by Robert Olsen
“I understand gentlemen, perfectly well! You specifically asked me if I owned a MacBook Air and where I was last evening! You didn’t say my company. Believe me sir, I understand that and don’t like it one bit. And, furthermore, I’d like to hear you tell me what time Miss Ellington was murdered?”
“We don’t know the official time of death, but it was last evening.”
“And, what did I tell you? I clearly explained to you that I was with friends, last evening, so I don’t understand why you keep asking me all these questions!”
“We don’t want you to get upset, it is just........”
“I know, I know, it’s just God damn routine procedures! Are you two finished, now?” Kathryn demanded, becoming considerably annoyed over the implications.
“We’re sorry you’re upset,” Detective O’Donnell said, “You explained where you were, which obviously I’m sure you have witnesses that would testify to that. You also explained that you don’t own a MacBook Air, and it doesn’t appear that your company uses them. I don’t think we need any more information,” said Detective O’Donnell.
“Thank you Miss Becker for your cooperation. I think we can go, now,” Detective Peters said as the two of them got up and walked to the door.
Detective O’Donnell stopped at the door, still looking at his notes. There was one other thing Miss Becker. We noted at some point, that your mother is also a type one diabetic, isn’t she?”
“Yes? That is true,” she answered, wondering why they would have brought my mother into the picture.
“Well, you don’t happen to carry hypodermic needles in your purse, by any chance, do you?”
“You’ve already asked me that question detective and the answer is emphatically no! I don’t have a habit of carrying hypodermic needles. Now, would the two of you please leave and let me go back to work?”
The look Kathryn gave him would make one believe daggers were about to fly out of her eye sockets.
“O’Donnell, enough, come on, let’s go. I’ve got it covered,” said Peters.
As the two officers were walking down a corridor, on their way to find Dr. Anton Andreyushkin, the detective asked O’Donnell. “Do you believe her?”
“I don’t know. We still need to hear from the coroner.”
It must have been an hour or so later, when Kathryn received a phone call from Detective O’Donnell.
“Yes, detective, what is it now?” Kathryn asked, feeling like she wanted to scream.
“Detective Peters asked that I call you, Miss Becker. We did get to speak with Russell Valmont.”
“Yeah, yeah, go on.”
“Well, ma’am, he didn’t know too much about use of the MacBook Air, but we’re going to follow-up with the others. We have no further interest in Mr. Valmont. He said he personally does not own a MacBook. We just wanted you to know.”
“Well, I’m glad you talked to him. Goodnight, detective.”
“Oh, ma’am, there’s just one more thing. The coroner’s preliminary report is competed.”
“So what? Why do I need to know that information, detective?” She said getting annoyed again.
“Sorry, Miss Becker, but Detective Peters wanted you to know that the coroner placed the time of death between midnight and 1 am. That’s all. Sorry to bother you.”
Kathryn slammed down the phone, as her eyes started to fill with tears. Realizing her predicament, she just sat there and cried.
As Kathryn continued to ponder her conversation with the police, she began to worry even more about the implications within their questions. Was it possible that something was seriously wrong with the Diage AU003 pump? Could Donald Gingrich be right in all his accusations? And what’s the deal with this MacBook thing? She decided to take a walk and ask a question or two, herself.
Barbara had said something earlier to her that Donald Gingrich didn’t come to work this morning. She was hoping she could speak with him about the MacBook and whether he was aware if anyone had one. She knew Donald would be honest and straightforward with her. Her next thought was Eric Halsey.
“Hi Eric, got a second?”
“Sure, for you Kathryn. What do you need?”
“I have a silly question. Do you happen to have a MacBook Air?”
“Why?”
“Someone was telling me, I might like one. I think the guy is an Apple geek.”
“Well, as a matter of fact, I do have one.”
“You do!” She said rather shockingly. “I mean, oh, good. How do you like it?”
“I like it a lot.”
“Is it a full-fledged computer?”
“Yes, sort of.” Eric briefly laughed.
“That didn’t sound convincing to me, what’s the advantage of this thing?”
“First, it’s extremely light weight, and smaller in size, yet very fast. The downside is you don’t have a drive.”
“What?”
“The disk. You know, inserting a disk to load software or copy data. It basically relies on Internet downloads.”
“Oh, so there’s no way to transfer existing files, like my company work stuff, into the computer?”
“No. I wouldn’t go that far. Some people just like..... Take for example, if you did your tax return using Turbo Tax, you would not buy the Turbo Tax disks that you see in the store, and place it in a disk drive. Instead, you would download a version of Turbo Tax electronically from the Internet into the MacBook. Or, you just buy accessories.”
“What?”
“You could use a jump drive - the stick with your files on it.”
“I know what a jump drive is, I use them and copy office files that I work on at home.”
“Exactly, you would just need a small accessory from Apple - a converter type accessory. Maybe $20 bucks or something like that.”
“Got it. Thanks Eric. Oh, would you say these things are popular? Do many people here at work have them?”
“I really don’t know. Dr. Andreyushkin has one.”
“He does? That’s encouraging. Thank you, Eric. You’ve helped me a lot. I better let you get back to work. See you later.”
Kathryn was pleased over what she learned. She was also surprised that he didn’t say anything bad about Dr. Andreyushkin, the way he normally does.
Wow. Eric actually did make me feel a little better. Wait till I tell Suki about all this drama. Holy cow. What a day!
Chapter 23
That evening Kathryn fixed a lite dinner. She had little appetite after such a depressing day with the police. She changed out of her work clothes, putting on her running pants, with a tank top, then fixed herself a bagel with cream cheese and a hot tea. She carried it into the living room and turned on her music, with the volume down low. She crawled on the sofa to relax.
She was leaning back in the sofa, munching the bagel, wondering why Detective Peters and Detective O’Donnell were acting as if she had done something terribly wrong, like murder.
Why are they asking all these personal questions of me? Do they really believe I’m a suspect? Why? It’s obvious some strange man walked into the diner and shot that boy. I was just a bystander trying to help.
It didn’t take long at all for Kathryn to start getting upset, just at the thought that people would judge her in a negative way. First her eyes started to fill their sockets with tears, then she could feel the congestion coming on in her nose. She leaned back into the big pillows, closed her eyes and just thought of the music. Soon, she was able to dismiss the fears and feel halfway decent, at least for now.
Perhaps it was slightly past six thirty before she picked the phone up to call Richard.
He should be home by now, I really need to see him. Maybe it’ll be ok for me to come over.
“Hi honey, it’s me. I miss you. Had another rotten day in the office, really rotten. Are
you doing anything tonight? If not, can I come over, please?” She asked, the tone of her voice sounding terribly sadden and perhaps a little desperate.”
“Of course you can come over, are you alright? Did you eat anything? I can fix you something special, if you’d like. How about a little macaroni and cheese? Comfort food always makes you feel better. Or, I could run across the street, and pick up just about anything you feel like eating.”
Kathryn, smiled at the nice gesture, and couldn’t resist a tease.
“Maybe, just a small prime rib, medium rare, bake potato fully loaded, green beans, a tossed salad, balsamic dressing, and horseradish. Yes, definitely need horseradish!”
“Your sense of humor is a promising sign. The thought that you’ll live through the night makes me much, much happier. Please hurry over, I miss you too!”
“I’m on my way, and I don’t need anything, just you.”
About 20 minutes later the phone rang. Security, downstairs asked Dr. Marks if they should send her up.
The instant, he opened the door, she jumped into his arms.
“Wow. Why do I deserve such a lovely greeting? I could really get used to this, sweet pea!” Wrapping his arms around her and giving her a big kiss.
“Maybe you’ll just have to marry me. Then, I’ll be able to do this to you every day!”
“You don’t have to twist my arm. I’m sold. Tell me what happened today? I can see you’re very upset.”
Kathryn kicked off her sandals and walked over to the sofa, sat down, and immediately placed her head in her hands looking toward the floor. Richard immediately sat next to her, placing his hand on her shoulder, trying to comfort her.
“Tell me.”
“The police came to my office again, today. A young girl was found murdered last evening. It was just like the waitress, Richard.” She looked up into his eyes, “an insulin overdose, and she was wearing a Diage pump. What is going on? I feel so frightened.”
“You can’t be serious, where did it happen?”
“That’s part of my concern. She was murdered on East 68th.”
“Holy crap! That’s right around the corner from where we are.”
“Exactly, and that doesn’t look good for us.”
“What do you mean? Why would you feel that way? You don’t have anything to do with this.”
Kathryn sat upright, turned to face him, and suddenly looked amazingly alert and focused. The expression on her face was clearly one of concern. I unequivocally feel the police think I did it, Richard. They said I was the last one to touch the waitress, and the time of death of the latest victim was after I went home last night.
“That’s preposterous! So what? You’re saying the police didn’t consider the card game an alibi? What the hell do they think would be your motive to kill these people?”
“I haven’t a clue, it doesn’t make any sense to me. A man in a trench coat shot that boy. And, don’t the police think that man somehow is responsible for the death of the waitress? And, maybe the model, as well?”
“No telling what they are thinking, Kathryn. You’ve got to stay calm, we both know you had nothing to do with those murders. It’s ludicrous.”
“They also asked me about a computer, said they found something at the scene of the crime, some Apple accessory.”
“Don’t keep dwelling on those things. It’ll just drive you crazy. You have got to try and put it out of your mind, and leave everything to the police. I know Kathryn, you’re very upset. I want to help you calm down and get this off your mind. Why don’t you stay here with me tonight? I don’t want you home alone thinking about all this.”
“I can’t Richard. Besides, I don’t have any clothes.”
“Maybe no clothes would be fun?”
She smiled. I think it’s a lost cause. There is so much going on at my office - weird stuff - I can’t think of sex at a time like this.”
“Who said anything about sex? Seriously. Let’s order some take-out Chinese food, and when it arrives, we can go to bed, eat Chinese and you can tell me everything that is happening at the office. I really do want to hear what’s concerning you, please? No fooling around, I promise.”
“Ok,” she said, giving him a little kiss. “Thank you.”
By the time the Chinese food arrived, Kathryn actually admitted she felt a little hungry. Richard fixed her plate, but instead of taking it into to bedroom as he had suggested, Kathryn went back into the living room, sat down on the floor, folded her legs in a yoga, meditation, like position, and placed her plate of dinner on the coffee table.
“Is sitting in this position supposed to help us enjoy the food more?”
“Yep! But you have to master the correct breathing techniques.”
“Fine, I’ll go find my chop sticks so we can take small bites between breaths!”
“Just get down here and eat with me, Mr. Wise guy.”
Continuing to give her a strange sort of look, he reluctantly got down on the floor next to her mumbling as he bent over, “if we stay down her too long, we’ll definitely end up in bed with you giving me a massage!”
“Hey! I’m the one with all the stress, and I’ll be the one getting the massage, buster!”
As they enjoyed their dinner, Kathryn talked more about the police questioning her earlier in the day, and even ventured into some events, at work, that puzzled her. She specifically, raised concerns over the strange behavior of her colleagues in the office, such as Ted doubling the sales quota, even though the companies Five Year Plan had no indication of a significant sales increase. By the time they had finished their dinner, Richard certainly got an ear full, but gained a much better understanding of how stressed and concerned Kathryn really was.
She was still standing at the kitchen sink having just finished washing the dishes with Richard, when he came up behind her, reached his arms around her, and kissed her neck.
“What do you say I give you that massage now?” He whispered in her ear.
With his arms still wrapped around her, she spun around to face him.
“I’d love it!” She said actually surprising him with her reply.
He reached out, took her hand and led her to the bedroom. He pulled back the covers leaving only the sheet, then grabbed her hand pulling her over close to the side of the bed.
“Now, promise me you’ll behave and let me really help you relax,” he said, slowly lifting her shirt over her head.
Next he undid the draw string on her running pants allowing them to drop to the floor. She looked amazing to him as she stood there in just her bra and panties.
“Ok, up on the bed, kiddo! Face down.”
“Aren’t you going to use some oil? I can’t have a proper massage without oils? Can I?”
“Just pipe down. I’ll go find some oil.”
She closed her eyes laying there while Richard disappeared for a few minutes.
“Will Olive oil work?” He screamed from the kitchen, hoping to get a rise out of her.
“No, you’re supposed to pamper me not sauté me!”
“Got it! Just a second. Found it,” he shouted again.
Moments later he returned.
“Now just relax,” He said, climbing on top of her straddling her butt. He poured some oil in his hands and started massaging her shoulder tops.”
“Wow, honey that feels good. What kind of massage oil is that?”
“Copper tone!”
“Oh good grief!” She mumbled.
He actually was doing a fantastic job, - lightly rubbing her shoulders, back, spine, waist - covering all of her. But, then thought he’d better do that one more time. The second time around, he unclasped her bra, tossing it on the floor. This time the rub felt much harder, and deeper than the first time. When he finished her back, he moved on to her butt, arms, legs, and fingers - mass
aging each area thoroughly and again, covering every inch of her body. She loved every little stroke of his hands.
“Ok, you can turn over now.”
She did so, grinning as she realized she was exposing her breasts this time.
“Now, I suppose you’re going to want me to take off my panties too.”
“Whatever, makes you comfortable, Kathryn, I aim to please!”
“You are so full of shit,” she said bending over and pulling off her panties. “Just remember, you promised to behave yourself.”
“I said no such thing!”
“No fooling around, I promise, were the exact words, I think.”
“Oh yeah. I do remember saying that.”
“Now get to work buster, I don’t want to miss the 11:00 o’clock news.”
“Yeah, yeah,”
Richard again did a really great job relaxing her. She really thought she could fall asleep at the snap of his fingers, except for the time when he kept massaging her breasts in a circular motion a little longer than she thought necessary.
“Ok, ok, I think you did that enough. Stop playing.”
He finished up his massage by doing her feet, which to her felt just amazing. Richards strong hands rubbing her little feet with such strength, was a perfect ending to her massage. She turned on her side, pulled him closer giving him a great big kiss. “That was really nice, honey. Why don’t you climb in here next to me and turn on the TV.”
A few minutes later, he was on his back, she was cuddled up close to him, and they were watching the news. Just as her eyes began to close and that sleepy feeling came over her, she heard the news reporter on the TV.
As we reported earlier tonight, the body of model Jennifer Ellington was found on East 68th Street last evening. Police stated the murder appears to be connected with three other deaths that occurred earlier this month at The Cafe 63 in midtown Manhattan. There have been no arrests as yet but police say they are pursuing several key suspects. Two of the victims, including Miss Ellington, savagely died from a massive dose of insulin. In connection with the murders, the NYPD is actively investigating several strange events involving a major Pharmaceutical Company.
