Sleuthing Women

by Lois Winston

  Dumb cops. All they’d hear is carpooling arrangements, teenage pseudo phone sex, Fantasy Baseball player trades, and The Daughters of the October Revolution plotting to take over the world.

  But if Batswin and Robbins could rid me of Ricardo, at least I’d have one less two thousand pound gorilla sitting on my chest. I’d also have the money from the apartment rental to pay the overdue utility bills.

  Now if I could only cajole the Dynamic Duo into taking Lucille...

  As I left the conference room, I paused, my hand on the doorknob, and turned to face them. “Do you know yet how Marlys died?”

  Batswin shook her head. “We’re still waiting for the lab results.”

  I opened the door to find Erica hovering on the other side.

  EIGHT

  Erica hugged her midsection, her face a pastiche of worry and fear. Grabbing my arm, she hurried me down the hall to the empty break room. “What did they say?” she asked after closing the door behind us. Her nervous whisper quaked around snuffles and tears as she poured coffee for both of us. “Did they ask about me?”

  “No, why?”

  She placed the coffee on the table, then dug in her pocket for a used tissue. Choking back a panicked sob, she collapsed into one of the plastic chairs, her voice muffled by her fists and the crumpled tissue she pressed against her face. “I think they think I had something to do with it. They questioned me for nearly an hour.”

  “They’re questioning all of us, Erica. That’s how they do their job.”

  Tears spilled onto her cheeks and bounced into her lap, raining dark blue spots on her stone-washed denim jumper. “But everyone knows how Marlys treated me, how I hated her,” she wailed.

  “I think they’re quickly learning that lots of people hated Marlys. Do you have an alibi for last night?”

  “I was with Dicky. Except for when he left for a few hours to meet with a client. But I didn’t tell the detectives about that. I was too scared.”

  “Dicky?”

  A deep scarlet suffused Erica’s pale cheeks; a shy smile tickled the corners of both her mouth and eyes. “My boyfriend,” she mumbled.

  “Erica!” I plunked into one of the other plastic chairs that surrounded the rickety, coffee-stained Formica table.

  Erica had a boyfriend? We all assumed she went home every night to an empty apartment and microwavable meals-for-one. She had never mentioned a boyfriend. Hell, Erica had never mentioned having a date.

  It was nice to know that someone’s life was picking up, unlike mine, which had recently received a royal flushing down the toilet. “How long has this been going on?”

  “A few months.”

  “Why have you been keeping him a secret?”

  “I didn’t want Marlys to find out. You know how she is...was. She’d say he’s a real loser if he’s going out with me. He’s not, though. Dicky’s a very successful businessman. He’s a financial advisor and owns his own company with lots of employees.”

  Her slight smile blossomed into a sheepish grin. She spoke into her lap. “And he really likes me.”

  “I’m happy for you, Erica.”

  She blew her nose in what was left of the tissue. “I guess I don’t have to hide my relationship with Dicky anymore. Now that Marlys is gone.”

  “Relationship? This sounds serious.”

  “I guess you could say that.” She averted her eyes; her cheeks deepened to the shade of a cooked lobster. “We’re living together.”

  “Really?”

  “Does that shock you?”

  “Why should it shock me?”

  “Well, you being older and all...”

  Ouch! She made me sound like I had one foot in Little Old Lady Land. “I’m only forty-two. Besides, your generation didn’t invent cohabitation.”

  “My father would disown me if he found out. Heck, he nearly disowned me when I moved out of the house and got my own apartment. He said nice girls live at home until they get married.”

  No wonder Erica made the proverbial dormouse look like the proverbial king of the jungle. The poor kid had grown up under the thumb of some domineering nineteenth-century Neanderthal. Then she had the misfortune to go to work for his twenty-first century Amazon counterpart. Talk about jumping from the wok into the inferno.

  “Dicky’s the first good thing that’s ever happened to me,” she said as if reading my thoughts.

  Of that I had no doubt. I raised my coffee cup in a toast. “Here’s to the first of many.”

  Her eyebrows knit together. “I don’t want many boyfriends. I just want Dicky.”

  “Of many good things in your life.”

  She blushed. “Oh.” Then she raised her coffee cup to meet mine.

  Before we could click Styrofoam to Styrofoam, a knock sounded at the door. Batswin entered between my and Erica’s simultaneous “Come” and “in,” catching us with our cups in mid-toast.

  “Celebrating something?”

  Erica cringed at the sound of Batswin’s voice. Her hand shook so hard, she nearly dropped her cup.

  “In a manner of speaking,” I said, “but it’s personal. Nothing to do with your investigation.”

  Batswin walked over to the coffee pot and helped herself to a cup. “I’ll be the judge of that,” she said, her back turned to us.

  I glanced at Erica. Her features froze into a tense mask, but I figured it was better to be truthful than to let Batswin assume we had something to hide from her. “Erica has a new boyfriend.”

  At the sound of new, the terror and tension melted from Erica’s face, and she offered me a slight smile. Poor kid. She didn’t want Batswin to think she was a loser, that she had never had a boyfriend before Dicky.

  Batswin lowered herself into one of the remaining chairs, directly opposite me, her large form appearing less than comfortable squeezed into the cheap molded plastic seat. “Congratulations.” She raised her cup toward Erica before taking a long sip.

  “Thank you,” mumbled Erica.

  “Is there something we can help you with, Detective, or did you only come in for a hit of caffeine?” I asked.

  Batswin lowered her cup to the table and held it between both her hands. She leveled her midnight eyes at me. I fought back the shiver that threatened to claim my body. Wheels were turning behind those sharp black orbs, and I wasn’t sure they were necessarily the wheels of justice. At least not justice for me, no matter what she said about believing I didn’t kill Marlys.

  “I just spoke with the coroner,” she said.

  Erica sank deeper into her chair, as if trying to become invisible. I leaned forward, clutching my coffee cup. “You know who killed Marlys?”

  “Not who. What.”

  “And?”

  Batswin’s stare grew darker, more pointed. “Marlys Vandenburg was killed with your glue gun, Mrs. Pollack, and the only prints on it are yours.”

  NINE

  I couldn’t wrap my mind around the preposterous idea of my trusty hot glue gun as a murder weapon. After all, a glue gun wasn’t the weapon of choice for most murderers. Didn’t killers tend to favor guns with bullets? You could get a pretty nasty burn from a hot glue gun if you weren’t careful, but that was about all.

  Unless...”Was she hit over the head with it?” I didn’t remember seeing any lumps or bruises on Marlys, but I was too freaked at the time to take inventory.

  “She was suffocated with the glue,” said Batswin.

  Suffocated? With a glue gun? I studied Batswin to see if she was trying to trick me in some way. Her features remained expressionless, a blank expanse between the two dream catchers swaying from her ear lobes.

  I voiced my skepticism. “Are you sure the medical examiner didn’t inhale one too many whiffs of formaldehyde, Detective?”

  “Our coroner is quite competent, Mrs. Pollack. He found Flunitrazepam in her system. Whoever killed Marlys Vandenburg, first knocked her out with the drug, then sealed her mouth and nostrils with glue.”

  “Eeewwww!”
Erica clapped her hands over her mouth and bent forward, making gagging noises.

  I tamped down my own urge to gag. Squeezing my eyes shut, I tried to concentrate on my own breathing, but behind my closed lids I saw Marlys, glue strings streaming from her body like waxy spider webs. No matter how lousy an excuse for a human being, Marlys didn’t deserve death by glue gun.

  I took a final deep breath and opened my eyes. “What’s Flunitrazepam?” I asked Batswin.

  “It’s a benzodiazepine, a very potent tranquilizer similar to Valium, only many times stronger. You might know it better as Rohypnol or Roofies.”

  “The date rape drug?” asked Erica.

  “Exactly,” said Batswin. “You wouldn’t happen to know how it got into your boss’s Merlot, would you?”

  Erica’s eyes grew wide, her face filled with horror. “I didn’t do it!”

  “I’m not saying you did, Miss Milano.”

  “We don’t keep alcohol in the office. It’s against company policy.”

  “You always follow the rules?”

  Erica cringed as if Batswin had slapped her. With her eyes averted, her voice timid and defensive, she answered, “Of course. I don’t want to get fired.”

  “Not that rules ever stopped Marlys,” I said. “She may have kept a bottle in her office.”

  Erica turned to look at me and shook her head. “I would have known.”

  I challenged Batswin, “Seems to me your killer is whoever shared a drink with Marlys last night, and that certainly wasn’t me or Erica. Marlys wouldn’t stoop to socializing with either of us.”

  “Mrs. Pollack, why do you keep handing me reasons to suspect you?”

  I was beginning to wonder what the police academy taught in Basic Detectiving 101. Maybe Batswin needed a refresher course. Or a copy of The Dunderhead’s Step-by-Step Guide to How to Catch a Killer.

  “Being dissed by a snob isn’t grounds for murder, Detective. At least not as far as I’m concerned. Why are you wasting your time with me when you should be finding out who Marlys was with last night? By now the real killer is probably skinny-dipping in Aruba.”

  Detective Batswin leaned across the table. “Are you telling me how to do my job, Mrs. Pollack?”

  “Heaven forbid, Detective. I have enough problems of my own.”

  “So you’ve mentioned.”

  That’s when it hit me. Batswin wanted to wrap this case up as soon as possible. Whether she had the real killer or not. In her eyes I had motive, opportunity, and the murder weapon at my disposal. Why look any further?

  I was getting the distinct impression that Batswin’s latest theory involved Erica and me in cahoots to bump off Marlys. Erica drugged her. Then together we dragged her body into my office, where I went to work with my handy-dandy, trusty hot glue gun.

  Tie a red satin bow around us and hand us over to the district attorney. Case closed.

  I almost laughed at the absurdity except that Batswin sounded dead serious. Pun intended. With so little violent crime in Morris County, how many murders had she actually investigated, let alone solved?

  I had no desire to spend the next thirty or forty years dressed in a neon orange jumpsuit as a guest of the state of New Jersey. If I wanted to save my tush, I needed to find the real killer. And fast. After all, I didn’t have any money for a defense attorney.

  Maybe I needed a copy of The Dunderhead’s Step-by-Step Guide to How to Catch a Killer.

  First, though, I needed a computer, and since Batswin and Robbins had locked mine up in the Morris County hoosegow, I borrowed Cloris’s. In exchange, I caught her up on my latest interrogation by Batswin and Erica’s bombshell of a boyfriend announcement.

  “That’s crazy,” she said around a mouthful of angel food cake, one of the spares from her early morning wedding cake photo shoot for the June issue.

  I eyed the cake sitting on the counter. My mouth watered. My Carb Junkie Gene shouted, “Feed me!” but I ignored its screams.

  “What’s crazy? Me bumping off Marlys with my trusty Smith and Wesson glue gun or Erica having a boyfriend?”

  She shoveled another forkful of cake into her mouth. “Both, come to think of it. What would you have to gain by killing Marlys?”

  “Money.”

  She nearly choked on her cake, reached for a cup of coffee, and raised one eyebrow high enough that it disappeared under her wispy gingerbread colored bangs. “Want to explain that one?” she asked after washing the cake down with a gulp of java sludge.

  Not really. I had hoped to keep Karl’s financial infidelity a secret from my coworkers, but since Batswin and Robbins now knew about my money mess and Ricardo’s fifty-thousand-dollars-or-else demand, I figured it wouldn’t be long before word spread.

  I gave Cloris the Reader’s Digest condensed version.

  “So the dynamic detective duo think you killed Cloris for the diamonds to pay off Ricardo?”

  “Looks that way.”

  “Those diamonds were worth a hell of a lot more than fifty grand.”

  “Which would certainly get me out of the financial quagmire Karl created.”

  Cloris groaned. “You do have a problem.” She placed her plate on the table and leaned over my shoulder as I scrolled down a page of book titles listed on barnesandnoble.com. “How can I help?”

  I glanced over my shoulder. “Are you serious?”

  “Of course, Sherlock.” She stepped over to the counter and sliced herself another helping of wedding cake. “I know you didn’t kill Marlys. Want some?”

  “Thanks. For both the offer of help and the cake.” I turned my attention back to the website. “Okay, Doctor Watson, now all we need to do is learn how to snare ourselves a murderer.”

  “On the Barnes & Noble website?”

  “I’m looking for The Dunderhead’s Step-by-Step Guide to How to Catch a Killer.”

  “Is there such a book?”

  I focused on the screen. “Apparently not. They’ve got everything else, including a completely illustrated, step-by-step guide to becoming a clairvoyant.”

  “That could work.”

  “I wish.”

  I exited the website, and grabbed the plate of wedding cake Cloris had cut for me. In the great diet game of life the score was Carb Junkie genes one, Anastasia’s Willpower zero.

  “So now what?” asked Cloris.

  “You bake me a cake with a file in it?”

  “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

  “Let’s hope what doesn’t come to what?”

  Cloris and I exchanged a quick glance and turned to find Naomi standing at the cubicle entrance. She wore a deep plum two-piece Dior suit and as usual, looked Grace-Kelly-elegant. But then again, Naomi was the kind of woman who’d look Grace-Kelly-elegant in Lucille’s ratty chenille robe. No Carb Junkie Gene allowed in Naomi’s family tree.

  Behind her, Kim, her ever-present, ever-efficient assistant, clutched a stack of papers while talking on a portable phone she held in place with her shoulder. With her free hand she jotted notes on a legal pad.

  Kim could juggle seventeen tasks at once and never break a sweat. Never show the slightest sign of frazzledom on that pert, freckled face of hers. I figured beside a combination of Chinese and Irish genes, she had to have a sprinkling of Speedy Gonzales in her blood line.

  I also couldn’t help but notice the serenity that emanated from Naomi this morning. I wondered if Grace Kelly had ever played a nun or a saint. If so, she would have looked exactly like Naomi looked at that moment.

  Gone was the thick coil of tension that had snaked around her from the day Hugo brought Marlys aboard. Coincidence? Or something else?

  I shook the thought of Naomi committing murder from my head and answered her with a lie I hoped she couldn’t see through. “I’m having a bit of a problem getting my computer back from the police.”

  She turned to Kim. “See what you can do to expedite getting Anastasia’s computer released.”

  Kim nodded as she cont
inued to listen to the caller and take notes.

  Naomi turned back to me. “How much of a problem do we have?”

  “None as far as editorial. I have everything backed up on the server.”

  “Good. I’ll get IT to hook up another computer for you. What time are you shooting today?”

  “That’s the problem.” I grimaced as she raised one perfectly arched eyebrow. “I had to cancel the photo session. The police also took the models for the June spread. I had planned to finish the final pieces last night...” I shrugged instead of finishing my sentence. Naomi knew all about last night.

  “So now we have no models to shoot?”

  “Exactly. Either we reschedule photography or pick-up projects from an old issue.”

  I knew the latter was not an option. Neither rain, nor sleet, nor snow, nor wind, nor murder in the dead of night would cause Naomi to run an old column or project. In the cutthroat world of women’s magazine publishing, Rule Number One was: Never give your readers any reason to switch to a competitor’s publication. And readers got really pissed when they plunked down three-fifty at the supermarket checkout counter only to get home to find the new issue contained repeats from past issues.

  “Can you get new models made by the end of the day?” asked Naomi.

  Not wanting to tarnish my miracle worker image—or jeopardize my job—I agreed. Even if I was at the same time kicking myself for being so accommodating.

  “Fine. We’ll shoot first thing tomorrow morning.” She turned to Kim. “Take care of rescheduling.”

  Kim continued to listen and jot as she once again nodded, her shoulder length hair sweeping back and forth like an auburn silk curtain.

  “By the way,” said Naomi, “I’m going to give Erica a shot at Marlys’s job.”

  Cloris and I exchanged glances.

  Naomi cocked her head, waiting for some comment from either of us, but we were both speechless. “Either of you see a problem with that?”

  “Not me,” said Cloris.

  “I suppose it makes sense,” I said. “Erica always did most of Marlys’s work anyway.”