by Nan Sampson
"Cases don't just fall from the sky, you know."
"Well, what kind of marketing are you doing? I mean other than just having a website."
She got no answer.
"You do have a website, right?"
"Well...." It was defensive sounding. "I'm in the phone book."
The phone book? Dear Lord and Lady. "So what else do you do to drum up business?"
"What else is there?"
She stared at him for a moment. So long, that he finally looked at her. "Oh, Charlie. You can't be serious."
"What?"
"Look, there's a ton of things you could be doing to drive more business." She glanced up at the stage as the noise level dropped substantially. The band was taking a break. "Let me put some ideas together for you."
"I've got no money, Ellie. I can't do some fancy marketing shit."
"We'll keep it simple. And so easy, even you could do it."
"I'm not stupid."
"Lord, no. I never said you were – well, okay, maybe a long time ago – but I know better now. We'll just find some things that are cheap and effective. With a little exposure, you could double your client rate."
"And you'd do that why?"
Why exactly was she doing this? "Because you're helping me. And because you're growing on me. Kind of like fungus."
Music started up again, this time coming from speakers overhead. It was Billie Holiday, one of Ellie's favorite singers.
Charlie gave her a sheepish smile and raised his glass to her. "I have that effect on a lot of people." He drained the glass.
"I'd also like to maybe sit down with your budget. You may not be charging enough for your services. Have you benchmarked yourself against others in the industry?"
"Have I what? That sounds vaguely dirty."
Ellie shook her head. "Never mind. We'll figure it out later. Let's just enjoy the music now."
"Good." He relaxed back in his chair, stretching his long legs out in front of him.
She let it drop, just as she'd let the question about his switching from academia to investigative work drop. But she was itching to know the answers. There would be a time, she thought. She just needed to wait for the right moment.
A hand reached around her, startling her, supplying her with a new glass of soda. After her initial gasp, she smiled her thanks at Sergei, who winked at her. Moments ticked by, the song changed to something by Coltrane, and she discovered anew how terrible she was at just sitting. "So do you think Bob will be able to find out anything?"
He sat up, drank down half his fresh beer. "Don't know. I guess my fear is that there isn't anything to find out. I get the feeling we're chasing our tails."
"Where's Mr. Optimistic from earlier?"
Another shrug. Maybe it was the beer, depressing his normally cheery nature. "It really doesn't look like anyone saw anything. Which in itself is pretty unusual. I mean, someone always sees something, it's just that they don't want to tell you they have. Even Bob hasn't heard anything, and he usually keeps his ear pretty close to the ground. If someone in the neighborhood had ripped off a rich white lady, they'd have bragged to someone about it, especially if they weren't in a gang. Or someone who lived around there would have been looking out the window and seen what happened and mentioned it to their neighbor, who would have told someone else, and that would have gotten around."
"And somehow that would have gotten back to Bob."
Charlie nodded.
"So what you're saying is that no one saw it."
"Which seems virtually impossible. I mean, if this cabbie thing doesn't pan out – I frankly don't know where to go." He finished the beer, clunked the glass down.
"Remind me not to let you drink beer. I think I like you better when you're insufferably cheerful."
He looked up, scowled at her. "Damn it, if she was snatched off the sidewalk in front of that restaurant, someone had to see something. They had to."
Ellie sighed. "Look, let's just let it go tonight. Neither one of us has a clear head anymore." The musicians were hopping back up on stage, looking as bright eyed as she felt sleepy. "Sit back, enjoy the music, okay?" She reached out, patted his hand awkwardly. "Oh, and give me the car keys."
"What?"
"The car keys. You've had too much to drink to drive home."
He looked as if he wanted to argue, then thought the better of it, especially as someone else plunked another beer down on the table for him. "Fine. But if we get lost on the way home, you're paying for the hotel."
He flashed that patented grin at her, and she couldn't help smiling back. "Just shut up and give me the keys, McCallum."
He tossed them to her, then stretched out again as the trio started to play.
Chapter 27
She knew even as it was happening that she was dreaming. She stood at the mirror in the bathroom of Ristorante Angelina, fixing her hair. Only it wasn't really her hair, it was Lacey's long, dark hair. Behind her, the stall door opened, and she was vaguely aware of someone behind her, a flash of something red.
Forcing a smile, she mumbled a greeting to the figure behind her. Something clacked against the tile floor and she heard the other person say, "Damn, I dropped it."
She glanced down, turning a little to the side as she did so, searching the floor for a second to look for whatever it was the person had dropped.
In a flash, before she could even react, she felt something cord-like bite against her throat. She jerked backwards, caught off guard. She stumbled. Her foot slipped sideways on the slick tile, and she turned her ankle.
But that pain was nothing compared to the pain at her throat. She clawed and pulled at the strap around her neck, but couldn't even get her fingers under it. God, she couldn't breathe.
She could see her reflection in the mirror. Lacey's reflection, but not the image of the person strangling her - just that flash of red again. Whoever it was wore a hood and was either short or squatting down, maybe to get better leverage.
Ellie reached up and behind her, trying to grab the hood, wanting desperately to see the face of the killer. Her fingers grasped, found a hank of hair. She pulled.
Behind her, her attacker screamed. Instead of releasing her, however, the cord only bit deeper into her neck. Ellie's hands flailed and she felt another, almost insignificant stab of pain as her earring was yanked from her ear.
She heard a clinking sound and something, probably the earring, skittered across the tile floor.
In the mirror, her eyes - Lacey's eyes - were bulging, and her face was purple. Her mouth strained open as she tried desperately to breath.
And then, abruptly, Ellie was herself again, bolting up in bed in the darkness of the sunshine yellow bedroom, her heart banging against her rib cage. She pressed a hand against her chest, gasping for breath as though she'd just run five miles. Goddess it was so good to breath.
After availing herself of the glass of water on the nightstand, she took a handful of long slow breaths, grounding and centering herself. Had that been a real vision or had it only been a nightmare? She needed to remember to ask Charlie if the coroner had mentioned that Lacey was missing an earring. In the meantime, she felt like hammered shit and as it was still some hours before dawn, she lay back down and promised herself two more hours of sleep.
If she'd felt like she had a hangover the day before, Wednesday morning was three times worse, because she actually did have one. Pathetic, she thought, assessing the little amount of wine it had taken to reduce her to this. She’d become a light weight.
Early morning sun shone annoyingly through her window when she woke again. She was dry-mouthed, nauseous and her knees ached. Struggling into a sitting position, her head throbbing. Someone – Kate of course – had left a tray on her bedside table containing a can of Coke, a bottle of aspirin and a still warm Egg McMuffin – their old college cure for the morning after.
There was also a note from Kate, saying that Dan had finally taken a day off so that the family cou
ld go to Brookfield Zoo for a Family Fun Day. Apparently there was a more detailed note downstairs regarding the arrangements for the memorial service for Lacey.
Ellie swallowed the aspirin with some Coke, unwrapped the sandwich and sat back against her pillows and took her time eating. Resting there for a long time, she let her mind wander over the events of the night before, trying to wrest any fact they might have overlooked in their attempts to bamboozle the restaurant staff and their constant straying into each other's personal affairs.
Basically all they'd truly accomplished was to confirm the facts the police had already uncovered – and dropped a few fishing hooks into the water, in the vain hope that someone might have seen or heard something that hadn’t been reported to the authorities.
As Charlie had said at dinner, it was a good thing to confirm facts. Probably also a good thing to try to find witnesses the police wouldn't talk to, or couldn't get anything out of even if they did. Yet her hopes of finding a solution to Lacey's death seemed to be fading.
She dragged herself from the bed, threw on some clothes and stumbled down the stairs. In the kitchen on the counter by the coffee maker was an envelope with a long note from Kate, detailing the arrangements she and Dan had put together for Lacey's memorial service.
She sat down at the kitchen table, read the note through a couple of times, then let herself give way to an overwhelming rush of emotion. Damn it, it just wasn't fair! How was this right? Granted, Lacey wasn't going to win Humanitarian of the Year, but she didn't deserve to be killed in such a brutal fashion. She envisioned Lacey standing there, in the alley, something closing tight around her throat, wild with surprise and panic as she clawed at the ligature, trying to pull it loose, struggling to squeeze air into her starved lungs. Lacey, looking into a mirror, seeing the face of her killer twist and contort with the effort to keep twisting the ligature tighter and tighter, pulling Lacey down into black oblivion.
Ellie shuddered, stood, shook herself to rid herself of the sensation that she was the one choking.
And then it hit her. She'd envisioned Lacey staring into the mirror, watching her killer's face, not staring at a metal fire door behind a restaurant. Where had that come from, that crazy vision she’d had in the ladies room the night before? It didn’t make sense. Lacey had been killed in the alley.
There was a grunt behind her and she wiped her face abruptly and turned to find Charlie standing in the door way. His curls were sticking out from his head like a wild corona, his blue eyes were bloodshot and puffy, and he looked lost and diminished in a baggy grey t-shirt and a pair of plaid flannel pajama bottoms.
"Morning, sunshine," she said brightly.
"Bugger off." He brushed past her, headed straight for the coffee maker.
"Well, aren't you the cheerful morning sort?"
He ignored her, poured himself a cup and then staggered back past her through the doorway, headed, she supposed for the basement again.
"You going to take a shower first or shall I?"
All she got was a rude gesture as he disappeared down the stairs.
"Fine. Be that way." She gave him a gesture of her own, then headed back upstairs. They had a few more lines of investigation to pursue – threads to pull as Charlie had said. She could go to Lacey's apartment today, while the family was at Brookfield Zoo, see what she could see. And then maybe she'd have a crack at Lacey's computer.
But first, she needed a long, hot shower. And at least twenty minutes of meditation time. She had been neglecting her daily devotionals lately and after a night like last night, it was time to get back on track. At least if she went into the city to see Muriel and to check out Lacey's condo, she could be assured of finding real vegetarian food, instead of the substitute fast food crap she'd been living on since arriving.
With those lofty goals in mind, she clomped back up the stairs, determined to be out of the house no later than ten.
She’d opted to take the train into the city, not willing to deal with both traffic and a hang-over. A short cab ride had her arriving at the building where Lacey's company had its offices by 10:00. She made her way up the elevator and through the double glass doors towards the receptionist feeling more than a little déjà vu. The place was very similar to the company she had worked for, not so long ago
A young woman with flawless café au lait skin and a trendy pair of eye glasses looked up as Ellie came in. Ensconced behind an ornate, curved reception desk, the woman gave her a pleasant – and likely fake – business smile.
"Good morning. May I help you?" Recognition lit in her eyes and she half stood. "Oh, I remember you. You're Lacey's friend, you had drinks with us the other night." The young woman extended her hand in a graceful gesture, her smile growing warm and genuine. "I'm Wendy Cargill."
Ellie had a vague memory of the girl, reached her own hand out perfunctorily. "Of course. Nice to see you again."
"Can I help you with something?"
"Actually, Muriel called me, said she had a box of things from Lacey's office for me."
"Oh! Sure, hang on, let me just give her a call, I'm sure she'll be right out."
"Actually, if you wouldn't mind, I'd love to just see Lacey's office. I know that might sound a little weird, but..."
"Not weird at all." She got up and motioned for Ellie to follow her, giving a nervous laugh. "I really shouldn't leave the phones, but I could use a cup of coffee – and hey, a girl’s gotta pee, right?" She gave a little laugh. “Lord Lawson isn’t in yet anyway, and no one else really cares.” After swiping her entry card in the magnetic lock, she led Ellie through a back down a narrow hallway painted a hip shade of burnt orange and then into a large cubicle farm. Along the walls of the large and roughly rectangular space were glass-fronted offices. The cubes buzzed with activity, people on phone calls, clacking endlessly on keyboards, and Ellie felt an odd sort of nostalgia as she followed Wendy along the perimeter of the sea of cubes. She'd spent over ten years in a place just like this, starting out in a cube and eventually moving into a small office of her own. But the nostalgia came with no sense of regret. She’d made the right choice – and while the place felt familiar, she had no real desire to return to this life.
Wendy’s brisk pace slowed. There was no nameplate in the holder next to the door the young woman stopped beside. Already, Lacey had been rendered obsolete. Wendy gave an apologetic smile and opened the door for Ellie, reaching around her to flip on the light switch. Ellie stepped in. Wendy did not. Not even one foot across the threshold.
"I'll just leave you here for a few minutes then I'll let Muriel know you’re here."
"Thanks. I appreciate you letting me do this."
"No worries. See you soon."
Ellie watched the girl practically race away from the office. Either she really didn't want to be away from her phones that long, or the office of a dead woman creeped her out. Ellie wondered who would be moving in. She went to the desk, sat down behind it and took several deep breaths, wanting to get a feel for the energy in the space.
Dropping into a light meditative state, she opened herself up. There was heavy residual energy here, ranging from a sort of fierce joy to anger to frustration and even anxiety. The anxiety, she was pretty sure, wasn’t Lacey's, but rather Cary's. There could have been others helping to add to the sense of anxiety, but most of it felt like him. The anger... that definitely had multiple layers and multiple sources. She sensed Lacey but her anger had a familiar taste to it. A sort of entitlement. There were other energy signatures too, adding to the anger. One was particularly strong, underlaid with envy. Lawson maybe? One of Lacey's other co-workers that she'd backstabbed? That list was probably long, considering she'd been with this company for almost five years. Could one of them been angry and envious enough to want her dead? It just didn't seem likely.
She sat for another couple of minutes, just feeling, trying to identify anything else, but it was hard to concentrate with the hum and buzz going on outside, the energies of all th
e other office drones – workers, she reminded herself -- conflicting and intruding on what she was trying to isolate. Finally, she gave up. Keeping an eye out for Muriel, she quickly riffled through the desk drawers, but they’d been thoroughly – ruthlessly? - emptied. All that was left was one lone paper clip that had gotten stuck in a corner and a pad of sticky notes with only one note left on the pad. Feeling like Harriet the Spy, she felt the bottom of the opened top drawer, thinking maybe there would be something taped there, but of course there wasn't. Life was not a Nancy Drew mystery.
She'd just closed the bottom right drawer when Muriel waddled into sight through the office's glass paned front wall. The round little woman smiled in through the window and raised a cup of coffee. "Good morning! You must be an early riser to have gotten into the city at this hour from all the way out there in Naperville." She came to stand in the doorway to Lacey's office. Interesting. It seemed even Muriel was reticent to step inside. "I've had Michelle, Rob’s AA, get us a carafe of coffee from the little shop downstairs and some pastries. Why don't you come into my office?"
The last thing Ellie wanted to do was have coffee and doughnuts with Muriel. But since Muriel was clearly not going to just hand over the box of Lacey's stuff without some sort of bonding, she had little choice. Standing up, she exited the office with her best corporate smile and followed the woman down the row of offices to a slightly smaller one.
She felt an odd little buzz as she stepped into the space, a sensation that she'd crossed an energy barrier and she wondered if Lacey had cast some sort of ward on the woman's office. She shook it off - it was just her overactive imagination again. Lacey had never been into energy work. She'd liked spells, the darker the better.
Ellie glanced around as Muriel gestured towards the little round conference table, where a box of pastries sat along with the aforementioned carafe of coffee, a bowl of sugar, a pitcher of cream and two stylish but simple white mugs bearing the logo of the company.