by Unknown
“You know, don't mind me, I'm a worrier. I always tend to envision the worst, but she's probably fine,” I assured him, then gave a bright smile. Because what if I got Stu so rattled, he went to the police and told them all about Suzie's well-meaning “cousin,” who brought Suzie's disappearance to his attention? I didn't need that knock on my door. I wasn't sure if lying about being related to someone you'd never met was a felony, a mis-demeanor, or just a poor decision. Nor did I care to be educated on the matter. “Well, I should go meet up with my friends,” I said. “Have a good night, Stu.”
His eyes crinkled warmly when he smiled. “You too, Caitlyn. Take care.”
Before I'd gotten to the bar area, my phone chimed. It was a text from Bill:
Where r u? U coming?
I didn't bother texting back because I would see him in two seconds. As I stepped up into the bar, I spotted James and Bill with their backs to me, standing a few feet in front of the TV that was mounted on the wall. As I got closer to them, I overheard James say, “So Caitlyn's coming tonight?”
“Yep, should be,” Bill replied.
“What's the story with her anyway?” Worried, I froze mid-step. Was James onto my cover story? “She's cute,” he added and took a swig from his beer bottle.
“No story,” Bill said. “We went to college together. She used to date a friend of mine.”
“So you never hooked up with her?”
“Nope. But...” Bill gave a noncommittal shrug. “You never know what could happen.”
“She's got a great ass,” James commented.
“I noticed.”
My mouth dropped open as I touched a brief hand to my backside. This was great? I thought and couldn't help being a bit mystified. When I was nearly a foot behind them, I said, “Hi guys, how's it going?”
Both men turned and Bill lit up with a big smile. I couldn't deny he was cute, but I still saw him as my ex-boyfriend's friend. Maybe he just wasn't my type. Truthfully, ever since I moved to Minnesota, dating had ceased to occupy my mind much. It was probably because my first year at Westcott was hellish with work—very different from the lazier days of college—and adjusting to the demands of graduate school had consumed most of my attention. Since then, I'd gotten the job at the Chronicle, found my balance and now I guess I liked the cozy little world Cappy and I shared. Surely romance would become a priority again, but right now, it just didn't feel like one.
“Hey,” Bill said, “did you just get here?”
“Yes. Well, actually, I ran into Stu first and he started talking about Suzie, so...”
“God, is he still hung up on her?” James sneered. “It's been like two weeks already.”
“Such a romantic,” I said sarcastically and Bill laughed.
“I know, buddy—heart of stone.”
James waved off Bill's remark with a dismissive hand. “Whatever. Suzie was too old for him anyway.” (Of course we already knew James Williams was a catty drunk.)
“But James, you liked Suzie, too, right?” I said, trying to keep my tone light. Bill gave me a warning glance—probably because he was the one to tell me about James asking Suzie out and getting denied. I tried to backpedal, but there was only wall behind me. “Um...I just mean...”
“Why do you think I liked her—?” he began, but was interrupted by a female voice.
“Hey, boys.” Kendall Wallingham climbed her way out of her winter coat and spared me a glance, as well. “Oh, hey.”
James said, “Hey Kendall, Stu's here.”
“So?” she said, sounding defensive.
He tipped his shoulder to one side. “Sooo...you're here. Stu's here. You're both single. Suzie's gone now...”
Kendall twisted her lips. “Yeah, sure—by the way, Obvious Incorporated called—they're looking for some new recappers.” With that she turned toward the bar to order a drink. Clearly amused, Bill smirked and shook his head. James just drank more of his beer. And I moved in for the kill.
“Um, so Stu mentioned that Suzie already knew someone who worked at your company before she got the job.”
At first, neither Bill or James responded to my bluff. Each man glanced at the other, then back at me, blankly. Finally James said, “She didn't know anyone beforehand. I mean, not that I ever heard.”
“Me, either,” Bill chimed in.
“Who did she know?” James persisted.
“Uh, I'm not sure myself. Stu just mentioned it,” I lied. “He said there was someone at Metropolax whom Suzie had known for a while. I just thought you guys might know.”
James said, “That's the first I've heard of it. I mean, I heard she had something on Fritz, but not that she'd known him before she came to the company.” He tapped Bill on the chest with the back of his hand. “I'm gonna grab a chair to watch the game.”
James started to move farther away, and I panicked. He couldn't leave me hanging after dropping a lead like that in my lap! “Wait—James,” I began, reaching over to grab the sleeve of his coat. He hesitated, taken aback by my sudden clinginess, so I quickly let go of him. Tried to act casual. But I wasn't Meryl Streep after all; it was damn hard to mask rabid curiosity with apathetic nonchalance.
“Something on Fritz?” I probed.
Bill's phone buzzed loudly. He pulled it out and began texting someone. Without looking up, Bill said, “By the way, Caitlyn, what do you want to drink?”
“Cab's fine, thanks.”
He nodded, still not looking up from his phone. “I'll go get it,” he said, and left to join Kendall at the bar.
“You said, Suzie had 'something on Fritz',” I repeated. “What do you mean by that?”
James hesitated, suddenly caught, like he might have said too much. “Nah, forget it,” he told me, “I'm really drunk.” The statement was abrupt to the point of sounding artificial. Which made me wonder about his drunk antics at his office Christmas party, too. Was James saying he was too drunk to know what he was talking about? (And was he suffering similar skewed judgment when he'd said I had a great ass?) Or—was he implying that he was too drunk to be held responsible for what he was saying? Because there was a difference, and if his shtick were the latter, then James's exaggerated drunkenness would suddenly make sense. Alcohol was his smokescreen—his deliberate excuse to say all the mean, gossipy things he believed and wanted to spread about others.
I decided to take a risk. I said, “James, I'm sorry, but you're not drunk.”
“What...?”
“I think you know exactly what you're talking about,” I pressed. “So just be honest. It's not like I'm going to tell anyone,” I added, which of course was a lie. But in my defense, I had promised Ian full disclosure. (Besides, Amy had already absolved me for lying to my prime suspects.) “So what did Suzie have on Fritz?”
Uncomfortably, James looked around. “I don't know, you should ask Dede.”
“Why Dede?”
“Because she's the one who told us about it. At the coffee maker one day. She told us that Suzie had some issue with Fritz—Dede complained that it was gonna end up being a shit-storm on her door since she's HR. You know, because HR has to find a way to resolve problems at work.” That brought to mind the interview I'd had, during which Kendall had come into Dede's office with a complaint to unload. “I told you Dede's a total gossip,” he finished snidely. Before I could ask again what exactly Suzie had on Fritz, James held up his hands, palms out, and insisted, “Really, that's all I know. I'm gonna watch the game.”
“Wait!” I yelped. “Real fast—what did Suzie's tattoo look like? You mentioned once that she had a tattoo—”
“Damn, you're really weird sometimes,” he remarked, clearly put off by my antics. “No offense.” Leaving no room to argue, he ducked away from me and out of reach. When Bill returned with my wine, I tried to hide my distraction. I was still deep in thought about Dede and how she'd clearly been less than candid with me when she'd said that she didn't know what Suzie had been bothered by shortly before she'd resign
ed.
If what James said was accurate, then Dede had known full well that whatever Suzie was bothered by had to do with Fritz Sachs. If she'd lied about that, maybe she'd also lied about Suzie never coming to talk to her about the issue. I had to find out what, exactly, the jolly, seemingly forthright “mother hen” was withholding—and why?
Chapter 29
Monday morning proved to be a test in professional restraint. Unfortunately I failed by lunchtime. What happened was this: as soon as I entered the Chronicle, I saw my boss, and everything Ed Sogard said about him came rushing back. When we ran into each other at the coffee maker, I'd murmured hello, barely making eye contact. Then I'd made beeline for my desk before he could ask what's new. It didn't help when, not long after, Ian's wife called. Gary announced, “Ian, Amber's on the line. She said your cell phone voicemail is full. You want to talk to her?”
Ian, who was now at the fax machine, appeared distracted with his work. “Ah, no, tell her I'll call her back in an hour or so. Thanks, Gary.”
As I replied to our usual slew of Monday emails, I told myself to forget what Ed had said—that his claims simply weren't true. They were the classic lunatic ravings of an angry hardware peddler who'd fallen on tough times. Besides, Ian had only lived in Big Clock for a few months. How had he already met all the people who were attending the “wild parties every night” that Ed claimed he was hosting?
But then, I considered the expression “where there's smoke, there's fire,” and I wondered about Ed's source material. Would he really fabricate such a tale in its entirety? Frankly, it was hard to believe the man had much imagination. It seemed more likely that he was perhaps exaggerating something which was otherwise authentic. There was no way I could buy Ian as a raging alcoholic—so if Ed was right about the beer bottles piled up everyday, well, then someone had to be helping Ian polish them off.
With that in mind, I found myself studying him from across the office. Willfully, I stopped looking at him as my boss, and assessed him only as a man. As he went to the file cabinet across from the fax machine, I watched him carefully. My eyes and mind worked together, trying to make sense of him. Ian wasn't a bad looking guy. Tall, seemed to be fit, his light brown hair was cut short and he appeared to have all of it...he was generally well-spoken and intelligent...granted, he could be overly serious at times...but was that just to counterbalance the other side of himself? The side that Ed saw?
Absently, I chewed on my pen cap as I considered the possibility that beneath Ian's appealing facade, was a decadently carousing sleaze, who enjoyed heavy drink, loud music, and the uninspired company of “easy-looking women.” Could that have been what broke up his marriage in the first place? He just didn't seem the type. But then again, he didn't seem the type to marry a woman named “Amber” so who knew what to think?
Now, as Ian turned from the cabinet, he caught me staring at him. On alert, he raised his eyebrows and said, “Rocket, you need me?”
“No! No, no, I was just thinking about how I want to phrase something,” I said. I turned back to my computer and started to type.
About an hour after that, I went to Ian's office to drop off my newly edited review. I hoped to set it in his inbox and make a quick departure, but Ian stopped me first. “Rocket, you got a second?”
“Sure...” I lingered by his office door, my hand still on the knob.
“Great. Please,” he said and motioned with his hand, “have a seat.”
Reluctantly, I came closer and slid into the chair opposite him. It was hard to look at him and hold my tongue about what I knew—or thought I knew—or partially knew—well, you get the point. The worst part was, I couldn't even ask Ian about Ed's claims, because it would be totally inappropriate. First of all, he was my boss. And secondly, this was a work place, and Ian's personal life was absolutely none of my business.
So I swallowed all the questions I wanted to ask, and tried to be a professional. He said, “I wanted to let you know that I placed a call to the Chicago PD and I learned a few things about that body that washed up in the river. Apparently, the woman was never identified and has since been buried in an unmarked grave.”
“But—”
He held a hand up so I would let him finish. “The reason there's been no real investigation is because the woman died of drowning. There was apparently a contusion on her head, which had initially made the police suspicious that she had been killed, and then dumped in the water. But with the medical examiner's official ruling of drowning as the cause of death, there was just nowhere to go with it. They have no reason to assume she didn't fall in or jump in of her own volition. She could have hit her head on anything really, drifting down the river for several days. Since no one identified her, she's been filed as a Jane Doe. The only thing we do know, I suppose, is that she wasn't a criminal. Otherwise her fingerprints would have found a match. Anyway, I just wanted to let you know the status with that.”
“Oh. Okay, well, thanks. I mean, it doesn't prove that it wasn't Suzie,” I said.
“True, but if it is Suzie, then that would mean she wasn't murdered at Metropolax that night. She died by drowning in the Chicago River.”
“So maybe it wasn't Suzie then...” I murmured, more to myself.
“There's more,” Ian said. “Have you been on PretendR lately?”
“No,” I replied. “I haven't checked it in a day or two.”
“Well, using the Chronicle's PretendR page, I checked to see if anyone had turned up yet—”
“No, but Suzie didn't have a PretendR page, I already checked.”
“But Jennifer Agnor does; you told me that yourself. Here, look at this. I printed it off from the site.” He slid a sheet of paper toward me.
“Oh my gosh!” I exclaimed. “She logged on last night! Look, she changed her greeting and posted an update! Wait let me see...” I read, then re-read Jennifer Agnor's media page. The new greeting read: Back from Honeymoon Hell! Her update went on to detail the many shortcomings of her trip to Venice, including how “the pizza should have been WAAAY better” and her “hubby's bitch ex-wife kept calling-she just can't accept that the divorce is final and he's mine now!!!!”
Before I could even spin a conspiracy theory that someone else was fraudulently posting under Jennifer's name, I saw that she had uploaded photos of her trip. I recognized the woman right away from her photo on Metropolax's kitchen wall. It was definitely Jennifer Agnor. “So this is good news, really,” I said, looking up into Ian's eyes. “She's okay. That's one of the women who disappeared, and she's okay.”
He nodded.
“Unless of course, Jennifer is actually 'Sox'—and this whole post is a cover-up.”
“Boy, you're a suspicious woman,” Ian remarked with a trace of a grin. The comment struck a chord, considering. I didn't dare say anything, but I guess my poker face needed work, because Ian said, “Rocket, is there something on your mind?
“No...” I said.
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, why?” I avoided his gaze. Mostly kept my eyes on the arm of my chair, fussed with the frayed upholstery.
“You've been acting out of character today, that's why. Is everything all right?”
“Fine,” I said, nodding, and rose to my feet. As I turned to go, the dam broke and my whole ill-fitting veneer of professionalism peeled straight away. “Oh, funny thing,” I remarked, “I ran into Ed Sogard at Cup/Cakes yesterday. He had some pretty unpleasant things to say.”
“I'm sure,” Ian scoffed and turned back to his computer screen. “I wonder if he paid for his meal, or he thought that should be free, too.”
With a brief chuckle, I added, “Well, he certainly had some...interesting things to say about you, too...but anyway...”
“Really?” Ian turned his head to face me. “Like what?”
“Oh, just...this and that,” I replied vaguely. “A few surprising comments about your, you know, 'hobbies'...but really none of my business, so...I'll just get back to work
.”
“Why not just tell me?”
“Like I said...it's your life,” I said and accidentally rolled my eyes.
“Rocket, just say it.”
I paused at the door. “I can't.”
“Because...”
“It would be inappropriate to say at work. That's why.”
“Oh, man, I've got to hear this,” Ian said, tossing his pen on his desk and folding his arms across his chest. “I can't imagine what Ed would have to say about my 'hobbies' that wouldn't be fit for a general audience. Let's hear it.”
I expelled a heavy sigh, before relaying everything Ed had said about Ian's constant partying, drinking, and appalling lack of common decency. I didn't mention the part about skanky women doing the walk of shame in the morning—at first—but then I ended up blabbing that, too. Before I even finished, Ian began to laugh. And it didn't seem like a nervous laugh, either. It sounded genuine. “Rocket, you've got to be kidding me. You believed that?”
“No! I mean—look, it's none of my business anyway. It's not like you have to deny it or something.”
“I'm denying it because it's not true,” he said with a laugh.
I held my palms up. “Fine, fine. I don't even care.”
“Okay,” he said with a nod. “But it kind of seems like you do care.”
“No, I mean...I'm just concerned for your reputation, that's all. As a colleague,” I quickly added.
“Well, thank you for your concern. But I can assure you that everything Ed told you is a lie. Now that he's gotten his 'revenge' on me—” He rolled his eyes as he said the word. “—hopefully he'll move on to his next grudge.”
“Really?” I said, wanting to believe him.
“You seem relieved,” he said.
“No—just—”
“My reputation?”
“Yes...exactly.”
Ian had one of his inscrutable expressions now, as he seemed to assess me. Then he gave an efficient nod. “I'm glad we cleared it up then.”
Chapter 30