Dead End Job (7 page)

By the time we got into the elevator I felt pretty damn stupid. I took a deep breath, pulled my hand away from him, and turned to take a look at him for the first time. Judging from the wisps of grey showing just under his hat, I figured he was probably in his late thirties, and although he was of medium height (at least 5’11 or 6’) he had the look of being a little bit stocky because of his thick neck and shoulders. He was trim around the waist, and from what I could see, he had short but messy-looking dark brown hair with large, kind, brown eyes. His sharp, navy uniform highlighted his strong jaw, and his hands were huge and rough.  He was a very attractive man, but he did look ridiculous with my purse slung over his shoulder, kind of like a UFC fighter in a prom dress. I realized that I couldn’t let him face that kind of embarrassment in front of his fellow police officers, and that thought helped me snap out of my daze.

“I can take that if you want,” were the first words I said to him, motioning to my purse.

“I don’t mind,” he replied. If he was surprised that I’d spoken, he played it very well.

“No, it’s OK, I got it.” I held out my hand. I was feeling bad for the guy, wandering around my office with a purse hanging on his shoulder. However, his dignity was fully intact as he handed it over. The thought of how truly endearing he was found its way to the front of my mind despite the awkwardness of the moment. Any other guy would have been holding the thing with his thumb and pointer finger as far away as possible from his body, like it was a bomb that might go off at any minute. His absolute security made him appear both absurd and sweet.  

“How are you doing?” he ventured.

“Oh, I am just fabulous. I love running into dead people in my office building. It really breaks up the work day.”

Rocky was unfazed by my sarcasm, and he shot me a half smile. “Me too. Actually it kind of is my work day, being in homicide,” he replied.

“I’m sorry, what exactly are we doing? I wasn’t really paying attention before when we left. I guess I am a little out of it.”

“You’re probably a little bit in shock, which is totally normal for what you went through. Right now, I am going to bring you down to police headquarters, and you are going to be questioned by Detective Wang and Detective Schreck. After that we are going to take you home. Sound good?”

“I guess so,” I replied. I really didn’t think I had much choice in the matter.

We walked out of the building, and he opened the passenger-side door to his cruiser. I slid in, a little bit surprised. Even though I knew I hadn’t done anything wrong, I half expected him to put me in the back of the car and ride down to the station staring at the back of his head through the bullet-proof glass partition.  He got in, and we both buckled up and drove quickly down to Seattle Police Headquarters in silence.

When we entered the building, Rocky escorted me up a long flight of stairs, through a large and formal looking lobby and down a nondescript, white hallway with seventies-style, dark wood doors and those cheesy, plastic-covered-with-brass door handles. We ended up in a little room with grey carpeting, a cheap plastic table, three plastic chairs and no windows, where Rocky told me to go ahead and take a seat, then left the room. I took a look around at the depressingly dingy grey chairs, and couldn’t help but notice that the walls were in desperate need of a coat of paint, and the table had a metal bar running underneath it, which was obviously there so that people could be handcuffed to it. I sat down in one of the chairs and examined the carpet, wondering what exactly comprised each stain. A few minutes later, someone brought me a cup of steaming hot coffee.  Even though I hadn’t asked for it, I drank down the warm, acidic liquid gratefully.

I sipped my coffee and stared off into the distance for at least thirty minutes, and then really had to pee. I didn’t know if the door had been locked, but I was thinking about slipping out for a minute and finding a ladies room when the door opened quickly and both the Asian detective and the fat detective walked in. The Asian detective sat directly across from me and the fat detective took the seat on my right.

“Louisa, I am Detective Wang, and this is Detective Schreck. We are heading the investigation into the death of Sarah Lieber at the Merit office.” Her voice was sharp and emotionless and she spoke very curtly. There wasn’t an appropriate response to this statement that I could garner, so I stared at her and nodded. “We have some questions to ask you and then we are going to prepare your statement, which you will sign. Do you understand the procedure?”

”Um, yeah,” I said unintelligently, nodding again. 
              “Walk us through your morning at work, from when you arrived to when you found the deceased.”

Because the events of the day had happened only about an hour and a half after I arrived at the office, I was able to tell them the CliffsNotes version of my morning in just a minute or two. “Who else was in the office when you found Mrs. Lieber?” Detective Wang asked when I finished.

“Well, it was just me and Martin on our side of the building, which is pretty normal for that time of the day. And of course the receptionist and the IT guys, but they sit on the other side of the office. Most of the other employees don’t really come in until after nine AM.” My voice trailed off. I was getting distracted by Detective Schreck, and how much he actually looked like the large green movie character. His fingers and skin were pale and lumpy looking. He looked relatively young, but I could see traces of gray in his facial stubble.  His grey-green eyes were a pleasant color, but looked too tiny for his massive face, pitted into his head above those large cheeks and below his bushy eyebrows. A few seconds went by and I realized that I had stopped speaking and was now fully staring at the man, and he was staring at Detective Wang, with a look of sweet admiration on his face. Maybe they are a couple, I started thinking. Then I started imagining them together (
How would that work? He is so big and she is so tiny…
). I must have been making a strange face because Detective Wang’s voice suddenly pierced through my disturbing fantasy like a laser beam.

“Ms. Hallstrom! I would like to get this statement down so I can find out how an innocent woman was murdered in your office. Now, I will repeat my question: did you find it odd that Mrs. Lieber’s office light was left on?”

“Oh. Yeah. I’m sorry. Um, not really,” I stumbled. What was wrong with me? I wasn’t even following her line of questioning.
Snap out of it, Louisa!
I scolded myself. Then, recovering, “Sarah’s working a lot right now on this big merger, so it’s not weird for her to work really late or come in really early.”

Detective Wang feigned puzzlement. “Oh, I see. The thing is, you said just a few minutes ago…” Detective Schreck handed her the yellow notepad and she scanned her finger up to the top, stopping it on a line of print.  “…ah yes, right here. You said that it was normal for you, in the morning, to be in the office alone with the other employee, Martin…?” She looked at me sweetly, blinking.

“I guess so. Normally. But we are really busy right now, especially Sarah.” Suddenly my bladder started sending me urgent evacuation alerts and I was getting really uncomfortable. “Uh, yeah. Can I use the bathroom? I had lots of coffee this morning.” I lifted up my empty coffee cup to show her.

“In a minute,” she snapped back, waving me off. “Now, can you please give me an idea of what exactly Ms. Lieber was working on for this merger?”

“No,” I replied bluntly.

Detective Wang did not like this answer one bit. She slowly adjusted back in her seat and glared, digging in her pointy stiletto heels. If I was going to play this game, I was apparently going to have to play by Detective Wang’s rules. I sighed and gave in.

“I can get in some serious legal trouble if I talk about it. Merit even had me sign something a few months back stating that I would not disclose what is happening in the office under penalty of dismissal.”

Detective Wang leaned forward, close to me, and put her elbows on the table.

“I don’t know if you realize this,” she said softly, “but you could be in some serious legal trouble already, Ms. Hallstrom. You see, we know that you came into the office last night because of the keycard access records we had the receptionist pull for us when we got the call. What were you doing in the building at seven forty-five on a Tuesday night?”

Oh. Shit.

I had completely forgotten about my Tuesday night date and anxiety pill escapade at the office. This was the first time I realized that I was in the station not to help the police with the investigation, but as a suspect.

The room suddenly didn’t seem so cold. In fact, my armpits were getting sweaty and my palms were sticky. I took a deep breath and tried to slow down my racing heart. A panic attack was exactly what I did not need at this precise moment. I stared down at the black smudges on the crappy white table, trying to zone out of the situation.

The detectives stared at me, waiting for an answer. I had to pull myself together. I took a few more deep breaths and managed to calm myself down a little bit. I knew that I was no murderer. 

“Look, I didn’t kill Sarah. I did not, nor could I ever, kill anyone,” I said emphatically. “I had a date at a restaurant across the street from the office last night and it didn’t go so well. I got there at six-thirty but I left before eight. I was having an anxiety attack, so I walked across the street to the office to grab my medication out of the locker in my cube. Then I went home. I didn’t see anything. No one was there. I promise you, that is what happened.”

I was forgetting something. I wracked my brain, trying to remember any detail that would make my story seem more believable. Suddenly it came back to me in a flash—
the night watchman! He would remember me!
Excited, I blurted out, “Chi-mo!” I was victorious. It took me a second to realize that my nickname for the night guard would make absolutely no sense to the detectives. I tried again. “There was a night guard at the front desk when I came in! I swear, the guy watched me go up in the elevator then come down and leave within five minutes. I don’t know who killed Sarah, but I know that it would probably take longer than five minutes to kill someone, rifle through their purse and desk and dump out their suitcase. There was no one in the office when I went in. I’m sure that guy will remember me.”

“Let me get this straight,” said Detective Wang incredulously. “You went to the office just to take a pill after your date, and then you left immediately and went home?”
              “It was a really bad date,” I explained.

The detectives looked at me, then at each other. “Excuse us for a moment,” Detective Wang said. They both got up and left the room.

I knew from the police shows I’d watched that they were most likely in the hallway discussing the validity of my strange story and deciding how to proceed. I just hoped it wouldn’t take too long—I didn’t want to piss my pants. Much to my relief, a few short minutes later Detective Schreck came barging through the door, suddenly filling up the cramped area.

“OK, Ms. Hallstrom,” he wheezed, staring down at me. “We’re going to contact the restaurant and night guard from last night, and if everything checks out, we’ll prepare a statement for you based upon the information you have given us during the interview. Then, we are going to have you review and sign the document. In the meantime, I’d like to take you downstairs to the lab to undergo a test to see if there are any microscopic particles of blood on your person. Do you consent to the test?”

“Uh, yeah, sure.” The faster I could clear my name and get me the hell out of there, the better. “As long as I can go to the bathroom first,” I added, squirming a little bit in my seat.

“Um, OK,” he replied, awkwardly. The detective then shuffled back a few inches and gestured towards the opened door, indicating that I should squeeze past him and out into the hall. I got up, and careful not to brush against his large frame, gingerly scooted out the door and into the hallway, where he showed me to the ladies’ room. He waited for me outside while I took care of that second cup of coffee.

When I came out, the detective motioned me a bit further down the hallway to and over to a large, industrial-looking elevator where we descended to a floor marked with a large “L,” for Lab, which I discovered was just as cold and bland as the interrogation room that we had come from. There, a kind-looking middle-aged black woman entered the room and introduced herself as Shelly. Her attire consisted of non-descript navy blue pants and a navy polo shirt, and she didn’t look at all scientific except for the fact that she was wearing rubber gloves and a pair of laboratory goggles that made her eyes look cartoonish-ly enormous. Detective Schreck left the room, and seconds later I saw a flicker as the light in an adjacent room was switched on. Although his massive frame was barely noticeable through a heavily-tinted glass wall, I could see that the detective had gone to the room adjacent to observe the procedure.

Shelly, who was unfazed, went about her business turning off the fluorescent ceiling light in the small room and switching on what appeared to be a long, portable, black light which was attached to an extension cord plugged into the wall a few feet away. I was nervous and felt fidgety, and I wanted to ask one hundred questions about the procedure, but instead I clenched my jaw and took a deep breath, forcing myself to avoid glancing up at either Shelly or in the direction of the tinted window that housed the massive frame of Detective Schreck. Unsure of how to act during a microscopic blood test, I decided that it was the best idea to maintain a professional demeanor as Shelly passed the light over my face, moving slowly and methodically, down over my arms, hands, torso each of my ears and my head.
No big deal, just a teeny weeny little lab test to make sure I didn’t murder anyone,
I told myself, as I was struggling to get my emotions firmly under control. I was unconsciously holding my breath, and found myself somewhere between self-asphyxiation and bursting out laughing at the mixture of stress and ridiculousness of my predicament, even though the entire experience was feeling more and more invasive, like an involuntary, semi-public pap smear. I somehow was able to talk myself into taking a deep breath as Shelly efficiently lifted up my hair to wave the light over my neck and under my arms while I stood in various positions (arms up, arms down, turn to the left, etc). I bit down hard on my front lip and managed to keep breathing, albeit unevenly, as she also had me hold each position for several, uncomfortable seconds while she snapped multiple pictures of each area, expertly wielding a small digital camera. After what seemed like an eternity, she finally switched off the blue light and turned on the fluorescent light on again.