Murder in the Marketplace (18 page)

Even after fifteen years, I recognized her handwriting. For a minute I just stood there, looking at it—the loopy way she made her capital Es and Ss, the cramped numbers. She’d meant to send it to my house, but had transposed the Street number, and some genius at the post office had redirected it to my box instead of returning it to sender.

Finally I stuck the letter in my tote bag, where it took some of the luster off the go-ahead from
Smithsonian.
During the block-and-a-half walk to SoftWrite I debated opening it. On the one hand, my mother’s keeping track of my address was a good sign. On the other hand, Renee was even then snoring in my living room. She’d worked herself up, and probably my whole family as well. I didn’t particularly want to read a blast of abuse from dear old Mom, who’d cast me off quite thoroughly the last time I’d heard from her.

By the time I reached the stairs to SoftWrite’s office, I had decided to wait until after work to open the letter. Then its contents wouldn’t throw me so much—and might even give me an edge in the Renee war.

Suzanne was unlocking the plate glass doors when I came up the stairs. She was wearing either the same clothes as the previous day or others much like them. The lines around her eyes were more prominent.

“Morning,” I said.

She jumped a little and swung around, staring at me. “I—didn’t think you’d be back.”

“Wore out my welcome, did I?” I didn’t follow her through the door. “If you’ve found someone else—”

“No, no.” She gestured me into the room, but didn’t immediately head for Door Number Two. “If you don’t mind the drama, it’s fine with me.” She came a step closer, peering at me, with the strangest expression on her face.

“I’m finishing out the week.” I walked over to the reception desk and slung my tote bag under it. “Then I’m out of here.”

She unlocked Door Number Two and then said, without turning, "Someone else has died.” Her back was rigid, her hand clenching the doorknob.

“How do you know?”

“A policeman came by last evening to ask about my movements. He said one of Jenifer’s neighbors had been found in his car on Skyline. Carbon monoxide poisoning.” She turned, slowly. “You knew about it, too, I see.”

“I was questioned, same as you. But I don’t know anything about it. It’s nothing to do with me.”

Suzanne’s mouth was twisted in that funny little smile. “That’s not how it looks. And given all the gossip and rumors floating around this office, you’re not going to be too comfortable here today. Why don’t you see if you can find a temp to replace you? A temp temp. We’ll just finesse the whole situation.”

She closed her office door. It was five after eight. I needed more caffeine to decide what to do. Carrying my tea bag, I went to the coffee area, and found the pots unplugged and empty. I filled a cup with water and put it in the microwave.

While waiting for the water to heat, I rummaged in the little refrigerator, looking for some milk to add to my tea. There was no milk, although there were a dozen or so strange bottles with unintelligible Chinese labels. Crammed in behind the bottles was a cloth lunch bag with the initials J.P. embroidered on it.

It gave me a little jolt to realize that it was probably Jenifer’s lunch bag, brought to work on the day she died and forgotten after her well-publicized bust-up with Ed. Drake might be interested in knowing about it.

I used a couple of forks from the cutlery tray to grab the bag and set it on the counter. The Velcro fastener rasped apart when I pried the top open with my tools. Inside was a container of yogurt, still sealed with foil, and an apple. It looked just like my lunch. Disappointed, I opened the bag wider, peering inside like a dental hygienist searching for plaque. Something rustled, but it wasn’t a napkin. Under the apple was a wad of paper, crumpled very small.

I stared at the paper, wondering if this really was Jenifer’s lunch bag, if the paper had anything to do with her death, if I could satisfy my curiosity without enraging Drake.

The answer to that last question was, regrettably, no. A key scratched in the lock of the back door beside the coffee area, and Mindy came in, looking crisp and efficient in a red-and-white-striped shirt belted over a long, narrow black skirt.

“Hello.” There was something guarded in her voice. She looked past me at the lunch bag.

“Hi.” I put down the two forks I was holding. “Is this Jenifer’s lunch bag?”

“Yes.” Mindy stared at the forks, fascinated, and then at me. “Yes, it is. Why do you have it?”

“I was looking for milk when I noticed it in the refrigerator.”

Mindy backed away a step. “I see.”

“No, you don’t.” Her suspicious expression made me impatient. “Come and look.”

Reluctantly she came closer. “Looks like lunch.” She shuddered a little. “God, it’s so—ghoulish! A dead woman’s lunch.”

“A dead woman’s note, too.” I used the forks to press the Velcro back together. “Is there a plastic sack or something I could put it in?”

Mindy rummaged beneath the table, and held a shopping bag open while I used the forks to maneuver the lunch bag into it. Her expression was lighter. “Are you going to give that to the police?”

“Right. I’m putting it in the file drawer in my desk and calling Drake right away to come and get it. I don’t know what’s in that note, but it might be important.”

The microwave dinged. I dunked my tea bag up and down in the cup. Mindy put her own lunch away in the refrigerator.

“Listen,” she said when I fished out the tea bag. “I wanted to tell you that Larry was going around after you left last night saying you were mixed up with those transients’ murders last year, and that you had something to do with Jenifer’s death, and a lot of guff like that. Mostly we don’t pay attention to Larry’s bizarre stories, but a couple of the software engineers got pretty giddy about it at the Rose and Crown after work, and they made up this poem and practiced it and everything.”

“Poem?”

“Doggerel, really. They’re always doing these really tasteless parodies and stuff. Just pay them no heed if you hear anything.”

“What would I hear?”

“Really, I don’t remember it all.” Mindy looked uncomfortable.

“Come on. I want to hear it.” I leaned against the table and crossed my arms, and at last, reluctantly, Mindy went on.

“Something about Larry coming on to Jenifer. It was gross, really. One look at Larry’s hide drove Jenifer to suicide—that kind of thing. Then you turn Larry down, and he throws his weight around. They’re like children, really.” Mindy sounded indulgent. “We just ignore them.”

“You’ve had more practice at that than I have. Sounds like Larry’s problem more than mine.”

“Right.” Mindy said this so fervently that I felt sure at least one verse of the doggerel must be dreadfully insulting to me, probably raking up my dubious past. However Larry had garbled the events he was gossiping about, the truth had been printed in the papers at the time, and it didn’t involve me except as the victim of a frame-up. True, a murdered bum had been found under my VW bus—and I had been sleeping in it at the time. True, a friend of his, also a bum, had been murdered—as had Vivien Greely, who’d left me her property. I still missed Vivien, still had a lot of ambivalence over profiting from her death as I had—but I didn’t cause any of those events. It was my being set up to take the rap for them that gave Drake the notion I made a good victim. But that was then, this was now. Now I didn’t give a rat’s ass about what a bunch of computer jockeys thought of me. Let them act like adolescents.

I carried the paper bag and my tea up to the front, leaving Mindy with the coffeepots.

Drake wasn’t in his office. I left a message on his office answering machine and put the paper bag in my file drawer

Then I phoned Mrs. Rainey, my usual temp wrangler. I didn’t say who I was, and she, poor dear, didn’t recognize my voice when I asked for a temp.

“Would you need someone who speaks English?”

“The phones are heavy,” I said, taken aback.

“Sorry, then. There’s a terrible flu going through the offices. I’m shorthanded myself.”

Two other temp agencies said the same thing. I was stuck, unless I wanted to leave the phones to fend for themselves. Gradually, I began to smile. If I was stuck, so was SoftWrite.

The phone started ringing, and I didn’t get more than five minutes after that to think about anything except that while I answered the phone, I didn’t have to be harangued by my sister-in-law.

That alone was enough to make me stay.

Chapter 19

Ed Garfield breezed in around ten that morning, accompanied by a positive United Nations of suits—a couple speaking German to each other, an impatient Frenchman who kept asking for “ze pissoir,” two Asians who bowed to me, to Suzanne when she came out of her office, to anyone who moved. If Ed had been grilled by detectives the previous evening, he didn’t show it. He herded his companions into his office, although the Frenchman looked positively agonized. Before closing the door, Ed stuck his head out and looked at me.

“Could you manage coffee? There’s a vacuum carafe back there, and a lot of cups. Sweet rolls if we have them. I should have thought about this, but I didn’t.”

Suzanne had avoided being herded. She still looked nervy, and not all glossed up like the veep for software development probably should look. “Potential investors,” she said, meeting my inquiring gaze, her lips drawn down in disapproval. The phone rang, again. “Don’t worry about the coffee. I’ll ask Mindy to bring it up.”

I nodded my thanks to Suzanne and answered another call. Judging from the phones, SoftWrite had really stirred things up with their new product. When Mindy dashed in with a tray of coffee and cups, and a box of hastily purchased doughnuts from the Golden Crescent, I asked her about it.

“David and Goliath stuff,” she said breathlessly. “Our personal assistant software puts together a lot of features that were only available on spreadsheets before, to let people use their computers with these little carry-around things.” She pulled one out of her jacket pocket—a small black case about the size of a calculator that flipped open to reveal a tiny screen and tinier keyboard. She punched some of the keys to demonstrate its uses to me. It was the high-tech version of those daily planner notebooks. “We’ve got an interface that connects them, so you can dump things back and forth between your computer and this little manager. One of the big software companies is coming out with something like this—we’ve scooped them.” She took the tray off my desk, where she’d put it. “I’ll take this in, if you want.”

“Thanks.” I went back to the phones.

Mindy came out of Ed’s office empty-handed and picked up the stack of messages I’d written for callers who didn’t want to use the voice mail. “My, we’re busy.” She sorted through them. “I’ll deliver these if you want. Are they all for marketing?"

“A couple of them are for personnel—human relations, whatever. People wondering if you need to hire someone here, now that you’re big and successful.”

Mindy separated the messages and stuck them together in destination-oriented clumps. “Software engineers—right.” She grimaced. “We’ve already got too many of those, if you ask me. Most of the real work is done by Suzanne and Jenifer—” She gulped a little. “Actually, maybe we’ll need someone after all. Jenifer was really involved in this new product.”

Once more the console lighted up. Mindy hustled off and I adjusted the headset I’d been wearing that day, to avoid the hand cramps I’d gotten from gripping the receiver the day before.

Time flew by. I never even got my notebook out of my tote bag, because I spent all my time answering the phone and shuffling messages.

Around eleven-thirty Angel and Clarice came out to the front, their purses slung across their shoulders. “We’re out to lunch,” Angel said. Clarice didn’t speak, just stared with a look that would have curdled milk. She kept a safe distance away, as if I might throw vitriol or something.

“Great. Have fun.” My own head was ringing from the phones, and I realized I was ravenous. No one had offered to spell me while I ate, so I took out my yogurt and spooned it up between calls.

Drake caught me slurping a particularly gooey spoonful. “Hey,” he said, pushing through the doors. “Are you eating the evidence?”

“That’s a horrible thought.” I opened my file drawer and took out the shopping bag. “Her lunch is in here, untouched by human hands—or at least my hands.”

He put on a pair of thin plastic gloves from his pocket and pulled the Velcro apart. “Hmm.”

“See the note?”

“How do you know it’s a note?”

“I don’t know, because of course I didn’t touch it or look at it, as Mindy will tell you. It’s a wadded-up piece of paper.”

“What’s it doing in her lunch bag?” Drake pulled the wad out gingerly. “Don’t want to smear any fingerprints,” he said under his breath. “I’ll just give this to the crime lab folks.”

“Can’t we have a peek at it?” I felt proprietary about evidence I’d found. “I’m dying of curiosity.”

Drake shook his head and opened the case he’d brought. It was big and clunky, more like a salesman’s sample case than a briefcase. He took out a plastic bag and stuck the crumpled paper into it. “If someone put this in her lunch bag, it was probably done on the day she died—she wouldn’t have left trash in there from a previous day. Anything that has a bearing on her death has to be treated carefully.”

He put her lunch bag into the case as well and shut it. “I’m going to go back to Jenifer’s cube and give her desk a thorough going-over. We didn’t really do that yesterday, but now—” He didn’t finish. I knew he was thinking that Jenifer’s death looked less and less like a suicide. “It’ll take a while. See you later.”

Mindy came up to the front while I was still eating my apple. "That policeman is here again,” she said, keeping her voice low as if Drake could hear her. “Did you give him—you know?”

“Yes, he’s got it. He’s searching Jenifer’s desk.”

She looked troubled. “What’s he looking for? I don’t like this.”

The double doors flew open, and Jason Paston strode in.