“I didn’t push him, but it’s my fault. I never should have stormed in there.” Barbara dabbed her eyes again. “We all worked so hard. Heck, I worked so hard, Jo. I’m a bit old for the tech world, and I’m a woman—a black woman. And he was destroying us. How much could he be getting to steal all of those secrets?”
My guilt peaked. “There’s a possibility it wasn’t him,” I blurted out. My eyes darted to Mom to see what she thought, but her focus was on Barbara.
“Great,” Barbara said. “So now we have a mole and a murderer.”
“You said you had something for me,” Mom said.
“I didn’t want to do this,” Barbara said as she reached into her purse and pulled out a piece of a paper, “but desperate times.”
Mom took the piece of paper and stared at it. I peeked over her shoulder. It was a username and password along with one of those funky website addresses that just had numbers and dots.
“What’s this a login for?” I asked Barbara.
“It allows you to read all of my employees’ email and texts. Well, at least the ones that were sent via our network.”
“Even their personal ones?” I asked.
“If they used the company network. If they used a non-company cell phone not logged into our Wi-Fi, then we’re out of luck. Whoever was stealing secrets knows that I can do this, so I doubted they’d use our network. But maybe there’s a clue in there somewhere.”
“Did you find anything while you were looking?” Mom asked.
“I didn’t look,” she said. “It’s why I didn’t give it to you first. I didn’t want to invade my employees’ privacy. But this is murder,” she exhaled.
“You’re not tempted to read them?” Mom asked.
“I’m counting on the idea that this is all going to work out. It would be weird to have to go into the office having read all their personal emails.”
“It’s going to be a lot of emails,” I said.
“Add on whatever you think is reasonable to the catering bill under labor,” Barbara said.
“This is a good start,” Mom said. “I’m also going to need the name and number of the building management.”
“Sure,” Barbara said, grabbing her phone and writing the info down on the back of the sheet with email passwords. “My lawyer kept the police at bay saying we were arguing about trade secrets. Do you know if the police know why Rick and I were fighting?”
Mom smiled. “The police didn’t ask us anything about it.”
Barbara’s eyes grew wide. “So they might not know that I have a strong motive to kill him?”
I shot Mom a warning look. She didn’t say anything.
“We can’t hide it from the police,” I said.
Barbara’s face fell, but she said, “Of course not.”
“But,” Mom chimed in, “if we can prove someone else killed him before they get around to asking us, it might not matter.”
“That would be incredible,” Barbara said.
My anxiety shot up to a ten. We needed to be able to prove Barbara’s innocence before the police discovered her motive.
5
Experiments and Examinations
The sound of hammering in the backyard woke me up. I stumbled to the window and peered out to try and see what was going on, but couldn’t see anything.
I’d been so stressed after Barbara’s visit, I couldn’t sleep. So I’d stayed up until after four going through employees’ emails. I hadn’t found a smoking gun, but it was clear that Rick Heller was not well liked. The man barely responded to emails, and when he did he was condescending.
A crashing sound and loud voices hurried me to the backyard. When I got there, I discovered Mom, Wenling, and Solomon, Mom’s favorite Uber driver, standing next to a huge, partially cracked window that they’d pseudo-installed between Mom’s avocado tree and a post. How late had I slept? Then I saw something red smeared on the side of the window.
Mom must’ve noticed the look of concern on my face, because she said, “It’s okay, kid. We’ve got a backup window,” as if the window was the thing I was worried about.
“Who’s bleeding?” I asked, then I saw Mom’s arm. “Mom, is it you?”
Solomon checked Mom’s arm. “Mrs. Murphy, you are bleeding,” he said, pulling a handkerchief out of his back pocket and wiping the blood. I rushed over. “It’s only a scratch,” he said to me. Mom held the cloth to her cut, and Solomon walked over to the hardware store bag resting on the grass. “It’s a good thing we got this,” he said, pulling out a first aid kit.
“I’ll do it,” Wenling said, taking the little disinfectant wipe and a bandage from the box. Solomon closed the kit and returned it to the bag. I stepped aside to let Wenling bandage Mom’s cut.
“You’re Christy, right?” Solomon said.
“And you’re Solomon.”
He smiled. “I saw you driving the van when you two solved your first case. It’s awesome you guys are in the detective business now.”
“We’re not in the detective business. We’re just caterers,” I said.
“Right,” Solomon said with a knowing nod.
I noticed an old twin mattress behind the window. “What happened to Mom?”
“She was trying to fall through the window, but the safety wouldn’t let her, and she was still holding her hammer, so it cracked the glass.”
“I don’t weigh enough,” Mom said. “The man who fell was much bigger.”
Wenling finished with Mom’s minor wound. “All better.”
“I’ll go through the window next time, Mrs. Murphy,” Solomon said. His confidence disarmed me. Mom had told me he was a college student. He looked like he was in his twenties, but he was black. And like a lot of Filipinos, black people could look young for a very long time.
“How old are you, Solomon?” I blurted out.
“How much do you weigh?” Mom asked.
Solomon laughed. “I’m twenty-one, and I weigh 140.”
“You don’t weigh enough either,” Mom said.
Everyone’s eyes turned to me.
I’m not telling you the number, but I definitely weighed enough. Mom, Solomon, and Wenling went back to work installing the fresh window into the tree, and I went inside to change into my best crash test dummy clothes.
I stood in the backyard wearing my rollerblading wrist, elbow, and knee guards, prepared to guinea pig myself for the good of our investigation. They’d mounted this second window at the exact height as the window in Rick Heller’s office. Mom had even placed a potted plant and a little file cabinet from our garage as a makeshift placeholder to recreate the scene of the crime. The goal was for me to knock into the window, the window would spring open, and I’d fall out of it like Rick Heller.
I understood we needed to do everything to help prove Barbara’s innocence, but the idea of falling through a plate glass window gave me reservations. The chief one was my safety, but I didn’t lead with that. “Aren’t these windows expensive?” I asked.
“Your client agreed to be billed for the windows and my handyman services,” Solomon said.
“I thought you were an Uber driver,” I said.
“Gotta hustle these days,” he said.
“But your family’s rich,” I said, remembering Solomon’s father was the landlord to the building that housed the Lucky Dragon and Jerry’s ice cream next door.
“My family is, but they think I should work,” he said.
“You have good parents,” Mom said, and then turned to Wenling, who had her phone out. “Make sure to film when she goes through the window.”
Wenling gave Mom an enthusiastic thumbs up. “Rolling!” she called out to indicate that she’d hit the record button. She and Mom met while extras on a TV show in the seventies, so she knew the lingo.
“Ready, kid?” Mom asked.
“No,” I answered.
“Don’t worry,” Wenling said. “The glass won’t break.”
My brain remembered Mom’s small
cut. Were they sure it wouldn’t break?
“We put down extra pillows,” Mom coaxed.
I glanced over to the other side of the window, and they’d laid extra pillows around the perimeter of the mattress just in case I rolled off the edge. Sure, this seemed completely safe.
“Be like a stuntman and roll through the fall,” Mom advised.
“Are you sure the window is going to hold?” I asked. “It doesn’t look steady.”
“Solomon, brace that side, and I’ll hold this one,” Mom said. They both grabbed the window frames on their sides. “Go ahead. Fall through, kid.”
“It’s kind of high,” I said.
“It’s only a four-foot drop,” Mom said.
“Not the drop. The window is high off the ground. Rick was taller.”
“We got you that crate for you to stand on,” Mom said, pointing to the plastic milk crate. “We sawed it down to six inches.”
“Oh,” I said. I’d wondered what that was for. I picked up the crate, positioned it next to the window, and stood on it. “You guys ready?” I asked.
“Ready!” Mom said.
“Ready,” Solomon said.
“Action!” Wenling called out.
“Here goes,” I said, pretending to be unsteady as I leaned forward. Except pretending to be unsteady while standing on a milk crate resting on the grass can actually make a person unsteady. So instead of fake tripping into the glass, I genuinely knocked myself into to it. And the window pane knocked back—hard.
“Ow!” I said as I banged into the window with such force I’m surprised the thing didn’t crack. Then I crashed to the ground. None of the pillows or the mattress came in handy, because the one thing we hadn’t planned for was that part where the window didn’t budge. Not. At. All.
So I basically smacked into the window, bounced backward, and slammed down into the grass. Thank goodness I landed on my butt and then rolled onto my back. Was that the stuntman’s roll Mom talked about?
“Are you okay?” Solomon said as the three of them rushed over.
“Not really,” I said. My behind and ego had been bruised. But after a few minutes of checking for cuts, twisted ankles, or broken bones, I seemed to emerge without permanent damage.
“We need to try it with the window cracked open,” Mom said.
“And maybe we need to put some cushions on this side of the window as well,” Solomon added.
Without consulting with me as to whether or not I’d wanted to give it another try, the three of them ransacked the house for cushions and readied the window for another try.
Solomon pushed the milk crate into the dirt so that it was more secure and wouldn’t topple over. Wenling, with phone in hand, took her position ready to film. All eyes turned to me, and I reluctantly took my place on the crate.
I looked at the window. The safety latch only allowed for the window to crack open a few inches. I didn’t think it would make that much of a difference.
Solomon and Mom assumed their positions bracing the sides of the window.
“Ready?” Mom asked.
“No,” I said.
“Rolling!” Wenling called out.
And like a true crash test dummy, I lunged toward the window, this time hoping to fall through to the other side. The window once again rejected me. I yelped out of both pain and panic and tumbled onto the pillows with the right side of my hip and rolled somewhat gently onto my back. The relative grace of my fall stunned everyone.
“You did the roll, kid!”
“Yeah, good job,” Solomon said.
“Thanks,” I said, pretending as if I’d done it on purpose.
“I got it all,” Wenling said.
Solomon helped me off the ground. We all turned to look at the window as if it would reveal to us why it wouldn’t let me through.
“Maybe you don’t weigh enough,” Solomon said. “Was the dead guy a really big man?”
I glared at Solomon.
“You know I didn’t mean it like that,” he said.
“I’m not saying how much I weigh, but trust me. I weigh enough,” I said firmly enough to curtail any discussion about the actual number.
Mom broke the silence. “Let’s do it again, but this time Solomon will push you through the window.”
Mom hit the elevator button to the seventeenth floor. It was Monday morning. I never made it to the other side of the window, so we’d spent the rest of the weekend going through emails. That hadn’t yielded any results either.
Mom thought the safety catch on Rick Heller’s office window had been tampered with, and she was determined to get back into his office to check it. The elevator opened. My body ached as we headed down the hallway to Turing Tech. When we reached Turing Tech, the reception area was bare and instead of the wall being just behind the desk, it extended all the way across. The entire Turing Tech office had been closed off.
Mom walked over to a seam in the wall, and that’s when I saw the handle. “These partitions slide out from the real wall,” Mom explained.
“Oh,” I said, distracted by a notice on the fake wall stating no one should enter by order of the police, and redirecting those seeking Turing Tech to go to office 503.
“Mom, this sign says we’re not supposed to go in there.”
Mom ignored me and rattled the partition, attempting to jiggle it open. “Rats,” Mom said. “Barbara told me on the phone they moved to a temporary office, but I hoped this one would just have police tape like before. Let’s see if she has the key.”
I gave up trying to convince Mom to not break into the crime scene and followed her back to the elevator.
When we arrived, it was evident that the temporary offices of Turing Tech were considerably smaller than the first. Tina sat at the front at what looked like a card table.
“How is it going?” Mom asked.
“We hadn’t even moved into the last office,” Tina said. “But at least no one stole my lunch.”
My brain thought that maybe it was because the sandwich thief was dead.
“Maybe whoever did it was worried he’d be pushed through a window,” Mom joked under her breath.
Tina laughed. “This office doesn’t have a refrigerator yet, so I have to keep it at my desk.”
That explained it.
“Are you here to pick up a check from Barbara?” she asked, getting up and leading us into the office.
“Yes,” Mom said, jumping at the excuse.
This office looked like a middle school lunch room with long tables set up in rows, but instead of lunch trays, the workers hunched over laptops.
“Normally she’d have me print them out and have it ready for you, but things are crazy since…” Tina’s voice trailed off.
“Tina,” Mom said. “Do you remember where Madison and Henry were when you went to the karaoke machine?”
“Last I saw they were both eating in the conference room. Why? I heard it was an accident. Do you think one of them did it?”
“No, I was just curious if they could see out the window when it happened,” Mom lied.
“I don’t know. Neither of them were in today.” Mom and I traded looks. Tina continued, “But Ivan was in the conference room, too. Maybe you could ask him.”
Mom and I scanned the office and spotted Ivan. His corner of the table was covered in receipts. Tina led us into Barbara’s office. It looked more like a supply closet than an office. It didn’t even have a window. The door was open.
“The caterers are here for their check,” Tina said, announcing us.
“Of course,” Barbara said, reaching for a checkbook.
Barbara motioned to two folding chairs in front of her very small desk. “Pardon the close quarters,” she said as we took our seats. “I wanted to talk to you both about catering a monthly lunch.”
“Great,” Mom said, going along with our pretense for the office visit.
“I’ll go back to my station, unless you need anything,” Tina said to Barbara.
“Thanks, Tina,” Barbara said.
“Open or closed?” Tina asked about the door.
“Closed,” Barbara said. “And don’t tell anyone about the lunch. It’s not a sure thing yet.”
Tina nodded and closed the door as she left.
The room felt so much smaller with the door closed. To my surprise, Barbara whipped out her checkbook. We sat in silence as she filled it out.
“This should cover the windows, the first party, and a little extra. Send me a bill for the rest.”
Mom took the check without looking at the amount. I was dying to know how much it was for, but hadn’t gotten a good look at it while Barbara but was writing it.
“This place reminds me of when I started the company out of my garage in Fletcher Canyon,” Barbara said, looking around, “but honestly I think we had more room in my garage.”
Mom laughed.
“On the telephone you told me that you think someone tampered with the window,” Barbara said to Mom.
“We tried everything,” Mom said. “The safety on the window held every time.”
“I guess that’s why they call them safeties,” Barbara said with a heavy sigh. “People shouldn’t be able to just accidentally fall out a seventeenth-story window. Could it be a faulty window?”
“It might, and then it’s just an accident,” Mom said. “The good news is that there wasn’t enough time for you to loosen the safety while you were arguing with him and then push him out the window.”
“Will the police believe that?” Barbara asked.
“They could test it themselves,” Mom said. “But they might think it was a faulty safety and you still pushed him. Can anyone confirm for sure you were out of the office before the alarm sounded?
“No one seems to remember,” Barbara said.
“Well, if someone sabotaged the safety, it was premeditated. And they took advantage of your argument to frame you for murder,” Mom said.
“Who do you think did it?” Barbara asked.
Mom hesitated. “I wouldn’t want to alter your opinion of one of your employees.”
Apple Pies and Alibis Page 6
