Waiting for Armando (Kate Lawrence Mysteries)

by Judith K Ivie

  I had been issued a temporary security badge on my first day at BGB and could probably find it, if I had to, but I have never been asked to display it and do not know its number. So the first time I arrived at work before 7:00 a.m. and was confronted by the sign-in book, I looked at the bored young guard slouched behind the security desk, totally disinterested in me or my destination, and decided to amuse myself.

  That first morning I signed in as Scarlett O’Hara, but on subsequent occasions I have dubbed myself Jacqueline Bissett, Andie McDowell, and even Sally Field. I followed each entry with a badge number a few digits different from any other BGB badge number I spied in the log, and without exception, I have been permitted to proceed to the elevator lobby without incident, proving to myself how deserving of scorn such procedures are when not consistently enforced or at least spot-checked. After all, I have never been asked to sign out at the end of such a day, so how does the security staff know that Scarlett, Andie and Sally aren’t still in the building somewhere plotting mayhem?

  All of which would have continued to be my little secret, of course, except that my last such fictitious entry had been made that very morning, when according to building security’s log book Lena Horne took the elevator up to BGB’s offices at 6:54. Under the circumstances, what could I do? Implicate myself for murder by giving up evidence that I had fraudulently entered BGB’s office in good time to serve one of the senior partners poisoned coffee? So I lied.

  “Uh, just a little after 7:00, as I recall,” I answered Diaz’ question and waited for lightning to strike me dead. “I remember, because I looked at my watch as I was coming through the door to see if I was going to have to sign in. You have to sign a log book in the lobby if you enter the building before 7:00,” I embellished helpfully.

  Sergeant Donovan made a note in his official notebook, and Detective Diaz nodded. “Do you remember seeing anybody else in the lobby?”

  Oh, no. Somebody else Diaz had already questioned must have seen me come in before 7:00 and sign the book, I inferred wildly, until I remembered the scene in the lobby that morning. No one else had been there, just me and the young black guard, Charles something, according to his nametag. He had slouched in his chair as usual, picking at a stray thread on his uniform jacket. Otherwise, the lobby had been utterly deserted. No one could have witnessed my silly game at the counter. Diaz was merely covering the bases, hoping to find out who else might have arrived at BGB earlier than usual this morning. The slamming of my heart slowed perceptibly, and I attempted a facial expression more thoughtful than guilty.

  “No-o, I can’t say that I do. No one but the guard, of course,” I offered with what I hoped was interpreted as an earnest desire to be thorough. Again, Donovan made a note, and Diaz nodded.

  “Do you always get here so early? I was under the impression that BGB office hours begin at 9:00 a.m.”

  In my uncomfortable state of mind, Diaz seemed to be harping on the point. What did she care what hours I worked? Why did it matter so much to her? I had no involvement with Alain Girouard. I barely recognized the man on sight.

  “Well, I haven’t been at BGB very long,” I replied carefully. “I’m here on a temporary assignment. This is different work than I’ve done for a very long time, and law is an entirely new field to me, so there’s a lot to learn. I find that I can get a lot accomplished in the morning before the phones start ringing—now that I’m one of the people who has to answer them,” I added with a chuckle, trying for levity. Donovan wrote, Diaz nodded. I sighed.

  “When you say this is different work for you, do you mean that you haven’t always been a secretary?” Diaz asked.

  “Administrative assistant,” I corrected, then shrugged apologetically. “It’s the politically correct term these days, sort of like using the term Latino instead of Hispanic, you know,” I blithered, unable to stop the spate of words. Oh my God, who was this fool coming out of my mouth? Diaz raised her eyebrow a millimeter or two but mercifully kept her thoughts to herself.

  “So what was it that you used to do?” she asked, putting an elbow on the arm of her chair and propping her chin on her closed fist. “Where did you work before coming to BGB?”

  Good going, Lawrence, I chastised myself. A whole new can of worms to try to explain to the good detective. The people who know you best can’t understand why you walked away from a management position to play girl Friday, and now, thanks to your runaway mouth, you’ve got to spill your guts to this person who met you five minutes ago and hope she gets it.

  I took a deep breath and released it in a huff, annoyed with myself for being so rattled. What was going on here had nothing to do with me and everything to do with a police professional trying to do her job and get all the information she could about a murder that had been committed in her precinct this morning. That included gathering background information on the people who were on the scene. Since I was the one who had found Girouard, I was included in that group. So I had signed in as Lena Horne and gotten to the office a few minutes earlier than I said I did, so what? I didn’t kill the man, and I didn’t know who did, so enough with this display of adolescent heebie-jeebies. Diaz and Donovan waited patiently.

  Just get on with it, I told myself. I leaned back in my chair, striving to project candor and nonchalance. “It was a personal decision,” I began, “one that I’m not at all sure was correct, but I’m trying it on a temporary basis.” I launched into what had become my short-form explanation of the reasons behind my career change, winding up with, “So that’s how Kate Lawrence left the big, bad world of marketing and wound up answering phones in a law office,” delivered with a smile to show what a good sport I was trying to be about my embarrassing work situation which was, after all, my own doing.

  Throughout my recitation, Diaz gazed at me expressionlessly, failing to acknowledge my attempts at self-deprecating humor with a grin or a chuckle. Fine, I thought. Sit there like a stone. That’s you. This is me. Deal with it. I felt better than I had since entering the room. Donovan, a well-proportioned, but hefty, 250 pounds, shifted his weight onto the other foot and scratched his head once but otherwise confined himself to his role as note-taker. I sympathized with him wordlessly. Flunkies of the world, unite.

  Finally, Diaz spoke. “I understand that your full name is Sarah Kathryn Lawrence. Why do you go by Kate?”

  It’s a question I’ve answered a thousand times in my life so far. “If your last name was Lawrence, would you go by Sarah? It makes me sound like an Ivy League institution,” I said crossly. Then, “Leilani?”

  She had the grace to squirm. “My parents honeymooned in Hawaii.”

  I didn’t laugh. At last we had a bond. Diaz hastened to change the subject. “So as I understand it, you got fed up with trying to sell investors on putting their money into a losing proposition and decided to find work that would be less … demanding,” she summed up after a pause that I found insulting. I narrowed my eyes.

  “That’s one way of putting it. I prefer to think of it as choosing not to make how I pay my bills the focal point of my life.”

  “I hear that,” Donovan piped up unexpectedly, causing Diaz to throw him a quelling glance. He blushed to the roots of his hair and concentrated on his notepad.

  I smiled at the unfortunate Sergeant, relieved that I had acquitted my job change in someone’s eyes, at least, and could get on with recapping the morning’s events and my part in them. But Diaz continued her perplexing line of questioning.

  “So how is it going here?” she probed. “Have you adjusted successfully to your new situation?”

  Does this woman have time to kill or something? What does she care about my adjustment or my situation, past or present? “It is an adjustment, naturally, but that’s only to be expected. It was mostly the workspace thing that threw me a little bit, not having an office and all. But as far as I’m concerned, work is work. Pay me fairly, treat me with respect, and I’ll market small-cap stocks or type memos. It makes absolutely n
o difference to me.”

  For the first time Diaz permitted herself a small smile, knowing she had hit a nerve. “For someone who lies so badly, you are lying to yourself pretty good there.” She shot straight from the shoulder, igniting my temper. I didn’t know what this woman’s agenda was, but it was time to get control of this interview.

  I put both feet flat on the floor, composed my hands in my lap and said icily, “I appreciate your insights, Detective, as I would from anyone who has known me for less than ten minutes. However, I know your time is limited, and I’m sure you’d prefer to spend it moving this investigation forward instead of speculating on the progress of my adjustment. Perhaps we should get back to the events of this morning.” I sat back and gave her plenty of time to assess my reaction to her prying. The only break in the silence was Donovan sighing. No notes worth taking here, I presumed. I continued to wait.

  At length Diaz smiled and rose from her seat beside me, circling the desk to reposition herself less congenially in the chair behind it. “Sit, why don’t you?” she murmured to Donovan in passing, waving at the chair she had just vacated. Donovan squeezed his gym-honed bulk past my knees and sat, gratefully wiggling the ankles that had borne his full weight for too long.

  So you entered the building at a few minutes past 7:00 a.m.,” Diaz recapped. “Then what? Just as it happened from your perspective, please.”

  Good, I thought. Message received. I launched accommodatingly into a precise review of my movements from the time I had arrived on the thirty-seventh floor, which okay, had been about five minutes earlier than I was saying here, until the time that nice young patrolman and his partner had responded to Ingrid’s 911 call at a few minutes past 7:30. About halfway through my account, there was a knock on the door, and a uniformed officer stepped in to hand Diaz a small sheaf of papers that looked to be photocopies. Diaz glanced through them briefly, then nodded for me to resume. I did. Diaz nodded, Donovan made notes. Things were back on track.

  When I finished, Diaz thanked me for my time and rose from her chair, coming back around the desk to see me out. She paused with one hand on the doorknob.

  “Just one more thing,” she said, reminding me of pesky Lieutenant Columbo in the old television series. “I would be very grateful if you could clarify something for me, Ms. Lawrence.”

  “Kate, please,” I said quickly in a belated attempt to make nice. “Of course. That’s what we’re all here for.”

  “Thank you.” The detective gazed at the photocopies on her desk thoughtfully, then back at me. “Before we came upstairs this morning, I asked one of my officers to interview the security guard at the front desk, Charles Harris. He was on from midnight last night to eight o’clock this morning. He’s a senior at Trinity College and works that shift fairly frequently to supplement his scholarship, I gather.”

  My palms started to perspire.

  “I asked him to make photocopies of the log book pages covering his shift. I also asked him if he remembered anyone unusual entering the building between, say, six and seven o’clock this morning.”

  I swallowed so hard, I was sure she could hear it.

  The punch line wasn’t long coming. “He said no, no one unusual, just the woman who gets her jollies signing in with fictitious names. Just started at BGB, he said, Kate something. All the guards know her.”

  Six

  “Kate, Kate,” Strutter lamented yet again. “How could you have been so foolish? She shook her head in that maddening, disappointed mother way she had adopted with me since that morning.

  “Okay, okay. It wasn’t a good idea, I admit it. How could I know that the security guard on the desk this morning would turn out to be Mr. Conscientious? He always seemed to be bored stiff when I saw him. I was just having a little fun.”

  I was relieved to spot Ingrid and Margo coming through the patio door of Bleu and waved them to where Strutter and I waited at a corner table. The little jazz nightclub had opened recently on Ann Street in the two-story space that had been occupied years ago by the Russian Lady. An open-air patio on the upper level offered welcome respite from the smoke-clogged bar beneath us. The Friday happy hour patrons swarmed in to begin their weekend, although the live music wouldn’t begin until late in the evening. We had snagged a table on the patio only by taking off work an hour early, leaving Bellanfonte and Bolasevich spluttering in our wake. Frankly, my dear, neither of us gave a damn.

  As our friends squeezed through the closely placed tables, I noted Ingrid’s pallor with concern. As long-time secretary to the murder victim, she had borne Diaz’ persistent questioning for far longer than I had. The good news was that she hadn’t played fast and loose with the building’s security measures, then lied about doing so to the police.

  “How are you holdin’ up, Sugar?” Margo asked me, placing a napkin and a tall whiskey and soda on the table before sitting down. The subdued Ingrid sat in the remaining empty chair. She held a bottle of beer and a tall glass.

  I groaned and put my head in my hands. “Ask Strutter,” I said without looking at her. “Did you know the kid who was on the security desk this morning is her nephew? Charles Harris, her sister’s boy, named for his Auntie Charlene. A dean’s list senior at Trinity.” I groaned again.

  The Lena Horne story had circulated through the firm like wildfire, thanks largely to Bellanfonte, who thought it was possibly the funniest thing he had ever heard. He passed it on to Bolasevich, who confided it at the top of his lungs to Strutter, who emerged from his office to share Charles Harris’ unbelievably coincidental lineage with me and shake her head at me for the first time that day.

  Ingrid sat quietly, nursing her beer along with her justifiable anxieties. Office scuttlebutt, collected and shared with us by Margo, placed the burden of suspicion equally at this point on Ingrid, whom everyone seemed to assume was sleeping with Alain, and Vera Girouard, Alain’s long-humiliated wife. We had no way of knowing how Vera’s interview with Diaz had gone, but one had only to consider the impressive number of Girouard’s former lovers to enumerate her motives for doing in Alain. While waiting for Margo and Ingrid, Strutter had made a list of all the women she could think of, BGB staffers and outsiders, who were known to have shared Girouard’s sheets in the years she had been at the firm. Without having to think about it for long at all, she was able to scribble five names on her cocktail napkin, three of whom were secretaries at BGB.

  Despite my embarrassing prevarication, Diaz had seemed disinclined to add me to her list of active suspects, once she had satisfied herself that I had managed to resist Girouard’s charms and had not known any of his jilted paramours long enough to want to do him in on someone else’s behalf. In fact, to my annoyance, she had seemed highly amused at my being caught in a barefaced lie. Even Donovan had cracked a smile. After instructing me to keep myself available, Diaz had released me to cool my flaming cheeks with cold water in the women’s room.

  Margo chuckled traitorously now. “I’m sorry, Sugar, I know it’s embarrassin’ for you, but you’ve got to admit, it’s funny. I mean, Sally Field, maybe. Not many twenty-year-old black males would know her. But Lena Horne? His mama probably spoon-fed him Lena’s music right along with his Gerbers. You can’t seriously have thought you’d get away with Lena Horne.”

  I raised my head and glared at Margo. “I never seriously thought he read the damned sign-in sheets. He always looked like he was half asleep.”

  “And after two classes and a full night shift on duty, how would you expect him to look?” Strutter wanted to know. “That boy has worked his tail off to get to where he is, and he didn’t get there by doing his job halfway. Believe me, he read the log.”

  “Okay, I’m an idiot. Mea culpa. I will apologize to Charles personally. Enough.” Sulkily, I sipped my drink and attempted to change the subject by addressing Ingrid. “So how much trouble do you think you’re in here?”

  She regarded me wanly. “I’ve been Alain’s personal secretary for nearly six years. I came to BG
B right out of college, and I know where all the bodies are buried.” She flinched at her unfortunate choice of words but kept going. “Also, you weren’t the only one who saw us hissing at each other a few days ago in the conference room. Everyone else in the firm assumes that I was the latest in his long line of in-house lovers. How much trouble do you think I’m in?”

  Margo leaned over and gave Ingrid a hug, and Strutter grabbed her hand sympathetically. I opened my mouth and put my big foot in it. Again. “I guess you’re right at the top of Diaz’ list.”

  The three women stared at me as if I had just spit on the table. “Uh, along with Vera Girouard, of course. The wife is always the obvious suspect, especially when she has to put up with a procession of wife wannabes throwing themselves at her husband.”

  Margo looked at Strutter and silently mouthed, wife wannabes?

  “I’m sorry, Ingrid. We know you weren’t among them, but the general perception of your relationship was probably …” I trailed off miserably. Everyone at the table knew exactly what I meant. I liked Ingrid, and I totally believed that she was not personally involved with Girouard. But I couldn’t ignore that by all accounts, the man was damned near irresistible, and Ingrid was a lovely and available young woman. It was an old story with a familiar plot. I took a long sip of my drink and pulled myself together. “The question now is how do we get you off the list?”

  Ingrid blinked at me, bewildered. “We?”

  Margo and Strutter raised their eyebrows at each other. Perhaps there was hope for this fool yet.

  “Of course, we. You know everything there is to know about Alain Girouard’s office life, and after six years as his secretary, you must know a good deal about his private life, too.

  Ingrid shook her head.