by Lois Winston
“There was no accident,” said Gina.
“Obviously,” sneered Emil/Edwin. “Anyway, the roads finally got plowed late yesterday, but the power didn’t come back on until this morning. The phone lines are still down. I was stuck in that godforsaken middle of nowhere, freezing my butt off, all that time. No phone. No cable. No Internet. And stuck with two doddering old fools who thought it was all a grand adventure.”
Emil/Edwin, the devoted son, had learned he was a wanted man when the Duluth police pulled him aside as he tried to board a pre-dawn flight back to New York earlier today. Two hours of interrogation later, his steel-clad alibi removed him from the list of suspects.
“When I learned of Marlys’s murder, I figured someone wanted me out of the way Monday night,” he added, almost as an afterthought.
But who? My list of suspects had dwindled down to a precious few. All I had left were Naomi and Hugo, neither of whom I believed capable of murder.
Or Gina?
I studied her as she gazed longingly at Emil/Edwin. Was it possible Gina had sent him off to the hinterlands in order to rid herself of the competition in his absence? His reactions to her led me to discount her version of his relationship with Marlys.
I’d bet my last nickel—and that’s about all I had left in the way of available funds at this point—that Emil Pachette/Edwin Peepers, like many before him, had fallen hard and heavy for Marlys.
A quick glance at the muscle defined by his form-fitting garb, revealed all too clearly what Marlys had seen in Emil/Edwin. And it wasn’t his talent as a designer.
I wondered if Gina had known that her sophisticated Parisian boss really hailed from the rural Midwest. Yesterday she’d been so adamant about his French connection. “You knew, didn’t you?” I asked her.
“About what?”
“Emil’s true identity.”
Her body grew rigid, her voice defensive. “So?”
“So why did you lie to us?”
“To protect Emil’s reputation.”
“I see.” I stood to leave. “Well, I’m glad you’re safe and sound,” I said to Emil. “Nice meeting you.”
“You will keep my secret.” He said it more as a threat than a need for assurance.
“I have no desire to ruin your reputation.” I figured his lack of talent would do that soon enough. He didn’t need my help.
Gina stopped me as I approached the door. “Anastasia, why did you come?”
I pasted an innocent smile on my lips, placed a comforting hand on her arm, and lied through my teeth. “You seemed so upset yesterday. I was worried, and since I was in the neighborhood, I thought I’d stop in to check on you.”
Luckily, Gina was too fixated on Emil/Edwin to pick up on my lack of talent as a fiction fabricator.
I glanced toward the equally unaware Emil/Edwin. “But I can see there’s nothing to worry about.”
Gina smiled back. “Yes, everything is going to be fine now.”
~*~
“So you think Gina glue gunned Marlys to death?” asked Cloris.
I had made it back to the office by two o’clock. My stomach roaring from neglect, I ducked into Cloris’s cubicle to see what culinary delights she had hidden away. Apologizing for the slim pickings, she handed me a half-empty bag of slightly stale gourmet potato chips.
“She’s far gone enough over Emil,” I said, stuffing a handful of chips into my mouth. As soon as I swallowed, I felt an additional layer of fat globules taking up residence on my hips, but I was too hungry to care.
“Gina takes puppy love to new heights. Or maybe it’s new depths. Frankly, I don’t see what she sees in that pompous, no-talent phony.” I thought for a moment, then smirked. “No. Scratch that. I did see what she sees in him. And what Marlys saw in him.”
“Nice packaging?”
“Right off the pages of GQ. Nothing but hot air and arrogance inside, though. He treats Gina with such ill-concealed disdain that I wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shake some sense into her.”
“Kind of the way we felt about Erica and Marlys,” said Cloris.
I reached into the bag for another handful of chips. “Must be genetic.”
“People who let other people walk all over them sometimes reach a point where they go postal. Did you get the impression that Gina was so blinded by love that she’d go to any lengths to eliminate her competition?”
I had mulled that question over throughout the train ride back to New Jersey. “I don’t know that she’s got the smarts, and I doubt she’s got the strength.”
“Unless she had an accomplice.”
TWENTY
With a handful of chips poised to enter my gaping mouth, I stared at Cloris. “So how well do we really know Gina?”
“Only what Erica told us and what we observed ourselves yesterday.”
“Plus what I saw today.”
I scanned the instant replays of Gina as they darted through my mind. My perceptions of her didn’t match Erica’s vociferous defense of her cousin. “As much as I hate to admit it, I suppose we have to question Erica’s credibility, considering her staunch devotion to Gina.”
Cloris reached for the bag and shoveled a handful of chips into her mouth. “Exactly my point,” she said around the mouthful.
“If Gina did kill Marlys, she would have needed help moving the comatose body to my office.”
“Emil?”
“Impossible. He’s got proof he was fighting a blizzard in Minnesota while Marlys was getting herself killed in New Jersey.”
I felt no guilt over having divulged the Emil/Edwin connection to Cloris. Telling Cloris would have no adverse effect on The House of Pachette. Had someone told her Jacques Pépin was actually John Peterson of Prairieville, Kansas, she’d be shouting, “Holy exposé! Stop the presses.” But being into food, not fashion, Cloris could care less about Emil’s true identity.
“Besides,” I continued, “you’re forgetting that Emil doesn’t return Gina’s affection, at least not from what I observed of them together. Emil is arrogant and ambitious. Marlys held the means to hoist him a little closer to the twenty-four carat gold ring of fashion stardom. He had no motive for killing her.”
“Someone had to help her. How else would Gina have gotten into the office after hours?”
The thought hit us both at once. I clapped a chip-greasy hand over my mouth. “Omigod! You don’t think—?”
“Anything’s possible,” said Cloris. “They both had enough motive.”
“Erica isn’t that devious.”
“I wonder.” Cloris tapped her nails on her desk. “Sometimes I find it hard to believe that anyone could be as naïve and innocent as Erica leads everyone to believe she is. After all, the kid grew up in The Bronx, not Mayberry.”
“You don’t like Erica much, do you?”
Cloris hesitated before speaking. “Let’s just say the jury hasn’t reached a verdict yet.”
“I know she’s grating at times, but all other factor’s aside, Erica’s no actress. If she was involved in Marlys’s murder, she’d have caved the moment Batswin and Robbins first started questioning her.”
“I suppose you’re right. But now what?”
“Now I get some work done, or Naomi will have my tush in a sling. I’ll have to think about Gina later.”
“Don’t wait too long,” warned Cloris. “I get the feeling Batswin and Robbins want to wrap up this investigation as soon as possible.”
Even if they arrest the wrong person. The ominous thought settled in my stomach like a grease-soaked, fifty-pound gourmet potato chip.
Back in my own cubicle across the hall, I stared at the flickering cursor ticking off the seconds on my computer screen. Or was each pulse a countdown to impending doom? In a matter of days, my life’s story had segued from normal to insane, from working mom to widowed murder suspect. Not to mention Chump of the Decade, given how blind I’d been to Karl’s deceit and secret life.
For all I knew, he did have an affair with Ma
rlys. Maybe she’d been systematically working her way through every colleague’s husband just for kicks. And only because she knew she could, knew the power she wielded whenever she set her sights and her body on any man. I glanced down at my cellulite-dimpled, pear-shaped body and wondered what having such domination over the male species must feel like.
Tears welled up behind my eyes. What a mess! I was a prime candidate for a Lifetime Channel movie-of-the-week. Under the circumstances, concentrating on Fourth of July craft projects proved next to impossible.
However, since I couldn’t run the risk of losing my job, I forced myself to leave the pity party and get back to work. Snuffling the tears into submission, I turned my attention to a no-brainer task, tackling the stack of reader mail that had accumulated over the past several weeks.
Once caught up on my paperwork, my mind had clicked sufficiently into work mode to concentrate on the July issue. I cobbled together a three-project proposal and attached an assortment of fabric and color swatches to it. Jeanie Sims, our decorating editor, had left me a memo about having found pre-made bandana toss pillows to incorporate with the denim furniture she planned to feature, so I concentrated on patio crafts.
Naomi insisted on two criteria for all the craft projects that appeared in American Woman: quick and easy. Our readers weren’t die-hard crafters. I needed to come up with ideas where even the most novice, all-thumbs reader would end up feeling like Martha Stewart when she gazed at her finished project.
Naomi also liked a variety of mediums in each issue, so for the Fourth of July spread, I included ideas that incorporated sewing, painting, and scrap crafts.
By the time I finished the proposal, everyone else had gone for the night, including the cleaning staff. My jaunt into the city to question Gina had resulted in another late evening at the office. I grabbed my purse and coat and headed down the hall to Naomi’s office to drop the proposal in her IN basket before I headed home.
With any luck, the fickle Goddess of Working Moms was on duty tonight and had intervened on my behalf, persuading Mama or one of the boys to fix dinner. No matter how hard I prayed, though, The Goddess of Working Moms had no influence over Comrade Lucille. However, having tasted some of Lucille’s culinary messterpieces in the past, perhaps that was a good thing, and in her own way, the Goddess of Working Moms was looking out for me and my kids.
As I rounded the corner, I realized I wasn’t the last to leave the office, after all. Angry voices rose from behind Naomi’s closed door.
“Damn it! If your brain hadn’t been dangling between your legs—”
“Don’t go there.” Hugo’s voice, normally soft and fatherly, took on an ominous edge.
Creeping closer to the door, I morphed into full Jane Bond mode. Normally, I would have respected Naomi’s and Hugo’s privacy, but these were not normal times. A murderer was still on the loose, and in the eyes of Batswin and Robbins, I was still Suspect Numero Uno.
A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do to save her tush, even if it means turning into a full-fledged, ear-pressed-to-the-door snoop.
“Why not?” yelled Naomi. “It’s all your fault.”
“I’m warning you—”
“Or what? You’ll kill me?”
“Don’t be stupid. Everything will work out. I made a mistake. There. I admit it. Satisfied?”
“A mistake?” Naomi’s shrill decibels reverberated through the closed door and into my eardrum.
“Yes, a mistake. Nothing more. It’s over. Forget about it.”
“Over? We’re smack in the middle of a gargantuan dung heap.”
“Not if we play our hand right.”
“What are you suggesting?”
“That you let me handle things. Okay?”
Naomi mumbled something I couldn’t make out.
“Listen,” continued Hugo in a pleading tone, “we have a chance to set things back on track.”
“Not with this new situation.”
“A minor wrinkle. Trust me.”
Once again I couldn’t make out Naomi’s reply.
“Grab your coat,” said Hugo. “Let’s get out of here.”
I froze.
Even if I morphed into Marion Jones, I’d never be able to sprint back to my cubicle in time. Naomi and Hugo would see me as they rounded the corner.
I also nixed the idea of ducking into one of the surrounding empty offices. They’d notice my car in the parking lot and realize I may have overheard their incriminating shoutfest. I had but one option.
I waited until I heard Hugo approach the door. Pasting a smile of innocence on my face and forcing a sing-song lilt into my voice, I raised my fist and rapped twice. “Naomi?”
The door flew open.
Panic covered Hugo’s face, but I pretended not to notice. I spoke over his shoulder to an equally panic-stricken-looking Naomi. “Hi. I thought I’d drop off the July spread proposals before I left.”
“Oh, Anastasia. Uhm...fine. Thank you.” She pointed to a wire tray on her desk.
I forced myself not to stare at her shaking hand and ignored the guilt-riddled glances she exchanged with Hugo, but being fib-challenged, I was at a genetic disadvantage. My defective Prevarication Gene caused me to break out into an involuntary smirk whenever I lied. If I could pull off this act straight-faced, I was a shoo-in for an Oscar.
“I’ll go over it first thing tomorrow,” said Naomi.
Hugo stepped back to open the door wider. Projecting what I hoped appeared as naïve innocence, I bounced into the office, deposited the folder in the tray, and waved as I retraced my steps. “See you tomorrow.”
As I crossed the threshold, Hugo reached for my arm. “We’re on our way out, as well. After what happened the other night, I don’t feel comfortable with you walking alone to your car.”
He turned to Naomi. “Ready?”
She swung her Fendi purse over her shoulder and fiddled with the strap for a moment. “Coming.”
The three of us walked in silence to the elevator, with me smack in the middle of a triple-decker, high-anxiety sandwich. Part of me wanted to make small talk to dispel any indication that I may have overheard something incriminating. The other part of me feared saying something that might indict me. All of me wanted to believe there was some other explanation for their damning words. I didn’t want to believe Naomi and Hugo were involved in Marlys’s murder, but how could I not suspect them after what I had heard?
The elevator opened seconds after Hugo pressed the button. “After you, ladies.” He swept his arm to indicate we precede him. I ordered my leaden feet to comply.
As the elevator made the short descent, Hugo placed his hand on my shoulder and cleared his throat. “I’m not sure I conveyed how sorry I was to hear of your recent loss, Anastasia.”
I inhaled a deep, shaky breath, relieved he had presented me with an opportunity to direct my emotional turmoil to an appropriate topic. At the same time, though, I couldn’t help but wonder how calculated his concern was. Why now? Hugo had had plenty of opportunity to offer his condolences over the last few days.
I offered him a sad smile. “Thank you, Hugo. The flowers you sent to the funeral were lovely. I appreciated the gesture.”
He slid his hand down to my forearm. “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to come in person. I’m sure it hasn’t been easy for you. If there’s anything Naomi and I can do...anything...please don’t hesitate to ask.” He glanced at Naomi for confirmation.
“Of course,” she said, her lips curling into a benevolent smile. “Anything at all.”
Hugo and Naomi walked me to my car. They waited until I had locked myself in and started the engine. Then they proceeded to Hugo’s Mercedes, the only other car in the parking lot. That in itself raised my eyebrows—along with my curiosity.
Not to mention my suspicions.
I could only think of one reason for Naomi and Hugo to be traveling together, and it had nothing to do with carpooling to save on fuel.
The big
questions, though, were when had Naomi and Hugo gotten back together? And what connection did it have to Marlys’s murder?
TWENTY-ONE
The next day Cloris was off interviewing Donna the Donut Diva. She arrived back at the office, her arms brimming with bakery boxes, shortly before three o’clock. “We need to talk,” I told her.
“Sure.” She dumped the boxes on her counter, opened one, and passed me a glazed donut the size of Rhode Island. “Here. Try this. Maple sugar with blueberry filling.”
How could I, the willpower-challenged Queen of Cellulite, refuse such an offer? I accepted the donut and took a bite. And another. And yet another. After practically inhaling half the donut, I told Cloris about the argument I’d overheard the previous night.
She chewed on both my words and a sugar-sprinkled cruller. “The plot continues to thicken.”
I polished off the remainder of my donut, washing it down with a gulp of coffee. “I feel like I’ve been sucked up into an Alfred Hitchcock vortex. Conspiracy to the left of me, conspiracy to the right of me. I don’t want to believe Naomi is involved in Marlys’s murder. I like her too much. But I also know I didn’t kill Marlys.”
“Me, too. But you’ve ruled out most of the other suspects.”
I started work on a second donut, raspberry glaze with vanilla cream cheese filling, speaking around the fat and calories. “Except Gina.”
“With Erica as her accomplice?”
“Highly unlikely.” I dropped into the spare chair in Cloris’s cramped cubicle and licked the sugar off my fingers. “But then, so is the idea of Naomi and Hugo as killers.”
“At this point anything’s possible. Someone killed Marlys.”
“True. She obviously didn’t drug herself and commit suicide by glue gun.”
Cloris opened a second bakery box and held it out. “Ginger orange spice. What are you going to do?”
I waved the box away. One more donut and I’d start looking like a Sumo wrestler. “I don’t know.”
Ratting out Naomi and Hugo might get Batswin and Robbins off my back, but a huge part of me still doubted their involvement, no matter what I’d heard to the contrary. “Neither one of them admitted killing Marlys. They could have been arguing about something else.”