How to Succeed in Murder

by Margaret Dumas

  “Um, sweetie.” I waved at her. “Unless you’re going undercover as a Women’s Studies professor, maybe that’s the sort of thought you should keep to yourself.”

  She looked startled. “Oh, right. Habit.” She turned to Jack. “So what is my cover?”

  He grinned. “You’ll be a human resources representative, specializing in change management. Basically, you’re a sympathetic ear for people who are being affected by the proposed changes. You’re someone they can confide in about their fears.”

  “What proposed changes?” I asked him. “I thought we were just faking it.”

  “That’s the beauty of the thing,” Jack explained. “As long as you don’t define the plan, everyone will assume they’re being affected, so they’ll all need a sympathetic ear.”

  “Which makes Brenda Grand Central Station for rumors and backstabbing,” I guessed.

  “Cool!” She beamed.

  “Hang on a minute, Jack,” Simon spoke up. “Do you mean to say that we’re really going to go in there with one person who vaguely knows what she’s doing and three completely bullshit pieces of fluff?”

  “Welcome to consulting. Makes you want to start your own firm, doesn’t it?”

  “Bloody right it does. How much are we charging for this?”

  “Lots,” Jack told him. “Otherwise they won’t think you’re worth anything.”

  Simon sat back in his chair. “I’m in the wrong line of work.”

  “Okay.” I stood and stretched. “Now that that’s all figured out, we should talk about costumes. Eileen, you’re taken care of, but the rest of us don’t have anything even remotely businesslike in our closets.”

  “Too bad Martha’s still out of town,” Simon said.

  Martha, the costume designer for the Rep, had come out of the broom closet a few months ago, announcing herself as a proud practitioner of Wicca. She’d gone off to Stonehenge on some sort of pilgrimage as soon as the costumes for the last play of the season were complete, and nobody had heard from her since.

  “It is a shame,” I agreed. “She’d have known just what to wear.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” Eileen said. “It isn’t complicated. Let’s just head to Union Square tomorrow, and somewhere between Banana Republic and Brooks Brothers, we’ll come up with something.”

  “You’re a genius,” I told her. “And before you say anything, I’m picking up the tab for this shopping expedition, and I don’t want any arguments.”

  I looked at Brenda, who had a policy of refusing my attempts at generosity except on her birthday or Christmas, but it was Simon who spoke.

  “I wouldn’t think of arguing the point.”

  Brenda made a face and nodded. “It’s in a good cause, and I can always donate the clothes to charity when we’re done.”

  Simon looked appalled.

  “Now that we’ve got that important subject taken care of,” Jack said dryly, “could we talk over one more tiny detail—like coming up with a pretext for getting you all into Zakdan in the first place?”

  I gave him a blank look. “What do you mean?”

  He sighed. “So far we’ve figured out what you’ll do when you get in. But we need some sort of scenario that Morgan Stokes can take to the board of directors. He has to convince them you’re selling something they want, and we haven’t figured out what that is yet.”

  In the silence that followed we heard faint buccaneer noises from the office upstairs where Anthony was playing the computer pirate game.

  Eileen spoke. “You’re right, Jack. Even if it’s nonsense and we don’t do a damn thing once we’re there, we have to have a reason to be let in the door.”

  “I don’t suppose Morgan could just tell the board what he’s up to?” I suggested.

  Jack shook his head. “Until we know who’s behind all of this, we don’t know how high up it might go.”

  Again, silence.

  “Um.” Brenda looked startled that she’d made a sound.

  “Do you have an idea?” Jack asked.

  “No.” She hesitated. “I mean…I have a thought, but it’s not about what to do, it’s about who could help.”

  We were listening.

  “I mean,” she continued. “We know someone who could help. Someone who could approach the board as a huge investor, and then insist that his team of experts do an in-house assessment before he’ll commit. Someone who has that kind of money, and clout.” She looked at me. “And someone who can bullshit better than the rest of us put together.”

  Ugh. She was right. I hated to admit it, but she was right.

  “Harry.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  My uncle had one condition—that we stop for takeout from Big Nate’s Barbeque on the way down to Hillsborough to see him.

  As a consequence, vast quantities of ribs, chicken, and cornbread now waited in a warming oven while Brenda, Simon, and I waited in the game room across the hall from Harry’s office, where Jack was outlining the plan for him.

  The game room, aside from the usual equipment such as a pool table and a backgammon board, held a disturbing array of wall-mounted animals and the sort of weaponry that might have been used to bring them to their current sorry state.

  Maybe Harry thought the big-game hunter macho thing the décor implied would land him the babes, or maybe he just hadn’t bothered to redecorate since the last in his extensive string of ex-wives had stormed out. In any case, the feeling of being watched by several dozen glass eyes wasn’t really helping our stress level.

  “He’ll do it.” Brenda’s voice held confidence. Then she looked at me. “Won’t he?”

  “He’s bound to,” Simon replied, amusing himself with a fencing foil he’d taken from its display case. “Harry’s up for anything.” He thrust with the thin blade. “You know that.”

  I deeply hoped she knew nothing of the sort. But Simon was right in one sense. Harry never turned down a chance to meddle in things. And infiltrating a major corporation with a bogus team of consultants would constitute meddling on the kind of scale he was known to appreciate.

  “Hello, Charley.”

  I jumped a good nine inches off the mocha leather chair I’d been perched on. Harry’s voice can do that to me.

  He’d entered the room from the door behind me. I turned to find him regarding me with a massive cigar in his mouth and a massive gleam in his eye.

  “Jack says you need me.” The cigar got a chomp of satisfaction.

  “He’s paraphrasing,” Jack told me, following Harry in and pausing to give me a reassuring peck on the cheek.

  Harry made for the bar. “Who’s drinking? Simon, I’ve got an Añejo Reserva tequila here that will set us up for that barbeque just right. Can I twist your arm?”

  Simon lost interest in the sword. “Twisting won’t be in the least necessary, Harry.”

  “And Brenda?” The cigar was removed to allow for a broad smile. “Can I tempt you?”

  Was she blushing? Good God, was she blushing?

  “Harry!” My voice produced something closer to a panicked yell than I’d intended, but I went with it. “Would you stop playing bartender for a minute and tell us whether you’ll do it?”

  He turned to me with a bottle in hand and a maddeningly amused look on his face. “Do what?”

  I sighed. I reached for the bottle, took a glass, and poured myself a shot. I downed it looking at my uncle, shuddered briefly, and spoke. “Will you help us?”

  His eyebrows went up. “Sure, Charley. All you had to do was ask.”

  Jack took the bottle from me before I did something drastic with it.

  “I only have one condition.” Harry lined up four shot glasses on the bar.

  “Of course you do.” I added my glass to the line.

  “You’ll need protection.”

  “Jack and I have already gone over all that. We’ll be perfectly—”

  Whatever bland assurances I would have made were cut off by Harry’s completely unre
asonable demand.

  “You’ll take Flank.”

  “Flank!” Simon protested before I had a chance to close my mouth. “The man’s a menace! He practically killed me once just for walking into a room with Charley.”

  “Well, that is kinda what you look for in a bodyguard.” Harry eyed me. “You’re taking him.”

  Flank had been my bodyguard for an unpleasant period when certain people had been trying to sabotage my theatre and kill me along with my husband. He was a handy guy to have around in an emergency. But he was also extremely large and extremely hairy and—unless we planned to enter Zakdan as a team of paleoanthropologists traveling with our own live Neanderthal exhibit—he wasn’t exactly going to blend in.

  “Harry, it’s impossible. Jack, tell him it’s impossible.”

  Jack didn’t get the chance.

  “Impossible or not.” Harry motioned for the tequila from Jack and began to pour. “You’re taking Flank or I’m not going to the board of directors to tell lies for you. It’s your choice.”

  “Just what are we supposed to tell people about him? He doesn’t exactly look like a computer programmer.”

  Harry grinned as he passed the shot glasses around. “No, I can’t say he does.” He paused before handing me my drink. “Maybe a secretary?”

  Flank. A secretary.

  We were doomed.

  ***

  “It’s awful. It’s just awful.”

  Eileen was referring to the outfit Brenda had on. And I couldn’t disagree. We’d met at Saks the following morning to shop for our undercover wardrobes.

  We were not having much success.

  “I’m not a suit type of person,” Brenda explained. Faced with the pinstriped evidence, I found it hard to disagree. “I just don’t do tailored well.”

  “But the point isn’t to look good.” Eileen spoke as if she were trying to convince herself. “I mean, a lot of women look professional without looking good.”

  “Eileen,” I reminded her. “You’re the one who said this was going to be easy.”

  “It should be,” she insisted. “It’s not like we’re walking down the red carpet on Oscar night. We’re just going to work. In an office. People do it every day.”

  “People, maybe,” Brenda said. “But not Charley. And not me.” She pulled the jacket off with evident relief. “Why can’t I just dress like a teacher?”

  Things in the changing room were on the verge of getting ugly when we heard a familiar voice calling from outside in the hallway.

  “Hello? Darlings? Where are you?”

  “Simon?” I popped my head out the door and peered down the hall. Simon was hovering at the end of the row of dressing rooms, averting his eyes and hollering for us.

  “You’re supposed to be shopping.” I couldn’t imagine anything that would prevent Simon from wreaking havoc through Union Square with the shiny new credit card I’d given him.

  “There you are. Thank heaven!” He spoke to someone behind him. “Darling, it sounds like we’re just in time!” Then back to me. “We could hear you three arguing all the way from the escalator.”

  “Who’s ‘we’? And why are you here?” Eileen pushed me out into the hallway so she could get in on the discussion.

  “I’m here because I’m always looking out for you, darlings, with never a thought for myself. And today I’m saving you from a fashion disaster. Look who’s here!”

  He vanished from the doorway, and shoved someone else into the dressing room hall. Someone who was rail thin, five foot two on her best day, and draped head to toe in filmy eggplant-colored knitwear.

  “Martha!”

  I’d never been so happy to see a witch in my life. Particularly since the witch in question was the Rep’s brilliant costume designer, apparently returned home from her vacation to the top ten Wiccan hotspots of Europe.

  “Hi, Charley. I got back a few days ago, so when Simon called this morning and told me about your reality theatre project I thought it sounded fun.” She came down the hall to our dressing room, brushing back her hood, or cowl, or whatever it was, to reveal her hair in a long loose braid and her face astonishingly free of the heavy eye makeup I was used to. She looked about fourteen years old. I’d have to remember to ask her if there was a spell for that.

  But first, to business. She entered the dressing room and appraised the three of us with a critical eye. “Who’s playing who?”

  Clearly Simon hadn’t mentioned the whole covert ops aspect to the costuming challenge. I explained that Brenda was in the human resources role, Eileen was playing the team leader, and I was a project manager. Martha nodded, tilted her head to the side, and considered.

  “You,” she said to Brenda, “need to stay loose and unconstructed. If you want people to confide in you, don’t wear shoulder pads. I’m thinking Eileen Fisher with Cole Haan shoes.”

  Brenda nodded as if she knew what that meant.

  “You.” She pointed at Eileen, gesturing with a twirly finger for her to turn around. “If you’re supposed to be in charge, you should be intimidating. You’re in suits in every scene…slim-fitting trousers with pointed toe boots…spiky heels…and let’s see if we can do some sort of sleek ponytail with all that hair.”

  Just what had Simon told Martha she was dressing us for? I didn’t have time to question her, because her attention was now firmly on me.

  “And you’re somewhere in the middle. You’re not the boss…you don’t have a lot to spend on clothes…probably a few good pieces that you got on sale…the rest is Gap and Banana…”

  I stopped paying attention. I didn’t have to. I was in the hands of a professional.

  ***

  “Well, that’s settled, then.” Simon sat back in his chair with a look of blissful satisfaction.

  We were all pretty pleased with ourselves. Once Martha had taken over she’d made quick work of marching us to the proper departments in the proper stores to get the proper costumes.

  We’d finished in time for a late lunch, for which she declined to join us, saying something about a prior appointment at the East Bay Vivarium. I didn’t choose to speculate about what she might be browsing for at a reptile specialty store. The rest of us had gone on to meet Simon at the Neiman Marcus Rotunda.

  He’d had a successful day as well, and was topping it off with a lobster club sandwich. “I wonder how the meeting at Zakdan went.”

  Jack had called Morgan Stokes from Harry’s the night before, and asked him to make arrangements for a board meeting in the afternoon. I looked at my watch and realized my uncle was probably spinning an extensive string of lies somewhere South of Market as we spoke.

  “Let’s hope he can sell it,” Eileen said. “I’d hate to have to return everything we just bought.”

  Simon choked on a bite of brioche. “You can’t be serious.”

  “It won’t come to that,” I assured him. “Harry will sell it.”

  There are some things of which I have no doubt.

  “Charley.” Simon seemed struck by a thought. “What are we going to do about the Rep while we’re…occupied?”

  “What do you mean?” I picked at my seafood Cobb salad.

  “Well, these two—” He gestured to Eileen and Brenda with a French fry. “—are on vacations from work, but we still have to get through that pile of plays Chip has lined up for us.”

  Damn. I’d completely forgotten about that.

  I looked up at the stained-glass dome of the restaurant. It gave me no inspiration.

  “We’ll just have to squeeze the reading in where we can,” I told him. “That’s what we’d do if we’d gone on vacation somewhere.” I allowed myself one tiny daydream about the untaken vacation, visualizing myself next to a bronzed and mostly naked Jack lying on a beach somewhere.

  In the daydream I wasn’t reading.

  “Charley?” Brenda was looking at me funny. “Are you okay?”

  I sighed. “As well as can be expected.” I looked at Simon. “Tell
Chip to come over on Saturday. We can talk about the next batch then.”

  “Speaking of the Rep,” Eileen said. “Should you two be using false names when we go undercover?”

  I gave her a blank look.

  “You and Simon have been in the paper more than once, for opening nights and things,” she explained. “People might recognize you and wonder why you gave up a life in the theatre to become high-tech consultants.”

  Simon and I looked at each other. “Do you think?”

  He shrugged. “It’s not as though we’re famous or anything…” He seemed to lose interest in the topic with the arrival of the dessert menus.

  “I’m a little more worried about the fact that you and Brenda and I went to Clara’s funeral,” I told Eileen.

  She waved her hand dismissively, over both the dessert selections and my concerns. “That’s easy. We weren’t actually introduced to anyone from Zakdan, just seen. It would be perfectly reasonable for us to pay our respects to Morgan’s fiancée if we’d been working on him with the preliminaries of the consultancy job for the past few weeks.”

  “I suppose so.” We’d just have to find a way of working that into the conversation somewhere.

  “Oh!” Brenda sat up suddenly. “But what about the other night? In the car? Do you think the driver of that truck could have gotten a good look at you?”

  That was a frightening thought. I’d assumed that the killer’s attempt on us had mainly been an attempt on Jack, because of his snooping around at Zakdan. But Brenda was right. Even though the driver might not have set out to kill me, he might have gotten a good enough look at my face to recognize me when I came strolling into Zakdan masquerading as a consultant.

  But then again… “It was pretty dark and rainy that night, and everything happened awfully fast. And Jack is positive the truck wasn’t trailing us from the house, so the killer wouldn’t have seen me getting into the car.”

  Brenda still looked worried. I can’t say I was entirely calm about it all myself.

  “Maybe you should go blonde, darling,” Simon suggested. “Or what about a fiery redhead? That might suit you very well.”

  “I’ll ask Jack what he thinks.” Except I’d probably omit the fiery redhead suggestion. “But I really don’t think it’s worth worrying about. So don’t worry.”