Spying in High Heels (7 page)

I decided to start back at the beginning. The last place I'd seen Richard. His office.

Unfortunately, I knew it was going to require some serious maneuvering on my part to get past Jasmine again. My brilliant plan? Wait until she went on break.

At exactly 12:03, I had my little red Jeep parked across the street from the offices of Dewy, Cheatum and Howe as Jasmine wiggled her miniskirt-covered behind out the doors and off to her lunch.

I jumped out of the Jeep, stuffed a couple quarters in the meter and sprinted across the street. In no time at all I was walking through the front doors and across the padded carpeting to the reception desk, manned by Jasmine's noontime replacement Althea, a first-year clerk with a pronounced overbite.

"Good morning, Althea," I said briskly, laying my little Kate Spade on the counter.

Althea mumbled an indistinguishable greeting while trying to avoid eye contact. She had on a blue-gray cardigan that was stretched out in places, giving her five-foot, 150-pound frame the shape of a ripe tomato. Her frizzy blond hair (and not a Clairol Spun Gold, but natural dirty blond) was scooped back on one side with a tortoiseshell barrette, and her big green eyes bugged out at me from behind thick lenses that made her look a little like Mr. Magoo.

"So," I continued, "I guess you've heard that Richard's on a little trip?"

Althea's face turned red. Apparently everyone knew Richard had flown the coop.

I leaned in confidentially. "Have the police been here?"

Althea nodded. "All day yesterday. They took out three boxes of files."

Damn. Ramirez was good. I wondered if I was wasting my time retracing first Richard's steps and now Ramirez's. I tried a different tactic.

"Althea, were you here when Richard left last Friday?"

"Uh huh. I was in the copy room getting photos of the Johnson brief when he came in to use the shredder."

Shredder? My heart sped up.

"Uh, you didn't see what he was shredding, did you?"

"No. But the cops took the bag of shredded paper too."

Double damn. Ramirez was
really
good.

"Did he say anything to you as he left?" I asked, grasping at straws now.

"Just that I should make sure I gave the brief to Mr. Chesterton instead of him."

"Was it Richard's case?"

"Uh huh. But he said it should go to Chesterton."

"Oh. Well, thanks, Althea. I'm, uh, just going to go grab something I think I might have left in Richard's office." I cringed. Against Jasmine that excuse wouldn't have stood a chance.

Thankfully, Althea was much more trusting. "Good luck. I'm not sure the cops left much."

I slipped through the frosted doors, the carpeted hallway muffling the sound of my heels as I mulled over what Althea had said. I was dying to know what Richard had been shredding. Maybe it was just some statement" with a credit card number on it. Richard was diligent about shredding everything that even had his e-mail address on it for fear of identity theft. But then again, it was curious timing. Ramirez had come to see him. He'd just canceled lunch with me. He shreds documents, gives away his case to another partner, then goes home, packs his bags and disappears.

For half a second my belief in Richard's innocence wavered. I had to admit, it didn't look good. It looked like the actions of a man who had something to hide.

I pushed that thought aside as I reached the door to Richard's office. With a backward glance over my shoulder to make sure Jasmine hadn't miraculously appeared behind me, I quickly slipped inside, closing the door with a quiet click.

My first thought was that a tornado had hit. The second was that Ramirez, although thorough, was a pig. Books were scattered haphazardly on the floor instead of alphabetically arranged in the bookcases. The wastebasket had been emptied and left on its side. File folders and papers littered the area around Richard's oak cabinets, and the items on his desk were askew in a way that would have had Richard flying into an OCD-like fit of straightening.

I crossed the room, stepping over a file folder and two stacks of Westlaw books, and flipped on Richard's monitor. It hummed to life, but the screen remained blank. I looked under the desk and saw, to my disappointment, that the tower was gone. Rats. Ramirez was very thorough.

Well, when technology failed, there was always the good old standby, paper files. I groaned inwardly at the sight of files strewn over every conceivable surface. I started with the piles closest to the door, which turned out to contain copies of Richard's personal accounts payable for the past six months. Boring. Though, I noticed as I looked at the figures, Richard wasn't quite raking in what I thought he was. In fact, he had six overdue slips stamped with big red "delinquent" notices across the top. Great. Add that to the growing list of things Maddie didn't know about her boyfriend. He was a compulsive spender and didn't pay his bills on time. I suddenly felt guilty for prodding him into buying me those platinum dewdrop earrings for my birthday. It was clear now that he couldn't afford them any more than I could afford a duplex in Beverly Hills.

I moved on to the next pile of files, teetering precariously beside the bookcase. Billable hours records. Dinners with clients, travel times, and phone records of every millisecond he'd spent on any given case, billed by the quarter hour at rates that made my head spin. But nothing to tell me where Richard might be now.

The pile leaning against the desk contained copies of employee files, no doubt distributed to each partner to keep tabs on the Altheas of the office. While I had a feeling they wouldn't yield anything helpful, I couldn't help my curiosity getting the better of me when I unearthed Jasmine's file. I opened it, peeking inside. Two complaints from other clerks about her personal long-distance calls on the company phone, three commendations from the senior partner (who was older than dirt, way rich, and in the middle of a messy divorce—-suspiciously Jasmine's type if you asked me), and her salary statements for the past three months. I almost laughed out loud at the paltry sum Miss PP earned answering phones and guarding the frosted door. I honestly didn't think it was possible for anyone to exist in L.A. on a salary less than mine, but the statements proved me wrong. Poor Jasmine. I almost felt sorry for her. Almost, I reminded myself, thinking of how I'd had to sneak in here like a common criminal.

Speaking of which… I looked down at my watch and realized I'd been snoop—I mean, searching for evidence (there, that sounded much less nosey) for the last twenty minutes and Jasmine would be back from lunch soon.

Closing her file, I rapidly began searching in earnest for anything that might lead me to Richard. Maybe I was having such lousy luck finding anything because I wasn't even really sure what it was I was looking for. Had there been any obvious clues, they certainly wouldn't be here now. Ramirez would have his CSI guys scanning them for fibers and fingerprints back at Good Guy headquarters. No, my only hope was that Ramirez may have overlooked something that had meaning to me because of my intimate knowledge as Richard's girlfriend. Yes, I know the chances were slim, especially considering my knowledge wasn't turning out to be all that intimate after all. In fact, give him a couple of days and Ramirez might know more about my boyfriend than I did. The thought caused a bout of nausea to roll through my stomach again.

Ten minutes later I was frantically going through Richard's desk, pulling out letter openers, fountain pens, paper clips, rubber bands, and… hello, what was that? A shiny blue piece of foil protruded from under Richard's desk-size calendar. I lifted the calendar corner and pulled out the foil.
A condom wrapper
?

I froze, one hand gripped like a vise around an empty super-ribbed Trojan packet and the other quickly balling into a fist at my side. Richard had a
condom wrapper
on his desk?

My brain went through a rapid search of possible reasons why this might be okay. It was left over from his associate days (read: pre-Maddie days)? He was representing the Trojan company in a lawsuit and had to inspect the product as possible evidence? Hormone-crazed teenagers had broken in, wanting to experience the thrill of sex in a lawyer's office?

Damn. None of these was even remotely plausible. I swallowed hard, trying to cleanse the sandpaper feeling that had suddenly formed in my mouth. My boyfriend used condoms at work. This was really not good. If I ever found Richard, I was going to kill him.

I was still staring at the offending Trojan wrapper when the telephone rang. On instinct, I picked it up.

"Hello?" Oh crap! I wasn't supposed to be here. I thought a really bad word and hoped it wasn't Jasmine checking in.

There was a pause on the other end, as if the person were as surprised I'd picked up the phone as I was. Then a tentative male voice said, "Give me Richard."

I gulped and hoped he didn't hear it. "Who, may I ask, is calling?"

Again with the pause. Only this time I heard him mumble "Shit" under his breath, obviously not pleased with my interrogation and debating whether to answer or hang up on me. Finally he decided to go with option number one, and answered in a gruff voice, "Devon Greenway. Who the fuck is this?"

Chapter Five

I froze, every muscle in my body suddenly tensing. Ohmigod. I was on the phone with a murderer!

A murderer who was looking for Richard. A knot formed in my stomach. There was no denying now that Richard was in this up to his eyeballs. Only I didn't know exactly how. A part of me screamed that this was a good thing, look what happened to people who knew! They ended up facedown in their million-dollar swimming pools.

So, trying my darnedest not to sound like a mouseketeer in front of the big bad embezzler-slash-murderer, I answered him.

"Maddie Springer."

"What're you, Richard's receptionist?"

I took personal offense to that, now knowing exactly how little his receptionist made.

"Noooo. I'm his girlfriend.

Silence. Then, "Richard never mentioned a girlfriend."

I fought down a stab of disappointment. Here I may be carrying his child and he'd never even
mentioned
me.

"You sure? Maddie Springer? Though sometimes he just refers to me as Pumpkin. That's his pet name for me. You sure he didn't mention a Pumpkin?"

I heard Greenway swallow an oath on the other end. Right. Irrelevant.

"Never mind. I guess it doesn't really matter. I just thought, you know, he might talk about me sometimes, just maybe in casual conversation. I mean, not that you and he have a lot of casual conversations; I'm sure it's all just business and you don't have any sort of personal stake in each other's lives, so I guess really there would be no reason for Richard to mention me at all—"

Greenway cut me off. "Jesus, do you ever shut up?"

I swallowed hard. I did tend to talk a lot when I was nervous. And being on the phone with men who strangled their wives, then dumped them in their swimming pools made me
very
nervous. I took a deep breath and mumbled, "Sorry."

"Put Richard on," he demanded.

"Uh…" I looked around the police-ransacked office. "Richard's not here right now."

"Where the hell is he?"

Pal, I wish I knew.

On the one hand, disappointment welled inside of me as I realized this wasn't the great break in the Where's Waldo game my life had suddenly become. On the other, if Richard was hiding out from Greenway (as the dead wife now convinced me he was), he was doing a good job of it. I halfway hoped he stayed hidden. Something about Greenway's voice had the hairs on the back of my neck standing at attention. Like he'd almost enjoy strangling someone.

"Look, Richard's girlfriend, I don't have all day. Where the fuck is Richard?"

"I don't know," I answered truthfully. "He hasn't been here since Friday."

Greenway said a few colorful words, breathing heavily into the phone.

"Can I take a message?" I squeaked out, hoping if I kept him on the phone long enough my pulse might return to normal and I could think of something clever to say.

"You mean to tell me," he smirked through the receiver, "that prick took off? Without even telling his
girlfriend
?"

I was pretty sure Greenway was being sarcastic with me now, but put like that, Richard did sound like a prick.

I thought about not answering. I certainly didn't want to help Greenway get any closer to bumping off witness number two, a.k.a. The Prick. But, since I really
didn't
know where Richard was, I figured it could hardly hurt. "That's right. He did."

"Son of a bitch." And Greenway hung up.

I stood there for a full minute, staring at the receiver, willing my heart to stop pounding like a Latin conga drummer. I took a deep breath. Then another. And another. Then began to fear I was hyperventilating and sat down in Richard's leather desk chair to think.

If I were Ramirez, I could have traced the call. I'd probably have black and whites squealing up to wherever Greenway was right now, arresting him so Richard could come out of hiding and I could pee on a stick. Unfortunately, I wasn't Ramirez. In fact, I wasn't turning out to be much good at this spy thing at all. I'd had the prime suspect in a murder investigation on the phone and I hadn't even thought to ask where he was! I thunked my head against the desk. I had no idea where to go from here.

I looked down at my watch. 12:28. Jasmine was due back from lunch any minute.

I pried myself out of the chair and willed my legs not to buckle under me. They didn't, which I took as a good sign, and I quickly slipped out the door, down the hall and into the reception area.

"You find what you needed?" Althea called to my retreating back.

"Yep. Great Thanks!" I gave a half wave as I plowed through the front doors at Flo Jo speed. 12:29.I hit the down arrow on the first bank of elevators, nervously tapping my foot as I waited. "Come on, come on," I coaxed the elevator.

Finally it arrived and I slipped inside, just as the bank of elevators to my left slid open and Jasmine exited. I put my head down and hoped she didn't look back.