Too Big To Miss

by Sue Ann Jaffarian

  Beyond the counter was a very large open area. It was a hive of activity, with lots of machines of different sizes and types whirring away. Worker bees were attending to business, chatting and bantering pleasantly among themselves. It seemed like a nice place to work, clean and industrious, and Greg's employees looked happy and relaxed. I imagined him being a good and fair boss.

  I only had to wait a few minutes before the man at the counter left and the kid turned his attention to me.

  "What can we do for you?" he asked politely, without a hint of the youthful slang usually associated with his colorful attire.

  "I'm here to see Greg Stevens, but I don't have an appointment." I stood up and walked to the counter. "I was just hoping to catch him in."

  At that moment, Wainwright trotted out from behind the counter and nuzzled my leg like an old friend. I took his boulder of a head in both my hands and playfully rubbed it. His fringed tail wagged like a metronome.

  "Hey, Wainwright, how you doing boy?" I looked up at the kid. "Greg must be in," I said with a laugh.

  The kid grinned. "Let me tell Greg you're here. What's your name?"

  I told him my name as Wainwright leaned one side of his heavy head into my hand. I scratched behind one ear, then the other, knowing full well I was going to catch hell from Seamus tonight when I came home smelling like doggie. He hadn't quite forgiven me for letting Wainwright into the house in the first place.

  "Looks like you found another sucker, ole boy."

  I looked up to see Greg watching me from behind the counter. He seemed very happy to see me. Upon hearing his master's voice, Wainwright abandoned me to beg attention from Greg.

  "You must have ESP or something," he said. "I was going to call you tonight."

  "I was in the area attending a meeting," I explained. "Hope you don't mind my dropping in like this?"

  It was true. Mike Steele had an afternoon appointment at a client's office in Huntington Beach, not far from Greg's printing company. The client was growing at a fast pace and was looking to expand his business outside the state. Since one of my paralegal duties was to set up corporations inside and outside of California, Steele had asked me to come along. Thankfully, we had taken separate cars. After the news of my upcoming assignment, it was now my turn to present a cold shoulder.

  "No, not at all," Greg said. "I have something interesting to show you. But first a quick tour."

  He proudly showed me around Ocean Breeze Graphics and introduced me to several people, including the kid from the front counter. His name was Boomer. Like a puffed up papa, Greg announced, much to the boy's embarrassment, that Boomer was a straight-A college student and had been with him since he was sixteen, beginning with deliveries.

  Greg had a right to be pleased with the business and his people. Hard work and success hovered over the place like the hum of the machinery they used. And it was easy to see that genuine affection existed between the workers and their boss. There was an overall camaraderie about the place that didn't exist at Woobie, and never had. I wondered with amusement if Ocean Breeze Graphics had an opening for a corporate paralegal.

  Greg took me back to his office. It was a large, square room in a corner of the building. One wall consisted mainly of a huge picture window through which he could survey most of the work area. The door to the office was unusually wide, as were the aisles running through the main part of the shop, all tailored to help Greg in the maneuvering of the wheelchair. It was an impressive set-up.

  "I've been working on the saved camera photos from Sophie's computer," he told me excitedly as he closed the door to give us privacy. "What I've found is very odd."

  He wheeled behind his desk and motioned for me to pull up one of the side chairs standing nearby. His computer was already on. I envied his monitor. It was one of the large flat screen models, making mine at home seem no bigger than a Game Boy.

  The other night we had located the saved photos taken by the computer camera on the day of Sophie's death. The camera had been programmed to save them on the hard drive at intervals of fifteen seconds. The pictures had dates and times stamped across the bottom of each still shot. The first photos had started close to eight in the morning. The camera had been shut off by the police just after nine-thirty. In between were numerous photos, including those showing the shooting, according to the time stamp, at about nine-twelve.

  We had gone though many of the pictures that night at Sophie's, and had caught some oddities in a few just before the shooting. But the images weren't sharp enough to be sure. Greg burned the photos to a CD and volunteered to enlarge them on his computer at work. He had done a good job and had created a chronological slide show from the photos taken from Sophie's computer.

  "These were taken about eight-twenty," Greg explained, showing me one enlarged photo on his computer screen, followed by another.

  Each photo showed Sophie in front of the camera, her head turned to her left. She looked serious, very tense. I imagined her office, picturing myself sitting behind her desk, moving my head in the same direction.

  "She's looking toward the loveseat under the window," I said. My heart started to beat faster as I studied the photo. "Possibly at someone."

  "Exactly."

  Greg pulled a large pad of yellow lined paper from a stack on his desk. It was the same type of note pad used by lawyers. On it were two times and dates, both circled. One was May second, ten-fifty; the other May third, eight-twenty. The May third entry was also underscored several times.

  Greg stabbed the end of a ballpoint pen at each of the dates. "And these are the dates and times Ortiz made service calls to that address according to the security company. These are my notes from my conversation with them."

  I wanted to shout ah-ha! but felt a needed to be cautious

  "Yes, but maybe Ortiz wasn't exact in his report," I said. "Or maybe the clock on the computer was off in one direction or another."

  "Wait, Odelia. We haven't come to the interesting part yet."

  He moved through the photos quickly until they seemed like a slow-moving video. Most were of Sophie in front of the camera, but facing toward the love seat. Throughout the sequence her facial expression changed little, showing her face taut, her eyes narrowed. Sometimes her mouth was open, as if speaking. The times on the photos ranged from eight-fifteen until eight-thirty-two, over fifty photos in all. Following eight thirty-two, the photos showed Sophie looking slightly more to the right, in the direction of the closet. Still her face was stone cold.

  "Go back several," I told him. "Then go forward more slowly."

  He did as I asked. With each slide, I double checked the date and time posting at the bottom.

  "Greg," I said quietly and calmly. "If these photos are correct, then Ortiz..." I looked at him wide-eyed.

  "Never saw Sophie at all," he said, finishing my sentence.

  "But he told his supervisor and the police he saw Sophie and that she seemed okay. He..."

  "Must've seen someone else."

  "Yes, someone else. Another woman passing herself off as Sophie when Ortiz stopped by."

  My mind did a leap and, surprisingly, landed on its feet. "If someone else, a woman, was at the door chatting with Ortiz about the alarm system," I said, the words coming out slow and deliberate as I got the progression straight in my mind. "Then someone else, another person, was in the room with Sophie while these pictures were being snapped."

  I threw myself back in the chair and stared at the ceiling. "We're not looking for a murderer, Greg. We're looking for at least two murderers! And poor Ortiz could've been killed because he could identify the person he saw as not being the real Sophie London."

  "Bingo!" Greg said, slapping his hands together quickly and loudly like a clap of thunder.

  I moved my eyes from the ceiling to Greg. "Holy shit, Greg, what have we stumbled onto?"

  "There's more, Odelia. You sure you're ready?"

  "Two weeks ago, I was hardly ready to get up in the morning
and shower. Today, I'm ready for anything."

  Greg clicked on the computer screen and the photos started moving forward again, this time slowly. "These were taken about the time of the shooting," he said. "About the time I came online."

  I had seen the suicide photos the other night. But then they had been small pictures. Now they were more than triple in size. Today, they marched across the screen like surreal images from a pepperoni pizza-induced nightmare.

  Sophie's face appeared in all of them. Some showed her with the gun, first with it in her hand, then in her mouth. There were three of the gun barrel poised between her lips, the time stamps telling us it had been about thirty to forty-five seconds between the aiming and the shooting.

  The next sequence of photos showed Sophie slumped backward in her chair, her vacant eyes looking upward. There were a number of those pictures, the later ones showing a trickle of blood trailing from one corner of her mouth down her chin. Then another person, a man clad in dark blue or black, a police officer probably, came into the shot. There were a couple of photos of him checking the body for life. Soon after, something covered the camera, blocking the view from the Internet watchers. The next photos were just black empty shots until the end.

  "Where's the restroom?" I asked Greg weakly.

  "To the right of my office, down a short hall," he told me. "You okay?"

  "I will be."

  The shop was still full of people as I stepped quickly to the bathroom. Thankfully, it wasn't occupied. After locking the door, I dropped to my knees and hugged the cool porcelain bowl as the remnants of my lunch burst free.

  Ready for anything, my big behind.

  When the sickness subsided, I stood up and flushed. Moving to the sink, I dabbed my face with a wet paper towel and checked the damage. My mascara was running, my eyeliner smudged. Against my pale, freckled skin my blackened eyes looked ghoulish. With a paper towel and some water, I patted around my eyes, trying to clean up the mess. I only succeeded in pressing it deeper into the crevices of my crow's feet. A fuzz coated my teeth and tongue. It tasted of chocolate and peanut butter. Today I'd had another fluffer-nutter, followed by carrot sticks and a brownie. None of it tasted good the second time around.

  There was a small Dixie cup dispenser attached to the wall. Pulling one of the small cups from the plastic hanger, I used it to swish my mouth out. It only helped a little.

  The bathroom was large, without stall walls around the single commode, and the sink was low and open underneath. A metal handrail ran alongside the toilet area. Everything was handicapped accessible and clean. I noticed a large cabinet attached to the wall to the right of the sink and opened it.

  Hallelujah!

  Inside were several tubes of toothpaste, varied toothbrushes encased in plastic holders, mouthwash, razors, Tylenol, Maalox, bandages, and other hygiene and first aid items, including a box of Tampax. Obviously, I had discovered the healthcare emergency cache of the employees of Ocean Breeze Graphics.

  Using some toothpaste and my finger, I did a quick scrub of my teeth, then poured some mouthwash into the paper cup. I tossed it back like a tequila shooter and swished it around vigorously. It was the kind of mouthwash meant to be diluted with water before using, but feeling the need for industrial strength action I ignored the directions.

  Yowsa!

  It did the trick. I left the bathroom semi-composed and fully awake, my mouth feeling like it had been rinsed with mint flavored bleach.

  When I emerged from the bathroom I noticed that many of Greg's employees had left. The huge, plain clock hung high on a side wall said five-fifteen. I walked back to Greg's office to find Boomer looking at the computer screen over his shoulder. They were discussing something about the photos on the screen.

  "You sure you're okay?" Greg asked.

  "Yes, I'll be fine. Used some of your mouthwash. Hope you don't mind."

  He smiled, but it was a concerned smile. "If you don't want to go on, I'll understand."

  "No, really, I'm fine." I turned my attention to the photos. "What was it you found in this batch?" I asked.

  "Well, see these photos, the ones with Sophie holding the gun, and then these next ones with the gun in her mouth?" He no longer had a single photo on the screen, but four at a time.

  "Yes."

  "Boomer was the one who saw something odd right away." Greg looked at the beach scholar standing close by. "Show Odelia what you noticed, Boom."

  Boomer leaned over Greg's shoulder for a closer look and commandeered the mouse. Calmly and professionally he surveyed the photos. He pointed to several of Sophie holding the gun.

  "See this. In these pictures your friend is holding the gun and looking down at it. Looks to me like she's maybe contemplating what's next. Look closely and you can see what might be wetness on the side of her face." With a double click the photo was instantaneously enlarged. Boomer clicked several more times, each time enlarging the photo until only Sophie's face covered the screen.

  Sure enough, it did look like she was crying. I swallowed hard, the mouthwash still burning my mucous membranes.

  Boomer clicked some more and the photos returned to smaller, four-to-a-page size.

  "In these pictures," Boomer explained, pointing to a photo in the next sequence grouping, "she's got the gun barrel in her mouth." He clicked to enlarge the shot. "But look at her eyes. She's definitely looking at something. This next picture, too." He clicked the mouse to bring up the next photo and clicked again to enlarge it. "And look at her shoulders." With an index finger, Boomer traced along Sophie's neck and shoulders while Greg and I watched. "They're squared, determined, like she's getting ready to rumble."

  I scrutinized the photos, my brain exploding with new insight. The kid was right. Sophie may have had a gun in her mouth, but her eyes, hard as tempered steel, were fixed on something or someone specific. And her posture was rigid, her head held high. It was anything but the stance of a depressed and despondent woman.

  "If I were offing myself," Boomer continued, "I wouldn't be looking around. I'd be scared shitless, probably with my eyes shut tight. But this woman...she looks pissed!"

  Chapter Nineteen

  THERE IS SOMETHING to be said for keeping the hands busy and the mind occupied.

  My ergonomically structured workspace was landscaped in an ever-changing mountain range of manila folders and brownish red expanding files. As I worked, one peak grew, while another lessened. Industry had become my middle name, replacing Patience, which was running low in supply.

  Since arriving at the office this morning, I had feverishly typed up my notes from the meeting with our client the day before. Then I moved on to setting up the needed files, and began processing the paperwork to qualify the client's company in the four new states in which it was planning to do business. It was detail work that included research, typing, and placing a few calls. Steele had promised the client the required forms would be ready for signing by the end of next week. I planned on getting them to the client for signature by Monday. The client would be happy.

  I kept my head down and my mind focused, vowing to keep Sophie out of sight, out of mind, at least until after work. The task at hand was simple enough, and I could do it in my sleep. There were few surprises in corporate work. I knew where the project began, and could track my progress easily. The desired end was recognizable and tidy. It was more than I could say about my other project, my after-hours undertaking.

  The night before, Greg had wanted to take me to dinner. But I had declined, saying I didn't have much of an appetite. As always, he had understood. I just wanted to go home, fix something simple like soup, and privately cogitate on the missing links, the phantom people just beyond the camera range. Which I did until two this morning.

  Who could they have been? The only thing I was sure of was one of the people at Sophie's that day had been a woman. Only a woman could have met Ortiz at the door and passed herself off as the lady of the house.

  Greg and I had trie
d calling Detective Frye with our findings, but the person answering his phone at the station said that he was out until Monday. She asked what it was about, saying someone else would be happy to help me. Instead, I told her that I'd call back after the weekend.

  What we had was nothing concrete, just theories based on a dead woman's gaze moments before her death. It would have been different if the photos had shown a shoe or a hand, or something tangible that could be linked to a living being. And I only wanted to talk to Frye. One trained professional patiently listening to my amateurish and emotional speculations was enough.

  Sophie's eyes, and the anger burning in them just before she pulled the trigger, had been branded into my brain, as if my noggin had been the side of a struggling calf. It had bleated in pain at the sight and felt the stinging of the hot iron long after the pictures had been shut down. I thought about it even throughout my morning walk.

  Today, only Ruth had been at the starting place at six. The two of us had walked together quietly, exchanging a few pleasantries. She seemed to respect my preoccupation and even asked if I was okay. I had assured her that I was, saying I was just concerned about something at work.

  Ahhhh, but here I go again, digressing into Murderland, buying an adult ticket and standing in line to ride the attractions. And I had promised myself that I wouldn't until tonight. I thought about tonight and exhaled concern. Tonight I was scheduled to have dinner with the scary Mr. Hollowell.

  The new project well on its way, I turned my attention to returning a small batch of phone calls that had accumulated the day before when I was out of the office. Most were clients asking about the status of their work, or requesting some last-minute changes or guidance. Mr. Wallace had called, but I'd returned that call as soon as I got in. He expressed concern he hadn't been the one to tell me about my new assignment with Mike Steele, and, like Tina, he urged me to give it a chance.

  One voice mail message had been from a woman named Marcia. She had called early this morning, just before I had arrived at the office. She left no last name and no call back number. If it was important, she'd call again.