“Sure.” Wynne was still grinning.
Sam refused to notice. “Okay, here’s what I think we’ve got going on: Obviously, one of our Madeline Fitzgeralds was attacked by mistake. How could the killer have guessed there would be two women with the same name staying at the same hotel on the same night? I don’t think he realized. I think he went to one of their rooms, killed or tried to kill whichever one was inside, somehow found out that he had made a mistake, and went after the other. The question is, which one did he mean to kill?”
“Good question.” Wynne, pondering, smacked his Dubble Bubble thoughtfully. “At a guess, I’d say the one who’s dead. Gambling’s a red flag. Maybe she owed somebody money. Hell, maybe they all owed somebody money. Maybe that’s the link.”
“We got no evidence that Judge Lawrence”—the esteemed judge had been the first victim, found with two bullet holes in his temple in his family’s mansion in Richmond, Virgina; the fact that he was a longtime acquaintance of Smolski’s was what had brought Sam into the case— “ever gambled, much less owed anybody money. Or Dante Jones, either, for that matter.”
Dante Jones, a used-car dealer from Atlanta, had been the second victim. Allison Pope, a retiree in Jacksonville, Florida, had been the third.
“If Dante Jones didn’t gamble, it’s the only vice he didn’t have.”
“True,” Sam said.
“Anyway, that girl in there—Madeline Fitzgerald—she doesn’t seem like the type that would merit a professional hit. Too young, for one thing.”
“What you mean is, too attractive.” He and Wynne had been together for going on five years now, and Sam knew how his partner’s mind worked.
Wynne grinned. “Actually, hot is more the word I was thinking of.”
“Yeah, well, being hot doesn’t mean you can’t get yourself whacked, you know.”
Wynne hooted. “There you go, I knew it. You think she’s hot, too. So don’t go bustin’ my balls, pard.”
“Whether she’s hot or not isn’t the point. The point is, she’s alive.”
“Yeah, baby.”
Sam slid down a little in his seat, resting his head back against the headrest and folding his arms over his chest, and considered his options. Getting comfortable was probably a mistake, but to hell with it. He was so tired he felt practically boneless. So tired he felt practically brainless. It took real effort just to stay awake.
“Which is another reason I think she wasn’t the intended target,” Sam said. “But whether she was or wasn’t—and we just don’t know at this point—the fact remains that she was attacked and is still around to tell the tale. And our guy won’t like that.”
Wynne’s eyes widened. “Good point. So what are we going to do?”
“For now, keep our distance and watch our survivor. And pray that the bastard doesn’t like to leave loose ends.”
“... AND GIVE FIDO something to bark about,” Maddie concluded on an upbeat note that belied the throbbing in her head. Standing in front of the room, she looked at the video of the pink tutu-attired Jack Russell terrier balancing on its hind legs while it barked at a bag of Brehmer’s Dog Chow that was being lifted away by an elephant’s trunk, and thought, This is good. They’ve got to like this.
The thought was revivifying.
Then she turned away from the screen to glance around the table and got a horrible sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach.
Or not, she concluded. Forget the chuckles she’d been hoping for. Not one of the six people present besides herself and Jon had so much as cracked a smile since the two of them had entered the room.
Time to face the truth: The presentation wasn’t going well. Maddie could sense the flatness in the air as Jon turned off the projector and clicked the lights back on. Someone hit a button and the blinds that covered the windows slid up with a motorized whirr, flooding the room with bright sunlight. Beyond the windows, New Orleans baked. The sun glared off the steel sheathing of the skyscrapers that crowded the skyline like unevenly spaced teeth. In the distance, she caught the merest glimpse of the deep marine blue of the Gulf of Mexico, where it met the azure sky. Blue sky, blue water, blue steel—all that blue was a good match for her mood, Maddie thought glumly. Glancing around the conference table again, waiting with bated breath for a comment, any comment, that might give her a little badly needed encouragement, she realized that no one was meeting her gaze.
Uh-oh. Bad sign.
The quartet of suits, which was how she’d quickly come to think of the four sixtyish, buttoned-down businessmen who actually ran the company, appeared underwhelmed. Howard Bellamy, Brehmer’s Pet Food’s tall, distinguished, silver-haired president and chief operating officer, was fiddling with his pencil. Emil White, the bald, hook-nosed executive vice president in charge of marketing, who was sitting beside him, had turned sideways in his seat and was staring past his beach ball-sized belly at the shiny tip of his cordovan wing tips. Lawrence Thibault, executive vice president in charge of product development, who was seated across the table from White, was already typing something into the laptop that rested on the table in front of him and appeared completely oblivious to what was going on in the rest of the room. Forget trying to decipher his expression, Maddie thought despairingly. He was slouched so far down in his chair that all she could see of him over the laptop’s monitor was the top of his head, which was covered by an expensive-looking jet-black rug. Seated beside Thibault, stocky, grizzled James Oliver, executive vice president in charge of finance, pushed his wire-rimmed glasses down his nose, steepled his fingers under his chin, and looked at Bellamy. From the beginning, he’d made Maddie think of a basset hound with his worried frown and small, sad brown eyes, and he was looking sadder than ever now, which could not be considered promising. Standing not far from Maddie, Susan Allen absently chewed a fingernail and frowned as she watched Mrs. Brehmer, who was, of course, sitting at the head of the table. Following Susan’s gaze, Maddie decided that the old lady looked a lot more formidable on her own turf than Maddie remembered her. Of course, they’d met only once previously, three months before at an awards banquet sponsored by the St. Louis Chamber of Commerce, where Mrs. Brehmer, herself a former winner, had presented Maddie with the St. Louis Young Woman Business Owner of the Year Award. It was at that dinner that Maddie had suggested to Mrs. Brehmer that hiring Creative Partners might be the solution to the growth problems the old lady was complaining that her company was experiencing. Today’s meeting was the result of that conversation.
But if Maddie had been expecting that, because of their mutual ties to St. Louis—all Brehmer’s manufacturing was still done there, at the plant that had served the company for half a century, and Mrs. Brehmer retained the original family home there—Mrs. Brehmer would be inclined to look on Creative Partners favorably, she was discovering that she’d been sadly mistaken.
Mrs. Brehmer alone met Maddie’s gaze. Her eyes were a soft, faded blue—and as sharp as twin knives.
“Is that circus thing it?” she barked in her hoarse smoker’s voice. A tiny, stooped woman, she was dwarfed by her oversized black leather chair—the largest at the table. A triple strand of pearls circled her neck, and she was dressed in a powder-blue suit that Maddie wasn’t sure, but suspected, was a genuine Chanel. Her hair was white, short, and perfectly coiffed. Her skin was almost as white as her hair, with the overly taut look that came with too many plastic surgeries. In fact, it had been pulled so tightly that it seemed molded to the bones beneath. Heavily made-up, with lashings of mascara and blush and a bright scarlet mouth, she reminded Maddie irresistibly of the Joker in the Batman movies. Only, Maddie thought, right about now the Joker seemed positively warm and fuzzy in comparison.
“We have other ideas, of course,” Maddie said, improvising hastily, because as of the end of that video they were pretty much fresh out. “Take, for example, your packaging.”
“What’s wrong with our packaging?” Mrs. Brehmer asked, bristling.
“No
thing’s wrong with it. Only ...” Fighting the urge to wet her lips, Maddie turned to gesture at the blowup of the sack of Brehmer’s Dog Chow that was standing on an easel in the corner. It was an uninspiring brown with a dark green stripe across one corner, absolutely ripe for a makeover, whether the suggestion had been planned or not. “In today’s marketplace, the name of the game is attracting attention. You might want to think about going with brighter colors, perhaps even something as bold as fuchsia or lime green. Research has shown that the primary buyer of pet food is a middle-aged woman with a family, and bright colors have been found to hold the most appeal for her as well as having the added bonus of jumping off the shelf visually.”
“Hmmph,” Mrs. Brehmer said. “My husband designed that bag himself. Brehmer’s Dog Chow has always come in a brown bag.” Her gaze slid from Maddie to Susan. Her voice sharpened even as its volume dropped. “You. I need a glass of water.”
Susan started.
“Yes, Mrs. B. of course. I’ll get it right away,” she murmured, and moved toward the door. Since the door was located behind Maddie, Maddie got a good look at Susan’s expression as she went by. Instead of rolling her eyes or seeming angry, as Maddie would have expected (actually, one or both of which she probably would have been guilty of herself), Susan merely looked more anxious than ever. Perhaps, Maddie thought, terminal anxiety was her natural expression.
White nodded at Mrs. Brehmer. “That’s a good point, Joan. If we change our bag, our customers won’t know what to look for. That brown bag is a Brehmer tradition.”
The other men nodded agreement.
“We’re pretty big on tradition around here, young lady. Somebody should have warned you,” Bellamy said to Maddie, wagging his pencil at her. “Fuchsia and lime-green packaging may attract some customers’ attention, but it won’t tell them that it’s us.”
“That’s where the national advertising campaign comes in, Mr. Bellamy. After they see spots featuring the redesigned bags on TV, your customers will know it’s Brehmer’s, and they will buy, because it’s the same quality product they love at the same fair price they’re used to paying. And you’ll pick up new customers, younger customers who will stay with your products for years, because of the new, hip packaging, and fun ads that make them laugh.”
Bellamy tapped the eraser end of his pencil on the table and gave a skeptical grunt. Still smiling gamely, Maddie felt almost sick as she read the handwriting on the wall: They weren’t going to get the account. After all the expense of coming, the worry and hard work, and the nightmare of last night and today, they were going to come up empty.
It was as clear as the expression on the prospective clients’ faces.
Maddie swallowed. If Creative Partners didn’t start landing some big accounts soon, the money was going to run out. Their current clients provided more or less steady work, but the billing from them barely covered all the monthly expenses. And, sometimes, it didn’t even do that.
Of course, given what had happened last night, she might not have to worry about such mundane matters as company finances much longer ...
“We’re a big believer in tradition ourselves.” Jon jumped boldly into the breach when, Maddie realized, she had remained silent too long. All eyes, including Maddie’s, turned to him as he joined her in front of the pull-down screen on which the proposed ads had been projected. Maddie was thankful to no longer be the focus of attention. She needed a moment to thrust the memory of last night and the spurt of burgeoning panic that had accompanied it back into the “I’ll think about it later” compartment.
An instant later, she caught herself nervously fingering the scarf around her neck, and dropped her hand.
“And, of course, tradition is one of Brehmer’s strong points.” Jon was in full flow now. “Actually, we think you should emphasize the fact that your business has been family owned and operated for fifty-seven years.” Jon moved toward the blowup of the bag. “Besides the fresh new packaging”—he tapped the company’s B-in-a-gold-circle logo dramatically—“we suggest giving Brehmer’s Pet Food a more human face: yours, in fact, Mrs. Brehmer. Right here, in a gold frame, on every bag of pet food your company produces.”
For a moment there was dead silence. Maddie held her breath. She and Jon between them had decided to table that idea, but since nothing else was working she agreed with his reasoning: There was no reason not to try one more shot in the dark. Mrs. Brehmer’s eyes widened, and her brows twitched ever so slightly.
What did that mean? Did she like the idea?
Vacillating wildly between despair and hope, Maddie did a quick visual sweep of the table. The men’s eyes were now fastened on their boss. Their expressions were frozen, as if they weren’t sure how they were supposed to react. They would, Maddie realized, take their cue from Mrs. Brehmer.
“Brown-nosing is not a quality I admire, young man,” Mrs. Brehmer snapped. It was all Maddie could do not to sag. Frowning, placing her bony hands with their plethora of rings flat on the table, Mrs. Brehmer seemed prepared to end the meeting. The men shifted in their seats in response, and Maddie feared they were all about to rise.
“Now, hear me out. I’m serious.” Exhibiting the kind of never-say-die valor that in Maddie’s opinion merited a raise if only she’d had the funds to fund one, which she didn’t, Jon held up a hand in protest and somehow kept them in their seats. “Putting his face on his product worked for Dave Thomas with Wendy’s. It worked for Harlan Sanders with Kentucky Fried Chicken. You are the soul and spirit of Brehmer’s Pet Food, Mrs. Brehmer. Why shouldn’t you be the face of it, too?”
Momentarily speechless in the face of such heroic eloquence, Maddie barely managed to stop herself from applauding as she waited with clasped hands and a thudding heart for Mrs. Brehmer’s reply.
“Because nobody wants to look at an ugly old woman,” Mrs. Brehmer said tartly. “Don’t waste your time bullshit-ting a bullshitter. I may be old, but I’m not stupid.” She looked around the table. “Well, gentlemen ...”
The door opened, and Susan appeared with a glass of water.
“Linda’s brought ...” she began as everyone glanced around, and then chaos erupted behind her. Shrill barks and the scrabble of clawed feet on slick floors were drowned out by a woman’s shriek.
“Ouch! No! Stop! You come back here! Zelda!” The yell came from somewhere down the hall.
“Zelda!” Mrs. Brehmer called, coming to her feet as a foot-tall mop of golden brown hair shot past Susan, who flattened herself against the open door with a gasp and dropped the glass of water. The resulting crash and sound of glass shattering was as loud as an explosion. Maddie jumped. The suits leaped up.
“What the—”
“Look out!”
“There she blows!”
“It’s that damned mu—uh, darned dog!”
“You idiot! She’ll cut her feet!” bellowed Mrs. Brehmer at Susan, her voice a full-throated roar that all but drowned out the exclamations of her employees as the mop—Maddie realized it was a small, long-haired dog trailing a lavender leash at just about the time it dashed past her feet—ran through the spreading puddle and made a flying leap for the window.
Maddie’s mouth dropped open as it crashed headfirst into solid glass. With a single truncated yelp, it then dropped like a stone to lie motionless on the floor.
SEVEN
The dull thud of impact still reverberated in the air as the room erupted.
“Zelda!” Mrs. Brehmer and Susan cried at the same time. Chairs skittered backward as everyone rushed toward the scene of the accident. Because she was closest, Maddie reached the fallen one first. The dog was lying, sprawled on its stomach, looking for all the world like a small fur rug, eyes closed, chin resting on the floor, all four limbs and fluffy tail splayed out flat around it like spokes in a wheel. A small, incongruously perky pink satin bow adorned its head, pulling the long hair between its ears up into a floppy topknot. Except for the flat monkeyish face and the tips of four bl
ack-clawed paws, it was all hair. For a moment, as she tentatively placed a hand on the silky coat, Maddie feared the dog was dead. It was motionless, inert, and didn’t seem to be breathing. Touching its face, she was not reassured. She didn’t know a whole heck of a lot about dogs—she’d never had the chance to own one—but were their noses supposed to be cold?
Having their sales pitch end with the sudden, shocking death of Mrs. Brehmer’s pet would plunge this alreadynightmarish trip to New Orleans to a whole new low.
“Watch out, she might bite,” Susan warned under her breath as Maddie held her fingers in front of the animal’s smashed-in-looking nose to see if she could feel air moving. Both Susan and Jon were looming over her, Maddie realized, and the suits were gathering around, too. The rapid clack of Mrs. Brehmer’s high heels told Maddie that the old lady was coming on fast from the far end of the table. Not that Maddie glanced around to check. All her attention was focused on the dog.
Nothing. Nada. Not breathing. Or at least, if it was, Maddie couldn’t detect it.
“Never saw anything like that in my life. Dog tried to jump right out the window,” Mr. Bellamy said.
“Guess she didn’t realize we were on the fiftieth floor,” Mr. White replied in a hushed voice.
“What do you think it is, a rocket scientist? It’s a dog,” Mr. Oliver said impatiently. “What does it know about fiftieth floors?”
“Hadn’t somebody ought to go call a vet?” Mr. Thibault was the only one of the men who sounded at all concerned for the animal. “Or something?”
“Is she hurt?” Mrs. Brehmer asked. There was a quaver of real fear in her voice.
Maddie hesitated, pressing her fingers right up against the animal’s muzzle in a desperate quest to feel it breathing. The prospect of telling Mrs. Brehmer that the pet might be dead appalled her. Not knowing what to say, she rolled an eye up at Susan, who was looking even more appalled than Maddie felt.
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