Waiting for Armando (Kate Lawrence Mysteries) (8 page)

“
Uhh
,” I said.

Later, Ingrid told me that she thought I must have felt ill for a moment and sat down until whatever it was passed. So she had pushed the door wide open and taken three paces into the room before she saw and assimilated the scene I had already taken in. Then she did what any normal person would do under the circumstances. She screamed bloody murder, a piercing, full-throated shriek, and clapped both hands over her eyes.

Since there was nobody else on the floor, however, her scream went unacknowledged. After a few seconds she parted the fingers of one hand and peeked out to find me in precisely the same position, although her reaction had served to jolt me back into functionality.

“Yeah,” I said in an unnaturally tight voice. “He’s dead,” although this last part seemed an unnecessary statement of the obvious. I don’t know why they always do that checking-the-carotid-pulse thing in the movies. Dead is
dead,
and it shows. “I found him like this a few minutes ago.”

“You’ve been sitting here with Alain’s dead body?” said Ingrid disbelievingly. “Why haven’t you called security or 911 or something? Are you crazy?” And after a moment’s further consideration, “Are you all right?”

“Yes, I’m all right,” I replied, and it was true. For some reason, all of a sudden I was just fine. I drew a deep breath and tried to answer her other questions. “I guess it didn’t seem as if there was anything anyone could do, you know? It’s not like there was a robbery in progress, or I smelled smoke. Whatever happened here was over. If I had come into the office and
Girouard
was sick or hurt or something, I would have known what to do, but who do you call when it’s already too late?”

“The same people,” Ingrid said, pulling me to my feet and guiding me firmly out of the office. She pulled the door shut behind us, completely in charge of the situation. “We’ve got to call the police right away. You didn’t touch anything in there, did you? Go through his pockets? Handle anything on his desk?”

“Good God, no,” I assured her. Even semi-conscious, I know enough about forensics not to disturb a crime scene, thanks to Jessica Fletcher and Mark Sloane. But why were we assuming that this was a crime scene? Maybe
Girouard
had a massive heart attack or a stroke. Maybe he choked on a sticky bun. Why had we jumped to the conclusion that someone had killed him?

I voiced that thought to Ingrid, who had returned to her Nordic princess coolness and summoned the Hartford Police via the department’s non-emergency number. No sense complicating the commuter traffic with unnecessary emergency vehicles, she reasoned. For once,
Girouard
would wait without making a fuss.

“Alain wasn’t the type to have a stroke or a heart attack,” she said, replacing the telephone receiver carefully. “He gave those to other people.” She gazed thoughtfully into space above my head. “You know, beyond the initial shock of finding him like this, I’m not all that surprised that Alain is dead. He used women and threw them away, and some of them were already attached to other men. Sooner or later, somebody was going to do him in. It was just a matter of when and where.”

Having known the man only by
reputation,
and that for a mere two weeks, I had to take Ingrid’s word for it. Still, from what I had heard about him, I tended to agree with her. Alain
Girouard
had been a cad. But murder?

As we waited for the police to arrive, Ingrid called down to the security desk to alert the guards to their arrival. Then she dialed Harold Karp’s home telephone number.

“I hope I can catch Karp before he leaves home,” she said as she waited for him to pick up. “I don’t have his cell phone number, and I’d hate to have him be surprised by all of this when he gets here.”

In another couple of seconds, Karp answered.

“Mr. Karp?
Ingrid
Torvaldson
calling.
I’m here at the office. We have a situation here that’s going to be a shock to you, I’m afraid, but I felt that you should know at once.” She took a deep breath and let it out. “I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but Alain
Girouard
was found in his office a few minutes ago. He’s dead.”

Five

Later in the morning
Quentina
Barber, BGB’s receptionist, called to say that my presence was requested by Detective
Leilani
Diaz in one of the thirty-eighth-floor offices the firm maintained for visiting lawyers and their clients. I had already been questioned briefly by the Hartford police officers who had been first to arrive on the scene. They had taken my name and telephone extension and allowed me to return to my workstation. They also had warned me not to leave the building and to expect such a summons from the investigating detectives.

Leilani
Diaz was not what I expected. For openers, how many Latinas do you know named
Leilani
? Simply but stylishly outfitted in a well-cut suit, the skirt of which flared flatteringly at the top of smart, low-heeled pumps, the forty-something policewoman exhibited nothing of the hard nose or chip on her shoulder I would have expected from a woman who was scrambling to make it in a man’s world. Thanks perhaps to the precedents set by Cagney and Lacey, or more recently by Diane Russell and Jill
Kirkendahl
, the lady detective had come into her own in the testosterone-heavy landscape of police work. At any rate,
Leilani
Diaz seemed right at home in the role.

Clasping my hand briefly in greeting, she ushered me into the visitor’s office that she and her partner, a morose young officer Diaz introduced as Sergeant Donovan, had appropriated in which to conduct their initial interviews. I sat warily in the visitor’s chair indicated. Instead of returning to the chair behind the desk, Diaz took the second visitor’s seat beside
me,
a gesture no doubt intended to put me more at ease. That left Donovan to assume the power chair, which he wisely decided would be inappropriate. Instead, he opted to hold up the wall while he took notes in a pocket-sized, spiral pad that had probably been issued to him with the navy blazer and gray slacks that seemed to be the uniform of the plain clothes policemen who had swarmed through the office following Ingrid’s call, judging from its state of dog-eared dilapidation.

Despite Diaz’ efforts and my total blamelessness in this situation, I was dismayed to find my mouth dry and my hands clammy at the prospect of being interrogated.

“I am sure this has all been very distressing for you,” Diaz began civilly enough, “but I hope you will be able to clear up one or two things for us.” She paused to give me an opportunity to volunteer anything I might feel inclined to get off my chest.

I cleared my throat in an effort to work up some saliva. “Actually, it’s been more unbelievable than upsetting so far,” I replied, returning her gaze as levelly as possible.
Never let ‘
em
see
you sweat.

“I understand. Perhaps you could just take us through the events of this morning, starting from the time you entered the building. What time was that, by the way?”

The seemingly innocent question caught me off guard, and my knees, which I quickly pressed together, began to tremble. It was a perfectly reasonable place to start, I knew, and one that should not have given me any difficulty. Unfortunately, I was guilty, not of murder, no, but of a bit of chronic tomfoolery that was about to put me in the jackpot.

I have always been a selective rule follower. While I completely understand the need for many regulations, following rules that I find irksome and unnecessary is not something I do willingly. Between BGB’s management and the administrators of the Metro Building, there are rafts of such rules. Now and again, when the rebellious spirit overtakes me, I find some harmless but satisfying way to fly under the radar.

Building security is obviously a serious issue these days. However, this is an area in which I find the rules particularly galling because they are generally so spottily enforced, they have no point. In the Metro Building, anyone reporting to work before 7:00 a.m. must sign in, writing his or her name, office location, security badge number, and time of arrival in the log book at the guards’ desk in the first floor lobby. A select few, such as Harold Karp, had special keys for the elevators and office security doors that allowed them to ascend directly to the floors occupied by their firms, but everyone else had to participate in this annoying ritual. Instead of penalizing early arrivals in this way, why not simply require us to display our badges?

I had been issued a temporary security badge on my first day at BGB and could probably find it, if I had to, but I have never been asked to display it and do not know its number. So the first time I arrived at work before 7:00 a.m. and was confronted by the sign-in book, I looked at the bored young guard slouched behind the security desk, totally disinterested in me or my destination, and decided to amuse myself.

That first morning I signed in as Scarlett O’Hara, but on subsequent occasions I have dubbed myself Jacqueline
Bissett
,
Andie
McDowell, and even Sally Field. I followed each entry with a badge number a few digits different from any other BGB badge number I spied in the log, and without exception, I have been permitted to proceed to the elevator lobby without incident, proving to myself how deserving of scorn such procedures are when not consistently enforced or at least spot-checked.
 
After all, I have never been asked to sign out at the end of such a day, so how does the security staff know that Scarlett,
Andie
and Sally aren’t still in the building somewhere plotting mayhem?

All of which would have continued to be my little secret, of course, except that my last such fictitious entry had been made that very morning, when according to building security’s log book Lena Horne took the elevator up to BGB’s offices at 6:54. Under the circumstances, what could I do? Implicate myself for murder by giving up evidence that I had fraudulently entered BGB’s office in good time to serve one of the senior
partners
poisoned coffee? So I lied.

“Uh, just a little after 7:00, as I recall,” I answered Diaz’ question and waited for lightning to strike me dead. “I remember, because I looked at my watch as I was coming through the door to see if I was going to have to sign in. You have to sign a log book in the lobby if you enter the building before 7:00,” I embellished helpfully.

Sergeant Donovan made a note in his official notebook, and Detective Diaz nodded. “Do you remember seeing anybody else in the lobby?”

Oh, no. Somebody else Diaz had already questioned must have seen me come in before 7:00 and sign the book, I inferred wildly, until I remembered the scene in the lobby that morning. No one else had been there, just me and the young black guard, Charles something, according to his nametag. He had slouched in his chair as usual, picking at a stray thread on his uniform jacket. Otherwise, the lobby had been utterly deserted. No one could have witnessed my silly game at the counter. Diaz was merely covering the bases, hoping to find out who else might have arrived at BGB earlier than usual this morning. The slamming of my heart slowed perceptibly, and I attempted a facial expression more thoughtful than guilty.

“No-o, I can’t say that I do. No one but the guard, of course,” I offered with what I hoped was interpreted as an earnest desire to be thorough. Again, Donovan made a note, and Diaz nodded.

“Do you always get here so early? I was under the impression that BGB office hours begin at 9:00 a.m.”

In my uncomfortable state of mind, Diaz seemed to be harping on the point. What did she care what hours I worked? Why did it matter so much to her? I had no involvement with Alain
Girouard
. I barely recognized the man on sight.

“Well, I haven’t been at BGB very long,” I replied carefully. “I’m here on a temporary assignment. This is different work than I’ve done for a very long time, and law is an entirely new field to me, so there’s a lot to learn. I find that I can get a lot accomplished in the morning before the phones start ringing—now that I’m one of the people who
has
to answer them,” I added with a chuckle, trying for levity.
Donovan wrote, Diaz nodded.
I sighed.

“When you say this is different work for you, do you mean that you haven’t always been a secretary?” Diaz asked.

“Administrative assistant,” I corrected,
then
shrugged apologetically. “It’s the politically correct term these days, sort of like using the term Latino instead of Hispanic, you know,” I blithered, unable to stop the spate of words. Oh my God, who was this fool coming out of my mouth? Diaz raised her eyebrow a millimeter or two but mercifully kept her thoughts to herself.