by Val Tobin
When he stopped talking, she spoke, head lowered, for the first time since that initial exclamation at the sight of him.
“I’m sorry all that happened to you,” she whispered, her gaze riveted on her busy hands. “It must’ve been difficult to take her upstairs with you, but it was the responsible thing to do. I want to be angry about it, but I can’t. I didn’t like Katrina, but I wouldn’t have left an inebriated woman alone on the sidewalk either. I wouldn’t have even called her a cab.” She turned her wide-eyed gaze on him.
“Thank you for understanding.”
She nodded, accepting the compliment. “I think if she hadn’t died, we’d be having a different conversation.”
“I did what my conscience told me to do, Ellen.”
“You don’t have to justify your actions to me. What she did makes me angry, but I can’t confront her on it, now, can I?” She scrubbed her hands over her face and leaned back in her chair. “Doesn’t matter. Gabe, what if she intended to let someone into your apartment all along?”
“I considered that,” he said. He’d had a lot of time to consider every angle. “If that was the intent—if I was the target—why was she the one dead on the pavement and not me?”
“Oh, God.” It came out on a moan. “Oh, God, it could’ve been you.”
“If someone came into my apartment and killed her, why would they leave? Why not confront me?”
“Maybe they knew she was pass-out drunk and wanted to shut her up. This proves she was involved in whatever Fran had been up to.”
“It proves nothing, but it raises a red flag. Katrina had nothing to do with keeping the books here even after you left, correct?”
“Correct. She was a programmer. But she had to submit her billable hours.”
“Would she have inflated those numbers? Would you have noticed if she had?”
“She could’ve inflated them to a certain extent, but if she got greedy, I’d have noticed. After a while, you get used to seeing how much each software developer billed. They typically broke down into eighty percent working on development and twenty percent admin or other tasks, such as training or writing reports. They were adamant here that all employees filled in weekly reports providing a breakdown of what they considered billable versus non-billable hours even if the invoice went to an internal department.”
“That makes sense. Do software developers have many business expenses?”
“Depends. Expenses might jump if the developer goes to a client’s site, but typically, clients pay those expenses. However, if the ‘client’ is internal, then yes, BRI would pay the expenses.”
“Can you investigate everything Katrina billed while she was here and see if there was any change after Fran started working here?” He paused. “Verify the date she left to go work elsewhere, too, and if the new company she works for has any connection to BRI.”
“Okay.” She remained in her seat, though, and she looked so grief-stricken he took her hands in his.
“I’m so sorry, Ellen. If I could do it over again—”
“You’d still take her into your apartment and give her a safe place to recover. If you were the type of guy who’d shove her in a cab with a stranger, I wouldn’t want to be with you.”
“You still do? You believe I didn’t hurt her?”
“After all this time, I know you well enough to trust you didn’t hurt her. You couldn’t.”
“I’m glad you think so because Morris might arrest me if they discover she was murdered, and I don’t think she jumped off that balcony.”
The grief and terror left her face, and she sat straight in her chair. “Then we have to prove you didn’t do it.”
***
“The first thing we need to do is go to your apartment and examine it,” Ellen said.
“The police had it cordoned off. I’m not sure they’ll let us in yet. I’ll call Morris and tell him I need to go home. I could use a shower, anyway.”
Ellen suggested he go to his office to call the detective while she checked the database for the hours Katrina had billed. But as soon as Gabriel left, Ellen’s cell phone sounded, and the ringtone was Rhonda’s.
Rhonda had obviously seen the news. “Hey, what the hell happened last night? I hear Gabe’s been arrested.”
“Not arrested. Questioned.” Ellen went to her desk and dug a chocolate bar from her stash. As she talked to Rhonda, she broke off small pieces and ate them as quietly as she could. It didn’t fool her friend.
“You stress eating?”
“I’m stress snacking. It’s not the same. Just some chocolate.”
“Gabe will be okay, right? He didn’t do it?”
“No, he didn’t, but I want to ask you if Max would help him if they charge him.”
“Max is a prosecutor, Ellen, he can’t help Gabe.”
“Damn. Well, would he advise us? From the perspective of the opposition? Gabe is innocent, Rhonda. They shouldn’t charge him, but if they do, we’ll need help.”
“We? What’s this ‘we’ business?”
“I’m sticking by him no matter what. He didn’t do it. I won’t let them put him in jail for something he didn’t do.”
“You sound awfully certain. Were you there?”
Ellen hesitated. “No. But I know him.”
“Are you sure your relationship with him hasn’t clouded your judgment? It looks bad. From an objective perspective, I mean.”
“What are you saying? You don’t believe me when I tell you he’s innocent?”
“Don’t get excited. I’m not sure he did it, but I’m also not sure he didn’t do it. What if he killed those two women? He’s a link to them both, isn’t he?”
Ellen had no answer to that, so she returned to her original question. “If I need legal advice, can I trust Max to give it to me?”
Wariness in her voice, Rhonda said, “Why do you need legal advice?”
“If the police don’t find the real killer, we have to. If I need help, I want to know you have my back.”
“I have your back, Ellen. I’ll always have your back. But if he’s guilty, you’re putting yourself in danger by helping him. If you find proof he did it, you could end up like Fran and Katrina.”
Ellen gasped, unable to believe what her friend—her best friend—was saying. Through gritted teeth, she said, “I’m not in any danger. Gabe would never hurt me.”
She knew that was true. All she had to do was prove it to the world.
Chapter Nineteen
Detective Morris gave Gabriel the go-ahead to return home, and after spending an hour with Ellen reviewing Katrina’s billable hours, the date she’d left the company and where she’d gone, and her new employer’s relationship to BRI, the two left the office and took a rideshare to Gabriel’s building. Katrina’s billable hours had increased by a third about two months after Francesca started at BRI, she’d remained with the company until the spring—the approximate time Gabriel showed interest in purchasing BRI—and the company she moved to had no connection to her former workplace.
No reporters hovered outside the apartment complex when Gabriel and Ellen arrived. Even so, they directed the driver to take the vehicle into the underground parking and went to Gabriel’s apartment unit from there.
When they entered his home, the first thing Gabriel noticed was the mess the police had left from their evidence-gathering. Fingerprint powder dusted surfaces. Furniture had shifted. He made a mental note to call a cleaning service and send the bill to the police department.
The second thing he noticed was that Katrina’s coat, purse, and shoes were gone. He assumed the police had removed them and kicked himself for not thinking to go through the coat’s pockets and the purse’s contents the night before. But why would he? He’d had no inkling anything tragic would happen to her while he slept, and after he found her body, shock muddled his thinking. So, if she had a cell phone on her, he hadn’t noticed. It’d likely been in her purse or coat pocket, but now, he’d never know.<
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Unless it’s entered as evidence against me, and I get to see it during the discovery phase of my trial. Whatever that meant. He’d heard it on television. Stop it. You didn’t do it. They won’t charge you. But the fear and anxiety they would do just that lingered. He hoped it wouldn’t give him an ulcer before they caught the true killer.
He took Ellen’s coat and hung it up in the coat closet in the foyer, and she set her purse on the floor inside the same closet.
“I don’t want to touch too much until we go through it,” she explained.
“The police would’ve taken any evidence.” He pointed at the white carpet where the ceramic floor ended. “Looks like a shoe print there.”
They crouched down and examined it. Gabriel snapped a picture with his phone. “I removed my shoes when I brought her inside.”
When Ellen frowned at him, he said, “I remember because I had to toe them off while I held on to Katrina. It wasn’t easy. She was dead weight.”
“But you still thought of taking off your shoes before you stepped on the carpet.”
“I didn’t know she’d be killed!”
“I wasn’t calling you self-centred,” she replied. “If I owned carpet this white, I’d have done the same thing. Couldn’t have been good for the shoes.”
“The shoes are easier to clean.” He shook his head. “That isn’t my shoe print.”
“Could be the cops,” she suggested.
“They all wore booties when they entered the apartment. I noticed.” It wasn’t out of courtesy, either, but so they wouldn’t contaminate any evidence. He didn’t tell Ellen that, but based on her woebegone expression, she understood the implications.
“Besides, I was still in here when one of them huddled around this spot with a camera and measuring tape. They flagged and taped around it, but I guess they removed those when they left.”
When she continued to look stricken, he tried to console her. “That’s a good thing. They’ll check my shoes against this and verify it’s not mine.”
“Sure,” she agreed, “but they might’ve missed something. We should look around. You know your place best. You can tell if something’s missing.”
“Do you think the fact that the police didn’t walk me through to do the same means they’re focused on me as a suspect?”
“I hope not. Maybe they were looking at it as a suicide.” She whirled to face him then, and throwing her arms around him, she buried her face in his shoulder. “We can’t let them arrest you. We’ll figure this out.”
He returned the hug and pressed his face into her hair. It smelled like flowers, and he inhaled deeply, allowing the scent to soothe his frayed nerves. He and Ellen had just reconnected. How could everything have gone so wrong? Did all this result from his purchase of BRI? He’d had people review the financials. No one had red-flagged anything other than to say their business practices were wasteful. He tried to recall who’d been involved in that. Francesca had helped. She’d provided the information required for the evaluation.
“She hid it when I examined their books,” he said.
Ellen raised her head, and he was relieved to see her eyes were dry. He couldn’t have her falling apart on him. He needed her too much, not only emotionally and as a comforting physical presence but also to help him find out who was framing him. What if this murder was deliberately done at his apartment? Someone had seen the opportunity in Katrina’s presence here and seized it. Who else but Gabriel would the cops suspect?
“Hid what?” Ellen asked, drawing him from his musings and tilting her head up to meet his gaze.
“What they were doing. The monkey business. Fran had control over which files we accessed when we did our due diligence on the company before I bought it. Maybe she thought she could carry on doing it after I bought it, but then I fired her.” He released Ellen and she took a step backward.
“Gabe.” Her voice relayed she’d thought of something that had frightened her. “If Katrina had a hand in this, she might’ve killed Fran when she learned you’d let Fran go, but if she didn’t kill herself, then someone else was also involved.” She shook her head, negating that theory. “But by the time you bought BRI, Katrina had moved on. Why would she do that if she was successfully stealing from the company with Fran’s help?”
He shrugged. “Maybe she wanted to move on before I bought the place and found them out.”
“Fran would’ve stayed if you hadn’t let her go, and she would’ve continued to skim.”
“I might’ve found out.”
Ellen shook her head. “Not if she was careful and you trusted her.”
He started walking around the apartment, Ellen tailing him.
“I’d have trusted her, you know,” he said.
“I know.”
After they examined the sofa where Katrina had slept and the chair where her belongings had sat, Ellen wandered to the balcony doors. She stood in front of the glass as if wrestling with whether to slide them open. Gabriel strode over to stand beside her.
“Might as well look.” He opened them, noting as he did that the police had left them unlocked. Doesn’t matter. With all the cops in and out, no one would dare come in this way—not today, at any rate. But when they left, he’d make sure to engage the alarm.
Before she could step outside, Gabriel blocked Ellen with an arm across her chest. “Wait. Let me scope it out first.”
She made no comment but remained inside.
He took one step onto the balcony and scanned the small, empty area. All his patio furniture was down in the storage room. Any potted plants he kept outside in the summer he’d brought inside for the winter. Not much to see at all. Even the tracks he’d found in the early morning cold had melted into mush. No protective awning or upper balcony existed to block the elements. A slight overhang allowed him to step outside in stocking feet, but water and slushy snow covered almost the entire remaining area.
Ellen’s voice broke the silence. “Is it horrible that I want to go look over the side?”
“You won’t see anything.”
When she didn’t respond, he turned to face her and discovered she’d gone back to get her boots. When she appeared with them in her hand, he stepped aside.
“I need to see how far down …” She gulped and couldn’t finish her thought, and she wore a grief-stricken expression.
“Why?” Maybe it was horrible she wanted to look over the side. He’d avoided answering her question because he didn’t have an answer. Was it morbid curiosity that led her to do so or some misguided attempt at empathy for the dead woman?
Ellen slipped on her boots and tiptoed to the balustrade. When she reached it, she paused a moment and then peered over the top.
“Railing’s pretty high.”
He waited, letting her work through whatever she needed to, to process what had happened. That might explain why she wanted to see the site where Katrina’s body had landed.
“Do you think that means a man did it? You’d have to be strong to throw someone off the balcony.” She looked back at him, her brows lifted questioningly. “Wouldn’t you?”
“Or a strong woman.”
“Do you think she fought?”
He considered the question. “I would’ve heard that.”
“And yet, you didn’t. How could she still be unconscious? I know you said she was blackout drunk, but was she so bad she didn’t wake up when someone picked her up and carried her outside to throw her from the balcony?”
She shook her head emphatically from side to side. “How? Why? Who could do this?” Tears sprang to her eyes. “I can’t understand this.” Hysteria laced her voice.
“Ellen, come away from there.”
She placed a hand gently on top of the railing. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered. She raised her head and met his gaze. “I was jealous, Gabe. I didn’t want her in your life, but that doesn’t mean I wished her dead. Do you think? I didn’t wish her dead.”
Did she actually think
her thoughts had somehow manifested Katrina’s death? He started to go to her, sock feet and slush pile be damned, when she rushed into his arms, sobbing.
“All right.” He eased her back inside, slid the door closed, and, after helping her remove her boots, walked her to the couch. “Of course you didn’t. Whoever killed her did it for their own sick reasons, and if we can figure that out, we might find out who it was. But you had nothing to do with this.” He wanted to tell her how silly that line of thinking was but didn’t. It wouldn’t help anything. No one liked to be told they were ridiculous.
She quieted, and when she had herself under control again, she stood. “Let’s keep searching, then. We have to find out who did this. I can’t stop thinking about how it must have felt for her.” She shuddered.
“Okay, let’s check my room next. I’m sure we won’t find anything there. She was never in my room.”
Gabriel led Ellen into the bedroom. His bed remained unmade, and his pyjamas and slippers lay strewn about the floor. In the en suite bathroom, nothing appeared out of place. He’d used the toilet and then the toothbrush and toothpaste but had touched nothing else, to his recollection. His comb, maybe, but it sat in its place in the cabinet.
“If anyone came into my room, it was while I was sleeping, and I never woke up to notice. By the time the sound woke me, they’d left. Except they couldn’t have entered my room while I slept,” he added. “I’d locked the bedroom door. They’d have had to bust in.”
“They couldn’t have hidden in the apartment and waited for you to leave? Or left while you were on the balcony?”
He thought about it. Took himself back to 3:00 in the morning and his disorientation upon awakening. “A noise woke me. I’d had a dream, but I can’t remember it.” He concentrated, trying to recall the dream, the sounds in it. Whoosh. He replayed it in his mind. Yes, that would’ve been the balcony doors. He’d heard no scream, no apartment door slamming, no voice ...
“Cat got your tongue,” he said.
“What?” Ellen frowned, puzzled.
“Let’s return to the living room.”
