14
Five minutes of filing at the end of every workday
can save hours searching through piles of paper
for documents later on.
“What? I thought you said—”
Margaret repeated, “The police claim the phone call came from you.”
“But I didn’t make that call.”
“No need to yell, Charlotte. I believe you, because I know you. But the police say they have proof.”
I raised my voice. “It’s perfectly ridiculous. Why would I do that?”
Margaret shrugged. “Don’t shoot the messenger, who is also in this case the lawyer. The police seem to think you wanted to get Dyan alone.”
“This is crazy-making. And by the way, even if I had made such a call, which I didn’t, why would anybody follow such a ridiculous instruction from me?”
“Keep in mind I’m just telling you what the police are saying. They think you didn’t say you were you.”
“Well, I wasn’t me.”
“They confirmed the source of the call as your cell phone.”
“That’s not . . . wait a minute. My cell phone was lost. I reported it.” I felt a tingle as odd events fell into place. My voice rose. “Obviously someone took it to frame me. You know what’s weird? This time last week, I hadn’t met any of these people and now one of them is missing, another one is dead, and I’m the fall guy.”
“Stick to your story. Don’t deviate. Don’t talk about this other missing woman. Don’t volunteer anything. Don’t badger them for information. Just answer the questions truthfully and don’t allow yourself to be questioned without me present. They’re stirred up enough already.”
“I’d be stirred up too if the first cop on the scene was Nick the Stick. I mean really, he had his hands all over everything—”
Margaret said, “Ew! How could you stand that?”
“Not me,” I yelped, “but the evidence. The stapler and who knows what else he contaminated. He has the brains of an acorn, you know that.”
Margaret narrowed her eyes. “I’ve told them you’re not in any shape to be questioned yet. Maybe it’s making them cranky.”
“I don’t blame them for being cranky. But why should I suffer for it?” For some reason, when Margaret left the examining room, no doubt to wring some more information out of Detective Tall, Dark, and Granite, the doctor seemed just a little bit, oh, I don’t know, on edge?
I lay there with my head still throbbing and wondered about what I might have forgotten in the shock of Dyan’s murder. Did I have appointments? I sat up, causing my head to spin. Therapy Dogs orientation. No, that was Friday. At least someone had retrieved my handbag. I was glad it wasn’t Exhibit B. I had promised to drop off brochures and design ideas to my latest closet client that evening. I didn’t like to let her down and I wanted her to keep her enthusiasm for the project. After all, I only had a headache and a bit of dizzyness. I’ve worked through worse. And I’d been really looking forward to this project. But the shadow of the police guard on the white curtain surrounding my emergency room bed brought me back to reality. I staggered out of bed and tapped the officer on the shoulder. She was a stocky young woman of the keener type.
“I have a meeting tonight at seven. It’s very important. I feel well enough to go home and get over there. I might take a taxi. So I wonder if you could just keep an eye on me there, instead of here.” I smiled brightly to defuse any suggestion that I was an unreliable character.
“You’re kidding, right?” the officer said.
“No.”
She rubbed her nose.
I chirped. “What harm can it do? I have to make a living and—”
She held up her hand. “Let me explain this. The only reason you’re not at the station is that you are in the hospital, which usually means you’re not well enough to go to the station without some risk. I am not here to protect you. I’m here to make sure you don’t disappear to avoid being questioned in a murder.”
At least she didn’t roll her eyes.
“I’m not planning to disappear.”
“And I’m not planning to argue. For one thing, it’s already nine o’clock, so you’ve missed your meeting. Anyway, if you’re well enough to go, and they check you out, it’s the station for you.”
“Fine. Let’s get it over with. Where’s that doctor?”
Apparently wanting to be cleared to depart and actually being cleared to depart are two different things. Our original doctor had gone off shift. The new one was round, fresh, and cheerful.
“No way, José,” she said when I tugged on her sleeve. “Not until I see those X-rays. And even without seeing them, I’d say you’re not going anywhere for the next forty-eight hours. You won’t be able to stay alone.”
“Will I be able to drive?”
“In your dreams.” She chuckled.
Even at the best of times, I find it hard to make a telephone call to cancel an appointment. With a police officer looking over my shoulder, it was even worse. Eventually, I persuaded a nurse to transport me in a wheelchair to the pay phone in the nearest hallway. The officer came along. Luckily I had my client’s name written in my agenda next to the date, time, and address. I asked the officer to make the call as I seemed to have a bit of trouble focusing. When my client answered, I apologized for not being able to drop off the brochures as promised. I explained that I had run into an unexpected problem and had been unable to contact her earlier.
She said, “Well, I’ve been concerned about you. I saw them lift you into an ambulance on the news. I hope you’re all right.”
“I will be. And I’ll get in touch as soon as I know when I can get back to work.” I paused to give her time to wiggle out of the contract.
“Don’t worry about me. Anyway, you must be really shaken up. You weren’t even supposed to drop off the brochures until tomorrow night. Never mind that. The weekend would actually work better for me. You just take care of yourself.”
That was nice, if a bit embarrassing. Lots of clients drop you at the first sign of trouble with the police. I had a lump in my throat when I called to leave a message with the Therapy Dogs coordinator.
To my surprise a familiar human answered, although she did say “Woof! Woof! Woof!”
“Woof,” I answered automatically. “This is Charlotte Adams speaking and . . .”
“Oh Charlotte! We met at the booth on Sunday. Everyone’s looking forward to seeing you at the orientation session and we’re dying to meet Truffle and Sweet Marie, too, when the time comes. Of course, we’ve all seen you on television. I am sure those little cuties will make wonderful additions to the team.”
“The problem is that I’m in the hospital.”
“Oh no! Not surgery, I hope.”
“No no, just a small injury.” I was glad she hadn’t been watching the news that evening. “But I don’t know when I’ll be released, and I don’t know if I will be able to make the orientation session. I am wondering if there are any other options.”
I decided not to mention that the police might still be grilling me by then. That’s a seemingly endless process, a fact I’ve learned the hard way.
“Well, I sure hope you’re feeling better soon, otherwise we’ll have to send a therapy dog team to cheer you up.”
I chuckled. “I hope I’m not here that long, as much as I’d enjoy that visit.”
“The session is full. It’s probably too late to fill your place, so if you get a chance to come by, that would be great. Otherwise, we’ll fit you in the next time. Might not be until spring, though.”
“Thanks.” Such lovely people. So kindhearted. That reminded me. “Oh, by the way, there’s been a death at Fredelle’s workplace. She’s very upset. I don’t imagine she’ll make the event, either. I am sure she’ll contact you, but just in case . . .”
“Who?”
“Fredelle.”
“Fredelle?”
“Fredelle Newhouse. I met her at your booth the other day.”
“Hello?” I said, after a while.
“Um, was it a head injury?”
“What?”
“Did you have a head injury? Is that why you’re in the hospital?”
“Um . . . yes, sort of a head injury. But why are you asking?”
“Well, because we don’t have anyone named Fredelle who is part of the Woodbridge League of Therapy Dogs.”
“What?”
“I know every volunteer, and there’s no Fredelle.”
“But I saw her there, by your booth.”
“Sorry, but that doesn’t make her part of our organization.”
“Oh.” I searched for something to make sense of this. “Maybe . . .”
She filled the awkward pause. “In fact, I know Fredelle Newhouse very slightly, and we’d be glad to have her. She could help with lots of tasks, but she hasn’t volunteered to date. Maybe she was thinking about it and mentioned that to you.” She didn’t bother to mention the head injury again, but I could tell she figured it accounted for my mistake.
“Sorry, I must have misunderstood.”
“No harm done.”
“You’re kinda pale,” the stocky officer said after I hung up.
No damn wonder I was pale. Innocent round-faced silver-haired fairy godmother type Fredelle Newhouse had deliberately misled me about her involvement in Therapy Dogs. The only reason, I imagined, was to entice me into Quovadicon and the rat’s nest it had turned out to be. Looked like Fredelle was just one more person who couldn’t be trusted.
Of course, it was just a matter of time until the defective detective showed up again.
“Hey, Charlie,” he said.
“Nick.” I sat up. A bad idea, as it turned out.
He said, “Okay, you want to start by telling me why you hit that lady? Was it an accident?”
I lay back again, causing a bit of havoc in my head. “I think you’re supposed to take my statement before you pull out the rubber hoses. Where’s Detective Tierney, by the way?”
“Didn’t anyone take your statement?”
I bit my tongue so I wouldn’t blurt out that the detective shouldn’t rely on the suspect to do his job for him.
I said, “No one did.”
“That’s weird.”
The keen officer stared at Nick with astonishment. Or at least that was my assumption.
I would have rolled my eyes, except I thought that would hurt. “I have been here in Emergency under police guard since the ambulance picked me up at Quovadicon.”
“Oh, so no statement. Hmmm.”
How long, I wondered, before the Woodbridge police department found itself under the media microscope for some essentially stupid miscarriage of justice due to the sheer incompetence of Nick Monahan? How would Pepper ever hold her head up in town?
Oh well. Not my problem. I’d warned her not to marry the jerk.
“You could take the statement,” I suggested. “Then I could get out of here and . . .”
“Unless we arrest you.”
“Bad idea.”
“It’s my job, Charlie. Sometimes I got to do the hard stuff.”
“Margaret just went back to her office to get some work material. We’ll wait until she gets back.”
“Margaret? Why do you need a lawyer?”
My head throbbed. Nick can have that effect. And I hadn’t done anything. “Fine. Just take the stupid statement and you’ll see why that won’t be necessary.”
“Okay, then. Want to tell me what happened?”
“Sure. But you have to write it down.”
“Course I’m going to write it down, Charlie. I’m the detective, remember?”
I did my best to describe my trip to Quovadicon without making my behavior look suspicious or, worse, lunatic. A challenge. As writing was never Nick’s best thing, the statement took longer than it should have.
Nick frowned and said, “Why did you go again?”
“I’ve explained that. Dyan called me and said she had something to tell me.”
“What was it?”
“Well, I don’t know, Nick. I never found out. We didn’t talk. She was badly injured when I got there.”
“And no one noticed this? Only you?”
“Do you recall the phone call that requested all staff to go to Mr. Van Zandt’s home? And Dyan didn’t go.”
“So she stayed behind?”
I massaged my temple. “Yes.”
“To meet with you.”
“Yes.”
“And that was because . . . ?”
“She claimed she had information for me. Perhaps Dyan made the call, a bit of subterfuge to clear the office of witnesses.”
“What?”
“She claimed—”
“No, that word.”
“Subterfuge? Means a trick.”
“I knew that. How do you spell it?”
“S-u-b—”
Nick stopped to scratch his head again. “I’ll just put trick.”
“Good thinking.”
Nick glanced over at me, looking sneaky. “The only thing is that Dyan didn’t make that call: You did.”
“I did not.”
“The call came from your cell phone.”
“That cell phone was stolen.”
His look morphed from sneaky to smug. Possibly he planned to run through all known facial expressions starting with S. Say strange, stunned, stupefied. Any of them would have worked. Or maybe he was just tired of writing and had decided it was more fun to tease me.
He said snidely, “Oh, yeah. Did you report that?”
“I didn’t because I thought my dogs had hidden it. We are still working our way through . . . issues about possessions. But it is patently untrue that I made the call.”
“Patently. Big word for a little lady.”
“Untrue. Bad word for a cop.”
“But maybe Fredelle Newhouse made that call herself. She misrepresented herself to me.”
“Your cell phone number showed up on the call display record when that call was made. Fredelle Newhouse didn’t make it. The call was transferred to her from reception. The number’s right there on the screen. Now, don’t go saying your dogs made the call.”
“Now I see that it must have been stolen by someone who . . .”
“Tough one, Charlie. Not sure if a jury will buy that.”
“What jury? I didn’t make that call, and I wish you’d get that through your—”
He raised his hand. “Okay, don’t panic. You don’t need to take everything so personally.”
“Don’t take it personally? Don’t take a jury personally? Don’t take insinuations that I may have killed someone personally? Are you . . . ?”
Before I could choose between demented and dimwitted in reference to Nick, the sturdy cop stepped forward. As if he needed protection from me. Nick the Stick had obviously found another emotional patsy. Better her than me, although I wanted to warn her not to let Pepper ever get a look at that lovesick cow expression or this officer would be looking for another police force. In Montana maybe.
At that moment the curtain was flung back with more than a little drama. Nick gasped, the officer gasped, and I gasped, too.
Pepper raised an eyebrow. She was in full makeup, nicely dressed, and with her hair fixed. This was the Pepper I was used to.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” I blurted. “Nick wants to arrest me for murdering Dyan. He’s hoping I’ll get discharged soon.”
“Is that a fact?” Pepper said.
The female officer stared at Pepper’s bump with barely disguised something. Envy maybe. Nick stared at Pepper with fear and confusion. I just stared. I would need to know what was going on before I could conjure up the right kind of emotion.
I said, “It goes without saying that I didn’t do it.”
Nick said, “All the evidence points to her, no question about it. You never really know about peop
le, do you, babe?”
The officer said, “She’s been stalling to stay in the hospital, but she won’t be able to get away with that much longer.”
Pepper said, “Do I have to do everything around here?”
“What do you mean?” Nick squeaked.
“Am I or am I not on sick leave because of this pregnancy?”
“You are, babe.”
“Did we not both create this baby? And do we not both want this baby to go full-term?”
Nick scratched his head. That kind of complicated negative sentence was bound to throw him off. After thirty seconds he said, “Yeah, yeah. We did. We do. And you look beautiful. More beautiful than ever. You ask me, you’re the most—”
“Blow it out your ear, Nick.”
Nick’s mouth shut with a click of his teeth.
I took a chance. “But you do look good, Pepper, even if you’re not feeling well. Motherhood agrees with you.”
“Yeah well, getting hit on the head doesn’t agree with you. You look like crap and you have blood oozing through that bandage. Someone has to see to that. Where’s the doctor?”
“There’s blood oozing out of my head?” I said woozily. “Really? Are you sure, because—”
“Lie down and shut up, Charlotte. You.” She pointed to the officer. “Get a doctor in here, right now. Unless you want to be part of some kind of lawsuit.”
“Lawsuit?” Nick said.
“You know, harassment, mistreating witnesses.”
“But, babe, I didn’t . . .”
“Just take a hike, Nick.”
He gawked at her. His mouth was open again, slack-jawed, in fact.
“Now!”
I lay there not knowing whether to be more concerned that my head was oozing blood and apparently people died of that sort of thing, or that Pepper and Nick didn’t appear to be getting along. I was pretty sure that wasn’t my fault, but I could never really tell what was going on with them.
Nick slunk out through the curtain. The officer had already scurried off in search of a doctor.
Pepper narrowed her eyes in my direction. “Look at you,” she said. “Didn’t I tell you not to stick your pointed little nose into this business?”
Death Loves a Messy Desk Page 15
