Your Chariot Awaits

by Lorena McCourtney

  “The circumstances of his death?”

  “Well, that too, of course. But also the circumstances of his life. I guess you know now, he was still married?”

  “His brother told me.”

  “I had no idea when I introduced you.”

  “You found out later?”

  “Not while he was alive! Or I’d have warned you. What happened was, I decided I should come in on the next day after Free Fall Friday to get organized for working alone. I was just walking in from the parking lot when the police arrived. They said they needed information from our personnel files about his next of kin.”

  “Did they tell you why?”

  “No, but I knew it had to be something serious. I tried to call Mr. Findley and then a couple of other executives, but I couldn’t reach anyone. I didn’t think I could access the personnel files to find out anything for them—I never could before. But San Diego had given me a new computer password a couple days earlier, and it worked. So I got into Jerry’s file and gave them the information.”

  “About his wife being next of kin.”

  “Right. Which was a shockeroo, I can tell you. And I knew you had no idea he was still married. But it’s a very handy little password,” she added in a sly way that suggested she’d done some extracurricular browsing of her own.

  The thought occurred to me that if the police also figured out I hadn’t known Jerry was married, they might consider it another black mark against me. Unstable woman goes berserk upon learning boyfriend still has a wife.

  “The deputies came back on Monday and questioned both me and Mr. Findley, since he’d been Jerry’s boss here. Then they came back again with a search warrant and took a lot of stuff from Jerry’s office.”

  “His computer?”

  “Yes, although I don’t know why they’d want that.”

  I did. They were looking for whatever had been on Jerry’s home computer that the killer had apparently been desperate to conceal. I doubted they’d found anything. I was sure he wouldn’t have put any of his Web site information on the com-pany computer system where someone else might access it.

  “How is Mr. Findley taking Jerry’s death?”

  “After the deputies left, he came in here looking kind of lost and dazed, as if he needed someone to talk to. He seemed pretty broken up. He kept saying how much everyone liked Jerry, and he couldn’t understand how anyone could kill him. Jerry was going to be his assistant down in San Diego, I guess you knew.”

  “Yes, Jerry told me.”

  Over the months I’d known him, Jerry’d had various unkind things to say about his boss, including a wickedly accurate parody of Mr. Findley’s stuffy speeches at company award ceremonies. More importantly, however, he’d also claimed he did more of Mr. Findley’s work than Findley did. With the different perspective I now had on Jerry, I couldn’t be sure there was any truth in that. But Mr. Findley must have held Jerry in high esteem if he’d wanted Jerry to be his assistant in San Diego.

  “Do you think anyone here at F&N was particularly angry or resentful that Jerry was given a transfer and this other per-son, he or she, wasn’t?”

  “You mean someone who might be angry enough to kill him?” Letty looked shocked when I nodded, but then she leaned back in her chair, her expression thoughtful. Finally she said, “I can’t think of anyone who was ticked off at Jerry specifically, but plenty of people were angry and resentful about the whole situation. But isn’t it always the quiet, inconspicuous person, the one nobody notices, who suddenly goes off the deep end and does something like committing murder?”

  Someone like me was my thought, but what I said was, “If you think of anyone, let me know, okay? Although what I really came for is, I’m wondering if you know about any other girl-friends Jerry had, either while he was dating me or before?”

  “Is that important?”

  “Possibly. I’m afraid the police think I may have killed him. And I didn’t.”

  “Of course you didn’t!” Letty’s smooth forehead wrinkled above shocked blue eyes. “How could anyone think that?”

  “So now I’m wondering if some other woman could have been angry enough to kill him. Maybe someone he’d dumped, or maybe someone who’d just found out he was also seeing me.”

  “Oh dear, let me think. You know me. Gossip just goes in one ear and out the other. I don’t pay that much attention.”

  “Yes, I know,” I agreed with more tact than truthfulness. Letty’s idea of keeping a secret was to tell only two or three people, not send out a global e-mail. That was the big reason I’d come to her. She always had the latest scoop.

  “I don’t remember hearing rumors about Jerry and anyone here at F&N.” In spite of her claim to being a nongossiper, she sounded apologetic, as if not knowing was a shortcoming on her part.

  I was disappointed she didn’t have any information, but at the same time relieved. From all I’d learned about Jerry so far, I was beginning to wonder how I could have been so naive and foolish as to be attracted to him, so it was good not to hear any more to add to his sleaze quotient. But there was still the woman Joella had seen him with.

  “Have you ever heard of someone named Elena?”

  “Elena? No . . . oh, wait. There was an Elena who used to work in the publicity department. But she quit several months ago to do publicity for some pet food company in Olympia. I never heard anything about her and Jerry. She was married anyway.” She put her fingertips over her mouth. “Oh dear, you don’t suppose—”

  Yes, I suddenly did suppose. It was a jolting thought, but ripe with possibilities. If Jerry had been seeing a married woman, and her husband found out . . .

  “What did she look like?”

  “Very attractive. I heard once she’d been a model down in California before she came up here. Tall and slender. You know, that willowy type?” Letty wrinkled her nose.

  Letty is not the willowy type.

  “Dark hair, looked like one of those shampoo ads. Do you ever wonder how they get their hair so shiny in those ads? Personally, I think it’s all in the lighting. Do you really think she and Jerry could have had something going?”

  “Do you remember her last name?”

  Letty’s forehead scrunched under her buttercup hair, but she finally shook her head. “I’m afraid not. Though I think it was something kind of exotic sounding. The only reason I even remember the Elena name is because I have a cousin named that.”

  I stood up and dropped my Styrofoam cup in the waste-basket. “Well, I’d better be running along. It’s been good see-ing you again.”

  “Sorry I don’t know anything helpful. Oh, we’ve been chattering along and I haven’t asked. Have you found another job yet?”

  “No, I’m still in free fall. But looking.”

  “That’s what I’m hearing about almost everyone. Hey, if you want to come to the house and use my computer to get on the Internet, you’re certainly welcome. You can post your résumé or check job openings on a lot of sites there.”

  “Thanks. I may just take you up on that. Hey, if they do decide to hire someone to help out here temporarily, keep me in mind, will you?”

  “Oh, I will. Definitely. I’m so glad you came by. And keep me in mind when you get the limo back!”

  Down on the first-floor hallway, I headed for the exit. Then a thought occurred to me. Would there still be informa-tion about the willowy Elena in the personnel files, maybe something Letty could access even with only a first name? I made an abrupt U-turn at the corner. If I could locate a last name, an address, a husband’s name—

  I rounded the corner in a hurried dash back to Letty’s office and thundered headlong into two men rounding the cor-ner from the opposite direction. In a split second, the fact that one was Mr. Findley registered. The other . . . who? Oh, yes,

  Mr. Randolph, head of the public relations department. Public relations? Hey, he’d surely known Elena.

  Propinquity! I could just casually ask him—

 
; But in the next split second, the momentum of my dash took over, and I shot past identification and right into collision with the man. We belly smashed into each other like a couple of sumo wrestlers. His feet went out from under him, and he oofed to the hallway floor with a fleshy thud. I reeled and steadied myself with a hand on the wall.

  I looked down at the considerable bulk of his figure sprawled on the polished floor of the hallway, like a beached whale in a blue suit. “Mr. Randolph, I’m so sorry!”

  He shook his head to clear it, and when it did clear, he glared up at me.

  “Are you okay?” I fluttered over him, then offered a hand.

  “Get away from me,” he growled and slapped at my hand as if it were contaminated. His face had now reddened to the color of his tie, and the thought occurred to me that it might even be described as rubescent.

  Mr. Findley helped him to his feet. By now both men were glaring at me as if they suspected I had designs on the executives’ restroom. I wondered if Mr. Findley recognized me. Probably not. Upper-level executives didn’t mingle with lower-level people from other departments. Jerry had taken me to a party at the Findleys’ posh waterfront home, but I doubted he’d have reason to remember me from that. I’d eaten more than my share of shrimp hors d’oeuvres, but I hadn’t crashed into anyone.

  “Are you employed here?” Mr. Findley demanded.

  “Well, no, not now. I mean, I did work here, but today I just came to see a friend.” I started to give Letty’s name, then realized this might make trouble for her. I also realized, regretfully, that this was probably not a good time to quiz Mr. Randolph about Elena. “I was just leaving,” I added hastily.

  I started toward the entrance, peering back once. The two men were still watching me. I suspected their topic of conver-sation was about instituting a tighter screening policy at the door to keep clumsy older females as well as dirty-footed homeless persons out.

  22

  Back home, I decided it wouldn’t be fair to put Letty on the spot by asking her to dig up information about Elena. I studied the Olympia phone book instead.

  The phone book listed many stores that handled pet food, of course, but I found only one manufacturer. I was rather impressed. Mountaintop Pet Foods was the company currently running a series of clever TV ads featuring two upscale cats using a sleeping dog as a cushion while discussing their diets. Was that Elena’s work?

  I prepared a brief spiel before I dialed. I was a former F&N employee looking for work. I’d heard of her through my friend Jerry Norton. If she was involved with him, she’d surely know he’d been murdered, and I hoped her reaction to my mention-ing his name would be revealing.

  “May I speak to Elena, please?” I asked in an old-friends, we-don’t-bother-with-last-names tone when I finally got through to the publicity department.

  “Just a moment and I’ll connect you.”

  It had worked. One session with Letty, one phone call, and I’d nailed Elena!

  She came on the line: “Elena”—then a word I didn’t understand—“speaking.”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your last name?”

  “Loperi.” She also spelled it, as if she were accustomed to having to do that. Her voice was cool but not unfriendly. She spoke so clearly and without accent of any kind that I suspected she’d had voice lessons at some time.

  But mostly I was into more self-congratulation. Now I had a last name too! I scribbled it on the pad by the phone. I went into my spiel about the downsizing at F&N and my search for a job. “I love those TV ads with the cats,” I gushed.

  “You have experience in publicity and advertising?”

  I froze. Why hadn’t I anticipated that question? It was a logical one. But I’d been so focused on my side of this script that I hadn’t thought about her rewriting it.

  “Well, uh, no. I was thinking more about general office or secretarial work.”

  “And you acquired my name from—?”

  “Jerry Norton at F&N. Friends and Neighbors Insurance. Where you were formerly employed,” I added, since my words seemed to be plunging into a bottomless pit.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t recall anyone at F&N named Jerry Norton. I was there only a few months.”

  I hadn’t expected a straightforward denial of her even knowing Jerry. And the nerves or agitation I’d counted on if she had any connection with him were totally absent. Did that mean she really didn’t know Jerry, or that she was a model-cum- actress giving me a snow job?

  “He was killed recently. Murdered, actually. Over here in Vigland. Maybe you heard about it?”

  I thought I heard a gasp, but maybe it was just a cough.

  “When did this happen?”

  I gave her a date, then added, “It was sometime in the night, between that Friday evening and the next Saturday morning.”

  “My husband and I have been on vacation for the last couple of weeks. But I’m sorry to hear about something like that happening to anyone.”

  A statement as impersonal as a recorded telemarketer spiel, yet with an undertone of something deeper. Something that I might almost think was panic, except that she went on in a nor-mal tone.

  “I’d always thought Vigland was a rather nice, safe little town when we lived over there.”

  “You live in Olympia now?”

  That question produced a moment of silence, then a wary-sounding, “What did you say your name was?”

  I ignored the question and tossed out my little bombshell. “You say you didn’t know Jerry. But someone saw you together over in Olympia.”

  If I expected nervous, backpedaling explanations, I was mistaken.

  “What did you say your name was?” she repeated. This time it was more demand than question, with a sharp turn into hostility.

  “That doesn’t matter—”

  “I think it does. Let’s see. . . I have your number here on my caller ID.” She wasn’t bluffing. She repeated my phone number to me. “So perhaps you should explain to me what this phone call is really about.”

  Why hadn’t I thought of this? I’d been careful with that call to an unknown number, but here I’d blithely plunged right in. She could undoubtedly have my name and address within a few minutes.

  After a long, uneasy moment, I finally said, “Well, I, uh, suppose you’ll find out anyway. This is Andi McConnell over in Vigland.”

  I waited to see if the name brought any sign of recognition, but all she said was, “So?”

  “I had a . . . uh . . . relationship with Jerry for several months before he was killed. I think you also had a . . . relationship with him.”

  “You’re basing this on a statement someone made about seeing us together?”

  “She heard him call you Elena.”

  “What did you say this man’s name was?”

  “Jerry Norton. He was in the Finance Department at F&N.”

  Another small sound, as if she were tapping the phone with a nervous fingernail. “You know, I think I may know who you’re talking about after all. Tall, dark-haired guy, older but athletic and quite nice looking.”

  She spoke with an I’m-just-remembering dawning in her voice, which sounded a little short on authenticity to me, but mostly I was thinking generation gap. She saw him as older; I saw him as younger.

  “He was murdered?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “How?”

  “Gunshot.”

  “But who would do that? And why?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to find out.”

  “And your friend saw us together where?”

  “Just outside a restaurant in Olympia.”

  “I’m sorry, but I don’t remember that at all. It’s possible we ran into each other in the restaurant, of course, and walked out together, but I don’t remember it.” Her tone had a that’s-my-story- and-I’m-sticking-to-it firmness.

  “And you didn’t know he’d been killed? It made quite a splash in the news. The limousine and all.”

&
nbsp; I suspected the limousine aroused her curiosity, but after a small hesitation, all she said was, “I told you, my husband and I just returned from vacation at Cozumel. I didn’t see any newspapers while we were away.”

  Obviously this was going nowhere, and I hadn’t the interrogative expertise to turn it around. Lamely I said, “Oh. Well, uh, okay then. Thanks.”

  “I take it Jerry Norton’s murderer hasn’t been identified yet?”

  “Unfortunately, no.”

  “Look, it’s none of my business, but can I give you a piece of advice?”

  “Well, uh, sure.” Uh seemed to have taken over as the most-used word in my vocabulary.

  “You figured I . . . or, let’s see, my jealous husband per-haps? . . . killed him. And so you called me.”

  “I’ve been considering possibilities.”

  “Then my advice is this: let the police handle it. Don’t go chasing around after a murderer. Or you might find yourself in the same situation as Jerry.”

  She hung up then, and I was left standing there with phone in hand, thinking two things. Number one was that calling her without a better plan in mind was really dumb, right up there with using a match to test whether you have a gas leak. Number two was wondering if she had just given me an excellent piece of thoughtful advice—or was it a threat?

  I WAS RELUCTANT to tell Fitz about the call, because the more I thought about it, the dumber my having done it sounded. But I had to tell him, of course. We were in the kitchen, and he was cooking the lingcod. I’d just watered the nice pot of daisies he’d brought me and was now steaming asparagus. We’d planned to cook out on the patio, but clouds had moved in, along with a cold breeze, so we’d moved inside. We’d also invited Joella over, but she’d headed off for some doings at church.

  I started with what I’d learned about Elena from Letty, then segued into the phone call and Elena’s “advice.”