Stabbing Stephanie (25 page)

Mel glanced at the knife and returned to his packing.

Winky let out another cry and now led Jane to the back left corner of the room, where there stood a steel utility table on which sat a postal meter and scale. The table was a good six inches from the wall, and Winky walked around to the table's side and peered intently into this space. Then she stepped back.

“What's in there, Wink? A mouse?” Jane peered into the dim space. Something dark and rounded appeared to have fallen behind the table and sat suspended between it and the wall. Reaching in, Jane was just able to grab its edge and pull it out.

Looking down at the object in her hands, she felt a mild chill run through her. It was Stephanie's black leather Coach handbag. She turned. “Mel?” When he glanced up and grunted, she held up the bag. “This was back here behind the mailing table. Any idea how it got there?”

He looked at her as if she were insane. “How the hell should I know?”

Again she regarded the bag, and was suddenly overcome by a vague sense of dread.

Winky was wandering around the mail room.

“Get him out of here,” Mel grumbled.

“Come on, Winky,” Jane said absently, Stephanie's bag clutched at her side. Winky fell into step at Jane's feet.

When Jane had nearly reached the door to the hallway, she noticed a door open on her right and heard the sound of running water. Looking in, she saw Norma, the cleaning lady, in what appeared to be a large utility closet. She stood hunched over the sink, rinsing out the head of a mop.

Something caught Jane's eye. Just inside the closet, on a small shelf, lay a copy of the
Romantic Times
that contained Jane's photo from the Romance Authors Together convention. Instantly Jane grabbed it, tucked it firmly under her arm, and returned with Winky to her desk.

“What was it?” Sam asked.

“A mouse.” Jane laughed. “Her weakness.”

“Great, the offices are infested.” He shook his head. “Thank you, Puffy Chapin.”

Jane stuffed the magazine and Stephanie's handbag into her bottom drawer with her own bag.

“Sam, when Stephanie ran out this morning, did she have her purse?”

He scowled at her. “How should I know?”

“You saw her.”

He thought for a moment. “Yeah, she had it. She was in that awful mink coat and she had her bag. I remember because as she was leaving, she opened it and pulled out some tissues, because she was crying.”

Down the hall, the mail room door opened and Norma emerged, pulling a large wheeled bucket of soapy water with the mop standing in it. She made her way down the corridor and stopped suddenly at Sam's desk.

“Sam,” she said in a heavily accented voice, pronouncing his name
Sahm,
“you seen my magazine book?”

“Garbo speaks!” Sam cried.

Norma glared at him, his joke lost on her, waiting. “You seen?” she asked again, her tone impatient. “Loving magazine.”

“A loving magazine, eh, Norma?” Sam's eyes danced with mischief. “Have you been smuggling those copies of
Playgirl
into the office again, you naughty little girl?”

Understanding that she was getting nowhere, Norma gave an aggravated shrug, took up her bucket, and continued down the hall.

“Animal!” Sam cried after her.

Jane's phone rang. It was Daniel. “Jane, I'm sorry to bother you, but Patsy Frank at St. Martin's wants to put a floor on
The Blue Palindrome
and needs to speak with you. Can you go somewhere and call her back?”

“Sure, Mother, that's fine. No problem,” Jane said, and hung up.

She opened her bottom drawer, took out her bag, and went to the ladies' room. Locking herself in a stall, she rummaged in her bag for her cell phone and called Patsy. The floor she offered was far too low to consider. When Jane told her this, she laughed in embarrassment and said she guessed she'd wait for the auction, then.

When Jane returned to her desk, Sam was gone. He appeared a few minutes later. “Had to take some letters to the mail room,” he told her. She nodded, idly wondering why he'd volunteered this information.

A moment later Winky was back, and this time the mew she let out was one Jane recognized clearly as a cry of hunger. Jane peered over the edge of her desk at the food bowl. It was empty. Jane had filled it with all the food she'd brought. Then she remembered some kitty treats she always carried with her. Her bag was still on top of her desk, and she opened it and gave Winky three of the treats. Then she opened her bottom drawer to put away her bag.

She blinked. Stephanie's bag and the copy of
Romantic Times
were gone. In their place was a sheet of lined white paper, folded in half. She opened it. A message was scrawled slantingly across it in ballpoint:

A
violent chill shook Jane. Something had happened to Stephanie—there could be no doubt about that now—and this note had obviously been written by whoever had done whatever had been done to her . . . by someone in this office, someone who thought Jane's name really was Lana. But if the person who had written the note was the same person who had taken the
Romantic Times,
wouldn't he or she have seen Jane's photo and therefore known Jane's real name? Maybe the thief hadn't looked at the magazine yet when he wrote the note. Then again, even if he had, he would have had no way of knowing that Stephanie knew Jane's real name. It was all quite bizarre.

“Love note?”

Jane jumped, frantically folding up the note.

Sam sat gazing at her, grinning. When he saw her face, his grin vanished. “You look
awful
. Are you okay?”

“Feeling queasy,” she said, rising. “Maybe what I had for lunch. Excuse me.”

Taking up her bag, she returned to the ladies' room and called Stanley Greenberg on her cell phone. In a low voice she told him what had happened—Stephanie's bag stuffed behind the mailing table, the bag and the magazine disappearing, the strange note.

“Of course you're not going to meet whoever wrote that,” Greenberg said. “That's the kind of thing stupid heroines do in the Gothic romances you sell.” He laughed, much amused by his own remark.

“Funny. I haven't sold a Gothic in decades. Stanley, I have to do this. Whoever wrote that note has done something to Stephanie. The only way to find out who it is and what he's done is to play along. You know that.”

“Jane, you're crazy to play with fire like this. I know you too well to think I can talk you out of doing something you've set your mind on, but you've got to let me be present as well, for your protection.”

“No way,” she scoffed. “That would ruin the whole thing. I will, however, let you stand by.”

“ ‘Stand by'?”

“Yes, hide nearby in case I need you. That should satisfy you.”

He laughed ruefully. “And keep you alive. All right. How should we do this?”

“Meet me in the parking lot behind this building at five o'clock. It will be pretty dark by then, but you should still keep out of sight. At the end of the parking lot—the end closer to Grange Road—there's a little clump of woods. Wait for me in there.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“Stanley,” she said in a fierce whisper, “this isn't funny! I think something awful has happened.”

“All right, all right,” he said placatingly. “Sorry. I'll be in the tree clump at five.”

“Good. Thank you. And don't come in your patrol car.”

“You must think I'm pretty stupid. Besides, the police station is across the street. I'll walk over.”

“Just making sure.”

She switched off her phone and returned to her desk.

“Feeling better?” Sam asked, eyeing her suspiciously.

“Much, thanks.”

Distracted by her thoughts, a sickening tingle of fear in her stomach, Jane returned her attention to her work, trying to maintain a semblance of normalcy. At one point Faith's door opened a crack, Faith peered out, and the door shut again.

Jane's phone rang. She jumped, then glanced over at Sam and was glad to see he hadn't been looking. It was Daniel again. “Jane, Patsy called again about a floor. She's changed her mind. She'll go higher, but she wants to talk to you.”

“I can't talk to her,” Jane mumbled into the phone. “Call her back and tell her to stop dicking around. I want her best floor offer, and she has to relay it through you. I'll let you know if we'll accept it or not—after I run it past Nat Barre.”

“All right,” Daniel said slowly. “Is something wrong? You sound funny.”

“No, I'm fine. This is a strange place, that's all.” Why should she worry him, too?

“Okay. I'll get back to you.”

She hung up and shot a glance at Sam. He was staring at her, holding his right elbow in his left hand, chewing pensively on the end of his thumb. “My, my, you
are
a fast learner.”

“What do you mean?”

“Who were you talking to?”

“None of your business.”

He leaned closer to her. “But that's just it. This
is
my business. My mother's business. Same thing . . . all in the family. So what's up? Something about a ‘floor offer'? Sounds like a book auction to me.”

“It's still none of your business, but if you must know, I'm advising an agent friend of mine. Jane Stuart, the agent here in town I used to work for. It's from her that I know as much as I do about publishing. We're quite close.”

“I see . . . Mumsy says she doesn't know this Stuart woman. Apparently, she was at the little party Puffy gave for Mumsy and Gavin, but we didn't meet her—or at least I don't recall meeting her. Was she there?”

“I don't know,” Jane said matter-of-factly. “I didn't see her there. But there were so many people.”

“Mumsy says she's supposed to be a bitch on wheels.”

She should talk, Jane thought, and just smiled. She checked her watch: 4:40. “I'm going to take Winky home. I think she needs some rest.”

“In her condition.”

“Right. I'll be back, though. I'm going to stay late and get that filing done.”

She found Winky, placed her in the carrier, and gathered up the rest of her things.

Sam was still watching her as she took her coat from the closet and left the office.

 

 

By the time she had dropped Winky and all her paraphernalia at home, driven back down into the village, parked in the municipal lot, and hurried along Packer to the alley beside the office building, it was only a couple of minutes to five.

Reaching the back of the building, she walked the length of the parking lot, already half emptied of cars, to the clump of trees at the far end.

“Stanley?” she whispered hoarsely into the darkness.

He stepped from the shadows. “Who else?”

“Good,” she said briskly. “Come with me.”

After checking first to make sure there was no one in the building's rear lobby, she led him inside. “We need a place to hide you,” she mused, looking around. To the right a narrow passage led off the lobby, and in this passage was one door. Jane opened it. Inside, stairs led upward. “This will work.”

“The utility stairs?”

“It doesn't matter, as long as you're out of sight.”

“How can I possibly help you from down here?”

“Where's your cell phone?”

“Right here in my pocket.” He took it out and looked at her strangely.

“Good. All you have to do is keep it switched on. If I need you, I'll call.”

“But—” he began, but she closed the door on him.

She took the elevator upstairs and found Sam getting into his coat. “Care to join me for dinner before you burn that midnight oil?”

“Thanks, Sam.” She smiled, shook her head. “Maybe another night.”

“Happy filing!” he said, and left.

She busied herself at her desk. There actually was some filing to do, so she worked on that for a while, and during this time Mel, Norma, and Kate left the office, wishing her a good night. At 5:15 Faith came out of her office, ignoring Jane, and left. Gavin left shortly thereafter, wishing Jane a pleasant evening. It occurred to Jane that no one except Sam seemed to have noticed that Stephanie had never come back.

Once everyone was gone, Jane sat at her desk, tidying, her heart beginning to thud.
Now what?
she asked herself. Perhaps the note had been simply a hoax, a practical joke.

Her cell phone rang and she let out a cry of surprise, her heart pounding even harder, faster. She grabbed the phone from her bag.

“So what's up?” Greenberg asked.

“Nothing yet,” she whispered. “Everybody's left.”

Then she heard it. The dry squeak of a door slowly opening. A shiver of fear crept up her spine. “It seems
someone's
still here,” she told Greenberg.

“But who—”

She severed the connection and put the phone back in her bag.

Then all the lights in the office went out.

S
he sat in pitch-blackness, her gaze darting about but discerning nothing. She held her hands before her face and couldn't see them, it was that dark.

A giddy thrill of hysteria rose in her chest and she wanted to scream but didn't dare. Nor did she dare grope for her bag to call Greenberg back, because whoever had turned off the lights could be anywhere—Jane had no idea where the switches were—and if he didn't know where Jane was, she wasn't about to let him know. She sat absolutely still.

She heard a footstep, soft, careful; then another, and another. The darkness was disorienting, but the footsteps seemed to be coming closer . . . coming down the corridor toward her. Whoever it was couldn't have been more than a few yards away.

Barely able to keep from screaming, she rose slowly from her chair, felt her way around her desk, and walked slowly toward the door to the reception area. For all she knew, she was crossing inches in front of whoever was coming down the hall, but she made it safely through the open doorway and continued walking across the reception area toward the door to the outer corridor.

She heard a single footstep, another. They were turning; whoever was stalking her in this darkness knew she had moved. She reached the door of the reception room and madly turned the knob. It held fast, as if someone was pulling it from the other side. With all her strength she yanked it open, screamed “Stanley!” and ran straight into a man's hard chest.

She shrieked.

“Jane, it's me, Stanley!”

“Oh, Stanley,” she gasped, “there's someone in there. He turned off all the lights . . . He was coming after me.”

Greenberg flipped a switch just inside the door and the office's fluorescent lights burst brightly to life. The reception room was empty.

“He must be inside,” she said.

“Stay behind me.”

She followed him closely as he moved through the suite, checking every room.

“Nobody,” he said.

“But there was.”

He gave her a pitying look. “Jane, everybody left except you.”

“Someone could have come through the reception room,” she pointed out. “The door wasn't locked.”

“Don't think so. The elevator hasn't moved, and no one used the stairs—except me.”

At that moment, from somewhere outside the building, came the sound of a woman's hoarse screams.

“What on earth—” Greenberg said, heading back toward the reception room.

They hurried out and down the utility stairs.

Emerging from the building, they realized the screams were coming from the left, in the vicinity of the drive where Jane had seen Ivor. She and Greenberg ran in that direction. Turning, they saw a figure huddled in front of the Dumpster. Approaching, Jane realized it was Norma, the cleaning lady. She was crying, nearly hysterical.

“Norma—” She put her arm around the old woman, who shook in her gray cloth raincoat. Her face was twisted in horror. “Norma, what's the matter?”

The old woman stuck her hands into her teased hair. Then she pointed at the Dumpster, and Jane now saw that the door in its front, a square metal trap that allowed easier access, stood open. Greenberg gently pushed Jane aside and looked in. “Oh God . . .” he groaned. He withdrew himself from the hatch. “Jane, don't look.”

“What . . . ?” she said, searching his eyes. “What is it?”

“Don't look at it, Jane. It's—it's Stephanie.”

She couldn't help herself. Before he could stop her, she peered into the hole.

The smell was overpowering, a smell of rot and decay. She clamped her hand over her mouth and nose but continued to scan the contents of the Dumpster—mostly green garbage bags, one on top of another, in the ghostly glow of one of the parking lot's sparse lights.

Then she saw it. An arm, the palest white, poking from a dark mink sleeve. Stephanie lay facedown across the garbage bags, as if she'd opened the Dumpster's front door and dived in. From the center of her back protruded the large hilt of what appeared to be a kitchen knife.

Jane began to shake. “Oh my God,” she said in a whisper, drawing back from the horrible sight. “Stanley . . .” She leaned toward him and he put his arms around her, but she couldn't stop shaking. “Who would do this?”

As if not hearing her, he addressed Norma. “What were you doing in there?”

Jane turned to look at the old woman.

“Doing?” she repeated, not understanding.

“Why were you in the Dumpster?” he asked, pointing.

“Looking!” she said. “Looking my loving magazine. Maybe throw away!”

Greenberg looked thoroughly baffled.

“I know what she's saying,” Jane said. “In the office, I took—she lost her copy of
Romantic Times
. She thought it might have been thrown out by mistake.”

He nodded, though his expression made it clear he thought this quite strange.

“I am police,” he told Norma, enunciating clearly. “Po-
lice
. I need you to come with me.” He turned to Jane. “I'll take her across the street. You should go home, Jane. There's nothing you can do here. Do you want a ride?”

“No,” she said, as if in a daze. “My car is just over there, in the municipal lot.”

“All right.” He was watching her, concern on his face. He took out his cell phone and called the station, told Buzzi what he'd found and to send the appropriate people over.

Jane started along the alley toward Packer Road.

Then Norma began to scream again, and Jane jumped, spinning around. Now the elderly woman was pointing to something under the bushes not far from the Dumpster. Jane and Greenberg hurried over to look.

It was Ivor, lying on his side, his face twisted as if in pain.

“Another!” Norma screamed. “Dead! This is crazy place!”

Greenberg knelt and checked his vital signs. Then he rose, shaking his head. “He's been dead for some time. Looks like he finally drank himself to death.”

Jane gazed down at the pathetic sight. The poor old man. Though she felt dizzy, as if she might faint, a thought registered: For the first time since she'd met Ivor, there wasn't a bottle in sight.

Somehow she got to her car and drove home through the dark hills like a zombie.

When she entered the bright kitchen through the door from the garage and saw Florence's bright smile, she burst into tears.

“Missus!” Florence rushed up to her and took her in her arms. “What is it, missus?”

She told Florence about Stephanie.

Florence's hands flew to her mouth. “Murdered . . .”

Then Jane told her about the coincidence of finding Ivor dead not six feet from Stephanie.

“So sad,” Florence said. “Poor man. But murder! First Una, now Stephanie. Who would do this?”

Jane shook her head. What had Stephanie found out, and about whom? Who had chased Jane through the office? The same person who had killed Una and Stephanie? Had the same person killed both women? It was a nightmare.

“What is going on in this town?” Florence wondered aloud, as if reading Jane's thoughts.

“Mom,” came Nick's voice from the family room.

Quickly Jane wiped her eyes. She shook her head quickly, signaling they mustn't tell him what had happened to Stephanie. Florence nodded her understanding, and Jane put on a cheerful smile as she turned to greet her son.