Death Loves a Messy Desk (32 page)

More mutters.

“Margaret?”

Mutter.

A horrible thought washed over me. “You’re not alone, are you?”

“That is correct. Not that it’s any of your business.”

I seized the moment. “It’s that cop, isn’t it? He’s supposed to be chasing stolen cars. Why is he wasting time on dates?”

“Because, as I’ve mentioned already, it’s midnight. Tell me, Charlotte, do you want to be on the executive committee that decides who Margaret gets to have a relationship with? Because if so, you’ll have to take a number after my mother, my father, my grandmother, and every other Tang relative.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I thought you were my friend.”

Low blow. “I am. It just took me by surprise, that’s all. I’m . . . very happy for you.”

“Humph.”

“By the way, Margaret, I think you are my friend, too. But you don’t seem very interested in my life-or-death experiences tonight.”

“Well,” she said, finally. “I suppose you’d better tell me about the killer truck.”

“What about Jack and—”

“The killer truck. That sounded more life-and-death somehow.”

“But the thing with Jack and that woman is more upsetting.”

“Let it go, Charlotte.”

“And Nick managed to get into my apartment again, too. He showed up after the truck incident.”

“Really? Ew.”

“And I feel bad for Pepper.”

“Not as bad as you’ll feel if she ever finds out.”

“Anyway, Pepper’s involved in this, too. She knew who the missing woman was. She told me she didn’t but she did. So maybe this person’s in a witness protection program or something. Margaret? Are you there?”

Mutter mutter.

“Margaret?”

“My colleague doesn’t know anything about this woman. And in his opinion, there’s no chance she’s in witness protection.”

“Give me one good reason why not.”

“The feds would never tell the local cops. End of story.”

“And that’s because?”

“It seems they’re the biggest gossips on the planet.”

I thought I heard a protesting mutter in the background.

After I hung up, I flounced around the apartment alarming the dogs. I set out my clothes for the next day, sorted out my handbag, prepared my briefcase, straightened my desk, made my prioritized To Do list, and set up the coffeemaker for the morning. Next I tossed in a load of laundry, exfoliated my face, and put on night cream. I slid into my flannel jammies and curled up on the sofa with one entire box of Kristee’s black-and-white fudge. Some people would call that a luxury.

I called it a medical necessity.

I spent the night tossing and turning, dodging flying trucks and broccoli bullets. Mel and Del were driving the trucks and firing the bullets. I dragged myself out of bed, flicked on the coffeemaker, and waddled out with the dogs. There was no sign of life at Jack’s place. The door was closed. His bike was gone. Apparently this race planning was a twenty-four-hour-a-day business.

We stomped back five minutes later. I was afraid to look in the mirror in case I spotted a black cloud over my head. I sipped my coffee and revised my To Do list.

It didn’t escape my notice that work was forming a smaller and smaller part of my To Do lists. Further down the priority list, too.

I started with a call to Detective Tierney before I even took my shower. He must have been out detecting because it went straight to voice mail. I left a message and said I’d be home until ten a.m. and I urgently needed to talk to him. I was thinking more clearly now. I wondered if the information I’d unloaded on the three police officers the night before had reached the detective’s ear.

Robbie was next. Surprisingly he answered.

I filled him in on the events of the night before. “I am absolutely certain the driver was trying to kill me. I think it’s those guys I told you about, and I’m pretty sure Fredelle was lying about them. I plan to tell the police.”

“That’s really hard to believe.”

“She’s holding back lots of stuff. I’m out of sympathy for her. Missy might know, too. I’ll tell the police to talk to her.”

Robbie squeaked. “Missy! But Missy’s really nice. I don’t want the police hassling her.”

“They won’t hassle her. She’ll tell them what they need to know. Remember, all this is connected to Barb in some way. We have to do whatever’s necessary to find out what’s going on with her.”

“That’s right,” he said. “We’re in this together.”

“Any luck with Dyan’s computer?”

“Nothing. It’s actually been wiped clean.”

“Really? Then there must have been something that incriminated someone at Quovadicon.”

“Good point. I’ll try to recover the files. I’ve already substituted another hard drive so no one will notice I’ve taken hers.”

“Good thinking. And speaking of hard drives, we should see what’s on Barb’s.”

“I’m ahead of you there. Lots of files, but I combed through it and I couldn’t find anything strange.”

“Keep at it.”

“I will. You be careful.”

I wasn’t sure at what point Robbie and I had become allies, but whatever works, I decided. We did have a common goal.

When I hopped out of the shower, the message light was flashing. Life’s like that. Ramona’s instructions were crisp and to the point. “I might have a bit of joy on your Barbara Douglas question. I got a few hits on the business databases. She wrote several articles on business applications for new technologies a few years back, seems to have been working at tech start-ups in Silicon Valley. The latest article I can find shows her working in San Raphael at a place called, let’s see, oh right, Vector Vici, five years ago. I’ll see if I can turn up a photo. In the meantime, I’ve printed out the articles and citations. They’re here for you. Pick them up when you come for your orientation. Wish I could do more.”

I imagined Ramona was up to her patootie with her regular demanding library patrons. As usual, she’d bailed me out. And I had an idea. I picked up my new cell phone and blocked the number before I made my call.

Fredelle answered somewhat breathlessly, as though she’d run halfway across the office to catch the call in time. “Quovadicon. Fredelle Newhouse speaking.”

I plowed on before she could extricate herself from the call. “Charlotte Adams here. I am willing to avoid going to your employer to tell him how you lied about being involved with Therapy Dogs in order to trick me into working on Barb’s desk, provided you answer one quick question.” Before she could respond, I asked, “Do you know where Barb worked in between Vector Vici and Quovadicon?”

“I’m sorry?”

I repeated the question, adding, “It would give me a jumping-off point. Did you get a reference from Vector Vici?”

“Mr. Van Zandt did, but . . .” She paused. This confirmed that the Barb Douglas who’d worked at Vector Vici was the one I needed to find.

“Charlotte?” The quaver was back in Fredelle’s voice. Maybe she just trotted it out when she needed to manipulate someone.

“Hmm?”

“I think we should leave Barb alone. Let her get back on her feet.”

I said, “Sure. Gotta go. Places to go, people to see. Calls to make.”

But more accurately, I had to work on my fibbing technique. And I had to Google Vector Vici.

“Bruce here.”

The voice was middle-aged but casual. A nice voice, but with the kind of confidence that befits an entrepreneurial CEO. I believe in starting at the top. More efficient.

I liked the fact that Bruce was answering his own phone at seven a.m. California time.

I said, “Hey, Bruce. This is Joanie Roadhouse. I’m trying to track down my old friend Barb Douglas. I want to reconnect and I don’t have any way to get in touch with her. She called me not long ago, but I lost the message and I’ve hit a wall. I know she doesn’t work with you anymore, but I thought you guys might be able to help. Any idea where she is now? If you have an e-mail address, that would be great. Or even a city.”

“Is this a sick joke?” The casual good humor dropped out of Bruce’s booming voice.

“What?” One more thing to catch me by surprise.

He shouted into the phone. “That is disgusting.”

“What do you mean, disgusting? I’m just asking where she is.”

“She’s dead, that’s where she is. And I don’t know what kind of scam this is, but you have sunk about as low as you can go. Rot in hell.”

“What do you mean she’s dead? How do you know?”

What was going on? I was in New York State searching for Barb while people across the country were a jump ahead of me. Of course, I really really didn’t want her to be dead.

There was a significant pause. “I know she’s dead because I went to her goddamn funeral five years ago, and not one day goes by that I don’t think about her and miss her because she was a wonderful human being. And you are a freak. Did I already say, rot in hell?”

“You did, but—”

I heard a click and then the dial tone. So much for explaining myself.

“So,” I said in a whisper. I didn’t want to attract the attention of Ramona’s more formidable reference room regulars, who were just hitting their stride for a day of shushing the other patrons and the library staff, too. “If Barb Douglas is dead, who is the person we thought she was?”

Ramona shook her silver earrings. “Who knows? Some identity thief. Happens all the time.”

“Seems like a very dangerous game for identity theft. Barb is missing, Dyan is dead, and I was attacked in Quovadicon and chased by a pair of homicidal truckers. Not to mention the dead guy in the trunk of the Impala.”