“What do you mean?”
“What do I mean?” Tyler laughed sardonically. “You should know better by now. Let’s say you’re right and somebody murdered Karen. That means you’re on the trail of a killer, Melissa. Those people don’t typically like people asking questions.”
Missy’s stomach felt hollow. She’d kept this unpleasant reality in the back of her mind. But now that Tyler had brought it out to the surface, she couldn’t ignore it any longer.
“So long as you were investigating in Grove City,” Tyler said, “I couldn’t help you, but at least I could keep an eye on your back. I can’t help you at all in Templeton. And the police there won’t help you either. They don’t want somebody, especially a civilian, coming in after the fact and second-guessing their decisions and conclusions. You’re about to kick the hornet’s nest, and I can’t help you.”
Missy had called Tyler to get some advice and calm down. But the phone call had done everything except calm her nerves. She was more worked up than she’d been.
“Tyler, this isn’t helping.”
“Melissa…look, why don’t you come back and talk to me? Let’s talk it over together before you do anything rash. Maybe I can help, unofficially of course.”
Missy pulled into the enormous parking lot. The offices of Pringle, Quinto, and Pringle occupied the entire building, which was five stories. Karen hadn’t been kidding. The firm had gone from small to mid-sized to very large.
“I’m already here,” Missy said. “I don’t want to lose any more time. I have to do this.”
“Same old Melissa,” he said, but his voice was kind.
Before she knew what she was saying, the words came out. “But I will take you up on your offer. Could we meet tonight?”
“Yes. Come to the station after work, okay?”
“See you then.”
Missy hung up, took a deep breath, and studied the building. It was all tinted windows and shiny. As she got out of her truck, she took a deep breath.
Chapter Thirteen
I ’m here to see Abella Garcia.”
The receptionist at the front desk looked Missy up and down, disdainful of her outfit. Missy had worn an old pair of jeans and a blouse that had seen better days. Obviously Missy wasn’t an attorney.
“Are you a client?” the woman asked.
Missy wanted to sock the old battle ax. “No.”
“I see.” She looked her up and down again. “What is the purpose of your visit?”
“It’s a private matter.”
“Ms. Garcia is a very busy woman.”
“I am too,” Missy said, wanting to add she was investigating a murder. “Now are you going to call her?”
“I don’t think I am.” The woman grabbed a generic business card for the firm and started writing some numbers on the back of it. “If you need to see Ms. Garcia during working hours, you can make an appointment through her legal assistant.”
The receptionist stuck the card out. Missy didn’t take it.
“You’d better pick up that phone and tell her Missy—Melissa DeMeanor is here.”
“Missy DeMeanor?” The woman practically laughed. “That’s your real name?”
“Melissa DeMeanor, that’s right. Pick up the phone.”
“Why would I do that?”
“For two reasons. First, because this is about Karen Wise.”
The receptionist’s eyes widened. “You knew Karen?”
Missy nodded. “And second, if Abella finds out you didn’t let me in to see her, she’ll be very upset. And from what I know about Abella, you don’t want to make an enemy out of her.”
The receptionist’s face softened, but she continued to hold the card out at her. Missy didn’t budge. Missy got the sense she had liked Karen but also that she didn’t want to disappoint Abella Garcia. She struggled with the decision, but finally, the receptionist put the card down, turned in her chair, and picked up her phone.
“I’ll ask if she wants to see you,” the receptionist said. “Sit down over there.”
Missy looked behind her at the couches opposite the front desk.
“That’s okay, I’ll just wait right here.”
The receptionist spoke in a hushed tone for a moment. Missy couldn’t really make out the words even though she was right there, hovering over the desk. The woman hung up.
“She’ll be right out.”
“Great, thank you.” Missy smiled sweetly. “There’s just one more thing I have to ask.”
The woman’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “What’s that?”
“Is it true?”
“Is what true?”
“That Abella was a member of this top secret Diet Club with Karen?”
The receptionist did her best to mask her expression, but in the end she hesitated too long and Missy knew that Karen had let it slip that Abella was in the club, contrary to Mrs. Butterworth’s rules.
***
Missy’s joy at getting in to see Abella Garcia was quickly replaced by that dread she’d felt on the way over when she stepped into the woman’s office.
She occupied a corner suite that looked out over the corporate park behind the building. It was a beautiful view, the kind of view they didn’t offer everybody. Abella had risen through the ranks here to earn this.
Missy forced her hands to stop shaking as she sat down opposite Abella’s mahogany desk. Her space was fully furnished, with its own bathroom, and clutter-free. Abella was dressed immaculately again, wearing a cute little black outfit that was sexy but not slutty. Again, Missy couldn’t believe she had been a member in the Diet Club. She was so trim.
“Missy, I’m afraid I have a hard stop in—” She checked the time on her computer. “—exactly twelve minutes. It’s a very important case and I have to prep my very nervous client prior to his testimony tomorrow morning. So I’m sure you’ll respect my time.”
Missy took a deep breath. She had been struggling with her approach here.
“Let’s get right down to business then,” Missy said.
“Wonderful.” Abella checked the time again.
“I think Karen was murdered.”
Not a single flicker of any emotion passed through Abella’s face. “Murdered? What makes you think that?”
“Because of how she died,” Missy said. “And the police aren’t doing anything about it. Yet.”
Abella’s eyebrows came together. “They must not have any evidence to support that theory then.”
Missy nodded. “They will as soon as I bring it to them.”
Abella leaned forward. “Why have you come to me?”
“Do you know how she died?” Missy asked.
“I’ve heard the rumors.”
“They’re not rumors,” Missy said. “She died from a tape worm infection.”
Abella laughed nervously. “Then I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
“We’ll get to that,” Missy said. “The killer gave her worms at least a week, maybe a month or two in advance of Karen’s death. So I’m trying to get a better understanding of what she’d been up to in the last month.”
Abella stood. “Can I get you something to drink?”
Missy knew she was stalling for time. “No thanks.”
Abella went to a small fridge on the side of the room and took out a bottled water. “She spent most of the last month helping me on this trial that is about to start.”
“I thought you said you didn’t work together.”
Abella uncapped the water and walked back to her seat. She took a long drink. Again it seemed to Missy that she was stalling for time.
“Not usually. But when there’s a big trial—as all of mine are—we pool resources. The paralegals all pitch in to help when there’s a lot of discovery and evidence to go through. Some of them even help with witness prep, though that was a little too advanced for Karen.”
Missy couldn’t help but want to slug the woman for all the digs she managed to get in about her dead frie
nd.
Abella seemed to sense her anger. “Oh, Karen was competent at other things, like organizing and filing and creating the paper trail.”
Missy took a calming breath. “So you spent a lot of time together in the last month?”
Abella nodded. “Yes. Most cases don’t go to trial, but we knew this one was, almost from the start. For the last month we’ve worked on getting everything in order. It’s been quite a process. There was a whole week where it was just Karen and me in here after regular hours. I worked her hard, and she actually surprised me by how thorough she was.”
Missy knew the woman was goading her, but she was able to take it in stride. Abella had had plenty of opportunities in the last month to sneak tape worms into one of Karen’s drinks. She could have easily done it after hours. And she had motive too: Karen had revealed to her colleagues that she was a member of a Diet Club, something that had to embarrass her to no degree.
“You pushed her hard, didn’t you?” Missy said.
“I push myself hard. I expect everyone else to do the same. A legal career isn’t a game. It’s war. A trial is war. I don’t get paid to do my best. I get paid to win. I’m not here to make friends with the support staff. I cannot allow them to jeopardize my name and what I’ve worked so hard for. If someone is not performing, I manage them out. It’s the best thing for the firm and for the person too, actually. If they don’t belong, they really should do something else for everybody’s sake.”
Missy had never worked in a corporate environment and never planned to. She didn’t have the necessary killer instinct.
“Is that how you felt about Karen?”
Abella took another swig of her water and put the bottle down. “Karen…look, Missy, I don’t want to be unkind.”
“Clearly.”
Abella ignored the barb. “Karen was mediocre on her good days. If you ask me, she had more lives than a cat when it came to working here. She got many more chances than any of the other paralegals.”
“Why? If she was that bad, why would everybody give her that many chances?”
Abella shrugged. “Because she was a nice woman. Nobody wanted to hurt her feelings.”
“If it were up to you, you would have fired her already?”
Abella thought about it. “A few years ago, I almost did. But like I said, she surprised me this time around when she was helping with this trial.”
“You didn’t like her.”
“Whether I liked her or not, is irrelevant. This is business. You have to make decisions without regard to feelings.”
Missy stood and put her palms on the desk, secretly glad she’d smear her handprints on the expensive wood.
“I’m not talking about your business, lady. I’m talking about Karen’s murder. You didn’t like her, and you wanted her out.”
Abella laughed scornfully. “So I killed her? That would be stupid. Do I strike you as a stupid woman? How do you think I got this far? If I really wanted her out of here, I could have found a better, safer, legal way to do it. Like I told you, we didn’t work directly together. Sure, she helped me out on this trial but she didn’t affect my work on a daily basis. I had no reason to hate her that much.”
Missy smiled. She’d been waiting to play this ace up her sleeve.
“You’re right. You wouldn’t hate her that much for being merely mediocre at her job, would you?”
Abella smiled, but her eyes were deadly. She was anticipating Missy’s next attack.
“You didn’t hate Karen enough until she told everybody here you were a member of Mrs. Butterworth’s Diet Club.”
Abella said nothing, and Missy knew she had hit a home run.
She went on. “Image is everything to you here, isn’t it? You act like Little Miss Perfect, always in control, always having the upper hand. You just push and push and squeeze the people under you till they don’t have anything left, and then you just fire them and bring somebody else in. I’ll bet Karen did a great job for you, but you could never admit that because then you’d have to admit you were wrong about her—and you’re never wrong. So you kept riding her. She was really fragile, she had a lot going on, so you had no idea how far you’d pushed her. She realized you had all the power in this relationship and that you could squash her like a bug, she realized the only thing she had over you was the Diet Club. So she told somebody here and the rumor mill went to work until it got back to you. Of course you couldn’t prove it was her since some of your other colleagues are members too, but you knew. You also knew you couldn’t fire her, not when she was doing such a good job on your trial or you’d face a lawsuit for sure. So instead you came up with another idea. The perfect way to kill a woman who was struggling with her weight, a way that would make it look it was her own fault.”
Missy had to take a breath. Her cheeks were red and her hands were shaking. She stopped and took a deep breath, her eyes never leaving the other woman.
Abella had listened quietly the entire time, her expression remaining neutral. Missy waited for her to say something, to deny it, to challenge her, to threaten to call the police, to do something. But the woman just sat there, unnaturally calm.
Then she smiled.
“You’ve got quite an imagination.”
Missy said nothing.
“It’s a good theory. Except for one thing.”
Missy’s heart sunk like a stone.
Abella just kept smiling. “Everyone here knows I’m in a diet club. They didn’t know anything else about it, in keeping with Mrs. Butterworth’s rules and the contract I signed with her. But I used to struggle with my weight. It’s difficult to maintain a good physique when you work sixty or seventy hours a week. So I struggled for years with my weight, till finally I did something about it. Everyone knows I’m in a diet club. I’m hardly ashamed by it, in fact, I’m proud of it. I had a problem, I was strong enough to admit it, and I got the help I needed.”
Missy’s legs were weak. In one fell swoop, all her arguments and reasoning were rendered faulty. Everybody at the firm knew about Abella’s now non-existent weight problem. Karen wouldn’t have revealed her membership, because it was already revealed.
Missy swallowed her pride. “Thank you for your time.”
Abella checked the time again. “Twelve minutes, exactly. Thank you for respecting my time, Missy. If you have anything else you’d like to ask me, please feel free to call my legal assistant. The receptionist can give you her contact information.”
Missy was already at the door.
“Oh, and Missy? One more thing.”
Missy stopped and looked back.
Abella smiled cheerily at her, but her eyes burned with an intense dislike. “I trust you didn’t share this theory of yours with anyone. Like I told you at the viewing, my reputation is very important to my career and I take slander very seriously.”
Missy’s throat had gone dry. It took her a moment to be sure she hadn’t told anybody as she went over the last few days in her mind.
“And I trust you’ll keep this little theory of yours to yourself forever, now that you can see I had no reason to murder that poor woman.”
Missy nodded.
Abella cupped her ear. “I didn’t hear you.”
“Yes,” Missy said, grinding her teeth. “I won’t tell anyone.”
“Thatta girl.”
Chapter Fourteen
M issy went back to work. She hoped for a rush of customers to help take her mind off this afternoon’s embarrassment. Abella Garcia hadn’t killed Karen by giving her tape worms. And the more Missy thought about it, the more ridiculous the idea seemed. Abella would have just gotten her fired. She was a senior partner at the firm and if she wanted Karen gone, she could have made that happen easily.
Missy’s anger toward the woman had blinded her. She’d made a huge mistake in suspecting her.
Her mother would have told her to look on the bright side. But what was the bright side here? Well, she’d ruled out one of her suspects
as the killer. That left her with Ron and Connie.
And a third unknown suspect. Mrs. Butterworth was almost certain it had been Karen that broke trust and revealed someone’s membership to the Diet Club. Missy had assumed that person was Abella Garcia. But now she knew it wasn’t. Which meant Karen had revealed someone else’s membership in the club. But who?
As soon as she asked herself the question, it became obvious to her.
She clocked out at six, went home to feed Cody and let her outside, then got back into the truck, bringing Cody along for this trip. She was about to leave, when she realized she hadn’t even checked herself in the mirror since this morning.
Her dark, wavy, red hair—usually her best feature—was a little flat, and the t-shirt was stretched out and loose in the neck, and the jeans were wearing thin in some places. Missy went upstairs and changed quickly into a pair of black pants (slimming!) and a green blouse that accented her hair. Speaking of her hair, she did her best to tease it up a little bit but ultimately it was non-cooperative. She settled on the look and got back into the truck.
Rush hour was over so her trip to the police station was quick. Fifteen minutes later, she pulled into the parking lot and got a space right near the entrance. Must have been a slow night.
Inside the station was quiet. The female sergeant who always answered the phone was packing up her stuff. She gave Missy a look.
“Tyler is in his office, if you want to go back.”
“Thanks.”
The sergeant hit a button so she could open the door from her side. There were only a couple of cops at their desks. One was surfing the net and the other was filling out paperwork. They both looked at her, recognition flashing in their eyes. She waved and kept going.
Tyler’s office was the second from last. His door was open and he was already looking at the doorway when she filled it. He must have heard her coming.
“Hi, Melissa.”
He stood behind his desk and the awkwardness began. Missy didn’t know if she should hug him or shake his hand or neither. She just stood there, feeling like an idiot, while he stared at her.
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