by Laina Turner
“I don’t know but it could be something. Did you tell this to the police?”
“No. I just remembered. Should I?”
“It would probably be a good idea.”
“OK,” he nodded and went back to his drink.
When we got outside and my eyes readjusted to the light, I dug my phone out of my purse to call Jared.
“I wonder who this retired person is who Becky was talking to?” I said to Katy, as the phone was ringing.
“Voicemail,” I said annoyed. I hated voicemail so I didn’t bother to leave a message.
“We’d better hurry if we are going to make it on time to meet Sally,” Katy said, looking at her watch.
“Crap! I didn’t realize we spent so much time in that bar with Peter.”
“It was so dark, I couldn’t tell.”
“No kidding. Look, there’s a cab,” I said moving as fast as I could in my high-heeled boots.
We got in the cab and headed back the direction we had come to meet Sally. The cabbie let us off at the corner the Starbucks was on and we quickly made our way to the front door. The wind had picked up and it was freezing. I was definitely ready for a cup of coffee.
Chapter 4
“What are you going to say?” Katy asked.
“Not sure. I just want to pick her brain.” I opened the door and stepped in.
Sally was already there drinking coffee and reading something on her Kindle. I told her we’d join her in a second and we ordered our drinks and went to sit down at the table she was holding for us.
“Presley, it’s so good to see you,” Sally said, standing to give me a hug and looking great as usual in a dark gray sweater dress with a black belt and black leggings. Riding boots, black of course, completed the outfit. I loved those boots.
“You, too, Sally. I think the last time was at Muldoon’s after you guys landed one of your big accounts. That was at least four months ago. I like how you have your hair.” She had cut it short since the last time I had seen her and it suited her. Not a style I could ever pull off. My auburn hair was too thick and wavy and if I cut it short, it would be a fuzzy mess. I needed to be able to pull it up when the climate wasn’t cool and dry.
‘Thanks. I got tired of blow drying it and just decided to chop it all off. Much easier to deal with,” she said, running her fingers through it. It was blond and shiny and I was envious.
I made the introductions and once the pleasantries were over with, I asked her what her thoughts were about what was happening at Sleeping Bear Designs.
“Jared said on the phone you wanted to talk to me about this, I don’t really know if I can help. This whole situation is distressing,” Sally said. “I can’t fathom something happening to Sleeping Bear Designs nor can I imagine who would do such a thing.”
“Do you think what’s happened is just coincidental?” I asked.
“I wish I thought that was the case, but I know that it’s too much to be coincidental, I just can’t even imagine how it’s not. None of this makes any sense,” Sally said, and I could tell she was very distraught.
Jared had told me I should talk to Sally because he said he was sure without a doubt that she had nothing to do with anything that would be detrimental to Sleeping Bear Design and as upset as she was, I could see why he felt that way. Sally was an account rep who had worked for the company for over ten years. She was the top producer and had the best relationships with clients. He had told me she was the most knowledgeable about the business and area industry and that the owner had instilled a lot of trust and confidence in her.
“What do you think is happening?” I asked.
“Someone in our company, or maybe someone who is friends with someone in our company, has to be giving the competition our ideas and designs. There’s just no other way our exact ideas could be getting out otherwise. But since it’s been different companies who have upstaged us I’m not sure what someone would have to gain. I could better understand if it was just one company and maybe one of our employees was working to get hired somewhere else, but that’s not been the case. Which just makes it look like someone wants to take down Sleeping Bear Design in general and I have no idea why anyone would want to do that. It’s not like we are the biggest competition in town and there is plenty of business in this city for everybody. This whole thing is baffling.”
“Are there other marketing companies who would benefit if you went out of business?” I asked.
“No specific one comes to mind. This is a big town and there are a lot of companies our size. If we folded, it’s not like one firm would pick up all our work. And even if that were the case, we aren’t some billion dollar company. Realistically, clients would go to several different places so I don’t see any one company ready to gain anything. It just doesn’t make sense. I’ve been working here for a big chunk of my professional career and I couldn’t imagine something happening to the business. John’s dad has worked so hard to grow it to what it is today and to have this happening and an employee murdered…”
“I can’t make any promises, but I’m sure together we can all get to the bottom of this,” I said, wanting to be optimistic. I hated the thought of people worrying about their livelihood. Money and jobs were the worst to worry about. That I knew from experience.
We sat and chatted for a while longer, but Sally didn’t have any helpful information about Becky either and finally I ran out of questions to ask. Usually in cases like these you knew of someone who had it out for you, but there didn’t seem to be any clear situation like that here.
We finally left and went back out into the brisk air to walk home. One thing I liked about living in the city was the ability to walk most places. It was good exercise even though on days like today quite chilly. It just made me walk faster and I needed all the exercise I could get.
I forgot all about seeing Willie until later that evening when we were sitting around having our favorite meal of wine and popcorn— my version of a well-balanced meal —and my cell rang.
“Hello?”
“Presley? It’s Willie.”
I looked at Katy and Jared and pointed to my phone and mouthed, “It’s Willie.”
Katy smiled and whispered, “I told you so.”
“Hi, Willie. I didn’t expect to hear from you so soon.”
“I didn’t want to wait another year or so before getting in contact with you. I was wondering if you were free tomorrow night.”
“Yeah, I think so. Katy is visiting from out of town, but we don’t have plans.”
“Then I would like to take you out. And Katy, too, of course. I wouldn’t want you to leave out your friend.”
“I’ll have to talk to her and see what she wants to do, so let me do that and call you back?”
“Sure. Just let me know,” he said.
I hung up and looked at Katy. “He wants to take us out tomorrow night.”
“How does that not surprise me? I told you he liked you!” Katy said to me, laughing.
“Seems to me you thought he was pretty handsome back when you first met him, “ Jared joined in.
“You guys stop. He’s a really nice guy and I admit cute.”
“But…” Katy said. “It sounds like you have a ‘but.’ Come on, out with it.”
“Nothing,” I said. “It just seems weird. You know, going on a date.”
“If I go with you, it’s not so much like a date but just friends hanging out. So nothing weird about it. So no problem there. Call him back and say yes, or I will,” she said and grabbed for the phone, which I playfully kept out of her reach.
“OK, OK. I’ll call him back.” I walked into the kitchen so I could call talk in semi-private. I did think Willie was a nice guy and good-looking. Yet Katy was right. There was a ‘but.’ He was all that, but he wasn’t Cooper.
After confirming with Willie that Katy and I would love to hang out tomorrow night, I walked back into the living room and sat down. Grabbing my wine off the coffee table before t
ucking my legs under me and leaning back.
“Jared, tell me more about the person Becky replaced who retired.”
“Glenda? She was actually John’s dad’s assistant for years and years but she also did the bookkeeping. When it got to be too much to handle we hired Becky and she picked up a lot of the duties from Glenda. She finally took it all over when she retired, which was almost a year ago, when John’s dad retired.”
“Peter said she had called Becky a few times and he overheard them arguing. Can you think of any reason why they would be arguing?” I asked.
Jared shook his head. “I didn’t know Glenda was in contact with anyone from the office. She couldn’t wait to retire and get out of here. Why? Do you think it could be related to Becky’s death?”
“I don’t know. It just seems odd for them to be arguing after Glenda was already retired don’t you think? Besides we don’t have anything else to go on right now.”
“How do we find out what they were arguing about?” Katy asked.
“Peter didn’t know and Becky’s dead. Maybe we should ask Glenda? Jared, do you know how we could get a hold of her?”
“I can find out first thing tomorrow morning. It’s too late to be calling people tonight,” he said, looking at his watch. I looked at my phone and saw it was almost midnight.
“I didn’t realize it was so late. I need to get to bed,” I said and drained the rest of the wine from my glass.
“See you in the morning.”
“Good night,” Jared said while Katy said she was right behind me. Jared was a bit of a night owl and was always staying up late so said he would see us in the morning.
Chapter 5
“I have Glenda’s contact info,” Jared said, walking into the kitchen as I was pushing the button to brew my third cup of coffee. I hadn’t slept well last night; tossing and turning. It was proving to be hard to wake up today.
“Already? That was fast.”
“I sent a couple emails last night hoping someone would still be in contact with her and everyone must be as bored as me without work because I had several responses in my inbox this morning and two that had the contact information. I was a little surprised since no one has mentioned her. Here, I wrote the info down for you and also emailed it,” he said and handed me a pink sticky note.
I looked at the clock. It was just after eight. “I’ll wait until nine and then give her a call. What are you up to today?”
“Nothing. I was hoping we would make progress on this mess that is my work life right now.”
“Let’s hope Glenda has something for us then.”
We sat and drank our coffee, Katy soon joined us, and we made small talk about nothing, the way good friends can, until it was time to call Glenda.
“Maybe you should call her, Jared. After all you’re the one who worked with her,” I said.
“No thanks. She didn’t like me.”
“Oh? Why not?”
“Honestly, I don’t think she liked anyone. Except John’s dad.”
“OK. Well here goes.” I dialed the Glenda number and after all that build up was disappointed when I just got voicemail. I left her a message and when I sat the phone down I grabbed my laptop.
“I’m going to email her, too. In case she’s like me and doesn’t check her voicemail very often,” I said to them.
“You mean never,” Katy said.
I shrugged. “What can I say? I hate voicemail.”
“What should we do while waiting for her to call back?” Jared asked.
“Let’s try to talk to some more of your co-workers. See if they know of any reason why Becky would have been arguing with Glenda.”
Jared snapped his fingers, “I know exactly who we should talk to. Becky’s work husband.”
“And who’s that?” I asked.
“Jeff. He works as a general assistant. He was an intern last year and then we kept him on. He just helps out whenever he’s needed. She really took him under her wing.”
“Call him then and set something up. I’m going to jump in the shower.”
Forty-five minutes later we were headed down the street to meet Jeff and I was trying to contain my annoyance at Jared.
“You could have made the meeting a little later. My hair is going to freeze and break off and when it does its all your fault.”
“I told you to wear a hat and besides I told you he had plans. It was either now or tomorrow, so I voted for now!”
“You know hats make my head itch!”
“You guys stop! You’re killing me,” said Katy laughing. “Your hair won’t freeze in the few minutes it takes us to get to Starbucks and even if it did, it won’t break off. I can see if from here.”
“Fine, but Jared’s buying my coffee,” I grumbled.
We walked in and Jared introduced Katy and I to Jeff before going to get our coffees.
“Thank you for meeting us,” I said.
“Jared said you wanted to help find Becky’s killer and I’m willing to help any way I can. She was one of my best friends. I can’t believe she’s gone,” he said, his voice cracking.
I first asked him all the same general questions I had asked Peter and Sally and got basically the same answers. This girl had no known enemies, was as sweet as pie, a friend to all. While I understood random people were killed every day for no good reason, I didn’t think that was the case here. I didn’t have any concrete evidence to think that, it just was a gut feeling. And I had learned that more often than not, your gut was right.
“What about Glenda,” I finally asked.
“What about her?” he said.
“What kind of relationship did Becky have with her?”
“I wouldn’t say they had a relationship exactly. I mean, we were all co-workers but I wouldn’t exactly call it a relationship.”
“What do you mean exactly, Jeff?”
He paused for a minute and took a drink of his coffee. “Glenda was very standoffish. She never participated in any office activities and was reluctant to help anyone, or so that’s how she came across. She acted like to interact with anyone besides John, Sr. was beneath her. Even Becky who was the person to take work off her plate. Glenda always made Becky feel like she was more of a hindrance than a help. I know Becky didn’t like her and Becky liked everyone.”
“Did Glenda not like Becky?” I asked Jeff and also looked at Jared, since they both had worked for her.
“I don’t think it was a matter of liking or disliking. I think that’s just who Glenda was. Don’t you agree,” he said, looking at Jared.
Jared nodded. “I don’t think Glenda liked anyone but John, Sr.”
“Do you have any idea why she would have argued with Becky on the phone?” I asked.
Jeff looked puzzled. “Not at all. I had no idea they were still in contact. Becky said Glenda’s last day of work was her happiest.”
“Becky’s boyfriend Peter told me the night before Becky died she was on the phone arguing with Glenda but Becky wouldn’t tell him why.”
“That’s not surprising,” Jeff snorted.
When I look at him puzzled, because I didn’t understand where that was coming from he continued talking.
“Peter was an asshole, excuse my language ladies, and I kept telling Becky she needed to kick him to the curb.”
“Really?” I said surprised. “He seemed pretty upset when I talked to him yesterday.”
“Of course he would be upset. His gravy train just died.”
Clearly, there was no love lost between Jeff and Peter.
“She was supporting him?”
“Let me guess, when you met him yesterday it was at a bar?”
“Yeah, the Stargate.”
“That would be where he spends most of his time. Drinking at the bar.”
“He doesn’t have a job?”
“He did when they first met and actually at first seemed to be a decent guy. However, he lost his job a while back and has used Becky since. She’s so s
weet she wanted to help him get back on his feet. She said he just needed someone to believe in him. She couldn’t see he was taking advantage. Though I think she might have been getting close. I know they had been fighting a lot lately and Becky said she had mentioned maybe they should take a break while he focused on himself. Of course she was doing it from a good place and he said she was being selfish. She felt bad and dropped it.”
“When was this?”
“I don’t know. Maybe a day or two before she died.”
So maybe Peter wasn’t the heartbroken guy he seemed. Or maybe he was heartbroken over the wrong things? Like losing Becky’s money. “At least we can be more certain Peter didn’t kill her if he was depending on her for support,” I said.
“True,” Jeff said. “I definitely didn’t like the guy but you’re right, he wouldn’t have killed her. He had more to gain with her alive.”
“Back to Glenda. You have no idea why they might have been arguing?”
“None at all. I’m sorry. I really wish I could help.”
****
“I feel like we are just running around in circles on all these issues,” Jared said as we were eating lunch at the house after getting home from talking to Jeff, who hadn’t had any more information or ideas on the design leaks, either.
“I know it’s discouraging but eventually we will get just the right piece of information and it will all make sense. We need to find out why Glenda and Becky were angry.”
Chapter 6
“This is a great little place,” said Katy. Willie had brought us to a new sushi spot that had recently opened not too far from my house and one I had been wanting to try after reading some amazing reviews. And the reviewers were right: the food was excellent. I was tempted to order another spicy salmon roll but didn’t want to look like a pig and I wasn’t even hungry. I just wanted more because it tasted so good. Being full never stopped me from eating.