Armed (17 page)

“No. Nothing someone would want badly enough to kill for.”

“Let’s forget about the MS thing for now,” Sam said. “We need to find some way of confirming that with her doctor before we go any further. So getting back to what Mrs. Haddock said about someone watching, if they stalked her at home, how come they killed her at the office?”

“Good point. I wondered about that myself.” I pulled a small notebook from my purse and wrote
opportunity
.

I needed a system for keeping all my information together. I needed a plan. Winston had had a plan. A great plan. His plan saved the world. I only needed a plan to save Mr. Poupée so I figured using a notebook to sort everything out just might work. “The only thing I can come up with is opportunity.”

“What do you mean?”

“Killing her at the factory couldn’t be opportunistic for a stranger on such cold night, in a place pretty much out in the middle of nowhere, and at a time early enough in the evening that other employees could have still been at work. But it was certainly opportunistic for an employee.”

“Right. And being an employee, the killer would know Mrs. Scott’s routine. This kind of kills your theory on it being a serial killer.”

“That’s okay. I really didn’t think that anyway. No one else has been killed.”

“Yet.”

“Yet. Sam, I was the last person in the office. Not Mrs. Scott,” I said softly. I sat bolt upright and suddenly felt very cold despite my sweater and the heat that seemed to be in ample supply throughout the office. I had been the last one. Did this mean the killer planned to come after me thinking I’d seen something?

“I think you’d better talk to that detective,” Sam said, “because if you were the last person in the building and the killer thinks you saw something, you very well may be in danger. And you need to show him the note you found in Mrs. Scott’s house. He can confirm the MS with her doctor.”

“I know you’re right but Detective Van der Burg’s not happy I’m here. Thinking I may be next in line on the killer’s list will give him an excuse to have me totally out of it. Or worse still, he’ll think I’m making it all up to cover the fact I killed her. That damned shovel.”

“That might not be a bad idea.”

Sam had a point but I felt like I had too much invested already to let it go. “I’ll be fine.” I started to tell Samantha about my visit to see Dolly when Joanne walked in.

“Oh. You’re here,” Joanne said, not bothering to conceal her disappointment.

“I’ve got to go. I have someone in my office.”

“Your office? You’ve certainly made yourself at home,” Joanne snapped, one eye boring into me and the other looking toward the sofa.

“Can I do something for you?” I asked impatiently.

“No. I wanted to work in here today, but never mind.” Joanne turned and stalked across the hall to her own office.

“You know, Joanne,” I said as I followed her. “I’m just here helping out. Why are you being so hostile?”

“Why? Because that job should be mine.” She waved her hand indicating Mrs. Scott’s office. “Damn, I’ve worked hard for that job. I’m good at it.”

“So was Mrs. Scott. And besides,” I added, “I didn’t know the job was up for grabs.”

Joanne tossed a file on her desk. “Yeah, well. Now that she’s gone, it’s only natural I should be sitting in there.”

“Maybe you will. Mrs. Scott hasn’t even been dead a week. I’d think you’d have a little more compassion for the situation and for the memory of a fellow worker.”

“Yeah, well, excuse me if I’m not sympathetic,” Joanne started.

“I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but your behavior could be construed as wanting Mrs. Scott out so badly you resorted to murder. Personally, I can’t fathom someone killing another human being over a job, but you’re certainly giving me food for thought.”

Joanne paused, walked around her desk, and sat down. “Look, Mitch and I have big plans. There’s nothing wrong with having ambition. He’s sick of designing dolls, for Christ sake. He’s got a lot of talent and we want to start our own business. But it’s going to take a lot more time to save up enough money to get started.”

I shook my head in disgust and headed back across the hall. Joanne, still talking, followed. “Do you know how much they paid Elvira?”

I shook my head.

“A lot. A hell of a lot more than I get. I’ll tell you one thing, that job better be mine or I’m gone and so is Mitch.”

I didn’t know what to say. In all my years of interviewing people I had never come across a Joanne before. One thing I did know—if I
did have
anything to say about it, the office, the job, none of it would go to Joanne, no matter what her qualifications. I walked around the young woman and out the door in search of another meeting with Monica.

The order center was empty except for Monica who sat at her desk amid a mound of candy wrappers. Judging by the assortment of wrappers she showed no discrimination in her choice of junk food. A half-eaten bag of potato chips propped up against the side of the computer monitor tempted me. I love potato chips. Sometimes more than M&M’s. Sometimes more than life, so it took all the strength I could muster to keep from reaching across her and grabbing the bag.

“I wanted to ask a few more questions.”

“If it’s about the fingerprints, I already spoke with Detective Van der Burg yesterday afternoon,” Monica volunteered.

“Fingerprints?” I froze as a chill began to spread over my body. “Your fingerprints were found on the murder weapon?” I pushed the chair a few feet back from Monica while I quickly looked around to see if she had another mannequin arm hidden somewhere.

Monica stared at me. “No. Of course not. They found my prints on some papers Elvira had.”

I gave an audible sigh. “That must be the computer printout. But no. I want to know why you lied to me.”

Monica’s face flushed and she turned back to her terminal “What are you talking about?” Her fingers pounded the keys while white data flashed across the blue screen.

“You told me you didn’t know Mrs. Scott well, but you had coffee with her several times at the restaurant down the road. And now your prints show up on something she had in her purse.” I waited for Monica to answer but she didn’t say anything. “Well?”

Monica stopped typing. “She wanted me to print some stuff. Those papers. So she asked me to meet her at the coffee shop after work.”

“Why couldn’t she ask you here?”

Monica shrugged and pushed an errant piece of hair out of her face. “I don’t know. She called one afternoon and said she had something to discuss in private.”

“When was this?”

“About six, seven weeks ago.”

“Didn’t you think it a bit odd?”

“Yeah. I did, but I thought maybe it might have to do with a performance review or something.”

“Surely Sandy would have been in on something like that.”

“Probably, but Elvira said she wanted to see me so I went.”

“And?”

Monica sounded exasperated. “We met in the restaurant and she started asking me about the new system and what it can do and what kind of reports it can produce. She asked if I could print out certain data for the past two years but not to let anyone else know.” Monica again pushed a strand of the copper hair over her ear and scratched the tip of her nose. “So I printed what she wanted and a few days later we met and I gave it to her.”

“You didn’t ask any questions?”

Monica shook her head. “No. Look, she asked. She never said what she needed it for. Maybe Mr. Poupée wanted it.”

“Did you tell anyone else? Did you mention it to Sandy?”

“No. She said not to so I didn’t.”

“Why did you lie?”

I had no authority whatsoever and Monica had no reason to tell me anything she didn’t want to tell me, especially when I barged in accusing her of being a liar. But then the young woman shrugged, the shoulders of her baggy sweater drooping down her arms.

“I don’t know. I didn’t want to get involved. It happened over a month ago. I never put the two things together—Elvira’s murder and the printout. Now the police are asking about it” Monica leaned forward in her seat and looked me straight in the eye. “They found it in her purse, which I guess is kind of strange, don’t you think?”

“Yes, I guess. Of course, it’s odd how she asked you to print them up in the first place.” I shook my head and leaned back in my seat.

“They were just figures. Maybe Elvira did a lot of work at home,” Monica speculated.

“I think Mrs. Scott planned on getting some training on the new system. Do you think she wanted to check it out so she’d have a feel for it when her training started?”

Monica scrunched up her face. “Makes sense. She always struck me as someone on top of things.”

I thought a second and shook my head. “Probably not. It’s all too clandestine if she just wanted to check things out. She’d have no reason to be so secretive. So why ask for a printout of a specific time frame? No, she wanted something specific.” I groaned. “Unfortunately I have no idea as to what it could have been.”

Things were getting complicated. Instead of solving anything, I managed to add a few more questions to my list. And from what Monica told me, despite the fact Mrs. Scott may have been sick, it still seemed something at work caused her trouble. I headed back to my temporary office. I needed to pull out my notebook and take a serious look at all the stuff I had found out so far and put it into some sort of order.

“Well, if it isn’t Nancy Drew. Ron, have you met our company spy?” Mitch Monahan said as I approached the office.

“I’m not a spy.” Somehow I managed to keep the annoyance out of my voice—but just barely.

“Ron’s the other designer,” Mitch explained.

I extended my hand to Ron. “It’s very nice to meet you.”

“Ron, I can take these out to the factory for you,” Mitch offered, taking a large envelope from Ron’s other hand.

“Okay. Nice to meet you, too, Alex.” Ron turned and headed back to his office.

Mitch opened the door to the factory. “Want to walk with me?”

We entered the factory and I averted my eyes from the spot police tape now marked off. I hadn’t been out here since that night and the sight of the chalk markings on the floor startled me.

I followed Mitch to a small copier I hadn’t noticed before. He made a copy of one of the papers in the envelope and then turned to me.

“I’ll show you around.” He gestured to the cavernous space housing the manufacturing part of Poupée.

“I talked with Joanne. So you two are dating. Why didn’t you say anything?”

Mitch paused and looked at me. “I didn’t see where it had any connection with the investigation. It’s not a secret. Everyone here is aware of it as far as I know.”

“Fair enough. Though a few things you said and a few she said don’t make a lot of sense.”

“Such as?” Mitch asked, as we walked slowly along a pathway that had been set up away from all the machinery.

“Well, I got the impression you liked your job and Mrs. Scott,” I said over the noise from the machines. “And you liked working here, but that’s not how Joanne presented it. She didn’t like Mrs. Scott one little bit. You failed to mention that yesterday.”

Mitch bent close to my ear. “In general, yeah, I like it here. I didn’t think it would do me any good if it got around that I planned to leave and start something on my own. Especially since that probably won’t happen for some time. As for Joanne, I knew once you talked with her, you’d figure out for yourself about her feelings for Elvira.”

I leaned close to Mitch. “You didn’t have any problem pointing the finger at Emmanuelle.”

Mitch gave me a sheepish look but didn’t say anything.

We kept walking around the perimeter of the factory and as we neared some glass-enclosed offices, I could see through the window that Jerry and Richard Sheridan were having a discussion—a heated one, by the looks of it. Unfortunately I couldn’t hear a thing.

“This is the assembly area,” Mitch said. “We make the plastic pieces ourselves, but the metal joints for the arms and legs and the heads are made somewhere else. We do the assembly here. The eyes and hair are made elsewhere as well. Over there,” he pointed to the far right, “is where the painting is done. On the older models, the eyes are still hand painted. I don’t know how much longer we’ll be doing that model. The new sculptured look and the ones with the changeable eyes are the thing now. Over there along that wall are the offices for the foreman and the purchasing agent.” He gestured to the left. “There’s the break area. That about does it. The shipping area is in the very back.” Hold on a minute, I just have to drop these prints off.”

Mitch walked to one of the small offices a few doors down from where the two men talked and put the envelope on a desk. A few minutes later we returned to the offices.

Joanne poked her head out the doorway just as I turned into my office. “Mitch. Can I talk with you for a minute?”

“Sure. Nice to see you again, Alex.” He smiled at me, walked into Joanne’s office, and closed the door.

I reached in my purse for the notebook anxious to write down that Jerry and Richard were having a fight, when the phone made me jump.

“Alex, it’s Dad,” my father, Harry Harris, said. “I need you to run over to Mills Pond.”

“What’s going on?” I asked as panic crept into my voice. My ninety-two-year old grandfather, my Dad’s father, had recently moved into a care home after living for several years with my uncle Jack and his wife.

“Your mom is volunteering at the hospital today and I still have a bit of my cold. The home discourages people from coming if they have a cold. Guess they don’t want forty-five seniors running around with drippy noses.”

“Dad, what happened to Grandpa?”

“He took off into the woods behind the home and they need someone to coax him out. That’s all I know.”

“It’s okay. I can run over.” I hung up the phone, threw the notebook back in my purse, and ran out the building.