Armed (6 page)

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you, Ms. Harris? Can I get you a coffee? Tea?”

“Tea would be nice and please, call me Alex. Thank you, Ruth. It is Ruth?”

“Yes.” She hesitated. “I heard Mr. Poupée telephone you earlier.” She moved into the room and took a seat next to me on the sofa. “He thinks the police suspect him. I think they suspect all of us. Have you ever been involved in something like this? Of course not, people are only involved in murders in the movies. But this is real.” She bent her head. When she looked up her brown eyes sparkled with tears. “Elvira hired me. She gave me this job after my divorce. I hadn’t worked for several years and couldn’t find anything. Then I got this job.”

“You’re the one who told the police Mrs. Scott and I had words,” I said, and hoped I didn’t sound accusatory.

Ruth’s round face reddened and she looked down. “Well, I didn’t volunteer it. They asked if she’d been arguing with anyone and as I heard her raise her voice to you on the same day of the murder, it stuck in my mind.” Ruth looked up. “Are you in trouble?”

“No. Probably not,” I lied, wishing the woman had Mr. Poupée’s problem of a hearing loss. 

“Why would anyone hurt Elvira? Everyone loved her.” Ruth sniffled and then added, “Well, most everyone.”

With that little tidbit lingering in the air, Mr. Poupée returned and walked into his office. Damn.

Ruth dabbed at her eyes with a tissue she had taken from the pocket of her periwinkle blue blazer and stood up. “Tea, right? I’ll be right back.”

“Hmmm. Perhaps there just might be some investigating to do after all,” I said softly, a cat-like grin spreading across my face. Then I remembered something Winston had said and repeated the man’s words out loud. “
This is no time for ease and comfort. It is the time to dare and endure
.” I would have to seek Ruth out for another chat.

“It’s not too bad,” Mr. Poupée said without much conviction. “I’ll have to get someone in here to wash away all this powder. With all the people who come and go, I can’t imagine what the police thought they’d find from fingerprints,” he added looking around the office.

I offered to find spray cleaner and paper towels in an effort to keep the fingerprint powder from getting all over my new teal sweater. I bought it at Banana Republic a week before with a price tag of seventy-five percent off. I’d hate to see it ruined by fingerprint powder. Then I remembered why fingerprint powder covered everything and felt bad thinking about my sweater at a time like this. Good old Catholic guilt.

“You’ll find whatever you need across the hall. That’s where we keep coffee, tea, and soft drinks, so help yourself. Elvira left the key in her desk. Top drawer. Right where you would think,” Mr. Poupée said with sadness.

After I wiped the desk clean we set about sorting out Mrs. Scott’s personal belongings. I handed Mr. Poupée a beautifully framed photo. “Who’s this?”

“Irwin. A fine fellow. Elvira was very lonely after he died. She had friends…but it’s never the same, is it?”

I nodded. Not that I knew anything about losing a partner to death. I looked at the picture again. Irwin had a kind, handsome face, with soft, caring eyes.

“Mr. Poupée, the police showed me some papers earlier. Do you have a copy? I’d like to take another look.”

“I’m glad you mentioned that. I wanted you to have a look. They’re not the originals, copies Detective Van der Burg left with me,” Mr. Poupée said. “He wanted me to see if I could make heads or tails out of them. Can’t imagine why Elvira had them in her purse.”

“Isn’t this something she would handle?”

“Oh no. We have an accounting department. And an order department, so there would be no reason Elvira would have these. Unless a client had a problem and asked to speak with her directly.”

“Did that happen often?”

“No. But after twenty years, Elvira knew everyone, and if someone had a specific problem with an order and with several of the staff out sick, well, it’s possible, I suppose. I would guess their presence in her purse might have had something to do with why she wanted to see me last night.” Mr. Poupée shook his head. “Though I can’t imagine why. Let’s have a look.”

He moved a few things aside and spread out the four sheets. The old man’s hands were nicely kept but they were the hands of someone who got involved, not someone who just sat behind a desk all day. They were used hands and I knew for a fact that even though the Poupée family had money, Mr. Poupée would crawl under the sink to fix a leaky pipe or paint the shutters, or do the gardening. Or wield a mannequin arm over someone’s head. I quickly pushed that thought out of my mind, but I did nudge my chair just a tad bit further away.

“This first one is a printout of our top twenty clients,” Mr. Poupée pointed to the first column on the sheet, “and this second column indicates the sales for the last two years for each of these clients. This second page shows the figures for the same clients for the same two years, but just for the sale of eyes. The third sheet is the same for changes of hair, and the last sheet shows the sales figures for mannequins. It’s broken down to our sculptured style, our interchangeable eye style, and the old style you’re probably most familiar with.”

I had never realized the amount of money spent on such things. I looked at the sheets for a few minutes unable to find anything related to murder.

“Before we had the database system we had a hard time keeping track of who bought what, when, and how many. I’m ashamed to admit it but Poupée Mannequins has been behind the times when it comes to technology. Maybe it’s my fault. I’m from the old school where you typed spreadsheets quarterly. I imagine this will make everything so much more efficient. We can push a button and get up-to-the-minute figures for any of our clients going back five years!”

I put my elbow on the desk and rested my chin in my palm. “So if the new system allows for total figures for a five-year period, why does this printout only go back two years?”

Mr. Poupée pushed a piece of his white hair from his forehead and handed me one of she sheets. “Hmmm. Good point, Alex. There’s something else odd. Elvira hadn’t trained on the system yet. That’s something we were organizing for the coming year, training for all the office staff. So, who gathered this information and printed it for her?”

I laid the paper on the desk and leaned back in Mrs. Scott’s chair. “If we can find that person maybe they can tell us what Mrs. Scott planned to do with this.”

Mr. Poupée glanced at his watch. “I’m sorry, Alex, but I have to leave you for a bit. I have a meeting with Richard Sheridan. He’s been in Europe and we need to touch base on a few things.” Mr. Poupée started to get up and then sat back down. “Dolly wanted me to stay home today. I told the staff to leave as soon as the police gave them the go ahead, but I couldn’t stay home,” he said wistfully. “I don’t really want to be here, but it’s better to keep busy than to be alone with my thoughts. I’m afraid the police suspect me of being uncaring, probably the reason they’ve got me at the top of their list, but I just needed to be busy. Maybe if I go home the rest of the staff will go too.”

“I think if they wanted to they would,” I said. “People mourn in different ways, and to be truthful, it probably hasn’t sunk in yet.” I felt my eyes welling up again and reached for a tissue.

“Oh, my! I am insensitive. You found Elvira and here I am carrying on and asking for your help. It’s not that I’m not thinking straight, I’m not thinking at all!” Mr. Poupée raised his voice and looked startled. “This damned hearing aid.” He adjusted it and then added, “For God sake, Alex, please, go home.”

“No. Mr. Poupée. Really, I’m fine. I feel like you do. I don’t want to be alone with my thoughts either. Go. Go to your meeting. I’ll finish in here.”

I spent the next hour going through the desk and a lot of papers and putting personal items in the box. Along with the framed photo of Irwin, I found a plastic rain bonnet, some hard candies, an emery board, and a personal pen and pencil set. There were some insurance forms pertaining to Mrs. Scott’s benefits package but other than a dictionary and new Thesaurus nothing else of a personal nature. I found some papers in an in-basket and a postal receipt on top of that. All very orderly just like the person it belonged to. I pushed a strand of hair out of my eyes and gave a wistful thought to the bottom drawer of my desk at the agency and made a mental note to do a little housecleaning.

“Well, hello there.”

I jumped once again at the sound of a voice and looked up to see a heavyset man wearing a wrinkled shirt standing in the doorway. He leaned against the door jam, his arms folded and his thick gray hair slicked back with some kind of oil or maybe he just hadn’t washed it for some time. He had a large head and a square shaped face. He looked like a cartoon character that my nephew liked, but I couldn’t remember the name.

“That was quick.”

“What was quick?” I decided on the spot I didn’t like him. I know, you shouldn’t judge a book and all that, but sometimes a person just rubs you the wrong way and there’s no rhyme or reason for it. It just is.

“Elvira just died. I mean, she died
last
night,” the man emphasized as he leaned closer to the desk, “and here they’ve hired someone already.”

“I’m not the new office manager. I’m a friend helping out during this terrible time. I’m sorry, I didn’t get your name. Can I help you?”

“I’m Jerry. Factory foreman. I just came by to tell William I’m going to lock up and go home.” Jerry turned and headed for the door.

“Wait!” I shouted.

He stopped and looked at me.

My mind raced trying to think of something to ask this man who ran the factory. The factory. Where I found Mrs. Scott.

“Did you see Mrs. Scott out there last night?” I blurted.

Jerry looked at me with a blank stare. I couldn’t blame him.

“Why would I see her?”

“Well, everyone, I mean the police, seem to be wondering why she would go into the factory at night. Everyone is gone by what, four-thirty, right?”

“Yeah.” He shrugged. “That’s the time we close. And no, I didn’t see Elvira last night out in the factory. I left by five-fifteen and I never saw her.”

“Did she go out there a lot?” I got up and walked around the desk. “I mean, did her job require she spend a lot of time out there?”

“No,” Jerry shrugged. “But that’s not to say she never came out. She did. Especially if one of the workers had a personnel issues. What’s this all about?” Jerry plopped himself down on a chair and sneered. “Oh, I get it. William wants you to nose around. See what you can find out. Is that it? Well, you look here, miss whatever your name is. I’ve talked to the police. That’s it. Not that I had much to say. I work in the factory, so I don’t come into the office much. And even if I did, why would I want to talk to that snooty old…” Jerry stopped abruptly and stood up. “Tell William I left and I’ll call him later.”

Jerry walked out and I heard the door to the factory slam. I jotted the message down just as Mr. Poupée returned.

“A man named Jerry came by,” I told him. “He’s closing up the factory and said he’ll call you later. Also, Emmanuelle would like to see you as well. I found this receipt on Mrs. Scott’s desk. I think it’s the one from the post office. She asked Andy to mail some packages last night. What would you like me to do with it? I can take it to your accounting department if you’d like.”

Mr. Poupée took the receipt and looked at it. “Andy must have brought it straight in this morning. That’s okay. I’ll take it to accounting.” He started toward his office and then turned. “That’s odd. I gave Elvira four packages to mail; the receipt is for five.”

“Maybe she included one of her own. Or maybe she had some other things from other people to be mailed.” I glanced at my watch. “Mr. Poupée, all of Mrs. Scott’s things are in this box. If you don’t have anything else for me to do right now, I’ll be off.”

“Yes, that’s fine.” Mr. Poupée walked to his office and took a seat behind his desk. I followed him and stood in the doorway.

“Alex, would you be able to come back tomorrow? I’m going to reopen for business because telling these people to stay home doesn’t seem to do any good. Of course, anyone who wishes to take a few days off can do so. But I have a feeling everyone just wants to get back to...” His words trailed off. “I was about to say
normal
, but I don’t think anything will ever be the same around here. Ever.” He hit his forehead with the palm of his hand. “There I go again. You probably need some time to yourself. Alex, I
am
sorry. It’s just that I want to clear this up. I want to find out who did this.

“And I wanted you to start talking with people. Get a feel for things. Elvira always kept me so isolated. I appreciated her handling everything but now I wonder if I put too much responsibility on her. She had her faults. I know not everyone liked her, but not enough that someone would kill her.” He reached into his back pocket and took out a handkerchief. “At any rate,” he wiped his eyes, “I’ve alerted the staff to give you their full cooperation; maybe we can get to the bottom of this before that damned police detective puts me in prison.”

I felt like going off somewhere and having a good cry but given Mr. Poupée had such faith in me—totally misguided—I didn’t see how I could refuse. My attempt to get some information out of Jerry hadn’t gone well. What if everyone else treated me the same way? I started to say this to Mr. Poupée and then had an image of Detective Van der Burg sitting at his desk with a sly grin, eating a sandwich while that damned shovel leaned against his desk, and me sitting in a cell watching him.

My shoulders sagged in defeat but I managed a small smile. “Yes. I can come tomorrow.” I gathered up my things and left.

Light snow coated my windshield. Wipers on, I pulled out of the parking lot and pointed my car in the direction of the town center. I didn’t want to go back to my office and a barrage of questions. I needed a walk and I knew just where I wanted to go.