Kill the Competition

by Stephanie Bond

  “I would have expected no less, Lieutenant.”

  Wade frowned. “What I’m getting at is that the trunk can be opened without a key. Anyone who had access to this car could have dumped the body inside.”

  “If they knew about the latch,” Truett added. “We’ll need prints lifted.”

  Detective Salyers circled to stand in front of Belinda. “What happened to your eye, Ms. Hennessey?”

  “I fell down the stairs at work.”

  “Where do you work?”

  “I started a report,” Wade cut in, extending the clipboard. “Ms. Hennessey’s employment information is there.”

  Detective Salyers looked back and forth between them, then took the report and began reading. “Lieutenant, why is Archer Furniture familiar to me?”

  “An Archer employee fell down the elevator shaft of the Stratford Plaza building about six months ago.”

  “Yes, I remember now.” She handed the clipboard back to him, then pulled out a notebook. “Ms. Hennessey, did anyone see you in the lounge at the Stratford Building, where you say you were cleaning up from your fall?”

  “There was another woman in the lounge, but we didn’t speak.”

  “The surveillance tapes will verify the time,” Wade offered.

  Salyers nodded. “Did you go straight to your car from the lounge?”

  Belinda swallowed—the complicated part. “No. I’m in a car pool, and I drove yesterday. But at the end of the day I needed to discuss something with Margo—”

  “The victim?”

  “Um, yes. I asked one of the ladies I ride with to take my car, and told her I’d drop by her house later to pick it up.”

  “What are the names of the people you carpool with?”

  “Libby Janes, Carole Marchand, and Rosemary Burchett—but Rosemary drove herself to work yesterday.”

  “Do all of these women work for Archer as well?”

  She nodded.

  “So why couldn’t the two women have just waited for you?”

  “I didn’t know how long I’d be, and they had an errand to run.”

  “Which was?”

  Belinda wet her lips. “Rosemary bows out of the car pool occasionally because of an appointment that she won’t discuss. The other two women got it in their heads that she might be seriously ill, so they decided to…follow her.” Belinda felt ridiculous.

  “So you gave your car keys to whom?”

  “Libby Janes.”

  “Where was your car parked?”

  “In the Stratford parking garage, on the eighth floor.”

  “Every floor has a door to the parking garage,” Wade explained.

  “What floor is your company located on, Ms. Hennessey?”

  “Eighth.”

  “Handy access.”

  Belinda decided not to mention that she’d felt pretty darn special to get a parking place so close yesterday morning, next to the spots reserved for handicapped drivers, delivery persons, the CEOs of respective companies, employees of the month, and expectant mothers.

  “Do you know what time your two friends left the parking garage in your car?”

  “No. When I talked to Libby later, she said that Carole had been late meeting her, so they weren’t able to, um…follow Rosemary after all. Supposedly, Rosemary was leaving at six, so I assume it was after that when Libby and Carole left in my car.”

  Salyers squinted, as if she was trying to keep all the names straight. “How and when did you meet up with your car again?”

  “I intended to take MARTA, then get a taxi, but on the way out, I ran into a friend who offered to drive me.”

  Wade’s head came up.

  Salyers noticed. “Does this friend have a name?”

  “Julian Hardeman.”

  “Julian Hardeman, the traffic reporter?”

  “Yes. He belongs to the gym in the Stratford Building.”

  “Uh-hm. So, Mr. Hardeman offered to drive you to your car, and you accepted.”

  “Yes.”

  “And where was he parked?”

  “In the Stratford Building garage, on the ground level.”

  “What kind of car does he drive?”

  “A dark blue Audi, I don’t know the model or the year.”

  “Then what?”

  “He drove me to Libby’s, I got my keys and drove myself home.”

  “When you got to your friend’s house, where was the car parked?”

  “In her driveway.”

  “What time was that?”

  Belinda shook her head. “Close to seven-thirty, maybe. I don’t remember.”

  “We’ll need this woman’s address, of course.”

  “Did you come home alone?” Wade asked, his voice a tad sharp.

  Belinda looked at him and knew Salyers was watching too. “Yes, Lieutenant.”

  He looked back to his notes, but his shoulders had eased a half-inch. Or maybe she imagined it.

  “Did you stop anywhere on your way home?” Salyers asked.

  “No.”

  “And when you arrived home, where did you park the car?”

  “In the garage.”

  “Is it locked?”

  “Yes, I have a remote control opener on my car visor, and there’s one next to the door leading into the house.”

  The sound of a helicopter flying overhead interrupted them. It belonged to Julian’s station, she could tell by the markings, although she couldn’t be sure he was piloting. Foolishly, she wanted to wave to him, but even though he’d probably noticed the flashing lights, he couldn’t know the police were at her address.

  “Speak of the devil,” Salyers said, watching the helicopter fly away.

  Wade watched, too, his eyes narrow.

  Salyers looked back to the Honda. “Ms. Hennessey, you said you parked your car in the garage, but it’s sitting outside now.”

  “I drove to the DMV this morning to get my Georgia driver’s license—”

  “Where are you from?”

  “I moved here from Cincinnati, Ohio, a couple of months ago.”

  “Go on.”

  “By the time I left the DMV, I’d missed an appointment to have my car repaired. I was hoping the garage would call with a cancellation, so I left my car sitting outside.”

  “Your car sat in the DMV parking lot for how long?”

  “From nine in the morning to about twelve-thirty.”

  “Sounds par for the course,” Salyers muttered. “Did you go anywhere when you left the DMV?”

  “I walked to a sandwich shop, called the garage, and then I called the office.”

  “Who did you talk to at the office?” Wade asked, flipping to a new page.

  “Brita Wheeling, Margo’s assistant, and my friend Carole Marchand, who works in the mail room. Margo asked me to cover for her while she was on vacation, so I was checking in.”

  “And did her assistant say anything to indicate that Ms. Campbell was anywhere other than where she thought she’d be?” Salyers asked.

  “No. In fact, her assistant was planning to call Margo on her cell phone to verify something.” Belinda’s stomach dipped—all those cellular phone rings she’d thought were coming from radio commercials had been coming from her trunk.

  “Ms. Hennessey, did you like your boss?”

  “We weren’t friends, but I didn’t dislike her.”

  “Did other people dislike her?”

  “Tell Detective Salyers about the incident yesterday,” Wade said.

  Belinda gasped. “Jim Newberry—I’d forgotten.”

  “Who’s this Jim Newberry?”

  “I don’t know him,” Belinda said. “He worked for Margo before I came to Archer, and he was let go.”

  “Fired?”

  “That’s what I’ve heard, yes. I was in Margo’s office yesterday afternoon, and he burst in, threatening her.”

  “What did he say?”

  Belinda closed her eyes, replaying the scene in her head. “He called her a bit
ch and said he ought to kill her for what she’d done.”

  “Did he say what she had done?”

  “He said something about Margo setting him up, but he wasn’t specific.”

  “Did your boss seem to be afraid?”

  “No. In fact, she was calm. She told him he’d brought it on himself and indicated that he had a drug problem.”

  “How did the incident end?”

  “Security arrived, but by that time, he had backed down.”

  “I talked to the security guards yesterday,” Wade said. “They said the guy didn’t have a record, wasn’t armed, and that he left peacefully around four o’clock.”

  Salyers’s mouth puckered. “You seem to know a lot about this case, Lieutenant.”

  “Just doing my job, ma’am.”

  “And behaving very much like a detective, if I may say so.” She turned back to Belinda. “Ms. Hennessey, was anything going on at work? Any scandals, layoffs?”

  “No scandals that I know of, but perhaps you should talk with someone who’s worked at Archer longer. As far as layoffs, there was a rumor about a staff cut. Margo had just finished performance evaluations—that’s why I was in her office yesterday when Jim Newberry barged in.”

  Salyers angled her head. “And did she give you a good evaluation?”

  “Yes. In fact, no one knows this yet, but Margo offered me the position of chief financial officer.”

  “Impressive. Why doesn’t anyone know?”

  Belinda gave a light shrug. “It was going to take a couple of weeks for the paperwork to be processed. Margo said she would make the announcement when she returned from vacation.”

  “Ms. Hennessey, do you have a police record?”

  She blinked. “No. Lt. Alexander gave me my first traffic ticket.”

  “He was flirting with you,” the woman said with a wry grin.

  Wade looked as if he was going to say something to defend himself when Detective Truett called out.

  “What did you find?” Salyers asked, walking over. Lt. Alexander was on her heels, but he positioned himself between Belinda and the trunk. Even so, she could see Margo’s still face, frozen in a mask of death. Her black cherry lipstick was badly smeared, giving her a clownlike appearance. Belinda knew that expression would haunt her in her sleep.

  Dr. Janney pointed to Margo’s neck. “There was a struggle—she has a couple of scratches and bruises. Probably dead before she was put in the trunk, else she would have cuts and bruises on her hands from trying to get out.”

  Belinda winced.

  “Any skin under the fingernails?” Wade asked.

  The M.E. lifted a stiff hand into Belinda’s view. The black cherry fingernail polish looked like drops of blood at the end of the woman’s white fingers. “If there was any, it’s probably gone. Her nails were clipped—see? They’re white on the ends because the polished tips were cut away.”

  “Couldn’t she have clipped them herself?”

  “Sure, that too, although they look to have been hurriedly done.”

  A memory stirred in Belinda’s brain, of Margo tapping her long fingernails on her desk while she decided how to handle the contracts. “Her fingernails were long yesterday when I saw her last.”

  Salyers made a note of it. “Can you tell how long she’s been dead?” she asked the M.E.

  He shook his head. “More than twelve hours—I won’t know for sure until the autopsy. The van from the morgue should be here soon. Anyone notify the next of kin?”

  Belinda started shaking—it sounded like something she might see on television…if her television were working.

  “Her pocketbook is intact,” Truett said. “But I didn’t find any emergency contact names. I found credit cards, but no cash, so maybe robbery was the motive.”

  “If she was leaving town, chances are she’d have had a good deal of cash on her,” Salyers agreed.

  Which sparked another rather relevant memory in Belinda’s brain. “A coworker called me a few minutes ago and told me money was missing at Archer—over five thousand dollars in cash. She said the police were there, questioning people in Margo’s office.”

  The detectives exchanged appalled glances. Lt. Alexander withdrew his radio from his belt and directed someone to notify the officers on site at Archer to secure the area around Margo Campbell’s office, then wait for further instructions.

  “Wonder how many people have already been in there,” Truett muttered, then glanced at Belinda and barked, “Why didn’t you tell us sooner?”

  She flinched. “Libby called after I talked to Lieutenant Alexander, and I guess I was—and still am—a little out of it.”

  “I told you not to talk to anyone until the police got here,” Wade said, his eyebrows drawn together.

  Her temper flared. “The phone rang—I thought it was you calling back. I didn’t say anything about…this. I tried to act as normal as possible considering I had just discovered a dead body in the trunk of my car.”

  “Okay, time out,” Salyers said. “What’s done is done. At least we found out when we did.” She looked back to the open trunk. “Do we know what killed her?”

  “Janney says she was suffocated with a pillow,” Truett said.

  “I said maybe a pillow,” the doctor corrected. “Whatever it was, it has her lipstick on it.”

  Detective Truett opened the doors of her Civic and peered inside. Belinda felt faint—for all she knew there could be another body in the backseat. Thank goodness he didn’t find a body, but he did find Big Daddy.

  “Planning to take down a horse, Ms. Hennessey?”

  She stared, along with everyone else, at the colossal stun baton. “Um, that was a gift.”

  “A gift?”

  “From the women I carpool with, for protection when I’m on the road.”

  He raised his eyebrows, then placed Big Daddy in a plastic evidence bag.

  Across the street an impressive collection of neighbors had amassed to stare over the fence.

  “What’s in this?” Truett asked, pointing to the cardboard box she’d abandoned on the driveway.

  “Some things I was going to take to Goodwill.”

  “What kinds of things?” He bent over to rummage.

  “Just…things.” A blush started at her knees, and by the time he pulled out her wedding gown, she felt splotchy all over.

  “Recently divorced?” Truett asked.

  “Yes,” she murmured.

  “Is that why you left Cincinnati?” Salyers asked.

  She nodded.

  “What’s your ex’s name?”

  “I…how is that relevant?”

  “You don’t have to answer any question that makes you uncomfortable,” Wade interjected, glaring at Salyers. “Right, Detective?”

  “Right, Lieutenant,” Salyers said with a friendly smile. “Ms. Hennessey, we’d like permission to look inside your house. It’s just a formality.”

  “Well…” She looked to Wade, who seemed to want to say something but was holding back. “I guess that would be okay.”

  It wasn’t as if they were going to find anything incriminating.

  Chapter 22

  “Nice place,” Detective Salyers said, walking through the foyer. “A little bare.”

  “I haven’t had time to decorate,” Belinda murmured, holding open the door. Truett ambled by, scraping his heels on the parquet wood flooring with practiced carelessness. Wade brought up the rear, and she experienced a rush of intimacy that he was in her house—preposterous considering the circumstances, but there it was.

  Her phone bleeped, but she ignored it. When the message recorder kicked on and a reporter identified himself, she turned off the machine.

  From the bathroom, Downey was crying, as if someone were standing on her tail.

  “My cat,” she said to the questioning expressions. “She thinks she’s human. And abused.” Belinda opened the door and Downey streaked out, bounced around for a few seconds, then sat down to smooth
her own ruffled feathers.

  Meanwhile, Salyers and Truett had strolled off in different directions—Salyers into the living room, and Truett toward the kitchen.

  “What are they looking for?” she whispered to Wade, and watched while Salyers picked up the throw cushion in the chair and inspected it.

  “Just following procedure,” he assured her. “How are you holding up?”

  “Fine,” she said, although her head pounded. “Do they think I did this?”

  “You’ve been very cooperative, and you don’t have a motive.”

  “You didn’t answer my question.”

  His mouth formed a flat line. “They need to eliminate obvious suspects first.”

  “Meaning me.”

  “Yes, since you found the body and you’re acquainted with the victim.”

  The victim. Belinda puffed out her cheeks in an exhale. “What now?”

  “We’ll follow up on all the information you gave us. People, places, things.”

  “What do you think happened?”

  His shoulders rose in a shrug. “Maybe the Newberry guy came back and they had another confrontation.”

  “But that doesn’t explain how her body got into the trunk of my car.”

  “Was your car parked close to the stairwell?”

  She nodded.

  “Maybe he carried the body down the back stairs with the idea of putting her in his car. Maybe your trunk had sprung open, and he decided it was a better hiding place.”

  She brightened. “Aren’t there cameras in the parking garage?”

  He shook his head. “No, just on the outside of the building, directed toward the sidewalks. But we’ll check the records of the parking garage booth—maybe Newberry kept his electronic badge and got in that way.”

  “But after five-thirty, the gates are open for public parking—anyone can get in and out with no badge.”

  He nodded. “Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

  Salyers walked around them, her mouth curving into a sly smile as she addressed Wade. “Is the bedroom upstairs?”

  “I wouldn’t know, Detective.”

  Belinda cleared her throat. “Yes, the bedrooms are upstairs. I’ll show you.” She climbed the stairs self-consciously, wondering why the woman would imagine she was involved with Lt. Alexander, and thinking about stupid things like what kind of mess she’d left the upstairs. Wade followed them, making her feel even more uncomfortable. She pointed to the right. “This is an extra room that I don’t use.”