The Trouble With Murder (4 page)

I returned to my desk and scrolled
through my address book until I found the number for a commercial security
company we’d used in the past. I called and set an appointment for noon.

I had accepted that my nine o’clock
had stood me up when I heard the front door. Just in case it was him after all,
I went and poked my head out of my office. A woman in her late twenties
trailing two children under five spoke briefly to Sandra then another agent
came to greet them, leading them down the hall into an office.

Sandra saw me standing in the
doorway.

“She’s the first person to come in
all morning,” she said.

I nodded and turned away, then
stopped.

“You said there was a man in the
lobby this morning,” I said. “When I called.”

“Oh, that,” she said, waving a hand
dismissively. “That was a cop. He doesn’t count.”

The most frightening part of that
statement was that I followed her logic.

“What did the cop want?”

She shrugged. “Asked to see Barry.
He was here quite a while.”

“Who? Did you get a name?”

“Uh, something with an
E
I
think . . . uh . . .”

“Ellmann,” I said softly to myself.

She snapped her fingers. “Yep,
that’s it. Ellmann.”

After concluding a showing, I grabbed lunch and took it back
to the office. My concentration had been divided all morning. I couldn’t stop
thinking about Ellmann dropping by to see Paige.

Why was Ellmann meeting with Paige?
I assumed it had something to do with Stacy’s assault. Why wasn’t he addressing
his needs with me? I was the site manager. It had been me she was meeting. I’d
been something of a witness. Paige hadn’t been there. What could he know of it?
He knows so little of anything at all.

These thoughts continued to pester
me as I munched a salad and sipped coffee. Then a face appeared in my open
door.

“There’s no one at the desk,” the
man said apologetically.

So typical for Sandra to walk away
without telling anyone.

“I’m sorry about that,” I said,
standing and walking around the desk. “What can I do for you?”

“I’m here to see Zoe Grey.”

“That’s me.”

The man was around thirty, over six
feet tall, and obviously fit. He was dressed in well-fitting blue jeans, black
boots, and a black polo shirt with a company logo embroidered on it. His brown
hair was neatly cut and carefully styled with gel. His blue eyes sparkled with
a hint of amusement, as if he knew something the rest of us didn’t. He was
clean-shaven, and his features indicated his Italian ancestry.

He smiled as he offered me his
hand.

“Joe Pezzani. I’m from Wolf
Security Concepts.”

“Great, thanks for coming. Please,
have a seat.”

I thought I saw his nose twitch
slightly, though he refrained from comment. Maybe I needed to ride around for a
while without the helmet, let my hair air out some.

I went back around the desk and set
the salad aside. He lowered his long frame into a chair opposite me and smiled
again. I picked up a pamphlet on Elizabeth Tower and passed it to him.

“Last night there was an assault in
the lobby of that building,” I began. “There have been concerns from the
residents about their safety. I’d like to post a guard in the building after
dark for a few days, maybe a week, to appease them. I don’t want them to be
afraid in their own homes.”

He was listening, nodding, glancing
through the information on the pamphlet.

“You sound like you think it’s a
wasted gesture.”

“I don’t think it’s a waste if it
makes them feel safe.”

“But you don’t think a threat
exists.”

I leaned back in my chair and re-crossed
my legs. “No, I don’t. I believe last night’s assault was an isolated incident.
I’d be very surprised if anything like it ever happened again. But that isn’t
what’s important.”

“It’s a big building,” he said.
“Lots of people in and out. What sort of security do you have in place?”

“The building is fully equipped.
The only piece we’re currently using is the cameras. I don’t think it’s
important to control traffic. I’d just like there to be a presence.”

He nodded. “Okay, no problem.” He
set the pamphlet on the desk and reached for the briefcase he carried,
withdrawing a small packet. “It gets dark around eight these days, light around
six. Would you like to start with two days? Three? The whole week?”

“Let’s do a week, and make it six
to six. There’s a high level of activity in the evenings, and it would be good
for the guard to be noticed.”

“Sure.” He was filling out the top form
quickly, with familiarity.

Through the open doorway, I heard
another door open followed by two sets of footsteps: one purposeful, one
hurried. Paige’s office door. He’d been in another meeting when I’d returned to
the office. With two meetings, this was shaping up to be a busy day for him.

“Let me take care of this,” Paige
pleaded. “It’s been a long time coming anyway, and now
this.
”

Mark White strode by, Paige on his
heels like a yapping lap dog.

Paige shook the paperwork clutched
in his hand, but the CEO wasn’t looking at him or it.

“I told you,” White said with a
ring of finality, “I’ll handle it. I’ll let you know when I’ve made a
decision.”

White blew through the front door,
slamming it shut behind him, probably before Paige could follow.

Pezzani looked at me, eyebrows
raised. “Someone’s not happy,” he said as he turned back to his writing.

No,
I thought,
but Paige
doesn’t handle it well when he doesn’t get his way
.

“All right,” Pezzani said, sitting
forward. “I’ll set this up for three people to do twelve-hour shifts for seven
days, starting tonight. One will work three nights; the other two will do two
apiece. This will provide them some familiarity with the building and the
residents. If you’d like to extend the service, I’ll assign the same guys, for
that purpose. Sound about right?”

“Sounds gr
—
”

Paige stomped down the hall and
into my office, oblivious to Pezzani. He shook the same documents he’d tried to
show White at me then threw them down on my desk. I wasn’t having a real great
day anyway, but fighting with Paige always makes for a shitty one.

“Oh, come on,” I hissed as I pushed
away from the desk, paper raining from my lap to the floor.

Where was the professionalism?
Professionalism seems to have died out with my mother’s generation. Personally,
I find this sad, and irritating.

Paige is egotistical and pompous
and belligerent on his best days, and in such a hurry to climb the ladder he
doesn’t care who he steps on. He doesn’t care about doing good work or doing
the right thing; he cares about how everyone else’s work makes him look.
Naturally, we’d butted heads from the get-go. On top of it all, Paige is a
jerk. But I believe it’s possible to be all of that
and
professional.

I looked at Paige. He was
practically vibrating he was so excited. That is always bad.

“Know what that is?” he sang, as
happy as a kid on Christmas morning.

“Why don’t you tell me?”

A disgusting, satisfied smile split
Paige’s weasel-like face.

Another bad sign.

“I’ve been waiting for months for
some reason,
any
reason, but this is better than anything I could have
dreamed.” He smiled wider. “You’re fired.”

Yep, bad.

Probably this was a mess that could
be sorted out. But I pretty much thought this would officially flush my day
down the crapper. I could always count on Paige for that.

“Excuse me?” I said.

Pezzani slipped the documents he’d
been holding into his briefcase and stood. He watched both Paige and me
closely. I wondered what he saw.

“You are a constant pain in my
ass,” Paige said. “You always argue with me and think you know better than me.
I know you’re after my job.”

Pretty much everyone knows better
than Paige, five-year-olds included. Case in point, I
don’t
want Paige’s
job.

“The good news is I finally got
something on you! Not even White can turn his back on it.”

“And that would be?” I asked.

“You falsified documents and stole twenty
thousand dollars from this company! I can finally fire you!”

“Wait a minute!” I shot back. Now
I
seemed to forget Pezzani’s presence. Leaning over my desk, I pointed an angry
index finger directly at Paige’s nose. “I don’t have any idea what you’re
talking about. I didn’t steal anything. Sure, I hate working for you, but I was
perfectly content making you miserable by showing you up. What would I gain by
stealing from White? Stealing isn’t my speed.” Not anymore.

“What about the evidence that says
otherwise? You gonna try to tell me it’s all a lie?” he demanded, waving an
angry hand over the desk, indicating the papers he’d thrown at me.

“Yeah!” I answered. “I haven’t
stolen so much as a paperclip from this company.”

Actually, that isn’t true. I’ve
borrowed
several items from the office, including paperclips, staples, sticky notes, the
occasional highlighter, and once or twice I’ve used company resources to look
up background on people I wasn’t planning to lease anything to. What I hadn’t
done, however, was embezzle twenty thousand dollars. I can’t even remember what
twenty thousand dollars looks like. Had it been me who’d figured out a way to
embezzle money, I would never have made it to twenty thousand. I’d have stopped
at five, maybe ten. That would have been more money than I’d had in years; it
would have bought a lot of shoes. I would have taken it and split. The very
fact I kept showing up everyday was evidence I had done nothing of the sort.
Idiot.

Paige walked around the desk and, at
my height, came practically nose-to-nose with me. His pinched features were
distorted with joy, a happy twinkle in his eyes.

“I didn’t like you from the
beginning,” he hissed. His breath was rancid and hot on my cheeks. It was hard
to resist the urge to step away from him. “You’re nothing but a spoiled brat
who throws a temper tantrum every time you don’t get your way.”

I temporarily lost control of my
thoughts, enjoying a moment of blissful insanity. I saw myself slug Paige. I
saw his eyes roll back in his head and him drop to the floor like a sack of
potatoes, out cold. Through a colossal exertion of will power, however, I managed
to keep my hands to myself.

Pezzani easily wedged himself
between Paige and me.

“Why don’t we take a walk?” he
said.

With unexpected speed and agility,
he reached under the desk and grabbed my bag, then closed his huge hand around
my upper arm. He began steering me around the desk and down the hall. I
attempted twice to free myself, my attention still on Paige. Fire burned inside
me as the look of satisfaction spread deeper into Paige’s face.

“We’ll finish this later,” I said.

Paige just laughed.

Pezzani had me out of the building
and in the parking lot before I even registered a change of scenery.

“Let me go,” I snapped, jerking my
arm. His grip held firm.

“Not until I’m sure you won’t go
—
” The rest came out in an
anguished
whoosh.

In a move similar to the one I’d
used last night with the masked assailant, I applied a small amount of pressure
to Pezzani’s diaphragm, doubling him over and causing him to immediately
release his grip on me. I snatched up my bag and slung it over a shoulder. I
was shaking with adrenaline and anger.

Pezzani leaned forward, his hands
on his knees, and sucked in air. After a long moment, he forced himself
upright, rubbing at his diaphragm. There were tears in his eyes when he looked
at me.

“Your thank-yous suck,” he said.

“Hilarious. You shouldn’t have
interfered.”

“Oh, yeah, sure. It would have been
better to knock the guy out.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking
about.”

“Please. I saw the way you were
looking at him.”

When had I become so transparent?

“Still, it was none of your
business.”

“He would have jumped at the chance
to press charges. Ever spent a night in jail?”

Yes. I was not interested in a
repeat stay. But that was not the point.

I rolled my eyes and turned away
from him. As I did, something caught my attention. Framed in one of the office
windows, Sandra York was watching Pezzani and me outside. Our eyes met briefly,
and a look very much like a sneer contorted her face. An instant later she
turned away, looking pleased with herself.

A thought occurred to me then, but
it was so farfetched, so ridiculous, I dismissed it.

“Let’s have those forms,” I said.

“You just got fired.”

“First, Paige doesn’t have the
authority to fire me. Second, our deal was complete, aside from a signature,
before he interrupted. I intend to sort this out, and I don’t want to lose a
bunch of residents in the meantime.”

“You’re asking me to lie,” he said,
digging the documents out of his briefcase and handing them to me.

“Oh, please. Don’t be so dramatic.
I’m asking you to do the right thing.”

I scribbled my name on the forms
where indicated then handed them back. “I expect a guard in that building at
six
p.m.
this evening.”

“You’re bossy for being unemployed.”

“You’re hysterical,” I said,
digging the helmet out of my bag. “A word of advice: you shouldn’t manhandle
people. It can be dangerous.” There was no sympathy or remorse in my voice.

“You’re upset; I get it,” he said
lightly, waving a dismissive hand in my direction. “You’ll thank me tomorrow.”

“Yeah, right.”

_______________

I sat at a table in the window of Dazbog Coffee on Harmony
Road, sipping a frozen mocha. Dazbog is my favorite coffee place, and having been
dragged out of my office before I’d finished my first cup, I could justify the
indulgence.

I’d calmed down considerably, but I
was still plenty pissed. From the coffee shop, I’d called White. He hadn’t
answered any of his numbers, and I’d left messages at all of them. More than my
job status, my concern was White thinking I stole from him. I couldn’t imagine
White would believe I’d embezzled from him, but I wanted to confirm.

I took a drink then raised the
phone. My mechanic should have gotten to the garage and seen my truck by now.
But he hadn’t called me. I dialed his number and waited. I was irritated when
the call dropped to voicemail again. Obviously I didn’t quite have my temper
under control just yet.

Maybe it would be a good idea for
me to burn off some steam. My thoughts returned instantly to the extra weight
I’d criticized that morning. Briefly, I scowled at the perfectly blended coffee
drink on the table in front of me, involuntarily envisioning it sliding down my
throat and right to my backside. It seemed I could benefit from some physical
activity in more than one way.