by J. S. Marlo
Had he known, Liliane doubted he would have hired her. “No, and I would prefer if he kept underestimating me.”
A smile fissured Nathalie’s face. “You’re right. If he learns about your real qualifications, he might just become sneakier which would make your—our job—harder. How did Thomas recruit you anyway?”
“Do you know Evelyn, his personal secretary?” Hoping Nathalie would follow her, Liliane resumed their workout.
A few heartbeats later, her friend rejoined her. “Yeah, her husband Angus is my accountant. She’s a sweet lady. It stumps me how she can work with a man like Thomas every day of the week. How did she get embroiled in this?”
Evelyn visited her gallery regularly. The secretary liked small vivid landscapes, and every time Liliane had one for sale, she bought it as a gift for a relative.
“She’s one of my loyal patrons.” From the many paintings that Liliane had carefully wrapped for shipping, it appeared the secretary belonged to a large family. “A month or so ago, she came in as I was balancing my books. When she offered her husband’s services, I thanked her but told her I preferred to do it myself. She must have mentioned something to Thomas because next thing I knew, he visited my gallery and offered me the job.”
The business degree she earned on the east coast was another detail Liliane didn’t reveal to Thomas. He’d believed her to be inexperienced, but she’d been more than qualified for the job of finance officer—a job she had also performed twice.
“I bet he regrets walking into your gallery.” Nathalie veered left at the intersection. “If not, he will by the end of the by-election.”
Somehow Liliane doubted Thomas would ever regret it as much as she did. He’d knocked on her door as she was closing for the day—and she’d lacked the common sense of not letting him in. “He won’t be the only one.”
As they kept jogging in silence, an idea popped into Liliane’s head, prompting her to check her watch. 6:10. The office didn’t open until 9:00 a.m., and while some workers clocked in sooner than others, none should be there this early.
“Nathalie, what would you say if we ended our workout now and sneaked into the office?” She needed to figure out why Thomas tried hacking her account. “I’d like to access Thomas’ computer.”
Her friend snapped her head in her direction. “He can’t access yours, what makes you think you’ll succeed in accessing his? He’s not stupid enough to have kept the generic password.”
Liliane agreed the man wasn’t stupid, but he displayed an unhealthy dose of overconfidence. “You’ll reset his password for me.”
Slowing down, Nathalie stared at her like she’d lost all her marbles. “And what am I going to tell him when he charges into my office seething for an explanation?”
A smile Liliane couldn’t rein in tugged on her lips. “You’ll be the one barging into his office as soon as he shows up for work. You’ll tell him you suffered a change of heart after your discussion two nights ago and you wanted to help.”
“Suffer is an understatement, and it’s not from a change of heart.” Her gaze looked as dangerous as a laser beam. “The only help I’m ever going to give him is if he tries to commit suicide. I’ll push him over the cliff.”
Asking her friend to swallow her pride and figuratively kneel in front of Thomas was a huge favor, but Liliane couldn’t think of a better plan. “You’re not helping him, Nathalie, you’re helping me. You could say you were afraid he’d fire you, so you came to work early to try to give him access to my emails, but something happened and you ended up resetting both our accounts. I’ll pretend to be annoyed too and you can tell me I encountered a glitch.”
Nathalie cocked her head, groaning. “I hate you, Lily. Now let’s go to the office before I come back to my senses and quit.”
~ * ~
To avoid being spotted around the office this early, Liliane suggested they leave their cars in the parking lot of the Recreation Center and jog to their destination, two and a half blocks away.
The sun had cleared the horizon, but not the roofs of the office buildings populating downtown. They pressed ahead on the shadowy side of the street until they reached the election office then dashed across the deserted street and into the empty parking lot adjacent to the building.
Given the choice, Liliane would have entered by the back door. The same key unlocked both entrances, but the control panel for the security system was located in the lobby at the front and she only had a few seconds to enter the code and deactivate the alarm before it woke up the entire neighborhood.
Liliane punched the code. A beep sounded and the red light flashed. The green light should be flashing, not the red. “That’s not right.”
“What’s wrong?” Behind her, her friend held the door that Liliane had unlocked.
“I think I reactivated the alarm.” She quickly re-entered the code. This time the green light flashed. “We’re in. Hello? Is someone here? Hello?”
The door clicked and Nathalie gripped her arm. “Maybe the last person to leave last night forgot to set the alarm...or maybe we should go home...”
The emergency lights, which stayed on all night, cast a yellow hue over the furniture and walls. To avoid attracting undue attention from any passersby on the sidewalk, Liliane refrained from switching the regular lights on in the lobby. “I stayed until Jasmin finished her training last night, which ended after the office closed. We were the last two out of here, along with the new security guard. I’m the one who armed the alarm.”
Her friend followed her into the lobby. “Are you sure you didn’t forget, Lily? Maybe you were distracted by that security guard?”
Liliane joggled her memory, replaying the evening in her mind in slow motion. Dressed in skinny jeans and opaque pink blouse, the training officer had stood beside her. She remembered thinking Jasmin no longer resembled a stripper.
“While I set the alarm, Jasmin asked me whose idea it was to use the civic address of the building as the code.” The strapping security guard had raised a brow, and Liliane had mentally chided Jasmin for asking the question in front of a stranger. “Trust me, I didn’t forget. Someone returned between last night and this morning.” That someone remembered to lock the door but neglected the alarm. Her money was on Thomas. As they headed toward their offices, Liliane glanced at his door.
It was closed.
“You think Thomas returned to try to hack into your emails?” Nathalie uttered aloud the suspicion gnawing at Liliane’s guts.
The rustling of the air conditioning set her on edge. “We’ll know soon enough, won’t we?”
Clicks resonated when she and Nathalie unlocked both their doors. If anyone sneaked into their respective offices, he—or she—didn’t forget to relock after the fact.
Liliane sat at her desk. The list of security agencies rested across the right side of her keyboard. She’d strategically placed the sheet of paper at that angle so it covered the return key and diagonally crossed the quotation marks key. The paper hadn’t shifted an iota.
No one could have accessed her computer without pushing the paper aside, and the odds the person successfully realigned the sheet along the opposite corners of the quotation marks key were infinitesimal. Convinced no one had touched her computer last night, Liliane logged in with her protected password. “My password wasn’t changed, Nathalie.”
From her chair, with both their doors open, Liliane glimpsed the side of Nathalie’s beige filing cabinet that contained copies of all the maps.
“Good. Let me try Thomas’ email.” Her friend’s voice carried through as clear as a bell.
A peculiar low whistle drew Liliane’s attention across the doorframe. “What is it, Nathalie?”
“He never reset his generic password.” The technology officer sounded as confounded as Liliane felt.
“Really?” She rushed into Nathalie’s office. Upon spying the title of some emails on her friend’s screen, Liliane drew a sharp breath. She could have sworn their return
ing officer wasn’t stupid, but she never imagined he’d show such arrogance and lack of caution. “Maybe someone else reset his password last night. You should have a record of his activity log somewhere.”
“I do?” A fleeting look of dubiety flickered over Nathalie’s face. “I’m not even going to ask how come you know that.”
Though it wasn’t a question, Liliane felt obliged to answer her accomplice. “The last technology officer I worked with ended up with such a bad case of stomach flu, he spent four days in the hospital. Since his assistant didn’t fare any better, guess who took care of the daily operation for that week?”
Everyone in the office had been scared to catch the virus, but aside from both men, the rest of the staff who caught the bug didn’t miss more than a day or two of work. Liliane had felt queasy without becoming sick.
“I knew you liked multi-tasking, but I never imagined you were that crazy,” teased her friend.
The smile Nathalie threw her way lightened the responsibilities Liliane carried on her shoulders. “Beware, crazy is contagious.”
In search of the page providing access to the log, Liliane glimpsed the various links Nathalie opened and closed in slow motion on her screen. A few minutes later, the technology officer stumbled onto a page that looked familiar.
“This one...I think.” If her memory served Liliane right, the link appeared at the bottom. “Scroll down. Thomas should be the first name under...”
“Got him.” Her friend clicked on his name then frowned. “I’d pegged him for a smarter scumbag. I’m almost disappointed.”
According to the log, he never reset his password and the last time Thomas accessed his email account was last night at 4:39 a.m.
“Okay, go back. If you sync my Blackberry with his account, it should download his history and give me access to any future emails he sends or receives.” Liliane pulled her Blackberry from the hidden pocket of her yoga pants and unlocked it before placing it beside Nathalie’s keyboard. Her phone number was written on the back of the device.
Her friend picked it up. “How come you have an older model than mine?”
Having no clue, Liliane shrugged. “I retrieved it from the box marked Finance Officer. Honestly, I couldn’t care less about the model. I hate Blackberries, except for the edible kind.”
The air conditioning clattered then resumed a notch noisier. The weatherman forecasted another warmer than usual day. Given the choice, Liliane would pick a cool and windy autumn day to a hot and clammy summer one. The month of July tested her endurance and she couldn’t wait for August to arrive—and for her daughter to return.
“All done.” Nathalie handed her back her Blackberry. “One piece of advice, wait until Thomas reads his new messages before clicking on them. If you open them before he does, he’ll know someone is hacking him.”
Liliane worked better in the shadows, and she intended to remain there. “Don’t worry. It’s not my first dance.”
Her friends rolled her eyes. “You know when they say ignorance is bliss, it—”
A thump resounded from inside the office, a thump for which Liliane hesitated to blame the air conditioning. Alarmed, she glanced at her friend. The office was deserted. They should have been alone.
“It sounded like something fell down?” whispered Nathalie.
Or someone. “If anyone asks, you helped me re-sync my Blackberry after I played with my password.” Despite the apprehension growing in the pit of her stomach, Liliane kept her voice low and steady. “Log out, then meet me in the lobby. I’ll go have a look.”
Nathalie nodded. “It shouldn’t take me more than a few minutes.”
Upon emerging from The Catacombs, Liliane veered left toward the revision center. “Is someone here?”
The deserted room was bathed in the semi-darkness of the emergency lights. As she quietly walked past it, she glanced toward the two gender-neutral washrooms. Their doors were wide open and the toilet seats were down. Satisfied no one hid inside, she continued to the back entrance. The solid door was shut. She pushed on the handlebar and peeked outside. The parking lot and both adjacent sidewalks showed no signs of humans or machines. She checked the doorknob. It was locked on the outside.
As she backtracked, Liliane turned the knobs of every door she encountered. If they were unlocked, she checked the inside of the rooms.
Her friend waited for her at the intersection of the corridor with The Catacombs. “Did you see someone?”
“No, and there was no one outside at the back either. Let’s look inside the training room.” Before leaving last night, Liliane had closed one door of the training room while Jasmin had shut the other. The inside lights were off. “Anyone in here?”
An ominous silence answered her.
“Lily?” Nathalie jiggled Thomas’ doorknob. “It’s not locked.”
Astounded, Liliane spun around. “Really?”
The returning officer’s private office contained important and confidential documents. The door should be locked at night.
“Should we peek in his office?” Her friend cocked her head. “Just in case?”
A strange noise sounded like a legitimate reason to investigate the possibility of a break-in in Thomas’ office.
“We need to rule out the presence of an intruder, don’t we?” Liliane inched the door against the wall before turning the lights on.
Behind her, Nathalie gasped.
Thomas was slumped face down over his desk. The pink handle of a screwdriver protruded from his back where a growing patch of blood reddened his white shirt.
This is so not the beginning of a good day.
Chapter Seven
~Alibis are keys to freedom.~
A large cup of dark coffee in hand, Detective Jasper O’Neil entered the election office around 7:30 a.m.
He was chatting on Skype with his son in Europe when the call about a suspicious death ended their conversation. Since the victim would remain in the same deadly state whether he showed up in ten or twenty minutes, Jasper had stopped by Tim Hortons to buy a coffee and a breakfast sandwich, which he ate while driving.
The hours of operation were posted in the window of the front door of the election office. 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. on weekdays. 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on weekends.
The female police officer guarding the entrance of the building greeted him with a nod of her head. “Morning, sir.”
Jasper paused near the door to address the rookie who’d joined the local police force in April. “Morning, Welsh. The office will stay closed for the day. When the employees show up, usher them into the lobby. Anyone else can come back another day.”
“Very good, sir.”
The front door closed with a click behind Jasper. An empty gurney waited in the lobby between a desk and photocopier machine. Though he didn’t spot the coroner’s van from where he parked at the front, he surmised Doctor Yao had already arrived.
“Detective?” Officer Morse, a veteran standing in the doorway of an office, gestured for Jasper to venture inside. “The victim, Thomas Finch, is in here.”
Doctor Tori Yao, an attractive tall brunette in her forties with an engaging personality, towered over the deceased while two guys from the crime scene unit processed the room.
She smiled at him over the body. “Fancy meeting you here, Jasper.”
“Morning, Tori. You know I can’t resist a hot body.” Especially the one warming up his nights. “What can you tell me?”
The coroner moved sideways, which gave him an unobstructed view of the victim. “Rigor mortis hasn’t set in yet. He was stabbed to death in the last four hours. I’ll provide you with a more precise time after I perform the autopsy. At first glance, I’m not seeing any defensive wounds. Now, let me quickly check if your victim suffered any visible frontal injuries.”
When Tori straightened him up in his chair, Finch’s unbuttoned shirt flew open. The man’s hairless chest was marred with red scratches, his belt was unbuckled, and his pants were
unzipped.
“Well, it looks like his private parts escaped his underwear.” Tori’s sense of humor was another quality he admired about her. “No signs of trauma. I’ll test for DNA contributors.”
Jasper returned his attention to the wound. The handle sticking out of the victim’s upper back at a downward angle cleared the edge of the chair. Though the screwdriver struck him as an odd choice of weapon considering the sharp pair of scissors resting within reach on the desk, he couldn’t rule out a crime of passion. “Would it be possible for someone straddling him to stab him?”
The coroner swayed her head as she seemed to ponder the eventuality. “I suppose it wouldn’t be impossible. In any case, I’m hoping trace evidence will reveal if his sexual encounter was with a man, a woman, or himself.”
In other words, he needed to exercise some patience. “Fair enough. I’ll await your preliminary report with eagerness.”
After giving her permission to bag the body, Jasper surveyed the room. The desk faced the door with less than two feet between the chair and the back wall. No one could sneak in without being seen by the victim. Unless he had been asleep, Finch would have been aware of the killer’s presence.
Few people, if any, would allow a stranger to stand behind them in such a confined space. It suggested familiarity and trust between the victim and his killer.
Aside from the desk, a long table scattered with documents hugged a side wall and a vertical filing cabinet stood in the opposite corner.
Jasper pulled out his phone and a stylus from his front pocket. Many of his colleagues still preferred using a notepad and a real pen, but Jasper had embraced technology the day he washed a blue pen with his white dress shirts. The special Investigative Note app he’d downloaded served him well—and saved him from second-guessing his handwriting.
Stab wound to back. No defensive wounds? No room to sneak in. Killer known to victim? Weapon screwdriver. Sharp scissors on desk. Toolbox? Sexual encounter? Time of death between three-thirty and— “Hey, Morse, who reported the crime and when?”