The Temporary Detective

by Joanne Sydney Lessner

  “Come on, Jayla, you know me better than that. What would I want some skinny little white bitch for?”

  That’s my story and I’m sticking to it, he thought, taking a sip of his Coke.

  “So why’d you call her?”

  “I told you. I wanted to make sure she isn’t all mixed up in it somehow.”

  “Mm hmmm.” Jayla pursed her lips doubtfully. “And is she?”

  “Nah,” he lied.

  In a single, sinuous motion, Jayla slid off her barstool and rolled her palm over his thigh, landing between his legs. He reacted as she knew he would.

  “Don’t you get mixed up with her, you understand? I know a good thing when I’ve got one. And I ain’t sharing.”

  She kissed him, slow and deep. He could taste the wine on her tongue, and for a split second, he wanted the alcohol more than he wanted her. She pulled away, satisfied.

  “I’ll meet you at your place later.”

  “I might be late,” he said. “Gotta get to the gym.”

  “I can let myself in. Don’t take too long, or I’ll really get suspicious.”

  He watched her leave the darkened bar, her slender hips swinging gently in her tight leopard-print skirt, her endless legs disappearing somewhere into her knee-high, patent-leather boots.

  “Can I get you something else?” asked the bartender.

  It was so tempting. Jayla knew what she was doing when she demanded he meet her at a bar. Anything to make him feel vulnerable. He closed his eyes and counted to ten. When he opened them, the bartender had moved away to pull a beer for someone else.

  “No, I’m good, thanks,” James said to himself. But he wondered how true that was.

  Friday was a slow day in Procurement Support, as Isobel learned her department was called. The police were conspicuously absent, as were Stan and Conchita, although the ladies’ room remained taped off. They had to use the one on the far end of the floor, which at least gave Isobel a reason to be away from her desk longer. Otherwise, she answered the phone for Frank and typed memos for Paula, whose grammar was impeccable. Nikki spent a good bit of the morning elsewhere, and Isobel kept hoping she would alight at her desk long enough for her to ask some of the questions that were piling up in her mind.

  By late morning there was nothing official left to do, so Isobel pulled out her copy of Backstage. Without scissors, she was forced to fold and rip out the audition advertisements, which violated her sense of order, since it was impossible for the edges not to be jagged. Fortunately, although the police had dusted her Scotch tape, they hadn’t seized it, so she was able to paste into her notebook the few notices that caught her eye.

  “What a great idea,” Nikki observed, when she finally returned. “So organized. Nothing like that would ever occur to me.”

  “I’m equal parts anal and scatterbrained, so it’s pretty much a necessity,” Isobel said, chucking the shredded remains of the newspaper into the recycling bin.

  “I was just about to grab a bite. Want to join me?” Nikki asked.

  Isobel brightened at the prospect. A leisurely lunch away from prying ears was even better than a hurried conversation in the office.

  “Sure. I’ll just tell Frank.”

  From Frank’s doorway, Isobel thought she could hear the echo of his wife’s shrills, although the receiver was pressed hard to his ear. Isobel made eating gestures and pointed down the hall. Frank looked at her for a moment like she was insane, then spun his chair around to face the window.

  “There’s a cafeteria on sixteen,” Nikki said as they rode down in the elevator. She glanced sideways at Isobel. “But let’s go out somewhere, so we can talk.”

  They went to a small deli café on the corner of Twenty-fourth and Park Avenue South and took their skimpy, overpriced salads to a small table in the back.

  “How long have you been in the city?” Isobel asked, pushing some wilted sprouts to the side of her plastic bowl.

  “Five years,” Nikki said. “I taught high school drama in Albany for awhile before I moved here. One day I woke up and realized that time was running out if I had any designs on a career.”

  “Have you worked at InterBank the whole time?”

  Nikki shook her head. “I started out temping, just like you. I wound up here about a year ago, but then I got an acting job. By the time it was over, my statute of limitations had run out.”

  “What statute of limitations?”

  “A company can’t hire you directly if you were placed there by a temp agency,” Nikki explained. “But if you stop working there for three months, they can bypass the agency and hire you freelance.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “Keep it in mind. It can really work to an actor’s advantage, because we’re always leaving town. And you can usually talk the company into paying you what they were paying the agency, so it’s a much better deal.”

  Isobel was still so angry with James that the idea of cutting him out was very satisfying.

  “Either way, it beats waiting tables,” Nikki went on. “You can print résumés, make calls in your spare time, use the mail room, stuff like that.” She gave a throaty laugh. “I like to think InterBank Switzerland supports the arts.”

  “And you like working there?”

  Nikki nodded. “Yeah, it’s good. Now that I’m completely freelance, I pretty much come and go as I please. Besides, my boyfriend works in Equities. Tom Scaletta. You took a message from him the other day.”

  “Ah, yes. Mr. Sexy Voice.”

  Nikki laughed, but Isobel could tell she was pleased.

  “So, do you have any idea who killed Doreen?” Isobel asked, as she casually buttered her roll.

  Nikki set down her plastic fork. “I was wondering when we were going to get around to that. Yeah, it just so happens I have a guess.”

  “Really? Who?” Isobel held her breath.

  Nikki leaned forward. “Stan.”

  Isobel blinked. “Stan?” She pictured Stan Henderson’s soft, sweet face and thick hair. “You mean the sad sack who never met a comma he didn’t like?”

  “Here’s a little bit of office trivia for you. Stan and Doreen were married a long time ago. Right out of high school.”

  “What?!”

  “Yup,” Nikki smirked. “But the marriage was annulled.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Stan got shit-faced at the holiday party last year and cornered me by the ham station for half an hour.”

  “But what makes you think he killed her?”

  “He had the strongest link to her. God knows what their ‘marriage’ was about, but obviously they still had some sort of relationship. She got him the job at the bank. Maybe he felt indebted and resented her for it. Maybe she was lording it over him and he couldn’t take it anymore.”

  “What exactly does Stan do?”

  “He’s in charge of backup office equipment.” Nikki sat back and raised an artfully threaded eyebrow. “In case you haven’t figured it out yet, this department isn’t exactly the brain trust.”

  Isobel chuckled. “Yeah, I gathered that. Best I can make out is that they’re the support group to the support group that supports the support group that provides the support.”

  “In a nutshell.”

  “But Stan seems so self-effacing, so apologetic, like he wishes he could just disappear,” Isobel said, as she turned this information over in her mind.

  “Exactly,” Nikki said significantly, taking a bite of grilled chicken.

  Isobel gazed thoughtfully at the saltshaker, then castled it with the pepper shaker as if they were chess pieces. “Wouldn’t somebody have noticed a man going into the women’s bathroom?”

  “During an emergency drill?” exclaimed Nikki. “You obviously haven’t been in the city long. People take drills very seriously these days. It’s Pavlovian. Nobody notices anything except how many stairs are left between them and safety.”

  Stan and Doreen. In some ways, they seemed perfectly mat
ched: she domineering and calculating, he confused and gentle, both of them fleshy and… Isobel stopped herself. No use imagining that, she thought. And besides, they probably hadn’t. The marriage had been annulled, after all. There was a certain logic in suspecting Doreen’s ex-husband of killing her, but Isobel knew it couldn’t be that simple.

  “Just because they were married once and she got him a job doesn’t mean he killed her. What’s his motive?”

  Nikki waved her fork at Isobel. “Stan will be back in on Monday. If you really want to know, chat him up. I’m sure you’ll find something.”

  ELEVEN

  Isobel was the first person to arrive outside the rehearsal studio on Eighth Avenue and Fifty-fifth Street shortly before seven on Saturday morning. Delphi was the second.

  “Glad to see you’re still alive,” Delphi said, sitting on the stoop next to Isobel.

  “So far, so good. How are you?”

  “Still asleep.” Delphi yawned and looked around. “Where is everyone?”

  Isobel shrugged and pulled her notebook from her shoulder bag. She opened to the ad she had pasted in from Backstage.

  “Two by Two,” she read. “Auditions start at ten.”

  “Maybe we can at least go inside.”

  They moved into the vestibule and hit the buzzer for the studio. There was no answer.

  Isobel frowned. “I don’t get it. Remember how packed the other one was?”

  “Who knows?” Delphi shrugged. “I’ll go get us some coffee. Oh, and here.” She pulled a piece of paper from her own bag and handed it to Isobel. “Start a sign-up. They don’t have to honor it, but they probably will. Reduces the chances of bloodshed.”

  Isobel put the date and their names at the top of the page. She wondered whether the rest of the non-Equity population knew something about this showcase production they didn’t. Or maybe they just liked to sleep in on weekends. By the time Delphi returned, a few more groggy actors had wandered up and added their names to the list. At nine o’clock, the super unlocked the door, and the line, still small compared to the throng the other day, filed silently upstairs. Shortly after, a gangly, effeminate man in a mustard-colored sweater appeared and took the sign-up sheet.

  “We’ll start at ten o’clock sharp with…” he glanced at the sheet, “Isobel, Delphi, and then Jessica. They’re asking for sixteen bars of an up-tempo and sixteen bars of a ballad.”

  Isobel gasped. “Sixteen bars? That’s it?”

  “That’s it.”

  “What can you tell in sixteen bars?”

  “A lot,” the man said meaningfully and started off down the hall.

  Isobel called after him. “But you can’t build the dramatic arc of a piece! You can’t create a mood, a scene!” Delphi nudged her. “What? I’m right!”

  “Rule number one,” murmured Delphi, “don’t piss off the monitor.”

  They retired to the ladies’ room, where they applied makeup and changed into heels. Isobel wandered into the corner of the small anteroom and began to hum lightly. She wished she had been able to warm up more thoroughly, but she didn’t dare cause another disturbance at the residence, especially at such an early hour. She tried a few scales, buzzing her lips together to trill the first few notes of Leonard Bernstein’s “It’s Love.”

  Delphi didn’t seem at all concerned with warming up. She had removed the silver rings from her nose and ears and was taming her frizz into a cascade of sausage curls. Makeup in delicate pinks completed the look, and when she turned around, Isobel was shocked to see her transformed into a period heroine.

  “Wow! You look totally different!”

  “Thanks. I think.”

  “What are you going to sing?” Isobel asked.

  “Not sure. The part I’m right for physically is that high soprano thing, the pagan girlfriend, but I’m an alto. And the alto character is supposed to be unattractive.”

  “Which you definitely are not,” Isobel said.

  “Well, not in this get-up.” Delphi turned toward the mirror. “I guess I’ll just sing my standard tune.”

  “What’s that?”

  “‘It’s Love,’ from Wonderful Town,” Delphi said. “Nobody does it.”

  That’s what you think, thought Isobel, her heart sinking. Now what? They couldn’t go in one after another singing the same song. What if Delphi sang it better?

  “What key do you sing it in?” Isobel asked casually.

  “A. I had it transposed down, just because I like the song so much.”

  Isobel sang it higher, in the score key. It would have a distinctly different sound, but it was still the same song. The same mood, the same scene—even in sixteen bars. She suddenly understood what the monitor meant. But Isobel had only grabbed two songs from her music book that morning, “It’s Love” and a comic number by Irving Berlin that wasn’t as appropriate.

  Before she could figure out an alternate plan, the monitor called her name. She threw a helpless look at Delphi, who gave her a thumbs-up, and followed the mustard sweater into the audition room.

  Isobel slapped on a smile and approached the two middle-aged men behind the desk. “Good morning. I’m Isobel Spice!” she chirped.

  She handed her headshot and résumé to them and walked over to the pianist.

  “Can you play “I’ll Know” without the music?” she whispered. “I was going to sing something else, but I’ve changed my mind.”

  The accompanist, an acne-scarred, nerdy-looking boy, scowled at her. “No, I can’t. Don’t you know you should always bring your whole book with you?”

  Isobel sighed and set the sheet music for “It’s Love” on the piano.

  The accompanist’s face broke into a smarmy grin. “This is a much better choice anyway. Nobody does it.”

  The joke’s on you, buddy, thought Isobel.

  He started playing before she’d even reached the center of the room. She had no choice but to go with it, strolling along as if she were just discovering how she felt. Her bright, silvery soprano filled the room, and she was relieved to find that her voice was in fine shape. Suddenly, the bottom dropped out and she caught herself short.

  “Hey!”

  “That’s sixteen,” announced the pianist.

  “What else do you have?” asked the older of the two men behind the desk. He had a beard but no moustache, which made him look as if a small hamster was glued to his chin.

  “Can I finish ‘It’s Love’?” she asked.

  “We’d rather hear something else for contrast,” the second man said.

  “The monitor should have told you. One ballad, one up-tempo,” Hamster-chin added.

  “Well, what do you consider ‘It’s Love?’” Isobel asked. “Yes, it’s a love song, but it’s not a ballad in the traditional sense. The tempo is too bright.” She was aware of a second Isobel looking on from outside her body, urging, “Shut up. Stop talking now. Shut UP!” But she didn’t. Instead, she turned to the piano player.

  “Don’t you agree? I mean, what would you call it?”

  He frowned at her and shook his head ever so slightly. But Isobel pressed on, turning back to the two men.

  “I’ve never understood why people insist on categorizing songs that way, ballad and up-tempo. It’s meaningless. Take Cole Porter’s ‘Miss Otis Regrets.’ That’s a comic song, but it’s definitely a ballad.” She paused, considering. “I think what you really mean is sixteen bars comic and sixteen bars serious. I’ve got ‘The Secret Service’ by Irving Berlin. I can do that.”

  The auditioners gaped at her. Hamster-chin finally spoke.

  “I’m afraid we need to move on. But thank you for the musical theater pedagogy lesson. It was most enlightening.”

  Mortified, she returned to the pianist to collect her music. He was waiting for her, the music already in his hands, an evil grin on his pimply face.

  “It’s a ballad, you idiot,” he sneered.

  Isobel left the room, still reeling from her mouth’s betrayal of he
r common sense. She walked past Delphi, who shot her a furious look before following the monitor into the studio. Isobel plopped down on the chair her friend had vacated.

  In her confusion about what to sing, she had forgotten to savor her first New York audition. Now that it was over, she only wanted to forget it. Would she ever learn to keep her stupid mouth shut?

  Through the door, she heard the brief piano introduction to “It’s Love.” She stood up again and put her ear against the door.

  The melody was only barely recognizable as the same one that Isobel had just sung. Could transposition to a different key make a song so unrecognizable?

  Isobel closed her eyes and focused on the words.

  No, it was definitely the same song. It was Delphi. She was terrible.

  The door opened a few seconds later and Delphi emerged. She and Isobel stared at each other for a moment, then Isobel croaked, “That was great.”

  “It sucked,” Delphi said, pushing past her.

  “Wait!”

  Delphi whirled on her, and Isobel could see her struggling to sort her emotions. “Why didn’t you tell me you were singing the same song?”

  “I…I don’t know…I’m sorry!”

  “You could have warned me!”

  “I was trying to think of something else to sing!”

  “You had the advantage, going first.”

  That isn’t why I had the advantage, Isobel thought, then mentally smacked herself for the disloyal thought.

  “I didn’t have any other music with me. I asked the pianist if he could play ‘I’ll Know’ and he said he couldn’t. I think he was lying. He was a total jerk.”

  “They didn’t even ask me for anything else,” Delphi said.

  “Maybe they heard everything they needed?” I certainly did, Isobel thought, and mentally smacked herself again, harder.

  Delphi shook her head angrily. “No, it’s because they’d already heard you, and you were better.”

  Her words hung in the air between them. It was true, and they both knew it.

  “You’re, like, a real singer. You could do opera,” Delphi went on, hurt. “How come you didn’t tell me?”