Murder at Castle Rock

by Anne Marie Stoddard

  CHAPTER THREE

  The next day, Paige demonstrated remarkable planning skills by showing up with a giant cup of Dunkin Donuts coffee. She settled at her desk, and the three of us did what legal secretaries do, keeping the firm afloat with little or no recognition. Every now and then, Wally showed up to drop files on the floor by my desk before running back to Howard's side. Janice stopped by Paige's desk to rifle through her client ledger sheets and growl at us. Donna floated past with her nose in a law book. I kept an eye on the clock so I wouldn't miss lunch. It was pretty much business as usual until my skin began to prickle, and I looked up to find a gorgeous blonde woman standing in front of my desk. All three of us stopped typing simultaneously. Or maybe the power cut out from her force field.

  "I'd like to see Mr. Heath. My name is Victoria Plackett." She gave me the sort of smile that opened doors and wallets alike. I wondered if she practiced it in front of the mirror. It just wouldn't be fair if that came naturally.

  Across the room, Paige hung onto her desk with bared claws and practically fell off her chair to get a better look.

  "Do you have an appointment?" I flipped through the Law Diary's calendar pages until I got to the right date. At least I think it was the right date. This woman's perfume was smothering my synapses.

  "I'm sure he'll see me," she said, smile still firmly in place. "I have an interesting case for him."

  "I'm afraid he's very busy," Missy began, when Dougie thumped down the steps cradling a Playboy magazine, which pretty much killed that notion.

  "Winters, the toilet upstairs is clogged, and I want you to—" He stopped in mid-sentence, his mouth still open. "Well, hello." He oozed up next to the blonde with one hand out and the other tucking the magazine behind his back. "I'm Doug Heath. How can I help you?"

  The blonde let Dougie fondle her hand for a moment before taking it back, while the smile ratcheted from brilliant to dazzling. Any more charm and I'd need sunglasses "I'd like to speak to you about a case, if you have the time. Your girl here says you're busy."

  I thought I heard a hiss coming from Missy's direction.

  Dougie flung the Playboy onto my desk and pretended to consult the calendar while digging banana remnants out of his incisors with his pinky. He bared his teeth at me. I nodded briefly. He nodded back and straightened. At least I think he straightened. She had about six inches on him in bare feet, and her feet were not bare. They were strapped into dangerous-looking spike-heeled sandals.

  Missy cleared her throat. "Doug, aren't you supposed to—?"

  "No," Dougie said, not taking his eyes off the blonde.

  "But I'm sure that the luncheon is—"

  "No," Dougie said again. "That's next week."

  "Okay," Missy said, a little frosty. "But the Nobel committee will be very disappointed."

  Dougie did an Elvis thing with his top lip and escorted the blonde to the stairs with one hand at her elbow, probably to keep from tripping over his tongue. Missy watched them with more venom than a cobra. Paige stuck out her tongue at their backs and was touching up her makeup before the blonde's heel hit the first step, since Paige tended to run about as deep as a puddle.

  I had enough of my own neuroses that I didn't need to share theirs, so I went back to work. One of the skills I'd acquired in my time with Parker, Dennis, and Heath was the ability to type kindling-dry legalese without actually reading it. This came in handy whenever Howard Dennis presented me with one of his excruciating product liability Complaints. While Dougie's Complaints used words like "outrageous" and "pomposity," Howard's used lots of "wherefores" and "hereupons." It was the difference between reading Tolstoy and reading Jackie Collins. Jackie was entertaining, but she wasn't going to expand your sphere of knowledge. Anyway, the ability to slog through the legalese while planning your weekend was a skill useful in waiting rooms, where you could pretend you were reading the Wall Street Journal while eavesdropping on the people around you.

  I was almost finished with Wally's emergency desk clutter when I came across something undecipherable. Squinting at it didn't help, so I took it over to Missy and pointed. "Can you tell what this is supposed to be?"

  She looked up from the letter she was working on, said, "No clue," and lowered her head again. Guess she was still miffed at Dougie.

  I glanced over at Paige, who was hard at work trimming her cuticles. "You want to take a stab at it?"

  "Whose is it?" she asked, as if that made a difference.

  "Wally's," I said.

  She shuddered. "No, thanks. That boy should've been a doctor with that handwriting."

  Now I had to track down the boy genius. The best place to start would be Howard's office, since Wally liked to sit quietly in there and soak up the atmosphere.

  I stomped up the stairs, legal pad clamped to my chest, and peeked through doorways. Janice's office was the first at the top of the stairs. She snarled at me when I poked my head around the corner. Dougie's door was closed, and I saw no good reason to open it. Predictably, Wally's office was empty, as was Howard's.

  Ken Parker's office was at the end of the hallway. Ken had a standing open-door policy except from three to four each afternoon, when he eschewed good interoffice relations for a daily nap. It was open now, so I thought I'd stop in to thank him for the party invitation.

  "Damn it, Ken!" Howard's bluster stopped me in my tracks. "His goddamn commercials are making us a laughingstock!"

  Howard and I didn't agree on the color of paint on the walls, but I couldn't argue with him there.

  Ken said something I couldn't hear, but I heard Howard just fine. "Then we should get him the hell out of here! Is this the sort of practice you want to have?"

  I'd heard enough. I wasn't comfortable eavesdropping on them, because I didn't want to risk getting fired but mostly because I couldn't hear Ken. Besides that, Wally was just coming out of the restroom rubbing his palms on his slacks while he clicked along on those rickety knees, and he zeroed in on me like a laser-guided missile. "What are you doing up here?" He was practically glowering with righteous indignation. Wally liked to keep the second floor unsullied by the riffraff secretarial staff downstairs. Since it seemed he didn't wash his hands in the restroom, he apparently wanted to sully it himself. "You got my Answers?"

  Silence fell in Ken's office, and I bit my lip, wishing I'd had the good sense to eavesdrop when Wally was in court. The little non-hygienic weasel had a knack for showing up at just the wrong time. "I need an interpretation," I said, borrowing the blonde's bright smile, because everyone knew any man could be won over with charm and a bright smile.

  Any man except Wally. "I knew you didn't belong in the legal field," he muttered, snatching the papers from my hand. I swallowed a "Same to you, fella," and waited while he frowned at his own handwriting.

  Howard Dennis strolled out into the hallway while I was waiting. I tried hard not to glance his way, afraid I'd look as guilty as I felt. He was sporting the casual look, which for Howard meant his coat was unbuttoned, and his puffy little hands were thrust into his pants pockets. He came right up behind Wally and peered over his shoulder through half glasses, reading from the legal pad. I could have sworn Wally leaned back against him, but I was probably wrong. Probably Howard just blew in his ear.

  "Good work, son," Howard told him.

  Wally beamed.

  Howard looked at me. "What are you doing up here?"

  "I just asked her that," Wally said. "She can't do her job without help."

  I waited for him to stick out his tongue at me. It wouldn't have surprised me. "I do need help, Howard," I said agreeably. "He gave me an emergency project, and I can't read his handwriting, and it's delayed my getting to work on your Complaint."

  Wally's smile disappeared at the same time as Howard's, for an entirely different reason. "No," he snarled, shoving the pad back at me.

  I stared at him. "You're not going to decipher it?"

  "N-O," he said, enunciating so exactingly I could count the
veins in his neck. "It says 'no.' Can't you read? It's perfectly clear to me. And by the way, the toilet's clogged. Call a plumber."

  "After you type my Complaint," Howard added.

  And Wally said, "Of course, of course."

  "But didn't you just use the bathroom?" I asked.

  "There's no need for insolence," Wally said. "Go. Type. Call."

  He'd make a fine dictator one day. I left the two of them stewing in their own grandeur while I fled back to the safety of the secretarial pool. By the time I got there, I was hungry from the stress of the second floor. I kept a box of Tastykakes stashed in my desk drawer for moments like this, so I hauled out a package of Butterscotch Krimpets. Nothing wrong with me that a good sugar fix couldn't cure.

  Missy looked up when she heard the crinkle of the wrapper. "Uh-oh. Everything okay?"

  I leaned my elbows on Wally's legal pad with a sigh. "What are the chances Wally will get fired by five o'clock?"

  "Not good," she said. "He cleans Howard's pool on the weekends."

  I grinned. She grinned back.

  "You shouldn't eat those," Paige told me. "They'll go right to your hips."

  "I can only hope," I said. If they did, it'd be the first time in my life I had hips. I finished the first Krimpet and eyed the second.

  "Don't do it," Paige warned. "It's all fat and sugar."

  "Your lipstick's smeared," Missy told her, and Paige retreated to her mirror in alarm.

  "Don't worry about your hips," Missy said, even though I wasn't. "And don't worry about Wally. I'm going to put a box of Midol in his Christmas stocking this year. You'd be better off worrying about Dougie. His wife's on her way here to have lunch with him."

  The Krimpet stuck halfway down my throat, and my breath stuck halfway up. I'd met Hilary Heath a few times, and those meetings had been only marginally more pleasant than a gynecological exam. The best word to describe Hilary was sharp. She had a body like a letter opener and the sort of eyes that could perform x-rays. More importantly, she had Dougie, and she protected her investment through unannounced inspections and merciless interrogation of the support staff. Hilary trusted very few and liked no one. Rumor had it that she'd once had a secretary fired for laughing at one of Dougie's lame comments. Hilary thought it indicated an unacceptable level of intimacy.

  I shot a wild look at the clock. "You think we could take lunch early today?"

  "You could," Missy said, "but why miss the fun when Hil finds Dougie up there with Bambi?"

  "She's right," Paige said. "This'll be good."

  It did have a certain appeal, but Missy seemed to be looking forward to Hilary's arrival a little too much.

  "I don't know if I have the stomach for this," I said. "It might be too much confrontation for one day."

  Missy shrugged. "Leave if you want, but I'm not going anywhere. Dougie's got this coming. My wife loved it. Huh."

  Paige and I looked at each other.

  "Besides," Missy added, "I'm skipping lunch today. I'm seeing Braxton tonight."

  Braxton Malloy, the pharmacist Missy kept penciled-in on her Daytimer for a Monday night playdate. The relationship kept Missy in discounted prescriptions and qualified as a weekly aerobic workout at the same time.

  Being the inveterate list maker that I am, working out has been on my to-do list for years. I just never seem to be able to find something I liked enough to stick with. At the moment I was trying to practice yoga, but because I had the flexibility of a two by four, that wasn't going so well. And I had a little trouble achieving oneness with the universe, since the universe was always conspiring to cheat me out of the finer things in life, like patience, wisdom, and a good parking spot at the mall.

  Maybe I needed a Braxton. But first I needed to escape Hilary Heath.

  MOTION FOR MURDER

  available now!