Motion for Murder (22 page)

"Let me put some clothes on," I said, "and I'll tell you."

I left him in front of the television while I found shorts and a T-shirt and ran a quick razor across my kneecaps. It was oppressively hot, and he'd already nearly emptied his first glass when I got back, so I figured I'd better talk fast.

"I'm confused," I said. I dropped onto the sofa bed, crossing my legs to sit Indian style. "Hilary Heath is convinced Missy killed Dougie, but Paige works at the Black Orchid, and she and Dougie were playmates, and Paige and Hilary hate each other, and now I think Paige might have had something to do with it and Janice—"

"Hold it." He held up a hand. "Now
I'm
confused. What are you still doing with Hilary Heath, and why are you doing it at the Black Orchid? Don't you know what that place is?"

"I do now." I took a gulp of champagne to dull that knowledge. "How did you know Paige works there?"

He twisted his glass slowly between both palms, as if embarrassed. "She was the featured entertainment at a bachelor party there."

I blinked. "You've been there?"

"Once." He shuddered. "Took me a week to wash it off."

 "I know what you mean." I took a sip of champagne. It bubbled its way down my throat, leaving an unpleasant aftertaste. I didn't much like champagne. "Did she do her stilettos-on-the-back thing?"

He smirked. "No, her whip-on-the-ass thing."

 "God," I said, "I'd be mortified."

"So would I, if it had been my ass."

I considered that while I drank more champagne. The unpleasant aftertaste was becoming a bit more pleasant, and the bubbles were stinging a bit less. Maybe I did like champagne. "So where does that leave Missy?"

"Right where she was before, still a suspect."

That's what I was afraid of. "I hate this," I said.

"Be worried if you didn't," he said.

I poured myself another glass of champagne. "As bad as Paige is," I said, "Hilary's worse. She's definitely on the warpath." I hesitated. "And Donna was pretty upset with Dougie. She even said she wished he'd fall down the courthouse steps."

"I doubt she was the only person who ever said that."

"And maybe Janice," I went on. "I heard her telling someone we bought new computers and software."

"So?"

"We didn't buy new computers and software," I said. "Not since I've been there. So what'd she spend the money on?"

Curt shrugged. "Maybe she bought herself a personality."

That wasn't a matter of "maybe." She hadn't.

He shifted his glass back to one hand and stood up. "Ready for more?"

I shook my head. "We're not so good at this crime solving stuff, are we? It looks so easy on TV."

"I know what'll help." He disappeared into the kitchen. I heard him rustling around, probably looking for some food to blunt the effects of the champagne. Not that I was feeling effects from two glasses of champagne.

"Food's not gonna help," I yelled. "I'm not drunk."

He popped into the doorway. "What are you yelling for? Haven't you got any whole grains in this place?"

"Have a bowl of Cheerios," I said. "What about Wally? Wally took over Dougie's office before Dougie was even in the ground. That's motive, isn't it?"

"A new office?" He chuckled. "Hot damn, I think you just broke the case. Heath was killed over a hundred square feet of Berber."

I bristled. "For your information, wars have started for less. Have you got a better idea?"

"Not yet. But it's percolating." He sat down with the pack of cheese crackers I'd been working on when I'd seen my reflection in the window. "Here."

"I don't want it." I took it anyway. Turned out I really did want it. Before I knew it, the pack was empty. "I've got some good stuff," I said. "You have to admit that."

"What you've got is an office full of kooks and perverts," he said.

"Yes," I said, "but those kooks and perverts have reasons to want Dougie gone. Not to mention opportunity. Take Missy, for example. I took a phone call from the pharmacist she's dating, and he said he wants her stuff gone. A
pharmacist.
Dougie was poisoned, right? What do you think that means?"

He came over to the sofa bed and took the glass from my hands. "It means we don't know anything, except that you have to watch your back. Which is what we knew before. Come on." He pulled me to my feet. "Time for bed." He left me standing there while he folded the covers back and fluffed up my pillow. He found the remote and laid it on top of the blanket. "You can even watch TV, if you promise not to watch any detective shows."

"You're being very condescending." I glowered at him as I climbed into bed, even though I kind of liked being tucked in. I was ready for some sleep, anyway, and I wasn't getting anywhere with the conversation. That was the problem with Curt. Too much taking, not enough giving. That kind of man was just no good for a woman like me.

He pulled the blankets up to my armpits, and I decided he wasn't so bad after all. "Remember," he warned me. "Only sitcoms and game shows."

I nodded, already fuzzy-headed from the warmth and the champagne. "Did I tell you my sister slept with Frankie Ritter?"

He reached over to switch off the table lamp. "Want me to kill him for you?"

"Nah." My eyes drifted shut. "One murder's all I can handle."

"I was hoping you'd say that." He pressed a chaste kiss on my forehead. "Good-night."

I didn't have the nerve to open my eyes until I heard the door close, and then I didn't shut them again for a very long time.

I finally fell asleep around two-thirty and woke up at five-fifteen with a hornet's nest of thoughts buzzing through my head. It was already hot and humid. My T-shirt glued itself to my back as I kicked off the covers and padded into the bathroom to splash my face with cold water. I left the light off because some things were better left unseen. I'd read once that some people functioned just fine on three hours of sleep a night. I wasn't one of them.

Since I was out of bed and marginally awake, I powered up my ancient laptop. Time for the spreadsheet I'd been putting off. Maybe laying everything out on paper would give it coherence.

First I typed the name of each person who worked at Parker, Dennis, and Heath, in descending order of importance. Ken and Howard at the top, Wally next, Janice and Donna, then finally the three secretaries. As an afterthought, I added Hilary's name at the bottom. Next to each name, I typed Dougie's respective relationships to them, or what I perceived their relationships to be. Partner. Partner. Boss. Husband.

Hilary. She had an assortment of classic motives: jealousy, an ongoing affair of her own (the mystery man upstairs), years of humiliation thanks to Dougie's own serial affairs. Not much in the way of opportunity, but I wasn't ready to cross her off just yet.

As for Ken and Howard, nothing there, unless you considered their shared distaste for Dougie's method of doing business. They'd been vocal enough about it that I was willing to consider it. As far as motives went, it was flimsy, especially since embarrassment hadn't hurt their bottom line, but it was all I had for the moment.

I moved down to Wally and typed a question mark. Curt was right: killing over office space was unlikely. On the other hand, where Howard went, Wally followed, so I couldn't rule him out completely. It was possible he'd acted on Howard's say-so.

For a refreshing change of pace, Janice had no sexual connection to Dougie, but she did have two very nice cars and access to the firm's finances. The ultimate fiduciary responsibility belonged to Arthur Fiore, the firm's off-site CPA, but still, Janice had the opportunity to cover her own tracks. I remembered her defense of the fictional computer expenditure. Obviously some money had gone somewhere. I wondered if that somewhere was Janice's pocket. Maybe Dougie had found out and threatened to report her to the police. That spelled motive for Janice.

Which brought me to Donna. There was plenty to think about there, so I sat back and thought about it. No one knew very much about her. She was an excellent paralegal, a model employee, a forgettable face and a complete mystery. She had a boyfriend and a grudge against Dougie. Plus she'd already made comments about wishing Dougie dead that had seemed offhanded at the time, but now rang sinister. I was willing to bet the wound from being excluded from the courtroom ran even deeper than she'd let on.

Ordinarily I would have glossed right over the secretaries. I worked with these women every day. I knew about their romantic histories, their food allergies, their taste in movies and music and cosmetics. After the past two weeks, though, I knew much more. I knew Paige worked at the Black Orchid and had had some sort of sexual contact with Dougie there. Or maybe she just wanted Hilary to think she had. I knew Missy was making her pharmacist boyfriend, Braxton Malloy, very uncomfortable by keeping something at his house. I knew she'd taken a mystery paper from Dougie's desk. Maybe a love letter, incriminating in the wrong hands.

I closed my eyes briefly. It was all too confusing. Look deep enough and it could be argued that even I had motive to kill Dougie. Curt was right. I was over my head trying to solve a murder. I knew nothing about police procedures, about whom to talk to, and what to read, and where to start. I only knew one thing, and that was I had nothing to do with Dougie's death. Not enough.

I powered down the laptop and got up to shower and dress for work. It wasn't until I was standing under the steaming spray that I realized I knew one other thing: I knew what had killed Dougie.

It wasn't much, but it was a place to start.

I'd only been at work five minutes on Monday when a voice said, "Excuse me."

I looked up to find Martha Mintzer hovering at my desk. Martha was a client of Dougie's and not his typical showgirl client. Martha was soft and round everywhere except for her mouth. She was flapping a half-sheet of paper at me that I recognized as the firm's stock memorandum form. We used it for quick, informal reminders to clients of appointments.

"You people scheduled an appointment for me to see a Doctor…" she glanced at the form, "…Finster."

I knew the name, from other cases.

"We didn't schedule it," I said. "It's a routine defense exam. They're entitled to have you examined by their doctor. "

She glared down at me. "Well, no one asked me. I can't possibly keep this appointment. I have a job, you know."

"I know it's an inconvenience," I said patiently. "But when you file a lawsuit—"

"Don't you lecture me," she said. "I have bunions that are older than you."

Lovely. "I don't mean to lecture," I said. "But you should be aware it's standard procedure."

"Missing a day of work to sit in some quack's office?" She shook her head. "This Dr. Finster isn't my doctor. My doctor would see me at night. I'm sorry, I can't do this." She dropped the crumpled memo on my desk. I glanced to Missy for help, but she'd slipped out at the first sign of trouble. Guess she had enough of her own. "Maybe you'd like to speak with Wally." I picked up the phone.

"Wally," she grunted. "I have hemorrhoids older than
him,
"

Good thing Dougie was already dead because I'd have killed him for signing a client like this. I buzzed Wally and thirty seconds later delivered Martha and her infirmities safely to his door. It wasn't until I got back downstairs that I realized I no longer thought of that office as Dougie's. Sad, how quickly that adjustment could be made. In fact, everyone seemed to be rebounding from Dougie's death. The phones were ringing, and the fax line was buzzing, and clients were coming and going. Victoria Plackett made a surprising reappearance for an appointment with Ken. Howard was out of the office at an arbitration.

Paige had called in sick, leaving a message on the voice mail system, but her empty chair glowered at me on her behalf. I glowered right back. My plans for Paige had to wait. Missy returned to her desk, but seemed sullen and angrier than usual. Between her attitude and Martha's, my stomach was in a twist. It was the new normal at Parker, Dennis, and Heath.

"Can I talk to you?" Missy asked a few minutes later, after the mailman had delivered a rubber-banded stack of mail to her desk and vanished. She began slashing envelopes open.

I kept one eye on the lethal looking letter opener and nodded.

"It's Braxton." Her shoulders lifted and fell in a huge sigh while she pulled mail out of the envelopes, tossing the empties and stacking the unfolded letters into three piles on her blotter for Ken, Howard, and Wally. I noticed a smaller fourth pile to her left. Dougie's.

I had a feeling it might be. "Trouble?" I asked.

"It's getting weird," she said, without specifying what
it
was. "He stopped by my place last night with a box of cold medicine. Said I'd asked him to do it. I haven't even talked to him lately." Her cheeks flushed slightly. "We're not getting along all that well."

Probably because she was stashing poison at his place.

"That is strange." I buried my face in Wally's latest opus.

"I think he wants to break up with me." She shoved the wastebasket back beneath her desk with her foot. "And right before Ken's barbecue, too. He asked me to clear my things out of his apartment."

Her things? I lifted my head. "I didn't know you'd moved in together."

"We didn't. You know how it is with a guy." Actually, I didn't. Curt was the only guy I had a relationship with, and that was strictly food-based. "At first you take all of your stuff home with you, then gradually things begin staying behind. Sweaters. A pair of shoes. Tampons." I cocked my head, thinking that sounded kind of nice. "I think he's seeing someone else," she said. "I mean, he must be if he wants my stuff gone, right?"

"It doesn't sound good," I admitted. Actually, it sounded great. The truth behind Braxton's call wasn't sinister after all. Suddenly I was more confident than ever of Missy's innocence.

"Yeah." She shuffled the piles of mail into neat square corners. "Hey, would you take the mail upstairs? I want to give him a call and get this straightened out."