Death Loves a Messy Desk

by Mary Jane Maffini

  “I’ll need something better than that.”

  “All right. I was supposed to meet someone here.”

  “Oh yeah? Like who?”

  “Well, not like that, Mona. I was supposed to meet Dyan . . .” I paused. I couldn’t remember Dyan’s last name.

  “Uh-huh. And what makes you think there’s something wrong? Maybe she got delayed.”

  “I didn’t expect the building to be empty. There’s no sign of her and now there’s this moaning and I can’t figure out where it’s coming from.”

  “Hmm.”

  “And then there’s the fact that her handbag is on her chair in this apparently empty building. And her jacket’s here, too. I can’t believe she’d go home without either of those things or that she’d leave them in the open in an unlocked building. Anyway, no one else is here, but there’s still one car in the parking lot. It must be hers.”

  “You should . . .”

  “Please don’t argue with me. Just send somebody. If it turns out to be nothing, I’ll apologize to everyone.”

  “Sure thing, Charlotte. We’ve had a lot of demand tonight, but a unit is on its way.”

  “She could be hurt. Send them as soon as you can.”

  “I’m already convinced. Now in case something is wrong, you’d better go stand outside. Get in your own vehicle. You’ve found one too many bodies, Charlotte. You’re developing a reputation.”

  “What if . . . ?”

  “Unit’s on its way. Leave the building, Charlotte. Charlotte?”

  I am not going to spend the rest of my life hiding under the bed as soon as I hear a noise, I said to myself. Out loud, too. If Dyan was still there and injured for some reason, I had to help her. I didn’t have to like her, but I couldn’t just leave her for ten or fifteen minutes while the next available unit arrived. She was so nosy. I could imagine her standing on a chair to reach a tall shelf or snoop behind someone’s poster and tumbling in slo-mo. Maybe she was lying somewhere with a broken neck.

  “Charlotte? Are you listening to me?”

  “Sure thing, Mona. Stay on the line. Just in case. This phone isn’t portable. I’ll be right back.”

  I thought hard. I’d heard the moaning after I’d passed the IT area. I pushed myself to move along the corridor. It was hard to believe a new building could be so creepy when you could still see the sun shining through the windows. It was only late afternoon, but the place had a midnight-in-the-graveyard feel to it. Don’t be stupid, I said. This is not midnight in the graveyard. It’s just an office in an ordinary business. That sound is probably somebody’s radio and you’ll have to apologize to Mona and everyone else connected with emergency services in Woodbridge. Just check it out and put your mind to rest. I paused at the entrance of the IT area and peered behind the baffle before stepping in. I resisted the urge to pick up the papers that had toppled from Barb Douglas’s desk. I stopped and listened. Not a moaning sound, more like a soft gurgle, but it was definitely coming from behind the desk.

  I checked behind the desk, my heart thundering like a locomotive. Dyan lay in a crumpled heap, her head under the desk, her legs at a strange angle. Had she tumbled from the chair? I glanced up at the bookshelves. Nothing seemed out of place. I dropped to my knees and leaned forward. I touched Dyan’s back. She was warm and breathing. She moaned again, softly, not like Dyan at all. Alive, but not conscious. I stroked her head and said, “Don’t worry. Help is on the way.”

  I got to my feet, somewhat shakily. That’s when I saw the blood on my hands. It seemed to be on my knees, too. I forced myself to wobble back to the staff room and yell into the phone. “Mona!”

  Mona yelled back down the line, “What?”

  “It’s her! It’s Dyan. She’s badly hurt. Get that unit here as fast as you can. She’s alive, but she’s bleeding. I’m—”

  Unconscious as it turned out.

  13

  If you are interrupted reading a document,

  use a sticky note to mark where you left off.

  You won’t lose time finding your place.

  It’s bad enough to wake up covered with blood, but even worse if someone is slapping your face. Much worse if that someone is Nick Monahan.

  “Pepper is going to be so pissed,” he said, scratching his handsome blond head. “What were you thinking, Charlie?”

  I sat up a bit too quickly, and my head spun. “Why should Pepper be upset? I’m the one who got bashed in the head.”

  “With a stapler, looks like,” Nick said.

  Have I mentioned that Nick is not the brightest bulb in the chandelier? “You’re right, Nick. It is a stapler. You really are a detective.”

  “Aw, Charlie, I get lots of mean at home. Don’t say stuff like that.”

  “Forget it. Where’s Dyan?”

  “Who’s Dyan?”

  I took a deep breath. After all, this crisis wasn’t really about me. “She’s the injured woman. That’s why I called 911 and spoke to Mona.”

  “Someone must have whacked her with the same stapler they hit you with.” Nick picked up the stapler, which had a bit of blood and dark hair on it. Mine, I thought.

  I said, “That’s evidence. Aren’t you supposed to leave it for the crime scene techs to bag?”

  A sharp intake of breath from Nick. At least he had the sense to look embarrassed as he dropped the stapler.

  It’s hard to believe anyone wouldn’t know this, let alone a third-generation Woodbridge cop, currently pretending to be a detective. But then again, it was Nick. Chances were that he’d zoned out during the relevant training sessions.

  “You better tell them you moved it,” I said. “They’ll find your prints on it.”

  “They’ll find yours, too,” he shot back.

  “They will not. I didn’t knock myself out with it.”

  He frowned, pondering that. “I’ll think of something.”

  A man and a woman in white paper suits, blue booties, and what looked like latex gloves waddled into the office. Someone at the police station was on the ball. The woman had a camera, which she raised to take a picture. Nick the Stick leaped to his feet and jumped back out of the room. “Don’t want to get in your way.”

  Right. More likely didn’t want Pepper to come across a shot of him face to face with me, even if I could feel a trickle of blood running down the side of my face. Probably not a good look for me.

  I said, “Please tell me, where is Dyan?”

  The technicians exchanged glances.

  “Dyan?” I repeated.

  “They took her away.”

  “And was she . . . ?”

  “Didn’t look good.”

  Nick stuck his head back in and said, “I think there are paramedics here to see you, too.”

  “I’m all right,” I said, struggling to my feet. It’s just a—” I stumbled and hit the floor, jarring my spine. It would have been worse if that pile of paper hadn’t absorbed the shock of my fall.

  Nick said, “Aw, come on, Charlie. Stop fooling around. They’ll take you to Emergency and get you fixed up before we haul you into the station for questioning.”

  As I was hustled by paramedics into a waiting ambulance, I glanced around the parking lot. Even though my head was swimming and the flashing lights of the emergency vehicles made things worse, I could still recognize some of the Quovadicon employees huddling in anxious groups in the parking lot. Why had they come back? Most looked like warehouse workers and drivers. I caught a glimpse of Fredelle, pale, stressed, and wringing her hands. Autumn’s pretty face was streaked with tears. She was shaking and clinging to a tall, handsome man in a white shirt and dark business suit. He must be her father, I decided. And he’s as mad as all hell.

  Mr. Halliday held Autumn in a protective hug, then turned to Fredelle and said in a voice that commanded attention, “I trusted you people to provide a safe place for my baby to work. And now I find out someone’s been attacked in your office. What the hell is going on? Reg Van Zandt has a lot to
answer for.”

  I agreed.

  Autumn wailed, “But I’m not a baby, Daddy. And Mr. Van Zee has been your friend for years. It’s not his fault. Anyway, what happened to poor Dinah?”

  Before I conked out again, I thought, You mean Dyan, you silly girl.

  Never mind the police station, if you get hauled into the hospital there’s questioning, too. It starts the second you open your eyes.

  “How many fingers?”

  “Does this hurt?”

  “And does this?”

  “How about this?”

  “I need you to close one eye, so I can look in the other. Can you do that?”

  “Now can you close the other one?”

  “Okay, miss, let’s take off your shoes. We need to test your . . . Is something wrong?”

  If you’re lucky, the hospital gods will let you make a phone call. And if you’re really lucky, your friend Sally will answer the phone. Being married to Dr. Benjamin Januscek gave Sally an awesome amount of influence at Woodbridge General. And you never know when you’re going to need a bit of influence. Say, when you’re having a neurological examination just before you’re about to be questioned by the police, and, may I add, not for the first time this year.

  Sally arrived fast enough to suggest a wormhole between her house and the hospital. She turned her gaze from the doctor who was tapping my knee.

  “Cute,” she mouthed to me.

  But not blind, I thought, giving her a shut up look.

  The emergency room physician was about my age, tall ish, fairly easy on the eyes in a pale exhausted way. As far as I could tell, he was completely devoid of humor. A smile or a bit of eye contact can be very reassuring during a neurological exam.

  She said, “I talked to Nick, before I came in.”

  “Don’t make my head hurt more.”

  “They seem to think you had something to do with what happened to that woman.”

  I said, “For the record, that woman is called Dyan. And do they have a theory that I hit myself in the back of the head with a stapler after calling 911? Because it doesn’t make sense.”

  “It’s Nick, doesn’t have to make sense. Anyway, they are convinced you were involved. I told him to get off his butt and start detecting, because you couldn’t have been. You’re a victim, not a villain. They should leave you alone.”

  “Thanks.” I hoped that Nick wouldn’t mess up the investigation any more than he had already.

  She shrugged and smiled winningly at the stone-faced doctor. “Didn’t do any good. They’ve got a police guard on you.”

  “Oh great,” I bleated.

  “I took the liberty of calling Margaret. She didn’t answer and I had to text her. Can you believe she was on a dinner date? Did you know Margaret was dating?”

  A look of guilt must have flashed across my face because Sally pursed her lips. “You kept that from me? And to think I dropped everything to rush over and take care of you.”

  “Sorry. I’ve had a lot on my mind.”

  “Sure, like a stapler. And don’t change the subject. I shouldn’t be the last one to know about Margaret’s date. Nobody tells me anything. But I am glad you’re all right. Margaret better get here soon and she’d better dish.”

  Margaret folded her arms and shot me a look that clearly said I’d ruined her evening. Not what you want to see when your lawyer shows up at the hospital. Never mind, when dealing with the police, you can always count on Margaret to know what to do.

  I pleaded my case. “I didn’t know you had a date. How could I know? You hardly talk to me anymore. And that’s twice in one week. It’s not like I planned any of this. I found this poor woman—well, she wasn’t a poor woman, she was the office bitch—but anyway, she wasn’t so bitchy that she deserved to be lying in a pool of blood on the floor in an empty building.”

  “We’ll come back to that,” Margaret said. “I’d like to know what you were doing there.”

  “Well, she called me. She told me she had some information about Barb Douglas. You’d know more about Barb Douglas, who is missing, except you’ve been . . . Is your lipstick smeared?”

  Margaret’s hand shot to her mouth.

  “It is! And since when do you wear lipstick anyway? Are you telling me that you’ve been smooching that detective right here in the hospital? In broad daylight!”

  “It’s dark out,” Margaret said. “After eight. And it wasn’t here, not that it’s any of your business. You were in that examination room a long time. And that bop on your head looks like the least of your problems.”

  I held up my hand. “Never mind about me. Please tell me what happened to Dyan. Is she going to be all right?”

  Margaret shook her head.

  I said, “Oh no. That’s horrible.”

  Margaret avoided my eyes. “DOA, my sources tell me.”

  “Your sources? Oh right.” The tall, dark, and way-too-old detective.

  Dead on arrival? The full impact of Dyan’s death began to sink in. Even if I hadn’t liked her much, I still felt sick to my stomach that she’d died in such a horrible way. And even worse I knew that I’d been so close, but hadn’t called for help in time to save her.

  Margaret looked up and said, “It is horrible. So you can see why the police are determined to talk to you.”

  “Well, I want to talk to them, too.”

  Her eyebrow rose. “No, you do not. You want to keep your mouth closed. Let me stall them until we think of something.”

  “We don’t need to think of anything. I didn’t do anything.”

  “Charlotte, Charlotte, Charlotte.”

  “What?”

  “They’re going to tell you they think you killed her, and they’re going to want to know how, and to a lesser extent why. So if you talk to them when you’ve obviously been injured, you won’t be in the best position to tell a coherent, credible story.”

  “So why wouldn’t it be credible? It’s exactly what happened.”

  “My source tells me you were instructed not to return to Quovadicon.”

  “Well, I suppose that’s sort of true—”

  “Sort of?”

  “Fine. It’s totally true, but it wasn’t because I did anything wrong. Fredelle, who is the office manager—you would know all this if you hadn’t been so remarkably unavailable lately—Fredelle was a bit upset because I asked some pointed questions about Robbie Van Zandt. And how would your source know this?”

  “Word came down the pipe from someone who is important to the brass, I gather. So let’s see if I understand. You grilled the office manager—”

  “Who was my client—”

  “—about the son of the owner?”

  “Since you put it that way, I suppose it was a bit short-sighted. But he’s connected to—”

  “To a very important man in this community.”

  “To a missing woman, Barb Douglas. Robbie might be involved in the death of that guy in the trunk of the blue Impala. Barb Douglas knew him. I would have told you all about this, but you’ve been tied up shaving your legs and going on dates and pretending you have to work late. Anyway, Dyan called me this afternoon and said she had information about Barb and to meet her at the office. Dyan hated Barb and had to be the snoopiest—”

  “So you met her at the office that you were specifically instructed to stay away from?”

  “Well, if you want to put it that way, yes. Don’t roll your eyes, Margaret. You never used to do that.”

  “And you never used to get involved in murder.”

  “Anyway, when Dyan asked me to go back, I assumed she’d cleared it with Fredelle. She worked for her.” I caught Margaret’s eyebrow lift again and said sheepishly, “You’re right. I shouldn’t have gone. But don’t you see—”

  “The optics are bad, Charlotte.”

  “But Dyan claimed to have information about Barb Douglas and now she’s dead, right behind Barb’s desk, which incidentally is right next to Robbie Van Zandt’s. So if I have
to be questioned, he should be, too.”

  “Words fail me.”

  “They don’t seem to be failing you.” In fact, Margaret had become a lot more forthright than she used to be. She’d been easier to take in the good old days, for sure. Of course, I hadn’t needed legal help quite so often back then. “I didn’t know the building was empty. I’d planned to see Fredelle on my way in. But she wasn’t there. Robbie wasn’t there, either. Autumn, the receptionist, was gone, too. Even the warehouse was empty.”

  Margaret said, “You checked the warehouse? Unbelievable.”

  “Do you know why the staff came back? They all seemed to be in the parking lot when the paramedics took me.”

  “The manager got a call. Everyone was summoned to Mr. Reg Van Zandt’s home on an urgent matter. They all showed up, expecting to hear some dire news. The rumor was that the company was being shut down. The receptionist had a meltdown, and some of the drivers were pretty vocal. And before you ask, the police have interviewed everybody, and everyone seems to check out. People were in view of the security cameras at Van Zandt’s place, too. Looks like none of the staff did it.”

  “Well, Dyan wasn’t at Van Zandt’s. Did anyone notice that?”

  “Apparently, she volunteered to stay and lock up.”

  “Of course. She would have loved being in charge, too. Probably moved everyone’s stuff around.” I caught myself with a frisson of guilt. After all, Dyan was dead. I changed the subject. “At least that call explains a lot, and it definitely vindicates me.”

  “I wish. There are two other problems.”

  “And they are?”

  “Mr. Van Zandt didn’t plan to make an announcement. He was quite surprised when all those vehicles pulled up at his home.”

  “Oh. So was it some kind of a prank call?”

  “Hard to say. It seemed real to Miss Newhouse.”

  “Okay, what’s the second problem?”

  “Well, it’s the really big one.”

  “Spit it out then.”

  Margaret said, “Apparently, that phone call came from you.”