How to Succeed in Murder

by Margaret Dumas

  These were not productive thoughts.

  I poured the water into the carafe, grabbed a mug, and took it all back to the bedroom. After a shower and a pot of coffee I’d be able to deal. After a shower and a pot of coffee I’d tear through the stack of manuscripts so they wouldn’t be hanging over my head anymore. Then I’d study Mike and Eileen’s Fake Book until I knew everything cold. It would all work out.

  All I needed was a shower and a pot of coffee.

  ***

  “Charley, have you read the paper?” Brenda’s voice on the phone was a good octave higher than usual.

  “I’ve been reading plays all morning. Why? What’s in the paper?”

  I heard her gulp. “Lalit Kumar is dead.”

  “What?” I pushed the scattered manuscripts aside and jumped out of the bed. “What do you mean, dead? Since when? Who—”

  “Just listen,” she interrupted. “Here’s what it says. ‘Police are investigating the apparent suicide of local software executive Lalit Kumar. The Chief Technical Officer of San Francisco’s Zakdan, Inc., Kumar was last seen Wednesday evening at the Zakdan offices. Concerned friends contacted the police when Kumar failed to appear at a weekend social engagement—’ I wonder if that means Clara’s funeral?”

  I swallowed. “Maybe. What else does it say?”

  Brenda continued reading. “‘Investigation of the software executive’s home revealed no clues to his mental state. His body was found in a remote region of the Presidio, near his abandoned car. At this time, information regarding the apparent suicide is being sought by the SFPD.’” She paused. “Then it gives a number to call if you know anything about it.”

  I’d held my breath while she finished. “They don’t say anything about a connection with Clara’s murder?”

  “Nothing.”

  I wasn’t sure if that was good news or bad.

  “Charley.” Brenda’s voice was shaking. “They think the last time he was seen was at work on Wednesday.”

  When, in fact, we’d seen him pick someone up outside a bar in the Mission District and vanish into the rainy night.

  “Charley, we have to call the police.”

  “It’s worse than that,” I realized. “We have to call Inspector Yahata.”

  ***

  First, I called Jack. I wanted to give Brenda enough time to come over from the East Bay. And somehow I figured Jack would get less upset over me lying about where I’d been Wednesday night if he heard it from me instead of from the police.

  I reached him on his cell phone.

  “Are you still with Inspector Yahata?” That thought hadn’t struck me until he answered.

  “No, he was gone by the time I got there. I just took a look at the truck and confirmed it was the right one.”

  “It was? So what happens now?”

  “The police scraped some paint from our car to send to the lab, but whoever stole the truck did a good job of cleaning it up before ditching it in Pacifica. Why did you want to know if I was with Yahata?”

  I took a deep breath.

  “Jack,” I began. “Do you remember that conversation we had about not keeping anything from each other anymore?”

  There was a foreboding pause. “Yes.”

  “Well, I wasn’t exactly keeping this from you, because I really didn’t think it mattered at the time, and because I did it before we had our little talk and everything…”

  “This is going to be bad, isn’t it?”

  “No,” I said hastily. “No, not really, it’s just that…”

  I got through it quickly from that point on. It was less painful that way. Just like ripping off a bandage.

  With slightly less yelling.

  ***

  Being questioned by Inspector Yahata was excruciating. Particularly since we had so little to tell.

  He and Brenda arrived at the same time, and the three of us sat awkwardly in Simon’s beach chairs for the ordeal. At least, Brenda and I were awkward. The inspector seemed to have an uncanny ability to make the chair sit up straighter when he was in it, as if it dared not insult his impeccable posture.

  He tapped a small leather-bound notepad with his sleek silver pen. “You can recall nothing particular about the person you saw get into Kumar’s car?”

  It was not the first time he’d asked that question. The sharpness of his gaze had increased with every repetition, and I had the feeling he would slice me open with it if he said it again.

  “It was dark and it was raining, and we were at least twenty feet away,” I told him. “All we saw was someone in black jeans and a black leather jacket holding a newspaper over his head.”

  “Or her head,” Brenda offered.

  The detective’s lips grew thinner. “White? Black? Asian?”

  Brenda and I looked at each other and shrugged.

  “And this glint of something metallic that you saw the passenger holding before you lost sight of the car—are you sure it was a gun?”

  “I thought so at the time,” I told him, unconvincingly.

  “But when we talked it over afterward, we weren’t sure,” Brenda explained. “It was so…”

  “Dark, yes, I understand. And raining.” Yahata held us with that gaze a moment longer, then snapped his notebook shut.

  “I just keep thinking that if we hadn’t lost him that night he wouldn’t be dead now,” Brenda spoke softly, saying exactly what I’d been thinking.

  “On the contrary,” the inspector responded swiftly. “If you had witnessed anything more, or been seen by Mr. Kumar or his passenger, I might very well be investigating three suspicious deaths at this point, rather than one.”

  I blinked. That put things in perspective, but I don’t think it made either of us feel any better.

  “I’m so sorry we can’t be more help,” I said.

  The detective stood. “This has been extremely helpful.”

  “At least it seems to make it clear that foul play was involved in Kumar’s death.” I realized the cheap melodrama of the phrase ‘foul play,’ but I couldn’t help myself from saying things like that around the inspector.

  He gave me one of those frowns that are over so quickly you can’t be sure they even happened. Then he looked at me curiously. “Do you think so?”

  Well, yes—at least I had until he’d said that.

  ***

  Jack came home late to find me in soaking in a hot tub. He’d brought up a bottle of Chianti and two glasses, and he poured while I told him how things had gone with the interrogation.

  “It must not have been too bad,” he observed. “At least Yahata left some skin on you.”

  I drew a leg up out of the bubbles. “Are you going to take the rest of it off?”

  “Are you keeping anything else from me?”

  “Nope.” Really, I wasn’t. At least nothing I could think of.

  “Well then, since it’s such nice skin, let’s just dry it off.” He held out a towel.

  I sighed and took it, using it strategically as I got out of the tub. “I just wish I knew more about Kumar’s death. The paper hardly had any details.”

  Jack regarded me with interest. “What would you like to know?”

  I stared at him. “I think I’d like to know why Inspector Yahata tells you this sort of thing.” But there was slim chance of that.

  He sipped his wine. “A suicide note was left on Kumar’s computer work, in an email that wasn’t addressed to anyone.”

  I reached for my robe and followed him into the bedroom. “What did it say?”

  He shrugged. “Something along the lines of the pressure at Zakdan getting to be too much and a realization that his life was empty and meaningless.” He sat on the bed and crossed his legs at the ankles.

  I watched his face. “You don’t buy it.”

  He looked at me, and I could tell he was considering his answer. “I don’t.”

  I plopped onto the bed next to him. “Why? What else do you know?”

  He took a
minute to dab at the wine my move had caused to slosh out onto his shirt.

  “Jack! What else do you know?”

  He took a deep breath. “I know that from every account I’ve heard, Lalit Kumar thrived on stress. He wasn’t someone who would have issues with pressure. And as for his life being empty and meaningless, I know that he was in the process of adopting a child from an orphanage in Bangalore. The paperwork would have been finalized next month.”

  “Oh.” I sat back. “How awful.” Not just one man killed, but another life damaged.

  “Yes.” There was anger in Jack’s voice. “And also not well known around Zakdan.”

  “So whoever faked the suicide note didn’t know Lalit very well.” I thought about it, and about the call I’d overheard on the night of Kumar’s death.

  “But,” I said slowly, “the killer did know him well enough to call Lalit in the middle of the night, talk him into picking him up at a bar, and convince him to drive all the way across town.”

  Jack nodded, watching me.

  “So it probably wasn’t a close friend, or he’d have gotten the suicide note right. But it was an acquaintance who knew him well enough to exploit both the fact that he worked late and that he’d be nice enough to go to the bar in the first place.”

  Jack was still watching me.

  “It was someone he worked with.”

  It was someone I was going to meet tomorrow.

  ***

  It took me a few minutes to recover from my realization, but eventually I noticed that Jack had started talking again. It sounded like he was telling me about his day.

  “…We got into Zakdan and did a few things that should make it possible for us to see what’s happening to the codebase.” He got up and stretched.

  It took me a minute to realize he wasn’t referring to breaking and entering. “You mean you hacked into the company computers?”

  He shrugged. “Stokes did tell us to do whatever it takes.”

  “Are you going to tell him? How did you do it? What did you plant?” I assaulted him with these questions while following him down to the kitchen. There was a large box from Pizza Orgasmica on the island counter. Jack must have stopped on his way home.

  “Are you familiar with the term ‘spyware’?” He opened a cabinet for some plates.

  “No, but I’m not surprised you are.”

  He grinned. “The stuff Mike writes is way beyond the sort of things that hackers use to spy on people’s PCs,” he informed me. “It’s virtually undetectable and should tell us a lot.”

  “I’ve noticed that techie people use the word ‘virtually’ where normal people use the word ‘almost.’”

  He took a dripping slice of ménage à trois, a decadent three-cheese combo, and placed it on a plate in front of me. “What’s your point?”

  “I’d prefer it if you didn’t get caught and murdered or sent to jail or something.”

  He looked me in the eye. “Right back at you, Pumpkin.”

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Finally, it was show time.

  “Good morning, working girl.”

  Jack’s voice. I could tell by the mockery in it.

  I squinted my eyes open. “Is it still dark out?”

  “It’s seven o’clock.”

  “That didn’t answer my question.” I pulled a pillow over my head.

  “It’s dim out,” he conceded, cruelly taking the pillow away. “Not dark, just dim, and getting lighter every minute.”

  I rolled over on my back and opened my eyes. “I’m really going to do this?”

  “You don’t have to.”

  I looked at him, focusing. “I’m really going to do this.”

  He gave one brief nod. “Then you’d really better get up.”

  It was a little after eight by the time I made it downstairs in my I-work-in-an-office costume of hipster pantsuit from Banana Republic, stretchy cotton blouse from Ann Taylor, and I-can’t-really-afford-these-but-I-love-them Via Spiga pumps that had been on sale at Macy’s.

  Jack greeted me at the bottom of the stairs with a gratifying whistle.

  “You think?” I turned around, looking down at myself with some doubt.

  “Just promise me you’re keeping your wedding ring on.”

  I looked at it, then at him. “I told you once, it’s for the duration.”

  “Then you have my permission to go to work.” His mouth did that infuriating thing where it looked like it wanted to laugh but he wouldn’t let it.

  “You’re enjoying this way too much,” I told him.

  “I have a few things for you.” He picked up a black bag that I hadn’t noticed leaning against the stairs.

  “Is that Kate Spade?”

  “It is. More importantly, it has a laptop in it. Mike sent a couple over to Brenda and Simon last night too.”

  “Oh, what a good idea!” I took the bag and opened it up. “And a new cell phone—oh! With a camera.”

  “All the cool kids have them.”

  All the cool kids probably didn’t lose them as often as I did. I closed the bag and kissed him. “Thanks, Jack. You think of everything.”

  “We’re not done.” He took me by the hand and headed for the front door. When he opened it I was surprised to see an unfamiliar car at the curb.

  “Did you take the Lexus in to be fixed? Whose is that?”

  “Yours.”

  I looked at the car. Then at Jack. Then at the car again. It was a new VW Beetle. Lime green. I looked at Jack again.

  “Why?”

  He took the laptop bag from me and started down the path to the car. “Because I didn’t think you’d like the bus.”

  “But…hang on…” I followed him, not quite sure I had a handle on what he was saying. “Do you mean I have to drive to work?”

  “Many people do.”

  “But…” But I hate to drive. It’s so demanding. You let your mind wander for five minutes and you could end up killing some random pedestrian.

  And I particularly hate to drive in San Francisco. Because once you get somewhere you have to put the car somewhere, and that can take hours. Then you end up walking so far back to where you were going that you might as well have just hoofed it in the first place.

  Jack was looking at me.

  “Can’t you take me in?”

  He put the bag in the back seat and leaned against the car. “Very few mid-level consultants have drivers.”

  Okay, true, but… “Ha!” I held up my left hand. “I’m married, remember? So it would be perfectly reasonable for my husband to take me to work!”

  “Perfectly,” Jack agreed. “Except if someone is trying to kill me because I’ve been seen at Zakdan, we’d really rather not have anyone connecting us, right?”

  Damn.

  “Right.”

  He opened the driver’s-side door. “So, do you want to take a look?”

  I know when I’ve lost a battle. I came over and looked in the car.

  “Oh, Jack, you put a flower in it!” A bright pink daisy in a little bud vase just to the right of the steering wheel.

  He kissed me on the temple. “It was the least I could do.” Then he shoved me in the car and closed the door.

  He leaned in the open window. “You do know how to drive, don’t you?”

  I made a face at him. “I thought you knew everything about me.” I turned the key and revved the engine.

  “Okay, then I guess there’s nothing else.” He grinned. “Have a nice day, dear.”

  I think, at that moment, I kind of hated him.

  ***

  I was scheduled to meet the rest of the A Team at a little café called Arugula near the Zakdan building. It was walking distance from Simon’s loft, and an easy rendezvous place for Brenda, coming in off the Bay Bridge. This would be our last chance to get our stories straight before making our united entrance at Zakdan.

  Assuming, of course, I’d ever be able to park.

  As I got within a few blo
cks of the place, I started scanning the streets. Ideally, what I wanted was unmetered street parking someplace between the two locations. Which would be just coming up as I crossed Fifth.

  Which is right when I spotted Flank.

  He stood in the street near the curb, arms not quite able to cross against his massive chest, wearing a dark suit and sunglasses. His increasingly sparse ponytail blew around a little in the breeze. He looked more like a strip-club bouncer than a secretary, but at least he wasn’t carrying an assault rifle. Probably.

  I pulled up and rolled down the passenger window. “Flank? What are you doing?”

  He crouched at the window, lowered his shades, and showed me a stunningly mismatched array of teeth.

  I smiled back. Probably not my strongest effort, but it seemed the thing to do. “Flank?”

  He made a sort of sweeping motion with both arms, gesturing to the sidewalk and the parking space he stood in. Then he said something unintelligible and looked proud.

  “You saved me a space?”

  The teeth appeared again. Then he resumed his don’t-mess-with-me stance on the sidewalk.

  I parked.

  Maybe he’d be more useful than I’d thought.

  ***

  I made my way to the café with Flank following about a half-step behind, and me turning every few paces to tell him not to do that. It fueled all sorts of paranoia. But apparently it was part of his bodyguard training, because he just kept stopping whenever I stopped, so eventually I gave up trying.

  I saw Brenda had already gotten us a table. The café was one of those old brick warehouses that had been converted into chic hangouts for the digerati. Exposed brick walls, high ceilings, with a polished pine staircase leading up to an additional seating area. There was a long high table with stools running down the middle of the space, and tables and chairs that got progressively more comfortable looking the closer they were to the windows.

  Brenda was in a comfy place, bless her. And she looked just right in one of her new outfits, a blue-gray skirt and loose jacket in a fine wool knit, with a slightly lighter shade of blue-gray shell in silk. Professional yet approachable. Comfortable yet pulled together. Brenda, yet not Brenda.