How to Succeed in Murder

by Margaret Dumas

  “You’re kidding!” Eileen said. “How could she keep it a secret? How can anyone keep anything a secret in a place like this?”

  “What could she have seen in Troy?” I asked. Which, I realized, wasn’t really the point.

  “I’ve got another one.” Simon grabbed a balloon and started batting it around. “Bob Adams is leaving.”

  “Leaving? As in leaving Zakdan?” Eileen asked.

  “As in leaving Zakdan, leaving San Francisco, leaving the Americas. He bought a sheep farm in Scotland and he takes occupancy in June.”

  A sheep farm? Scotland? I suddenly visualized the bearded Quality exec in a kilt, then really wished I hadn’t.

  “How in the world did you find that out?” Brenda asked.

  He handed her the balloon. “Never underestimate the power of pillow talk.”

  “Simon, we saw you this morning,” I pointed out. “Are you telling us—”

  “That was hours ago,” he said innocently. “And I did take a lunch break.”

  “In any case,” Eileen cut off further explanation. “I’m guessing your source is the Creative Services manager—”

  “Chris,” Simon supplied. “Yes.”

  “And Chris works with Troy, so…”

  “So was in a position to observe certain compromising incidents with Clara which left little to the imagination,” Simon said. “All long ago.”

  “And the sheep farm?” I asked. “Bob?”

  “Bob was careless with the faxes he left lying around.” Simon shrugged. “People will look.”

  People will.

  “You’re right,” Brenda said. “Morgan Stokes has no idea what’s going on around here. I mean, aside from all of this new stuff, he didn’t know anything about Clara’s plan to fire Krissy, he didn’t know Jim was throwing a party on Thursday night—even though it was a company party—and he had no idea that everyone knew he was engaged to Clara.”

  “And he thinks everyone adores MoM as much as he does,” I added. “When I have it on reliable authority that half the company thinks she’s a bitch.” I nodded to Flank, at his usual station in the back corner, to acknowledge his reliable authority. He looked pleased.

  “It’s because he’s the boss,” Brenda said. “What’s that old expression about speaking truth to power? Something about when you speak truth to power, you should do so from a distance…”

  “I thought it was ‘speak truth to power, and power will listen,’” Eileen said.

  “I wouldn’t count on that,” Simon commented. “But I have a good one. ‘All great truths begin as blasphemies.’ Shaw. And then there’s—”

  “I think we’re straying from Brenda’s point, Simon,” I told him.

  “My point,” Brenda said, “is that nobody tells Morgan the truth about anything. Maybe because they’re afraid of him, or maybe because they’re trying to get away with something, but I think mainly because they’re so busy trying to figure out what he’d like to hear.”

  “So the truth gets lost,” I agreed.

  “Truth is stranger than fiction,” Simon said. “Sometimes.”

  ***

  Things started looking up when I got home and found a note from Jack.

  C,

  Meet me upstairs. Bring the champagne.

  —J

  The champagne in question was a bottle of Veuve Clicquot, resting on ice in a silver bucket on my kitchen counter.

  I heard the sound of running water when I got to the third floor, and figured out Jack’s plan for the evening when I saw the candles around the tub. The fact that Jack was already in the tub, up to his chest in bubbles, was another dead giveaway.

  “I take it we’re not going out tonight.” I set the champagne bucket on the step leading up to the oversized bath.

  “Valentine’s Day,” he scoffed. “It’s amateur night.”

  “And that makes us what? A pair of old professionals?” I raised an eyebrow.

  “Not old,” he corrected. “Just seasoned.”

  He reached over to turn off the taps.

  I sat on the edge of the tub. “I didn’t get you a present,” I told him. “I forgot about Valentine’s Day.”

  “Which is one of the many ways in which you are the perfect woman.”

  That was nice.

  “Except…” He reached for the bottle. If I was going to stay even slightly focused he’d have to stop reaching for things. It causes my mind to wander.

  “Except?”

  “You have too many clothes on.” He poured.

  “Oh.” I took the glass he offered and looked around the room. Fluffy stacks of towels, creamy marble surfaces, extremely flattering lighting. “I think this is my favorite room in the house.”

  “That’s because the only thing necessary to furnish it is terry cloth. Are you going to get in, or do I have to come out for you?”

  I could have told him about Clara and Troy. I could have told him about Bob and the sheep farm. I could have told him that the bubbles were leaving certain areas of his anatomy completely vulnerable.

  Instead I did the sensible thing.

  I got in the tub.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  I wandered downstairs the next morning wrapped in a heavy silk kimono, fully expecting to find a note from Jack in the kitchen. But when I got to the second floor I could have sworn I heard noises coming from his office.

  I poked my head in the door. “What are you doing here?”

  “I live here,” he answered.

  “But you’re usually…what have you done to this place?”

  The room had been completely transformed. An entire wall of shelving was filled with neat stacks of books and miscellaneous things like ceramic pots and Indonesian-looking carvings. Low-slung chairs in clean modern lines were arranged around a coffee table on a kilim area rug. The wall behind the desk held filing cabinets and a set of deep bookshelves.

  “I went to Ikea,” Jack said. “What do you think?”

  “How did you do all this?” I tried to take it in.

  “I had some things in storage.” He pushed his chair back from the desk. “Do you mind that I did it?”

  “It’s your office.” I noticed an Asian tapestry hanging on the wall behind me. “And it’s gorgeous. Do you want to do the rest of the house?”

  He grinned. “That’s your project.”

  “I don’t know.” I looked around. “This seems to be another of your hidden talents.”

  “I thought all my talents were pretty obvious.” He came up behind me as I was looking over his book collection. “And yours are pretty stunning too. Just think what we could accomplish if we—”

  “Hey Jack, you’re out of—”

  Whatever we were out of was lost in my yelp at the sudden appearance of Mike at the door.

  “Oh,” Jack said. “Mike’s working here today.”

  If I were a cat, I’d have been clinging by my claws to the ceiling. As it was, I tightened my kimono and turned around. “So I see.”

  “Hi, Charley. I just made coffee. Want some?” Mike put a tray with a coffee pot and three mugs on the table. Three mugs.

  “Is Gordon here too?”

  “He should be, any minute,” Jack said. “Mike wants to show him some photos of a couple of the engineers who’ve been at Zakdan the right amount of time to have planted the virus.”

  “So he can watch them in the cafeteria?”

  “Among other things.”

  Mike went to Jack’s desk and picked up a folder. “This is for you to take in and show to your gang. It’s got the names and photos of the four guys we’re interested in.”

  I took the folder. “I’ll see if Simon can place any of them at the party.” I checked the clock on Jack’s desk. “And I’d better get moving. I don’t want to be late for work.”

  “There’s something I never thought I’d hear you say,” Jack grinned.

  I suppose there really is a first time for everything.

  ***
<
br />   I completely chickened out of asking Brenda what she’d done the night before, and whether it had involved my Uncle Harry. Probably because I was afraid she’d tell me. At least the conference room was blissfully free of balloons, so the whole V-Day discussion never even came up.

  Flank couldn’t find a place to park and he refused to let me go to the café without him. So we were gathered around the Zakdan conference table before I had a chance to show Simon the photographs of the four engineers Mike had come up with.

  “Maybe…” He flipped through them. “Maybe…possibly…I don’t think so.”

  “That’s a help,” Eileen said dryly.

  He shrugged. “Sorry, darling, but these are grim little head shots and I was in a dark bar when I might have seen them.”

  The head shots were grim. They were copies of the photos on the engineers’ security badges, taken from the employee database.

  “They look like mug shots,” Brenda said. “Every single one of them looks guilty of something.”

  Flank made a growling noise and I quickly shut the folder. It’s good to have an early warning system when two of your walls are made of glass.

  We saw what had set him off. MoM was on approach, and she began making may-I-come-in gestures when she saw we’d noticed her.

  Eileen waved her in, and as she entered she tucked her day planner under one arm and pressed her hands together in supplication. “Please forgive the intrusion.”

  Which forced us to say things like “It’s no intrusion—” and “Please, sit down,” until she did.

  “I know this is wildly inappropriate.” She pushed up the sleeves of her slate gray turtleneck as if she were about to deal us all a hand of poker. “But I heard you’re going to share your findings on Friday, and I just couldn’t wait to see what you have to say.”

  She must have recognized our expressions as stunned, because her eyes widened. “Oh no, I shouldn’t have said anything. Wasn’t I supposed to know?”

  Hell, we didn’t know. What was she talking about?

  “Where did you hear that?” Eileen asked.

  She retreated into the depths of her sweater, pulling the neck up to cover her mouth and nose. Then she peeked out again. “Was it a secret? Everyone’s talking about it. It’s on your calendars.”

  Someone should tell her she couldn’t pull off coy.

  “No,” I said. “Of course it’s not a secret. We just…”

  We just what?

  “We just don’t think it would be fair to everyone else if we gave you a sneak preview,” Eileen finished for me. “But, as long as you’re here, there are a few follow-up questions I’d like to ask you. Is now a good time? How about if we go to your office?”

  I silently blessed Eileen for taking MoM off our hands. She’d tapped something on her laptop, and turned the screen toward me as she stood to hustle MoM out of the room.

  I looked at Eileen’s computer when they’d gone. It was opened to her calendar and, sure enough, there was a meeting scheduled for ten o’clock on Friday.

  “‘Presentation of SFG Findings,’” I said. “Who put that on there?”

  “I wouldn’t know how, even if I’d wanted to,” Simon said. “But it’s on my calendar as well.”

  “And mine,” Brenda said. “I think whoever put it there wants us gone.”

  Flank grunted in agreement.

  We’d been given a deadline.

  ***

  I saw Bob Adams at the espresso machine in the kitchen across the hall. “I think I’ll go have a chat with the future sheep rancher.”

  “Better you than me,” Simon said.

  I told Flank I wouldn’t stray out of his sight, and went over. The kitchen had a high arched window that overlooked the CalTrain station. Bob was staring out of it, sipping a latte. He was wearing baggy pleated jeans and another ancient tee-shirt that stretched across his midsection. This one had a drawing of a large hairy beast on the back, and a cryptic slogan—If you don’t get it, you might as well be herding Yak.

  I didn’t get it, but I’d learned in my time at Zakdan that the more obscure the saying, the more the engineers loved it.

  “Hi, Bob.”

  He jumped and looked over, a little foamed milk clinging to his facial hair. “Hey. I heard you’re going to be presenting your findings on Friday.”

  “Word gets around.” Especially around Zakdan.

  “Any chance you’ll tell me what you’re planning on saying?”

  As if I knew.

  “I really can’t.”

  He nodded and looked back out the window.

  “I was sorry to hear about Jim Stoddard,” I said. “You two must have worked together a long time.”

  He left the window and sat at one of the tables. “I guess you just never know, do you?”

  “No, I guess you never do.”

  I sat with him. Surely I could do something to save the conversation from disintegrating into funeral-parlor platitudes.

  “Who do you think will get his job?”

  My remark was sufficiently callous to startle him. He glanced up, then got an uncomfortable look on his face as he gestured toward the glass wall of the kitchen. “Probably one of them.”

  Half a dozen men in brightly colored spandex were clumping through the hallway between the kitchen and our conference room. They wore the heavily logoed jerseys and pedal-ready shoes of seriously pretentious cyclists. They’d just come through the lobby door and were peeling off gloves and loudly commenting on each other’s riding abilities as they made their sweaty way along.

  “Who are they?”

  “The biking club. They meet twice a week in Mill Valley and ride in together.”

  “Mill Valley? The one on the other side of the bridge?”

  “They like to do at least a quarter-century before work.”

  Twenty-five miles on a bicycle is not my idea of how to spend a morning. Neither, I could tell, was it Bob’s.

  The cyclists were spilling into the kitchen now. “Hey Bob, you missed a great ride today,” one of them called out.

  “Yeah, you should join us some time,” another one smirked.

  Bob flushed, which was not a look that worked well with his reddish hair. He sat up a little straighter and sucked in his belly. “Yeah, sounds good. Maybe I will.”

  “You’ll need to get a new bike, dude. They don’t allow training wheels on the Golden Gate.” The wit who said this looked around for someone to high-five him.

  Bob turned a shade darker. “They’re really great guys,” he muttered to me. “We just like to give each other shit.”

  The Quality exec might not have been a glorious physical specimen, but I can’t stand jerks—particularly of the jock variety.

  “I get it,” I murmured to Bob. “They’re assholes.”

  He choked on his last gulp of coffee.

  Suddenly I didn’t blame Bob for wanting to go hang out in the highlands and get away from all of this. It didn’t seem sinister at all. It seemed—

  Then I forgot all about Bob. Because I realized I’d seen four of the sweaty cyclists before.

  In mug shots provided by Mike.

  ***

  “So what?” Eileen demanded. “So they ride bikes together—that doesn’t mean they’ve conspired to bring down Zakdan.”

  “Maybe not,” I told her. “But you have to admit it’s suspicious. I mean, all four of Mike’s suspects are best friends? They hang out together outside of the office? Don’t you think that’s worth looking into?”

  We’d reconvened to compare notes before leaving for the day. I’d had an uneventful lunch with Troy and had spent most of the afternoon trying to catch my new four suspects doing something incriminating together. But unless you could call sitting in meetings and working in their cubicles incriminating, I’d come up empty, except for the discovery of a back stairway to our little corner of Zakdan and a handy shortcut to the ladies room.

  “I’m not sure it’s exactly suspicious,�
�� Brenda said. “The reason Mike identified them is that they’ve all been working at Zakdan a long time, and they’re all senior engineers, so it doesn’t seem that odd that they’d hang out together.”

  “But I’m completely willing to keep my eye on them,” Simon volunteered. “Where did you say they took their showers?”

  Bob had told me about the locker rooms on the second floor, but I didn’t think sending Simon on a stakeout would be terribly productive.

  “Never mind,” Eileen said.

  “Uh oh.” I’d been toying with my laptop, and hadn’t realized I’d spoken out loud until I noticed them all staring at me.

  “I just got an email from Morgan Stokes,” I explained.

  “What does it say?” Brenda asked.

  “He’s in New York for a series of meetings this week, but he heard about our presentation on Friday and he’s changed his plans so he can be here.” I looked up. “He wants to know if it means we’ve identified Clara’s killer.”

  Eileen was the first to speak. “Well, it looks like we’re giving a presentation on Friday. Does anybody have a copy of PowerPoint?”

  I had a lot of questions. Was going ahead with the meeting on Friday the right thing to do? What could we possibly say about our “findings”? Who had set up the meeting in the first place—was that person the killer?

  And what the hell was PowerPoint?

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Wednesday night at my house, chaos ruled.

  Mike had shown up with three guest geeks and a small flotilla of computer equipment, all of which he deposited in the library to work out a few remaining secrets of the universe while he went upstairs to share something with Jack that I was clearly not technical enough to appreciate.

  Not that I minded.

  Eileen had shown up with a gigantic green chalkboard, on loan from Anthony’s private school, which she positioned against the fireplace in the living room. She and Brenda then began drawing an enormous chart of suspects and facts, taking Mike’s who-left-Jim’s-party-when spreadsheet as a springboard. They were currently arguing over whether Tonya Ho, of Human Resources fame, even merited being added to the list.