Dead End Job

by Ingrid Reinke

  I slid open the door to Sarah’s office, expecting her to be on a call, but there was no one sitting at the desk. The office was set up so she could view people as they walked in, with one chair behind the desk and two chairs in front – a pretty typical layout for someone who works with clients. She also had a huge window behind her desk that looked out on Elliot Bay, and there were pictures drawn by her elementary school-aged kids hung on the walls, along with snapshots of her family and dog. Her laptop was sitting open on the desk, and there were papers spread out all over the surface and some on the floor. Her purse was also there, but the contents had been dumped on the back of the desk in a little pile: wallet, lipstick, a bottle of allergy medicine, tissues. Plopped right on the floor near the office door, the rolling suitcase she used every day was tipped over, partially-blocking the entrance to the office. Then I noticed there was also something spilled all over the floor of the office, an almost-black liquid that pooled out from underneath the desk and spread out in a four-foot-wide circle that crept towards the office door.

  “Sarah?” I asked weakly. No answer. I stepped around the back of the desk.

  The realization that the liquid was blood happened at the same instant that I stepped around the desk to see Sarah sprawled out on the floor, face down.

  She was a tall woman, so while her head and upper body were slumped almost all the way underneath her desk, her lower body poked out into the sitting area. Her feet were splayed against the file cabinet behind her desk. She wore her usual dumpy brown JC Penney suit and the kind of black leather, square-toed boots that had gone out of style a decade ago. When I stepped around the to the back of her desk I could see that her mousy brown hair was matted with blood, which had dripped from a huge, gruesome injury on the back of her head down the side of her face and colored her pale skin dark red. The sheer amount of liquid that had spilled out of her head and spread all over the floor behind the desk made it apparent to me that there was no way that Sarah Lieber was alive.

  I was frozen on the spot for what seemed like hours, a wave of massive and crippling anxiety settling on my body and weighing me down like chain mail. Move, Louisa, Move! My thoughts screamed at my useless body. I stood over Sarah, frozen for agonizing seconds. Then suddenly, cutting through the silence, I heard myself take a raggedy, long breath. I felt a second of relief-until I heard an ear-piercing scream fill the office. At the same moment that I thought to myself that the noise was horrible, I also realized that it was me who was making it. The office seemed to darken around me as I fainted right there on the floor.

  Chapter 5: Sign Here, Stupid

  “Ohhhmyyyygoddddd, Ohhhmyyyygoddddd, Ohhhmyyyygoddddd!!!!!!!!! Louisa wake up, wake up! What happened to Sarah? Ohhmyyyygodddd!!!!!!”

  Apparently the Ativan hadn’t been strong enough to prepare Martin for this particular situation. He was hunched over me on the floor outside of Sarah’s office, holding my head in his lap, and was fanning my face, but the physical effort had caused him to start sweating, so I woke up to his double chin and two soaking wet armpits above my head. He still smelled faintly like vodka and French onion chips, but now the overwhelming odor was sweat, and I could see droplets forming on his forehead that were making their way down his face onto his chin, threatening to dislodge and drop into my eyes and mouth.

  Personally, I was confused. Part of me felt groggy and really wanted to get away from Martin, go home, and get to bed. Unfortunately, the other part of me was screaming about the issue of a dead body in the office—a dead body that I had found.

  Even though the floor had been empty when I’d initially found Sarah, by now there were dozens of employees milling around our area, horrified, interested, and puzzled. Many of their faces I’d never even seen before. Some were staring into Sarah’s office, and they were all whispering and staring at me. It seemed like they were stuck, like children, waiting for instructions. When the entire law enforcement entourage suddenly poured into the office from the front entrance, headed by a ghost white but still relatively composed receptionist, the group of people wandering around our corner of the building grew even larger. In the crowd I spotted Mr. Curtis, Martin’s boss, among the other group leaders, with a gaggle from HR and even more of Merit’s employees. It seemed like everyone came in at the same time, and there were at least six uniformed officers, the officials from CSI, the coroner and his assistant, three plain-clothes detectives, and the police sergeant who was the ranking uniformed officer on the scene.

  I studied the police officers. The head detective was a very petite Asian woman with long, sleek, black hair, worn down and cut in a sharp line below her shoulder blades. She had ivory skin, with a perfect dusting of rose blush, immaculate and subtle eye makeup and a well-tailored, grey wool skirt-suit with a deep purple blouse. Her tiny fingernails were cut into perfect ovals, and she was wearing sky-high black patent heels with no scuffs. She was anywhere from twenty-five to forty-five years old, but because of her Asian genes and perfect skin, it was impossible to tell her age exactly.

  In direct contrast were the other two detectives. One was an extremely obese man in his fifties wearing an un-tucked Hawaiian shirt, whose overtaxed buttons were straining to hold in his protruding and visibly hairy belly. He probably weighed close to three-hundred fifty pounds, and his heavy breathing was so strained it made me worry that he would drop dead at any minute, and then there would be two bodies to deal with.

  The third detective was a Hispanic woman in her early thirties. She was wearing athletic clothing, probably just coming from the gym, where she obviously spent lots of time. She was at least 5’10” and had her hair pulled up in a tight braid. You could see that under her fleece jacket and black lululemon pants that she was bulging with huge muscles and scant body fat. She was completely flat in the chest, and had a classic-looking but faded tattoo of a rose with thorns poking out above her sports bra strap on her left breast. Her lips were full and naturally rosy and her eyes were deep brown, almost black, with the kind of long black lashes that don’t need mascara. Despite her attractive features there was something in her demeanor that was extremely intimidating—the type of woman you wouldn’t mess with.

  Because I knew it was inevitable that I would be talking to one of these three people very soon, I was trying to decide which one of them I would least dislike dealing with and realized that I would really rather not speak to any of them. Of course, I would really rather not have seen a dead body either, but my feelings on the matter at this point were irrelevant.

  I sighed deeply and watched unmoving as the Asian detective took charge of the scene and started barking orders at the other two detectives, who in turn gave orders to the uniformed officers. They spread out amongst the group of employees and started asking each one the same set of questions: name, position at Merit, relationship to the deceased, how they found out about the incident, and so on. I could see a couple of them point to me during these conversations, including Martin. The CSI people went directly into the office and started snapping photographs of Sarah’s body and putting little yellow numbers next to each piece of paper strewn around the scene, and all of the items from Sarah’s purse and desk, taking pictures of everything, trying to collect evidence.

  I waited around for a minute for some kind of instructions, but when no one spoke to me, I numbly got up and forced myself to walk back over to my cube. I sat down, shaken and still confused by what had transpired. Although my adrenaline was running in full gear, all I wanted was to get the hell out of the office and head home to a nice, warm bed, about six Ativans and a twenty hour nap.

  The petite Asian detective spoke in hushed tones with a group that included the building manager, the business leader of our office, an HR representative, the receptionist and the police sergeant. After a few minutes, the sergeant approached my desk and kneeled down like a person talking to small child.

  “Louisa, my name is Rocky,” he said in a purposefully gentle, soothing voice. “I understand you were the
person to find Sarah Lieber’s body this morning. I realize that what you have gone through has been pretty traumatic, so we are going to make this as painless as possible. If it’s all right with you, I would like to take you down to the station to answer a couple of questions, and then we will get you home. OK?”

  I nodded, but my body would not respond when I tried to get up and go. I just sat there, virtually catatonic. I think I was still nodding when Rocky realized that this was going to take more than simple coaching.

  “Is this your bag?’ He picked up the cheap, tan, vinyl handbag that I’d dropped on the floor of my cube. Instead of waiting for me to respond, he took my left hand, put his other hand on my back and gently pulled me up. I followed him, still silent. He swung my purse over his shoulder and we walked out together, still holding hands.

  By the time we got into the elevator I felt pretty damn stupid. I took a deep breath, pulled my hand away from him, and turned to take a look at him for the first time. Judging from the wisps of grey showing just under his hat, I figured he was probably in his late thirties, and although he was of medium height (at least 5’11 or 6’) he had the look of being a little bit stocky because of his thick neck and shoulders. He was trim around the waist, and from what I could see, he had short but messy-looking dark brown hair with large, kind, brown eyes. His sharp, navy uniform highlighted his strong jaw, and his hands were huge and rough. He was a very attractive man, but he did look ridiculous with my purse slung over his shoulder, kind of like a UFC fighter in a prom dress. I realized that I couldn’t let him face that kind of embarrassment in front of his fellow police officers, and that thought helped me snap out of my daze.

  “I can take that if you want,” were the first words I said to him, motioning to my purse.

  “I don’t mind,” he replied. If he was surprised that I’d spoken, he played it very well.

  “No, it’s OK, I got it.” I held out my hand. I was feeling bad for the guy, wandering around my office with a purse hanging on his shoulder. However, his dignity was fully intact as he handed it over. The thought of how truly endearing he was found its way to the front of my mind despite the awkwardness of the moment. Any other guy would have been holding the thing with his thumb and pointer finger as far away as possible from his body, like it was a bomb that might go off at any minute. His absolute security made him appear both absurd and sweet.

  “How are you doing?” he ventured.

  “Oh, I am just fabulous. I love running into dead people in my office building. It really breaks up the work day.”

  Rocky was unfazed by my sarcasm, and he shot me a half smile. “Me too. Actually it kind of is my work day, being in homicide,” he replied.

  “I’m sorry, what exactly are we doing? I wasn’t really paying attention before when we left. I guess I am a little out of it.”

  “You’re probably a little bit in shock, which is totally normal for what you went through. Right now, I am going to bring you down to police headquarters, and you are going to be questioned by Detective Wang and Detective Schreck. After that we are going to take you home. Sound good?”

  “I guess so,” I replied. I really didn’t think I had much choice in the matter.

  We walked out of the building, and he opened the passenger-side door to his cruiser. I slid in, a little bit surprised. Even though I knew I hadn’t done anything wrong, I half expected him to put me in the back of the car and ride down to the station staring at the back of his head through the bullet-proof glass partition. He got in, and we both buckled up and drove quickly down to Seattle Police Headquarters in silence.

  When we entered the building, Rocky escorted me up a long flight of stairs, through a large and formal looking lobby and down a nondescript, white hallway with seventies-style, dark wood doors and those cheesy, plastic-covered-with-brass door handles. We ended up in a little room with grey carpeting, a cheap plastic table, three plastic chairs and no windows, where Rocky told me to go ahead and take a seat, then left the room. I took a look around at the depressingly dingy grey chairs, and couldn’t help but notice that the walls were in desperate need of a coat of paint, and the table had a metal bar running underneath it, which was obviously there so that people could be handcuffed to it. I sat down in one of the chairs and examined the carpet, wondering what exactly comprised each stain. A few minutes later, someone brought me a cup of steaming hot coffee. Even though I hadn’t asked for it, I drank down the warm, acidic liquid gratefully.

  I sipped my coffee and stared off into the distance for at least thirty minutes, and then really had to pee. I didn’t know if the door had been locked, but I was thinking about slipping out for a minute and finding a ladies room when the door opened quickly and both the Asian detective and the fat detective walked in. The Asian detective sat directly across from me and the fat detective took the seat on my right.

  “Louisa, I am Detective Wang, and this is Detective Schreck. We are heading the investigation into the death of Sarah Lieber at the Merit office.” Her voice was sharp and emotionless and she spoke very curtly. There wasn’t an appropriate response to this statement that I could garner, so I stared at her and nodded. “We have some questions to ask you and then we are going to prepare your statement, which you will sign. Do you understand the procedure?”

  ”Um, yeah,” I said unintelligently, nodding again.

  “Walk us through your morning at work, from when you arrived to when you found the deceased.”

  Because the events of the day had happened only about an hour and a half after I arrived at the office, I was able to tell them the CliffsNotes version of my morning in just a minute or two. “Who else was in the office when you found Mrs. Lieber?” Detective Wang asked when I finished.

  “Well, it was just me and Martin on our side of the building, which is pretty normal for that time of the day. And of course the receptionist and the IT guys, but they sit on the other side of the office. Most of the other employees don’t really come in until after nine AM.” My voice trailed off. I was getting distracted by Detective Schreck, and how much he actually looked like the large green movie character. His fingers and skin were pale and lumpy looking. He looked relatively young, but I could see traces of gray in his facial stubble. His grey-green eyes were a pleasant color, but looked too tiny for his massive face, pitted into his head above those large cheeks and below his bushy eyebrows. A few seconds went by and I realized that I had stopped speaking and was now fully staring at the man, and he was staring at Detective Wang, with a look of sweet admiration on his face. Maybe they are a couple, I started thinking. Then I started imagining them together (How would that work? He is so big and she is so tiny…). I must have been making a strange face because Detective Wang’s voice suddenly pierced through my disturbing fantasy like a laser beam.

  “Ms. Hallstrom! I would like to get this statement down so I can find out how an innocent woman was murdered in your office. Now, I will repeat my question: did you find it odd that Mrs. Lieber’s office light was left on?”

  “Oh. Yeah. I’m sorry. Um, not really,” I stumbled. What was wrong with me? I wasn’t even following her line of questioning. Snap out of it, Louisa! I scolded myself. Then, recovering, “Sarah’s working a lot right now on this big merger, so it’s not weird for her to work really late or come in really early.”

  Detective Wang feigned puzzlement. “Oh, I see. The thing is, you said just a few minutes ago…” Detective Schreck handed her the yellow notepad and she scanned her finger up to the top, stopping it on a line of print. “…ah yes, right here. You said that it was normal for you, in the morning, to be in the office alone with the other employee, Martin…?” She looked at me sweetly, blinking.

  “I guess so. Normally. But we are really busy right now, especially Sarah.” Suddenly my bladder started sending me urgent evacuation alerts and I was getting really uncomfortable. “Uh, yeah. Can I use the bathroom? I had lots of coffee this morning.” I lifted up my empty coffee cup to show her.
<
br />   “In a minute,” she snapped back, waving me off. “Now, can you please give me an idea of what exactly Ms. Lieber was working on for this merger?”

  “No,” I replied bluntly.

  Detective Wang did not like this answer one bit. She slowly adjusted back in her seat and glared, digging in her pointy stiletto heels. If I was going to play this game, I was apparently going to have to play by Detective Wang’s rules. I sighed and gave in.

  “I can get in some serious legal trouble if I talk about it. Merit even had me sign something a few months back stating that I would not disclose what is happening in the office under penalty of dismissal.”

  Detective Wang leaned forward, close to me, and put her elbows on the table.

  “I don’t know if you realize this,” she said softly, “but you could be in some serious legal trouble already, Ms. Hallstrom. You see, we know that you came into the office last night because of the keycard access records we had the receptionist pull for us when we got the call. What were you doing in the building at seven forty-five on a Tuesday night?”

  Oh. Shit.

  I had completely forgotten about my Tuesday night date and anxiety pill escapade at the office. This was the first time I realized that I was in the station not to help the police with the investigation, but as a suspect.