Allison Janda - Marian Moyer 01 - Sex, Murder & Killer Cupcakes

by Allison Janda

  My second space is completely windowless, a former warehouse storage area. I’ve charmed up my walls with various stills from the past several years and small boxes of photos spill onto workbenches, my desk (which is actually just three sawhorses glued together and stained) and even the floor. Strewing my coat over a wobbly stool, I set my coffee on a workbench, turned towards the cubes and scanned for Rory.

  He’s easy to spot, sporting a mop of thick sandy curls atop his 6′4″ frame. While his suit coats never fit quite right and his glasses look like he pulled them straight from an ’80s sitcom, he’s of incredibly well-collected mind and vastly ahead of the creative curve. We can only afford to pay him a pathetic sum, compared to the amount of work he produces for us, but he inherited a ridiculous fortune from some great something or other and truly enjoys working in our humble space. No doubt you’ve seen his work in our publication. His layouts are award-winning.

  As if I’d conjured him, the small metal door off the alleyway opened and Rory barreled in, nose tucked deep in his fully zipped store brand fleece. You’d never know the guy could buy Sweden simply by checking out his wardrobe. Out of breath and red-faced from the wind, he set his briefcase by the door and was slow to remove his jacket. “Hey kid, what’s cooking?” he asks candidly in his British accent once he noticed my presence. Rory calls everyone “kid” despite the fact that we all, save for Betsy, are in our very late twenties. He told me once that he picked up the phrase from an American film and liked it so much that he decided to use it.

  “That,” I said, pointing to his beaten brown leather briefcase, “is foul and unnecessary.” He smiled, bemused, and began walking towards his cubicle. Following, I asked, “Do you have time to throw together an open call for male models?”

  His brow wrinkled in confusion and I could almost see his brain working through my words. “Didn’t we just put one of those on this past spring?” he asked, hanging his coat from the old-fashioned standing coat rack he’d furnished his space with.

  I shifted my gaze to the gray factory-order carpet, which had suddenly become incredibly interesting. Heaving a sigh, I kicked at something invisible on the ground. “He’s not working out so well,” I mumbled.

  “Well that’s too bad. Betsy is always telling me he’s a…what’s the term? A hottie with a body. That’s it.”

  “Rory!” I reprimanded.

  “I’m not the one saying it,” he protested. “Besides, I certainly didn’t think that he was the best candidate. But I was overruled.” Giving me a pointed look, he sat down and swiveled towards his computer. I had to give him that one. The female staff members tended to get the final word on the male models. Addison, Betsy and myself would take turns choosing, as we each have drastically different tastes in men. Rory, being the only male in the office, was granted many more opportunities to pick and choose female models to his liking.

  As his computer slowly clicked and whirred to life, he sighed. “I’ll get something together by noon. Are you going to be around? Should I forward it to you?”

  “Addie.”

  His back straightened considerably as he combed his fingers through his mess of curls. “Where?” he hissed.

  “No, I meant forward the release to Addie,” I corrected. His shoulders drooped and my heart ached for him. “But she said to tell you ‘hi,’” I finished quickly, immediately feeling like a traitor. Still, this seemed to perk him up a bit and I slowly backed out of his cubicle and into the development room, allowing him to cling to the hope that “the model” (as I referred to Peter, Addison’s boyfriend) would soon break her heart, leaving her open for a far more intimate office romance.

  The only trouble with working in a windowless office is that you are never quite sure of the time. Stretching my arms high above my head, I took note of my growling stomach and decided I was in desperate need of a snack. No sooner had I thrown on my jacket, than there was a frantic, loud knock. Tripping over a bin overflowing with prints, I skipped the last few steps to my door and opened it with an annoyed “what?”

  Betsy stood wide-eyed on the other side. She seemed to be practicing that look a lot today. “Addison said she needs to speak to you right away. It’s an emergency.”

  “She’s still here?” I grumbled, buttoning my coat and trailing after Betsy. “I thought she was headed into her grown up job.”

  Upstairs, the door to the dressing room was slightly cracked and a light was on. Perhaps Alec had shown up after all. Opening the door to our office, I noticed that Addison wasn’t at her desk. Craning my neck around the door, I took stock of my much disheveled partner, covered in a lapful of wet tissues, another pile gathered on a corner of her flawless, glossy conference table. Betsy darted around me and stood next to Addie, clutching a cell phone and looked incredibly uncomfortable.

  Upon seeing me, Addison’s chin began to tremble. “I’ve…been…texting youuuuuu,” she howled, melting into a mass of tears and snot.

  Closing the door, I gave Betsy a wary look before slowly making my way to Addie’s side. I hadn’t seen this colossal of a meltdown since Johnny Depp bowed out of a photo shoot due to last-minute scheduling conflicts two years ago. Nothing today had suggested that this would be waiting shortly before the lunch hour. No wonder Betsy had looked so agitated.

  “It’s…bad,” she gasped, blowing her nose loudly. Fear clutched my heart as I waited for her to continue. Was it her parents? My parents? Peter? Sure her boyfriend was a nitwit, but I didn’t wish ill on the man. Well, maybe sometimes, but now I’d feel bad.

  “What happened?” I whispered, bracing myself for the worst. Betsy shuffled beside me.

  Sniffling, Addison raised her eyes to meet mine. “Alec’s dead.”

  There was a beat followed by my loud nervous laughter. “What?” I asked, positive I hadn’t heard right. “He’s DEAD?”

  She nodded and I turned to Betsy, sure that I was being Punked, but her face only served to chill me straight to my core. They weren’t joking. “How do you know?” I asked, suddenly serious. My criminal investigation mind brushed off the cobwebs that had collected since college and clicked into high gear.

  A look that I couldn’t quite read passed between the two women. Addison began to weep again, softly, and Betsy motioned me out of the room. Out on the landing she turned to me. “She wouldn’t let me call the police until you were here to tell us what to do.”

  Nothing was making sense and yet my brain was slowly piecing everything together, sending adrenaline coursing through my veins. Holding fast to the rail, I followed her to the dressing room. Still clutching her cell phone, Betsy used it to gently push the door open a little wider. There, slumped over in one of the chairs, was a very gray, lifeless Alec.

  Having sufficiently heaved my morning coffee into a trashcan, I now sat slack and exhausted against the railing. Just because I make a living out of photographing crime scenes didn’t mean I was prepared to see someone that I knew personally dead. Betsy stood over me, wringing her hands and chewing her lower lip with worry. “Should I call the police?” she asked in a small voice.

  “What the hell kind of a question is that?” I barked. “Of COURSE you should call the police!” Pulling myself off the ground, I took long, shaky strides back to the main office and closed the door behind me. Sliding down to the floor, I covered my face with my hands. “You could have at least warned me.”

  Addison shrugged. “I thought that you of all people could stomach it.”

  Alec had only been with us for a few short months and they’d been tumultuous. It wasn’t anything unusual for him to be late to a photo shoot or to altogether not show up, hungover from a night of parties, girls and whatever else 22 year old small-town boys enjoyed their first few years in a big city. Granted, I’d never wished him dead. Okay, maybe once or twice — but only when he was being difficult.

  Still, I was far less disturbed by this news than say, hearing that my parents had been kidnapped by a Yeti. Or the small-town butcher who they
both had an inherent dislike for. I’d never hear the end of that one. “I told you he was bad news!” my mother would shout at me in her thick Boston accent, shaking her angry fist.

  “What now?” Addison asked me in her trembling voice. “You’re the expert.”

  I shook my head to clear it and looked up into her sad, tired face. Suddenly feeling weary myself, my head lolled backward, coming to a rest on the door while my arms fell limply at my sides.

  “Well…Betsy is calling the police.” I shrugged. “We should wait here.” I paused. “Did either of you touch him?”

  She looked momentarily disgusted by the thought of putting her French manicure anywhere near a dead body. I couldn’t really blame her. “I came upstairs to get my purse,” she explained. “I saw we had some messages and decided to return a few calls before I left. Then Betsy came in and asked if we could close down the dressing room since Alec never showed.” She took a deep breath. “I didn’t even realize the lights had been left on from whenever he came in. He’s never been here early; I didn’t bother to check the dressing room this morning!” She threw her hands into the air in frustration. “I thought someone just left the office lights on last night,” she sighed. “I thought that, that was weird and I wanted to make sure everything was okay, so I went to turn the lights off myself. I pushed the door open and saw him. Betsy was behind me. No one touched anything other than the door.” After a deep breath, she murmured, “It’s just such a waste of…of…talent!” With that, she was doubled over into yet another tissue, wailing over the injustice of it all.

  Moments later, there was a gentle knock on the door, which I tried to open, unsuccessfully, while still sitting on the floor. After several seconds of struggle, I cursed loudly then stood and yanked the door open, practically snarling at the person on the other side. Rory raised his hands in defense. “Betsy told me. I just wanted to check in with you both. See if you needed anything.”

  While a dear friend, in this particular instance, he was looking right through me. Still, I couldn’t take it personally. I’d seen a lot of dead bodies throughout the last few years, some in much more gruesome states. Oh, and he wasn’t madly in love with me. Stepping aside, I beckoned him into the office and quietly stepped out.

  Betsy was leaning against the wall outside the dressing room, mumbling into her phone. Deciding to make a few calls of my own, I made my way downstairs to the front doors and heaved them open. They seemed so much heavier today. Crisp, cool air licked my face while tears I hadn’t even realized were falling felt hardened against my warm skin. Swiping angrily at my face, I pulled out my phone, which was still dead. I wanted to throw the thing.

  Soon after I heard the wailing of sirens off in the distance. Somewhat in a haze, I rubbed below my eyes with my jacket cuffs, then noisily wiped at my runny nose, numb from the cold. Chances are I’d recognize some of the faces. No point in being unrecognizable myself with a puffy face and red eyes.

  It seemed like the whole of the Milwaukee PD descended upon the warehouse that morning. Cop car after cop car, vans, an ambulance, the coroner and even a fire truck. Our small staff huddled together in the studio, clutching the warm coffees Barry had fetched for us. Barry had been with the force for a few years but he never seemed to have grown out of being an eager young gun, constantly absorbing crime scenes like a sponge and forever fetching warm drinks on cool days when we worked a crime scene together. Today was a little different but suffice to say he never faltered, even as circumstances changed.

  Somewhere in the middle of the same questions being asked by a different detective, I heard sharp voices just outside the main doors. There was a loud bang as one of the doors was wrenched open, then a deep voice shouted, “I just said you can’t go in there!”

  Peter’s angry, twisted face appeared as he wrenched his way into the studio. “Pete!” Addison yelped, throwing herself into his arms. There was a flurry of embarrassing over-the-top passion, but it looked good on the pair, unlike how it might look for most other couples.

  Turning away from the detective, I caught Rory’s pained reaction, but when he met my eyes the pain was gone and an “aw shucks” look had replaced it. Walking over, hands deep in his pockets, he sighed heavily. “I hope calling him for her was the right thing.”

  Surprised, I turned. “You called him? Why?” He shrugged and I gave him a tiny smile. What a man.

  “I left my shoot on the other side of town for this,” Pete was telling Addison in his thick Chicago gangster-like tongue. His dark, angled features reminded me of an Italian mobster. “I’d better get to see the body.”

  Rolling my eyes at Rory, I turned back to the detective and continued to answer his questions, catching a crime scene photographer I’d seen many times before but had never actually spoken to scaling the stairs up to the dressing room. “That should be me,” I muttered under my breath.

  It was well into early evening by the time we were released for the day. Clutching business cards from various individuals “in case you remember anything,” Addison, Rory and myself made our way onto the sidewalk, breathing in the clean, late day air. I’d spent hours at a crime scene before but had never felt quite so drained. Homicides sure were a lot more tiring when you were on the inside.

  Peter, who had become disgruntled and bored after only a few minutes, left under the guise of needing to get back to the shoot he’d skipped out on. He’d called Addie about an hour later, inviting her to a party, which turned into an argument about his overall lack of sensitivity and her unwillingness to unwind. She’d hung up in an angry huff and declared that they were over! Forever! No one, save for Rory, had paid any heed. Peter would call back once he was drunk to apologize and the two would likely have mind-blowing make-up sex that night which I was sure to hear all about the following morning. I’d been privy to their break-ups and make-ups for many years.

  The three of us shuffled uncomfortably on the sidewalk. I got the feeling that while none of us really felt like going home, we were all too embarrassed to admit it. Thankfully, Rory was the first to crumble. “Anyone need a drink?” he asked hopefully.

  “Oh, thank goodness,” Addison said. “Yes. Yes, please.”

  Linking elbows, we walked quickly towards the busier section of Water Street as it gained its pulsing, evening beat.

  Eventually, we ducked into a small bar, decked out in Ireland’s finest. Finding a cramped wooden table towards the back, we removed our coats before collapsing into our chairs, exhausted from the day. My stomach grumbled loudly, reminding me that I still had yet to eat anything.

  Later that night, our pitcher empty and our bellies full, we walked one another to the door and parted ways after much hugging and promises to keep in touch throughout the week. Our studio was shut down for investigation and evidence collection for the foreseeable future. Over drinks that evening, Addison and I had decided to make a drive north in the morning, where we would stay with my parents for a few days. Rory was going to remain in the city and “hold down the fort” as he liked to call it.

  My radio had been a welcome distraction on the slow drive home and I found that the deafening silence in my apartment left something to be desired. Even Fred, my red beta fish, didn’t feel the need to make any relaxing swish sounds as he swam back and forth in his tank- the traitor.

  Running my own business on top of freelancing for the MPD left me little time to care for a more active animal. There were times I photographed a crime scene so horrific that I would second guess my decision and troll PetFinder for a Doberman or a German Shepherd. Thus far, I’d never actually gone through with a purchase.

  No matter what, I refused to be the first to break. I would not be the one who made the first call to the other two. It didn’t matter how many times I closed my eyes and saw poor, dead Alec — with his graying face and cold, rigid fingers. I placed a hand over my mouth and swallowed the gag. “It’s going to be fine,” I told myself. “Classic mind over matter. Close your eyes and imagi- nope, do
n’t close your eyes. Deep breath. Just think about something else. Anything. Else.”

  Trying to not think of something is pretty much impossible. In fact, it boils down to being the only thing you can think about. Nothing prepares you for finding a fellow employee dead. Moreover, you’ll feel like someone has it out for you, even if it might not be the case. We’d pissed off a lot of people by writing poor reviews.

  I double checked that both the knob and the deadbolt were securely locked on my door before digging for my phone which was, of course, still dead. Damn. The charger was in the bedroom. The bedroom had huge windows, practically begging for someone to break through them. Never mind that I lived on the ninth floor because that nonsense didn’t matter when someone wanted you dead, right?

  Fred had stopped drifting back and forth and had instead turned towards me with judgmental pause, his only movement the delicate fanning of his fins. “Fine,” I hissed.

  With great effort I managed to talk myself into turning on main lights, all the while keeping myself pressed close to the door, in case escape suddenly became necessary. When the apartment was awash in light with nothing amiss, I darted to my bedroom. Practically tearing my phone charger from its socket, I raced back to the safety of my soothing, sparsely furnished living room. Nothing could hide from me out here.

  Building a nest of blankets and pillows, I collected Fred’s tank, as well as a small, sharp knife from the kitchen and a king sized Reese’s from the refrigerator. Cold dread was impacting my appetite. With Frank’s tank balanced between my legs, I set about finding a non-CSI type show on my DVR (impossible by the way) and tore into my Reese’s. Perhaps it was from the strain of trying too hard to keep my eyes open, or maybe the lull of Frank’s oxygen pump, now plugged into the floor outlet by my couch, but I don’t even remember falling asleep.