4 Decoupage Can Be Deadly

by Lois Winston

  “Gruenwald didn’t want anyone to know the real reason for my transfer. For all I know, he’s paid off some American Woman spies to keep tabs on me.”

  Cloris laughed as she poured two cups of coffee and handed me one. “You are paranoid!”

  “Maybe.” Or maybe not. I still couldn’t shake the feeling that two plus two didn’t add up to four in Gruenwald World. Maybe this entire exercise was an elaborate scheme to send me on a wild goose chase because he worried I’d figure out he’d killed Philomena. If so, the man had far more faith in my sleuthing expertise than my experience warranted.

  However, if Gruenwald did kill Philomena, he should be worried about Batswin and Robbins, not me.

  Then again, given his age, I couldn’t see Gruenwald rappelling down the side of our building to steal the security cameras. Of course, he may have hired someone to do his dirty work for him, but that brought me back to the stupidity of dumping the body at Trimedia. If Gruenwald was behind Philomena’s death, why bring her body back here?

  “Anyway, no one downstairs stood out as a homicidal maniac.” I lobbed my cupcake into the trash after the others. Beggars might not be choosers, but even I had my limits.

  “I wonder if the crime scene unit uncovered any forensic evidence,” she said.

  “Even if they did, Batswin and Robbins wouldn’t divulge anything about an ongoing investigation to me.”

  “So what does Gruenwald expect you to do? Confront every staff member, asking if they killed Philomena?”

  “That’s one plan, I suppose.”

  “I wouldn’t advise implementing it.”

  “No kidding, Watson.”

  “Got a better idea?”

  I told her about my latest theory concerning the Bling! staff. “Tino headed down to Human Resources to collect employment records for me.”

  “Speaking of Tino, how does it feel to have your own personal hunk of a Secret Service detail?”

  “Weird. And I haven’t figured out how to explain his presence if I’m asked why he’s following me around.”

  “You’ll think of something. He’s certainly nice eye candy. If things don’t work out between you and Zack, you could do worse.”

  “I don’t think so. He can’t be more than thirty, and I’m not into the cougar thing.”

  “Never say never.”

  “On that note, I’m off to find Daphne.”

  “Give my regards to tall, dark, and drool-worthy when you see him.”

  ~*~

  Tino arrived about twenty minutes later and dumped a stack of file folders on my desk. “All these people work downstairs at Bling!?”

  “That’s all of them.”

  I quickly thumbed through the stack, counting. “Forty-two? No way are there forty-two people working downstairs.” We didn’t have anywhere near forty-two staff members at American Woman. “This must be a mistake.”

  “The secretary may have pulled files from other employees,” he said.

  “Only one way to find out.” I divided the stack in half and handed one pile to Tino. “Start reading.”

  “What am I looking for again?”

  “Anyone with a Philadelphia connection who now works for Bling!”

  Tino wedged his bulk into the one spare chair in my cubicle and opened the first file. I settled into my desk chair and began reading from my stack.

  First up on my pile was Sue Evens, Bling!’s editorial director. Sue listed Philadelphia Magazine as her former employer.

  “Got one,” Tino said. “Anthony Marzano. His employment application lists his last address as West Diamond Street, Philadelphia.”

  “What about former employers?”

  “None listed. Looks like this is his first job.”

  “And his position at Bling!?”

  “Copywriter.”

  First job and he scores a gig as a magazine copywriter when so many experienced copywriters are collecting unemployment? Unless Marzano accepted the job for peanuts, this sounded suspicious. “What’s his annual salary?”

  “Fifty big ones.”

  Definitely suspicious. “Did he gain experience while serving in the military?”

  “He doesn’t list military service.”

  I held out my hand for the file. “May I?”

  When Tino passed me the file, I skimmed the employment application. “He didn’t even go to college. Human resources signed off on hiring someone right out of high school as a magazine copywriter?”

  “Looks like it.”

  “He lists his current address as a post office box in Morristown.”

  “He may not have found a permanent place to live yet when he filled out the paperwork and never bothered to update the information.”

  Possibly. I placed the file on my counter. “Suspect Number One? I’d certainly like to take a look at the copy this kid is writing. If he’s even writing any copy.”

  If I weren’t so hard up for cash, I’d bet my next paycheck that Anthony Marzano had scored himself a cushy no-show job, compliments of Philomena Campanello. But if that were the case, why kill the goose serving him twenty-four karat golden eggs?

  “Found another,” said Tino. “Pedro Alvarez. Last address Cecil B. Moore Avenue, Philadelphia. He’s working as a layout artist for Bling!”

  “Past experience?”

  “None listed. And no college or military. Plus, he also lists a Morristown post office box for his current address. The same box as Marzano.”

  I pointed to the Marzano folder. “Add it to the pile.” I then added Sue’s folder. Three files so far. Three Philadelphia connections. At least Sue had prior magazine experience and didn’t list a post office box for her current residence. However if Marzano and Alvarez actually worked downstairs, she’d lied to me about the rest of the staff having experience.

  As we continued reading through the folders, our pile of suspects with Philadelphia connections grew. Of the forty-two employees, nearly all came from Philadelphia. Two-thirds had no prior magazine experience and listed the same post office box for their current address. “I think it’s time to head downstairs to have a talk with some of these people.”

  “How do you plan to do that without raising suspicion?” asked Tino.

  “Good question.” One I pondered for a moment. “I suppose I’ll just say that as part of my assignment, I was asked to review the personnel files.”

  Tino shrugged. “Works for me.”

  We headed downstairs. I found Sue Evens doing paperwork in her corner office, an area separated from the rest of the room by only a two-sided four-foot high smoky gray glass pony wall. A break on one side of the wall allowed for entry.

  “I need to speak with you,” I said, half shouting over the thumping boom-boom-boom of the rap blaring from the overhead speakers. How did anyone think straight, let alone carry on business discussions, in such an atmosphere?

  She motioned me into her alcove. Tino stood guard at the entrance. With no door to close to drown out some of the noise, I settled into one of the two chairs on the opposite side of Sue’s desk and realized I’d have to shout to be heard.

  “I see you inherited the puppy dog,” she said.

  “Excuse me?” I could barely hear her.

  “Tino,” she said a bit louder. “He used to dog Philomena. Now he’s dogging you.”

  Tino was more pit bull than puppy dog. Gruenwald probably had him keeping an eye on Philomena to protect her from the Trimedia rabble. No one would dare get too close to the Queen of Bling with the hulking Tino Martinelli watching from the sidelines. “He’s my assistant,” I shouted. Not exactly a lie. Tino was assisting me.

  She raised an eyebrow. “Funny. I thought he was the CEO’s driver. Gruenwald sure works fast.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Just that poor Philomena isn’t even six feet under yet, and Gruenwald has already moved on to his next bimbo. Although I must say, you certainly don’t fit the bimbo mold.”

  “That’s
because I’m not. There’s nothing going on between me and Gruenwald.”

  She shrugged. “If you say so. What did you want to talk about?”

  I glared at her for a moment before opening the first folder. “Let’s start with Anthony Marzano.”

  “Who?”

  “Any chance you can turn the music down so we don’t have to shout at each other?”

  Sue swiveled in her chair and pressed a button on the console behind her desk. “Better?”

  “Slightly.”

  “Hey,” shouted someone, “who’s messing with the volume?”

  “Annabelle can’t hear me,” yelled Sue. “I’ll turn it back up as soon as she leaves.” Then she turned back to me. “You were saying?”

  “Anthony Marzano. Your copywriter?”

  “Never heard of him. Who says he’s one of my copywriters?”

  “Human Resources.”

  “News to me.”

  “What about Pedro Alvarez?”

  “Is he also supposed to be a copywriter?”

  “No, a layout artist.”

  “Not here.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Of course, I’m sure. I know my own staff.”

  “How many people work at Bling!?”

  “What’s this all about?”

  “I’m not sure, but I’m beginning to have an idea. A number, please?”

  She thought for a moment. “Around fifteen, I think. If you need an exact number, I’ll have to look it up.”

  “Before you go to that trouble, tell me if any of these other people work here.” One by one I opened folders and rattled off the names of the people without prior experience. After each name Sue shook her head.

  “You’re positive you don’t know any of these people?” I asked after coming to the last name.

  “Absolutely. Are they all listed on the Bling! payroll?”

  I nodded. “To the tune of one point four million dollars annually. Each one of these supposed employees is collecting fifty thousand dollars in salary.” Given that Bling! had commenced operations six months ago, that added up to nearly three-quarters of a million dollars so far. I asked her one last time, “You’re sure none of these people works here?”

  “I know my staff, Annabelle. I’ve never heard of any of those people.”

  “Anastasia.”

  “What?”

  “My name is Anastasia, not Annabelle.”

  She waved her hand in the air. “Whatever. So you’re telling me Philomena padded the payroll with no-shows?”

  “Looks that way.”

  “Son of a bitch. Someone had to be in on this.”

  And that someone was probably Philomena’s killer.

  ELEVEN

  “I need to find out if Human Resources and Accounting have any new staff members,” I told Tino after filling him in on my conversation with Sue.

  “Snooping around in either department isn’t the best idea. You’d raise suspicions.”

  “Who else would know?”

  “Probably Ms. Luscy.”

  “Mr. Gruenwald’s secretary?”

  “She knows just about everything that goes on here.”

  “And what she doesn’t know, she can probably find out without alerting the killer we’re on to him.” Or her.

  We headed up to the fourth floor. Along the way we passed Tessa in the hall. I think she tried to raise an eyebrow, seeing me with Tino, but given her love affair with Botox, I may have been mistaken. Either way, I needed a credible reason for Tino’s sudden appearance in my working life, and I needed one soon.

  We found Marie Luscy sitting behind her desk, her eyes glued to her computer screen. With one hand she held her phone to her ear while the other typed away at her keyboard. When she noticed us hovering at her desk, she placed her keyboard hand over the mouthpiece and said, “Mr. Gruenwald’s at a meeting in the city.”

  “I don’t want to speak with him,” I said. “I’m here to see you.”

  “Me? What on earth for?”

  “I need your help with something.”

  She held up a finger before going back to multitasking between the phone and computer. Tino and I sat down in the reception area to wait.

  While killing time, I eavesdropped on Marie’s end of the conversation, which seemed to deal with the Trimedia budget. The person on the other end of the line apparently kept asking for figures that Marie would hunt down on her computer and supply to him. I couldn’t tell if the figures represented the current budget or the projected budget, but I suspected they were budget-related. I also thought it odd that Gruenwald’s secretary would be supplying the caller with these figures rather than someone in accounting, but according to Tino, Marie Luscy was much more than just a secretary.

  An unsettling thought struck me. How far did Marie’s relationship with Gruenwald go? Was she a mistress cast aside for the high profile Philomena? Had she killed Philomena to rid herself of the competition?

  I studied Marie as she continued to supply figures to the caller. Although close to my age, she looked in far better shape, at least from what showed above her desk. No discernable arm flab jiggled as she moved.

  Rappelling down the side of a building took far more skill than a lack of flabby upper arms, though, and Marie Luscy didn’t strike me as the athletic type. Her upper body was all curves in all the right places, especially the area that spilled over the top of her neckline.

  “How may I help you, Mrs. Pollack?” she asked, finally hanging up her phone and turning from her computer screen.

  I stood and walked over to her desk. “Can I assume you’re aware of what I’m doing for Mr. Gruenwald?” Although the CEO had attempted to swear me to secrecy, I suspected Tino was not the only member of his staff in the know.

  Marie quickly scanned the room, searching for what, I had no idea. Heavy glass doors separated Gruenwald’s fiefdom from the remainder of the fourth floor. Unless someone lurked in Gruenwald’s office, Tino, Marie, and I were the only people within earshot.

  She nodded. “Investigating Philomena’s death.”

  Score one for the reluctant sleuth.

  “What do you need?” she asked.

  I filled her in on the no-show employees. Her eyes grew wide. She reached for her phone. “We need to tell Mr. Gruenwald and call the police at once.”

  “Not yet.” I placed my hand over hers to prevent her from lifting the phone out of its dock.

  “Why not?”

  “If the police start questioning people about the no-show employees, the killer will be tipped off. We need more evidence before we contact the detectives. That way instead of just questioning people, they’ll make an arrest.”

  “So what do we do?”

  “Can you access employment records for Human Resources and Accounting?”

  “I can access everything.” She turned to her computer and began typing. “I doubt anyone in Accounting is involved, though. With Trimedia using a payroll firm, Accounting has no involvement in employee salaries. Human Resources sets up the accounts and sends the payroll information each week.”

  “Don’t most employees either have their paychecks direct deposited into their bank accounts or handed to them at work?”

  “Normally, yes, but there are some employees who prefer to have their checks mailed to their homes.”

  “But not to one address. No one at the payroll company thought it odd that each payday over two dozen checks are mailed to the same post office box?

  She shook her head as she continued to type. “No one would notice. Trimedia employs thousands of people nationwide. The payroll is computerized.”

  “So the only person who’d know about the scam besides Philomena was the person who set up the accounts.”

  “Right.”

  I thought back to the phone conversation I’d overhead at the Javits Center. Try it, and you’re dead. No one messes with me. Was the person on the other end of the phone Philomena’s Human Resources co-conspirator? Was
she shaking Philomena down for a larger cut? No one commits fraud for someone else without getting something in return.

  “Trimedia employs four people in Human Resources at this location,” said Marie, cutting into my thoughts. “No one relatively new. All have worked for Trimedia for years.”

  Yet one of them had to have a connection to Philomena. “Are any of them originally from Philadelphia?”

  She turned the monitor to show me the four files she’d opened. “Doesn’t look that way. At least not from the information on their employment applications.”

  Then what was the connection? “Would you print out those files for me?” Maybe if I studied them more closely, I’d find a connection.

  Marie printed off the pages, then slipped them into a manila envelope. “Good luck,” she said. “Let me know if I can be of further assistance.”

  “You like working for Gruenwald?” I asked before leaving. How Marie answered might tell me a lot about her relationship with the CEO.

  She shrugged. “It beats sitting in a cubicle.”

  Tino and I left Gruenwald’s reception area and headed for the elevators. “I don’t see the point of wasting my time on the second floor,” I said. “I’m going back down to the American Woman offices.”

  “But Mr. Gruenwald said—”

  “Mr. Gruenwald wants me to find Philomena’s killer. Assigning me to Bling! was a cover to allow me to snoop around the Bling! staff. I’ve snooped. The investigation is moving in another direction, one that doesn’t seem to involve the legitimate Bling! employees.”

  “So what are you going to do?”

  I waved the envelope. “Figure out which one of these four people has some connection to Philomena. I’ll be on the third floor until quitting time. You don’t need to hang around.”

  “No can do. Mr. G. told me to keep you safe.”

  “I promise I won’t go snooping around Human Resources. I’m going to my cubicle to read through these files and catch up on my own work.”

  “And I’ll be right outside your cubicle, making sure no one disturbs you.”

  “You realize people will become suspicious and want to know what’s going on.”

  “Not my problem. I’m just doing my job.”

  I craned my neck up at Tino. Definitely a pit bull of an ex-Marine. I was glad for his protection, but I certainly didn’t need protecting from anyone on the American Woman staff. Besides, with Tino hanging around, I wouldn’t be able to bounce ideas off Cloris.