Death Loves a Messy Desk

by Mary Jane Maffini

  Everyone blinked at that.

  I said, “I told you that somebody called her just before she tore out of Quovadicon.”

  Smarty said, “We’ll just have to find out who that was.”

  Well, that was a relief. Someone official would try to find out what the hell was going on. I would be off the hook.

  Nick chose that moment to be solicitous. “Do you want to go in and sit down, Charlie?”

  The boy’s eyes widened yet again.

  “No,” I said, “I want to go home and I want to make sure I get there without being killed by a truck.”

  Just as Nick the Stick got a lascivious look in his eye, Smarty said, “We’ll see you get home safe, miss. I’ll take you in the patrol car, and my partner can drive your car.”

  I blurted, “I hate police cars. I’m not going in one ever again. Never.”

  The not-so-bright cop said, “Hey that reminds me, weren’t you the one they found with that dead body? Didn’t I see you get put in a squad car?”

  The boy looked at me in a totally different way now.

  I said, “It was an ambulance. I was injured, too. So don’t try to pin that on me.”

  He brightened. Probably tickled that anyone could think he could pin something on them.

  Smarty held up his hand. “It’s for your own safety, miss.”

  Nick stuck out his chiseled chin. “This lady is a really good friend of mine. I can take her home. No problemo.”

  I refrained from using the word fool when I responded, but only barely. “Uno problemo. You are also driving a police car, Nick.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “I know there are two syllables in never, but try.”

  Smarty barely suppressed a smirk. “In the meantime, miss, while we’re working out the travel arrangements, anyone you want us to call to stay with you tonight?”

  Smarter and smarter.

  I tried Margaret. No answer. Well, she was probably on a date. She’d have her cell phone turned off. By now, Sally would be conked out after a long day.

  So that left Jack.

  “Yes. My friend Jack Reilly.” This time he wasn’t getting off the hook. I whipped out my cell phone.

  “Is this someone you know well and trust, miss?”

  “Of course. He’s been my friend since we were kids and he’s also my landlord. He lives downstairs. He’ll do anything for me. Anything.”

  Nick scowled.

  “I’ll call him now. I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” I muttered.

  “Shock,” Smarty said. “Anyone would find it hard to think clearly after that traumatic experience.”

  Jack is number 1 on my speed dial.

  “Hello?” A woman’s voice.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I must have the wrong number.”

  I didn’t bother to add, I must have pressed the wrong something-or-other because I’ve just narrowly escaped an attempt on my life. She didn’t bother to say, Don’t worry about it, before she hung up.

  I pressed 1 again. The same woman answered. I said, “Oh.”

  Before she hung up, she snapped, “Try to have a little consideration.”

  Something had obviously gone awry with my new cell phone. Had I programmed the numbers incorrectly? Was I losing my grip? On the third attempt, I dialed Jack’s number from memory. By now, I recognized the voice.

  “I do not have the wrong number,” I said firmly.

  The exasperation was clear in her voice. “Oh, for heaven’s sake. Exactly who were you looking for?”

  “Jack Reilly. And please don’t tell me that this isn’t Jack’s number, because it is.”

  “You want to speak to Jack? Why didn’t you say so?”

  I refrained from saying, Because he usually answers, and I don’t have to tell him that I’m calling to speak to him.

  “He’s not available,” she said.

  “What do you mean? Has something happened to him?”

  “He’s busy. He can’t come to the phone right now.”

  “Well, please tell him it’s Charlotte and I’ve had a . . .” I hesitated because I wasn’t sure how to describe what I’d just had. “Tell him it’s an emergency.”

  Her sigh conveyed the absolute burden this put on her. “I can’t interrupt his meeting.”

  “Let him decide whether it’s important enough to interrupt his meeting,” I said.

  “Whatever,” she muttered. “Hang on.”

  I hung on for at least three minutes while trying to avoid Nick’s eye. I heard her voice come back on the line. “Sorry. Jack said he’d try to find time to talk to you tomorrow afternoon.”

  I snapped the phone shut.

  “Something wrong, miss?”

  I pulled myself together. “No. Nothing. I guess my friend is still in his meeting. It’s for the bike race to raise funds for WAG’D, that’s a dog rescue group.”

  “Don’t worry about it, Charlie. I’ll follow you home if you want to take your own car. Make sure you’re all right.”

  I sort of imagined Nick’s brain to be like the inside of a Victoria’s Secret catalog, with all the bra models whispering Oh, Nick, baby after running their tongues over their already glossy lips. I shuddered. I never wanted to be part of that nightmare vision.

  Smarty raised a thick eyebrow. “I know that group, miss. They do great work. Where’s the meeting?”

  I blinked. “I don’t know.”

  Smarty said, “Tell you what. I’ll drive you home. My partner will follow with Sergeant Monahan in case this truck shows up.”

  Although I often fear for the future of the Woodbridge police, this young officer and Detective Tierney gave me faith. At least they were smart. Pepper was probably smarter than both of them put together and multiplied by four, but for some reason she’d started lying about missing women.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  He nodded gravely. “I want to be sure that everything’s under control.”

  I was pretty sure he meant Nick.

  Back in my apartment, Nick leaned against the doorjamb in what he probably thought was a macho pose. The world’s greatest lover was scared of Truffle and Sweet Marie. They didn’t care for him, either. Probably remembered his last visit.

  “How is Pepper getting along?” I said. Before he could answer, I added, “Does she mind you working nights? Must be hard on her.”

  Smarty was looking around my apartment with interest. “Detective Tierney said he’d put a car on you. He wants to talk to you later. Okay?”

  I nodded.

  The dogs sniffed him and decided he was okay. Mostly they wanted to cuddle with me. That suited me just fine. I wasn’t crazy about having the three cops in the house, especially as they kept looking around. The not-so-bright one actually opened the fridge. I felt too tired to suggest that my appliances were off-limits for casual pointless snooping.

  “You eat out a lot, eh?” he said.

  Smarty shot him a dirty look, saving me the trouble. “Check the backyard,” he said. “Might be someone out there. You want to make sure it’s secure.”

  “The backyard?” his partner said.

  “Yup.”

  “But we’re on the second floor.”

  “Just do it. It’s on you if someone climbs up here and . . .”

  I didn’t like the sound of that. Maybe that’s why I jumped when I heard people on the staircase. Jack was a vision in his Hawaiian shirt and baggy shorts, as usual, immune to the weather. I felt my throat constrict. With Jack home, life would return to normal. I wanted to fling myself into his arms and say, Make these cops leave. Keep the evil trucks away. Walk the dogs. Bring me ice cream. Of course, when I looked past his shoulder, I spotted Blair. She managed to look cool and impossibly beautiful with her snug Lycra gear and that enviable mane of blond hair. At least Jack still reserved his Lycra duds for races and not street wear, and his hairstyle was the familiar spiky bed head that I loved. Blair laid a proprietary hand on Jack’s Hawaiian shoulder and coo
ed, “Hi, Charlotte, looks like everything’s under control here. We’re so glad you’re all right. Let’s give Charlotte her privacy, Jack. She has lots of protectors.”

  19

  Trouble getting ready for work in the mornings?

  Set up your coffeepot the night before,

  so it’s ready to go with the click of a button.

  Or better yet, get a coffeemaker with a timer.

  “That Blair creature clung to him like six feet of Virginia Creeper,” I whined to Margaret when she finally answered. She sounded tousled, if that’s possible over the phone.

  “Get over it, Charlotte. It’s midnight and tomorrow’s a workday and I’m so not in the mood.”

  Where was the sympathy? The warmth and understanding you’d expect from a friend?

  “And what is this ‘we’ all about?” I whined. “She said we, almost like she and Jack were a couple. As if.”

  “What is your problem? You never let your relationship with Jack proceed past the good-buddy stage. You know he wants to get married and have children. So if that’s what he wants, let him go. Why should it bother you?”

  I fought back my feelings of outrage and countered. “Why do you always answer a question with a question?”

  “Why do you care?”

  “Because I’m upset. I’m upset about everything. I’m upset that a woman is missing and may be dead. I’m upset that another woman is dead and I was hit by a stapler and practically framed for her murder. I’m upset that I was chased by a killer truck.”

  “You were chased by a killer truck?”

  “There you go again, answering a question with a question.”

  “If you don’t mind me saying so, you’re not sounding like yourself, Charlotte. You seem . . . unhinged.”

  “You’d be unhinged, too, if you thought you were going to end up in the trunk of your car in the same area where that man’s body was found. Not that the police made any connection between that murder and the missing woman until tonight.”

  I waited for a response. I thought I heard Margaret muttering. “Killer truck. Trunk. Murder. Missing woman.” That kind of thing.

  “Can you talk into the phone? I can hardly hear you,” I said peevishly.

  More mutters.

  “Margaret?”

  Mutter.

  A horrible thought washed over me. “You’re not alone, are you?”

  “That is correct. Not that it’s any of your business.”

  I seized the moment. “It’s that cop, isn’t it? He’s supposed to be chasing stolen cars. Why is he wasting time on dates?”

  “Because, as I’ve mentioned already, it’s midnight. Tell me, Charlotte, do you want to be on the executive committee that decides who Margaret gets to have a relationship with? Because if so, you’ll have to take a number after my mother, my father, my grandmother, and every other Tang relative.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I thought you were my friend.”

  Low blow. “I am. It just took me by surprise, that’s all. I’m . . . very happy for you.”

  “Humph.”

  “By the way, Margaret, I think you are my friend, too. But you don’t seem very interested in my life-or-death experiences tonight.”

  “Well,” she said, finally. “I suppose you’d better tell me about the killer truck.”

  “What about Jack and—”

  “The killer truck. That sounded more life-and-death somehow.”

  “But the thing with Jack and that woman is more upsetting.”

  “Let it go, Charlotte.”

  “And Nick managed to get into my apartment again, too. He showed up after the truck incident.”

  “Really? Ew.”

  “And I feel bad for Pepper.”

  “Not as bad as you’ll feel if she ever finds out.”

  “Anyway, Pepper’s involved in this, too. She knew who the missing woman was. She told me she didn’t but she did. So maybe this person’s in a witness protection program or something. Margaret? Are you there?”

  Mutter mutter.

  “Margaret?”

  “My colleague doesn’t know anything about this woman. And in his opinion, there’s no chance she’s in witness protection.”

  “Give me one good reason why not.”

  “The feds would never tell the local cops. End of story.”

  “And that’s because?”

  “It seems they’re the biggest gossips on the planet.”

  I thought I heard a protesting mutter in the background.

  After I hung up, I flounced around the apartment alarming the dogs. I set out my clothes for the next day, sorted out my handbag, prepared my briefcase, straightened my desk, made my prioritized To Do list, and set up the coffeemaker for the morning. Next I tossed in a load of laundry, exfoliated my face, and put on night cream. I slid into my flannel jammies and curled up on the sofa with one entire box of Kristee’s black-and-white fudge. Some people would call that a luxury.

  I called it a medical necessity.

  I spent the night tossing and turning, dodging flying trucks and broccoli bullets. Mel and Del were driving the trucks and firing the bullets. I dragged myself out of bed, flicked on the coffeemaker, and waddled out with the dogs. There was no sign of life at Jack’s place. The door was closed. His bike was gone. Apparently this race planning was a twenty-four-hour-a-day business.

  We stomped back five minutes later. I was afraid to look in the mirror in case I spotted a black cloud over my head. I sipped my coffee and revised my To Do list.

  • Det. Tierney re Mel and Del

  • Robbie re info on Dyan’s computer

  • Fredelle re Barb’s references

  • Practice for Therapy Dogs orientation meeting

  • Prepare strategy for working with teenage daughter before next meeting

  It didn’t escape my notice that work was forming a smaller and smaller part of my To Do lists. Further down the priority list, too.

  I started with a call to Detective Tierney before I even took my shower. He must have been out detecting because it went straight to voice mail. I left a message and said I’d be home until ten a.m. and I urgently needed to talk to him. I was thinking more clearly now. I wondered if the information I’d unloaded on the three police officers the night before had reached the detective’s ear.

  Robbie was next. Surprisingly he answered.

  I filled him in on the events of the night before. “I am absolutely certain the driver was trying to kill me. I think it’s those guys I told you about, and I’m pretty sure Fredelle was lying about them. I plan to tell the police.”

  “That’s really hard to believe.”

  “She’s holding back lots of stuff. I’m out of sympathy for her. Missy might know, too. I’ll tell the police to talk to her.”

  Robbie squeaked. “Missy! But Missy’s really nice. I don’t want the police hassling her.”

  “They won’t hassle her. She’ll tell them what they need to know. Remember, all this is connected to Barb in some way. We have to do whatever’s necessary to find out what’s going on with her.”

  “That’s right,” he said. “We’re in this together.”

  “Any luck with Dyan’s computer?”

  “Nothing. It’s actually been wiped clean.”

  “Really? Then there must have been something that incriminated someone at Quovadicon.”

  “Good point. I’ll try to recover the files. I’ve already substituted another hard drive so no one will notice I’ve taken hers.”

  “Good thinking. And speaking of hard drives, we should see what’s on Barb’s.”

  “I’m ahead of you there. Lots of files, but I combed through it and I couldn’t find anything strange.”

  “Keep at it.”

  “I will. You be careful.”

  I wasn’t sure at what point Robbie and I had become allies, but whatever works, I decided. We did have a common goal.

  When I hopped out of the shower, t
he message light was flashing. Life’s like that. Ramona’s instructions were crisp and to the point. “I might have a bit of joy on your Barbara Douglas question. I got a few hits on the business databases. She wrote several articles on business applications for new technologies a few years back, seems to have been working at tech start-ups in Silicon Valley. The latest article I can find shows her working in San Raphael at a place called, let’s see, oh right, Vector Vici, five years ago. I’ll see if I can turn up a photo. In the meantime, I’ve printed out the articles and citations. They’re here for you. Pick them up when you come for your orientation. Wish I could do more.”

  I imagined Ramona was up to her patootie with her regular demanding library patrons. As usual, she’d bailed me out. And I had an idea. I picked up my new cell phone and blocked the number before I made my call.

  Fredelle answered somewhat breathlessly, as though she’d run halfway across the office to catch the call in time. “Quovadicon. Fredelle Newhouse speaking.”

  I plowed on before she could extricate herself from the call. “Charlotte Adams here. I am willing to avoid going to your employer to tell him how you lied about being involved with Therapy Dogs in order to trick me into working on Barb’s desk, provided you answer one quick question.” Before she could respond, I asked, “Do you know where Barb worked in between Vector Vici and Quovadicon?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  I repeated the question, adding, “It would give me a jumping-off point. Did you get a reference from Vector Vici?”

  “Mr. Van Zandt did, but . . .” She paused. This confirmed that the Barb Douglas who’d worked at Vector Vici was the one I needed to find.

  “Charlotte?” The quaver was back in Fredelle’s voice. Maybe she just trotted it out when she needed to manipulate someone.

  “Hmm?”

  “I think we should leave Barb alone. Let her get back on her feet.”

  I said, “Sure. Gotta go. Places to go, people to see. Calls to make.”

  But more accurately, I had to work on my fibbing technique. And I had to Google Vector Vici.