for Hugo. He and Batswin settled in at either side of me.
My clammy hands knotted into a perfect facsimile of a mutant pretzel, my breathing on hiatus for the unforeseeable future, I waited for the good cop/bad cop interrogation to begin. Over the years I've seen my share of Law & Order episodes. I knew the routine.
Batswin began. "We found something interesting on your computer, Mrs. Pollack."
"Excuse me?"
This was the last thing I expected to hear. Besides company memos and work-related e-mails, my computer contained nothing other than design and word processing files for past, current, and future issues. Trimedia had a strict policy against using company computers for private net surfing or e-mails. Playing Tetris or FreeCell or Solitaire, even after hours, was grounds for immediate dismissal.
"Who's R?" asked Robbins.
"I have no idea."
He removed a sheet of paper from a manila folder and passed it face-down across the table.
I picked it up and turned it over.
From: R
To: Anastasia Pollack
Subject: 50Gs
Friday. Or else.
I gasped, dropping the paper as if it were as blistering as the wax from my hot glue gun. How had Ricardo gotten my work email addy?
More importantly, how was I going to explain his threatening message to the two very suspicious detectives now glaring at me?
Trapped.
No way could I lie my way out of this situation. Karl was the poker face in our family, not me. If I ever tried to fib my way through a polygraph, the needle would leap around so frenetically, it would break off and fly clear across the room, impaling Mighty Mouse to Robbins' thick chest. Reluctantly, I realized I had no choice but to tell Batswin and Robbins about Karl and Ricardo.
Before I could begin, though, there was a light rap at the door. Robbins rose to answer it.
Cloris entered with a tray containing three cups of coffee. Her questioning eyes, filled with a combination of blatant curiosity and genuine worry, scoured my face. "You okay?" she mouthed, as soon as she had positioned herself with her back to Batswin and Robbins.
I reached for some coffee and wrapped my sub-zero digits around the Styrofoam. My trembling hands caused a tidal wave of java to slosh ominously within the cup. Biting down on my lower lip, I shook my head ever so slightly.
Her eyes bugged out. As she scurried from the conference room, I regretted the silent communication that had passed between us. Cloris was my closest friend at Trimedia, but that friendship had never been tested by such juicy gossip as Anastasia getting grilled by the cop
s.
Once the door clicked behind Cloris, I took a deep swig of caffeine before plunging into an account of the events of last week. I doubt Batswin and Robbins expected to hear anything so bizarre. But then again, they were cops. And this was New Jersey.
"But I didn't kill Marlys," I said in conclusion.
I glanced from Batswin to Robbins and then back to Batswin. They both stared at me, Batswin's expression just as grim as Robbins's.
"You have to believe me."
Neither looked all that convinced.
"And I didn't take the diamonds," I continued. "I'm the one who found the body and called the police, remember? I'm the one who told you about the diamonds in the first place. Why would I be stupid enough to tell you about them if I took them to pay off Ricardo?"
"To cover your tracks?" suggested Robbins.
At that moment I felt like pounding my head on the battered conference table. Maybe I shouldn't have told them anything. Too late I thought about the need for a lawyer-not that I could afford one.
And forget court-appointed counsel. Over the years, I'd read and seen enough news accounts, not to mention all those Law & Order episodes, to figure out that court-appointed attorneys were as effective as mosquito repellant in January-in Siberia.
Besides, I don't think the court appoints representation until after a person's been formally charged with a crime. So far, at least, I was lucky in that respect. Although my current predicament had driven my normally rational and focused brain to digress into the land of irrelevant minutia.
But if I had refused to speak before consulting an attorney, wouldn't Batswin and Robbins take that as an admission of guilt? Or at least that I knew something I wasn't telling them?
I asked the question I dreaded hearing the answer to. "Do I need to call a lawyer?"
"Do you?" asked Robbins.
The man had a maddening habit of answering my questions with ones of his own. My entire body, let alone my voice, quaked like the California coastline after a seismic shift of the San Andreas Fault. "Are you going to charge me with Marlys's murder?"
Batswin shook her head. She removed a sheaf of papers from a beat-up leather satchel sitting on the chair next to her. "Not for now. I'm still trying to decide whether or not to believe you, Mrs. Pollack."
Instead of taking comfort in her statement, the blood in my veins turned as cold as a Slurpee. Her not for now hung ominously in the air above me like a craft knife suspended by a frayed strand of embroidery floss. Any moment the strand would break, and the knife would fall. Piercing one of my vital organs.
Detective Batswin spent the next eon rifling through the pages. Then she glanced up and trapped me with her nearly ebony eyes. "My gut suggests you're telling the truth, but that could just be the tasty memory of last night's tequila and enchiladas."
Several of the frayed floss fibers split, and the knife dropped lower, dangling precariously above my heart. I saw through her. She expected me to drop my guard. Make a mistake. Then she'd swoop in for the kill. Or in this case, the arrest. But I had no guard to drop. I didn't murder Marlys.
"I'm curious," said Robbins. "Since you've already admitted you intend to pay off this Ricardo, where did you plan to get the money?"
I told them about renting out the apartment over the garage. "If I can't get him to leave me alone, I'm hoping he'll allow me to pay off the debt over time."
Robbins and Batswin exchanged incredulous expressions, their eyes nearly rolling out of their heads. "And you really believe he'll go for that? Accepting a grand or two when he's owed fifty? And what about interest? Have you got any idea how much loan sharks charge?"
I hadn't thought of that. "I'm showing good faith."
Robbins slammed his hand on the table, rattling the coffee tray. And me. "What you're showing is two tons of stupidity, Mrs. Pollack."
My voice strangled in my throat as it rose several octaves. "Damn it! He threatened to hurt my kids."
Batswin steepled her hands in front of her on the table and spoke in a modulated, unemotional tone that set off alarm sirens inside me. "Most likely, you're dealing with organized crime. Loan sharks around here are usually connected to the mob. They don't want to hear excuses."
"Show up with only partial payment," added Robbins, his voice as grim as his words, "and you'll be wearing cement mukluks before the day is out."
Suddenly my shoes felt much heavier than the pair of Nine West black pumps I had slipped into that morning. I fought back an uncontrollable urge to check my feet. I knew Batswin and Robbins were serious, not just trying to scare the shit out of me. This is New Jersey where cement shoes come in all styles and sizes.
"We can help you," he added.
"How?" And what would they want in return?
"We'll put a tap on your phone. When this Ricardo creep calls to set up a drop, we'll nab him."
"I don't live in this county. It's out of your jurisdiction, isn't it?"
"You let us worry about the details," said Batswin.
It sounded so easy, so simple. And that's what scared me. "But what if something goes wrong? What if he gives you the slip? What if you arrest him and some slick lawyer gets him off? What happens to my kids, then?"
"You've been watching too much television," said Robbins. "We're not as incompetent as Hollywood portrays us"
"And I'm not that gullible, Detective. I also read the newspapers.
Robbins leaned in close, his palms and forearms flat against the table, Mighty Mouse dangling from his neck as if the mouse were about to swoop down and save the day. Robbins' stormy gray eyes narrowed, his voice grew menacing. "We don't need your permission, Mrs. Pollack. Extortion is a crime. We can get a court order to tap your phone."
"This is a nightmare," I moaned.
"Then end it," said Batswin.
They gave me no choice. "All right."
"We'll supply you with the fifty thousand dollars," said Robbins.
Marked bills, no doubt. Meanwhile, between now and the time they caught Ricardo, they'd hear every word spoken over my phone line.
Which was probably the reason they were so eager to help me get rid of Ricardo. They expected to glean information about Marlys's murder from listening in on all my private conversations.
Dumb cops. All they'd hear is carpooling arrangements, teenage pseudo phone sex, Fantasy Baseball player trades, and The Daughters of the October Revolution plotting to take over the world.
But if Batswin and Robbins could rid me of Ricardo, at least I'd have one less two-thousand-pound gorilla sitting on my chest. I'd also have the money from the apartment rental to pay the overdue utility bills.
Now if I could only cajole the Dynamic Duo into taking Lucille ...
As I left the conference room, I paused, my hand on the doorknob, and turned to face them. "Do you know yet how Marlys died?"
Batswin shook her head. "We're still waiting for the lab results."
I opened the door to find Erica hovering on the other side.
ERICA HUGGED HER MIDSECTION, her face a pastiche of worry and fear. Grabbing my arm, she hurried me down the hall to the empty break room. "What did they say?" she asked after closing the door behind us. Her nervous whisper quaked around snuffles and tears as she poured coffee for both of us. "Did they ask about me?"
"No, why?"
She placed the coffee on the table, then dug in her pocket for a used tissue. Choking back a panicked sob, she collapsed into one of the plastic chairs, her voice muffled by her fists and the crumpled tissue she pressed against her face. "I think they think I had something to do with it. They questioned me for nearly an hour."
"They're questioning all of us, Erica. That's how they do their job."
Tears spilled onto her cheeks and bounced into her lap, raining dark blue spots on her stone-washed denim jumper. "But everyone knows how Marlys treated me, how I hated her," she wailed.
"I think they're quickly learning that lots of people hated Marlys. Do you have an alibi for la
st night?"
"I was with Dicky. Except for when he left for a few hours to meet with a client. But I didn't tell the detectives about that. I was too scared."
"Dicky?"
A deep scarlet suffused Erica's pale cheeks; a shy smile tickled the corners of both her mouth and eyes. "My boyfriend," she mumbled.
"Erica!" I plunked into one of the other plastic chairs that surrounded the rickety, coffee-stained Formica table.
Erica had a boyfriend? We all assumed she went home every night to an empty apartment and microwavable meals-for-one. She had never mentioned a boyfriend. Hell, Erica had never mentioned having a date.
It was nice to know that someone's life was picking up, unlike mine, which had recently received a royal flushing down the toilet. "How long has this been going on?"
"A few months."
"Why have you been keeping him a secret?"
"I didn't want Marlys to find out. You know how she is ... was. She'd say he's a real loser if he's going out with me. He's not, though. Dicky's a very successful businessman. He's a financial advisor and owns his own company with lots of employees."
Her slight smile blossomed into a sheepish grin. She spoke into her lap. "And he really likes me."
"I'm happy for you, Erica."
She blew her nose in what was left of the tissue. "I guess I don't have to hide my relationship with Dicky anymore. Now that Marlys is gone."
"Relationship? This sounds serious."
"I guess you could say that." She averted her eyes; her cheeks deepened to the shade of a cooked lobster. "We're living together."
"Really?"
"Does that shock you?"
"Why should it shock me?"
"Well, you being older and all..."
Ouch! She made me sound like I had one foot in Little Old Lady Land. "I'm only forty-two. Besides, your generation didn't invent cohabitation."
"My father would disown me if he found out. Heck, he nearly disowned me when I moved out of the house and got my own apartment. He said nice girls live at home until they get married."
No wonder Erica made the proverbial dormouse look like the proverbial king of the jungle. The poor kid had grown up under the thumb of some domineering nineteenth-century Neanderthal. Then she had the misfortune to go to work for his twenty-first century Amazon counterpart. Talk about jumping from the wok into the inferno.