What others are saying about My Boss is a Serial Killer

"This story of a burly detective, a spunky legal secretary, and her obsessive-compulsive boss is wildly funny."

Foreword Magazine (March/April 2009)

"Paralegal Harlin pulls out all the stops in this witty, catty and romantic mystery debut . . . Harlin's memorable, entertaining characters populate a well-crafted mystery that keeps readers guessing to the end."

Publisher’s Weekly (February 2, 2009)

"Mixing hot suspense, sexy romance, and wonderfully quirky characters, Harlin's My Boss is a Serial Killer is one for the keeper shelf."

Gemma Halliday, author of the High Heels series

"John Grisham and Danielle Steele seemingly meet head on in Christina Harlin’s wonderfully entertaining debut novel, My Boss Is A Serial Killer.”

Susan Gregg Gilmore, author of Looking for Salvatoin at the Dairy Queen

My Boss is a Serial Killer:

A Tale of Murder, Romance, and Filing

Christina Harlin

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2010 Christina Harlin

Visit the author at http://www.christinaharlin.com

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Chapter One

I worked for Bill Nestor almost three years before a sexy detective started asking questions about dead women.

The detective came to our firm on a Wednesday afternoon. Markitt, Bronk, Simms & Kowalsky, diminutively known as MBS&K, was only a mid-sized law firm in mid-sized Kansas City, Missouri. But any person in any office across the nation can tell you that Wednesday afternoons rival Monday mornings for being the worst chunk of time all week long. When Lucille paged me, it had been 2:30 for the last hour and a half.

From the overhead speaker I heard: “Carol Frank, call the operator please.”

I was doing some work for a pain-in-the-ass paralegal named Suzanne, typing a deposition summary wherein two grown men argued for four hundred pages about how many screws it takes to effectively mount ceiling tiles. You might find it hard to believe that so much animosity and dispute could arise over the pattern of screws in a ceiling tile, but believe it you may. Screw, screw, screw, I typed. Screw this, I had been thinking when my summons came from above.

“Carol Frank, call the operator please!”

Lucille doesn’t like to be ignored. She is the princess of her little domain. I called her as commanded.

“There is a Detective Gus Haglund here to see you.”

“A cop?” This was surprising. I wondered if my complaints about our parking arrangements were finally being acknowledged by someone important. We’d had a rash of license plate sticker thefts. Having grown tired of hearing the other staffers complain, I called building security (one guy named Danny) to see if the police could do something. Our garage security was a ridiculous affair anyway. They made us employees carry keycards to get our cars in and out, yet no one paid any attention to our cars once they were admitted. I suppose the point was to cause annoying delays to kidnappers transporting victims in their trunks. At any rate, our license plate stickers were not safe. Honestly, I wouldn’t have been surprised to discover Security Guard Danny was the one stealing them.

Lucille answered, “Yes, a cop. Oh, and are you still expecting that call from Bobby Lane?”

This fully caught my attention. Bobby Lane was office code for “attractive man.” My visitor met with Lucille’s approval, and she assumed he would also meet with mine.

Encouraging! I hurried toward reception.

A helpful art print hung on the wall just before the lobby. It was just some modern piece of crap, but it had a fabulous reflective casing that allowed a woman to check her appearance for any embarrassing mishaps. So I gave myself a good once-over before greeting the promise of a Bobby Lane. I was a thirty-year-old, studious-looking brunette, and sometimes people (particularly those like my stupid ex-husband) liked to project a dark bookishness onto me, hoping I would be a mysterious, depressed dramatic figure, perhaps on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Actually I was a content and undemanding woman, and my mother always told me I was very pretty when I smiled. That’s not as exciting as a suicidal beauty with her nose crammed in a book of philosophy, I’ll admit—but my type is a lot easier to deal with and less expensive to entertain.

Lucille was happily chatting with an adorable man. Our receptionist was very good with men. Rumor had it that twenty-five years ago Lucille had been a beautiful, slutty girl who had dated many members of the Kansas City Chiefs—often more than one at a time. She still believed herself to be every bit as gorgeous as she once was. She had the honeyed accent of rural Georgia, and it never failed to make men stupid and accommodating. Half the time when I found her with a new victim, he was inquiring about where she was from and she was confessing to her Southern upbringing as if it made her shy.

“…from Georgia,” was in fact what she was saying to Detective Adorable. “Not Atlanta but pretty close nearby.”

“I’ve been to Atlanta,” he replied, “and to that town where Jimmy Carter was raised. What was that town called?”

“Plains.” Lucille’s eyes shone. Being the only native Georgian in the office, she still called President Carter her governor. “Did y’all have some Billy Beer?”

“I was only eight at the time,” he said.

“Now I’ve gone and shown my age.” Lucille groaned as if miserable. In truth she loved to let everyone know she was fifty because she looked pretty damned good for fifty.

“Hi,” I said, thrusting out my hand. Left to her own devices Lucille could flirt until Judgment Day and overshadow mere mortals. “I’m Carol Frank.”

Detective Adorable shook the offered hand. Touching him made me feel all yummy inside. This was, in large part, because he was a bright spot on an otherwise endlessly awful Wednesday afternoon. He could have had a hunchback and an extra head and probably still elicited some enthusiasm from me, but he was a cutie-pie. Screw, screw, screw, I thought dizzily. He had a friendly, innocent blue-eyed look about him, sweet and almost dopey, with loosely curly, dark blond hair probably worn a little too long for departmental regulations, and a round and cherubic face, cheeks and all, with a little bow mouth that could erupt—alarmingly—into a heart-stopping lopsided grin. He did that right then, and it almost knocked me over. This was a detective? He must be either terrible at his job or fabulous at it. Maybe no suspect could see that grin coming.

“Oh, hi,” I said. Had I already said hi? “I’m Carol Frank.” Had I already introduced myself?

He caused further havoc by showing me his badge, which he pulled out of his inside jacket pocket and flipped open just like they do in the movies. Augustus Haglund was his full name, I noticed.

“Detective Gus Haglund, KCPD,” he said, raising an eyebrow at me.

“How can I help you?” I asked, hoping for an answer that had to do with nudity.

“You’re Bill Nestor’s secretary?”

I agreed that I was. We had so much in common, this detective and myself.

“I understand that he’s out this afternoon. I was wondering if I could arrange some time tomorrow to speak with him about Adrienne Maxwell.”

Oh, yes. Adrienne Maxwell. I might have seen this coming.

Then came the really shameless part, because I could have been done with this in four seconds by saying, “Come by any time from eight to ten tomorrow morning; he’ll see you then.” Bill trusted me with his calendar and I kept a close eye on his schedule. Bill wouldn’t mind meeting with a detective about his recently deceased client. But since I had nothing waiting for me at my desk but the screw deposition and a big stack of mail to post, I decided that Augustus Haglund was going to take as much of my afternoon as was possible for me to give.

“Lucille,” I said with great seriousness, “do we have a free conference room where the detective and I can look at Mr. Nestor’s schedule together?”

“Conference Room 3 is open,” replied Lucille helpfully. Her eyes were glinting.

“Follow me,” I instructed. “Can I get you a coffee? Coke? Are you allowed to have mind-altering substances while on duty?”

Detective Haglund said he would like a Coke very much and so, after offering him a chair at the conference room’s round table, I sprinted away to get it for him. In our lunchroom I searched desperately for a clean glass. There was a power struggle underway between the cleaning staff and the file room crew over whose responsibility it was to start the dishwasher and, as a result, we seldom had clean glasses. Giving my new friend a lipstick-stained glass didn’t leave the impression I wanted, but washing a glass myself might take extra precious moments of Detective Adorable Time away from my afternoon.

Like a stealth bomber, Charlene Templeton materialized at my shoulder, startling me so badly I almost dropped the glass I’d found. Charlene’s age and size belied her ability to move silently. She wasn’t fat but she was a big woman—broad-shouldered, log-legged and built like a cylinder from top to bottom—and she was well over forty years old. She moved slowly and complained that she had bad knees, so one expected her to wheeze and groan when she moved but she was as quiet as a cat burglar. Though her face was round and apple-cheeked, her auburn hair was streaked liberally with gray, and she looked a lot like everybody’s youngish grandmother; she was not a person I’d recommend tangling with in any capacity. She was a career secretary and damned serious about it. Working for Aven Fisher, she had to be brilliant. Divorce attorney Aven Fisher—a decent human being but a legendary workaholic—demanded an utterly devoted secretary who could remember hundreds of tasks and details simultaneously, and I had never known Charlene Templeton to forget anything. Her steel-trap mind had another advantage: the woman knew absolutely everything that happened in the office. She’d probably known there was a cop here to see me before I had.

“Why are the Kansas City Police rousting you?” she asked, as soon as I’d regained my wits from the scare she’d given me.

“It’s about Adrienne Maxwell.” I resumed my anxious search for a Coke and the ice machine. Happy nerves had rendered me almost too giddy to function. I couldn’t remember the order in which these tasks had to be performed.

“Lucille says he’s a Bobby Lane. Oh, here.” Charlene plucked the glass out of my hand and set about filling it with ice and soda.

“He’s a doll,” I declared vehemently. “And he’s a detective. I feel like I’ve won some kind of Wednesday-afternoon lottery.”

“Well, don’t let him bully you into breaking confidentiality just because he’s cute,” she warned. “You can’t talk to him about anything to do with our clients.”

“Now don’t mother-hen me,” I told her. Charlene seemed sometimes to think that she was the only one with an ounce of common sense. “I don't plan to discuss business at all, if I can help it. I want to hear the story of his life and hopefully about how he’s never found a woman he could really love before.”

She granted me one of her rare, flat smiles. “Maybe you can ask him to catch our food bandit.”

I refrained from doing a double take, and pretended I didn’t know exactly who the food-bandit was. I said instead, “Then he can look into our license plate sticker thefts. With luck, I can keep him here all week long.”

“Well, let me carry this in for you. I want to see him up close.”

I’m sure we looked like a ridiculously redundant duo when we returned to Detective Haglund. I was carrying Bill’s black calendar and a fistful of business cards, and Charlene was only holding a glass, but the detective was perhaps smart and/or experienced enough to know that his presence caused a lot of curiosity and speculation, especially around bored secretaries. Charlene eyed him and then left us in her discreet and silent way, closing the door behind her. I would have to give her a big hug for that later.

“So,” I said to Detective Haglund, perusing the hard copy of Bill Nestor’s calendar as if it merited careful study. “What time were you thinking of coming by?”

“The earlier the better,” he said. “Your office is on my way to work.”

“Eight?”

“Sounds great.” He drank his soda and smiled at me again. Before taking a chair, he’d removed his jacket and confirmed what I’d suspected about his body already. He was a big guy, with very good, broad shoulders and a thick solid build with hard-as-wood muscles like a hockey player. There was a hint of softening about him, a little weight gain that showed age was sneaking around his tummy. He was in his mid-thirties, I guessed, so that was typical but very sexy to me. I liked men who enjoyed eating and weren’t so vain that they freaked out about carrying ten extra pounds. And it feels nice, to rub against a tummy that has a little give to it. I would have liked to have rubbed his tummy right then.

The small conference room was quiet and softly lit, a simple room with nothing more than a table, some chairs, and a speakerphone, plus more bland modern art. If the attorneys wanted to impress a client or scare an opposing counsel this wasn’t the room where it was done. Since I felt cozy and overly warm, I gave in to the atmosphere and became more candid.

“Of course, I didn’t have to drag you in here to write an appointment down.” I closed Bill’s schedule dismissively. “You said you wanted to meet about Adrienne Maxwell, right? The suicide from last week.” Adrienne was an estate client of Bill’s, and she had overdosed on pills the week before. I asked, “Do the police usually investigate suicides?”

Detective Haglund broke eye contact with me.

“You’re probably not allowed to give me details.” I glanced behind us at the conference room door as if to ensure our solitude. “I imagine that there’s usually a good reason, when a suicide is investigated. On television, it means that it wasn’t a suicide at all, but a murder.”

“Well.” Detective Haglund made a production out of drinking his Coke some more, stalling for time.

“You probably get tired of people telling you what they saw on television.” Stupid man, I thought. I didn’t care about the case. I didn’t care if Adrienne Maxwell had been eaten by sharks. I was trying to have a conversation. “I can’t stand watching lawyer shows. They get all the details wrong. Besides, after I spend all day with lawyers, I can’t stand the thought of spending all night with them, too.”

“But you like detective shows?”

“Oh sure. I like spending the night with detectives.”

Allow me to pause here and say I was not normally given to blatant double entendre. I was not by nature a flirt or a tease. I’m sure I was acting up because of some pervasive chemical imbalance in my brain brought on by the screw deposition and the general malaise of Wednesdays. Members of an office’s staff will do desperate things to break the cycle of boredom. Flirting with the detective was a better option for me than, say, crawling under my desk and stabbing my hand with a letter opener.

My comment, awful though it was, caused Detective Haglund to smile—not the killer grin, but a cutie-pie smile this time—and he even laughed a little. He said, “I don’t watch much television.”

“I watch it almost constantly.”

We looked at Bill’s closed schedule together, eye contact once-removed. I felt it as clearly as if he’d put his hand on mine.

To my new friend I said, “I’ll retrieve her file from storage tonight so Bill can review it before your meeting.”

My new friend said, “I may need a copy of it.”

“Bill is very vigilant about confidentiality, just like you.”

“I have some papers…” Detective Haglund produced a stack of documents folded lengthwise. He went through the stack to show me court orders, warrants, and releases but I wasn’t really listening. This would all have to go through our risk management people anyway; the contents of the documents weren’t really my problem. Secretaries are fairly good at figuring out what matters are not their responsibility and ignoring them. I was taking note of things about the detective, for later when I would be grilled by my coworkers. One—no wedding ring. Two—no cologne. Three—no cigarette smoke. It was really very cute that he thought he could show me all those important papers and I’d be able to do anything about it.

“These will have to go through Mr. Miller,” I told him. “Is it all right if I keep them tonight and return them to you tomorrow? I can arrange for all your paths to be cleared before you talk to Bill.”

“Would you do that?” Detective Haglund’s friendliness attained a new gravity.

This was my chance to show him the real extent of my powers. Secretarial power is a vague thing and seldom seen or appreciated. We’re like the folks who work backstage at a play: we’re doing our job best when you never realize that we’re there.

I said, “I’ll take care of it, but after you leave. Mr. Miller is our quality assurance maniac and the go-to guy for confidentiality matters. If I take these things to him while you’re here, he’ll want to meet you. That’s code for interrogation. Before you realize it, you’ll be up to your chin in a departmental meeting and you’ll probably be billed for the time.”

Detective Haglund’s face grew solemn at my joke, and I sensed a past run-in with an attorney.

“But,” I said quickly, “if you slip quietly out the front door, I can claim complete ditzy ignorance, make a few copies, stick a label on them, and viola! By tomorrow, you’ll be able to talk to Bill about his client.”

“You make it sound like magic.”

“That’s what it is. Secretary magic.” I made an honest attempt not to beam at him, yet I couldn’t really help myself. My God, what a cutie.

“Well I’m glad I got to meet you first, Carol.” Detective Haglund got to his feet, picking up the few things that he wasn’t going to leave with me. He shrugged into his jacket. “Sounds like I started with the right person.”

“I’m always the right person to start with.”

He held my worshipful gaze with his own. His was not worshipful, I suppose, but it was a healthy shade of appreciative. I exercised self-restraint and did not leap on him.

“Do you have a business card or anything I can give Mr. Nestor?” I asked.

Gus produced a stack of cards from that same bottomless pit of a pocket where he kept everything he owned. I took three of them. “For the QA people,” I lied. I gave him a card of my own, because I’d been careful to grab a few when I passed my desk on the way back from getting his soda, my intentions fully formed.

“This is my direct line,” I explained, indicating the obvious, as an excuse to get right up next to him and bow my head next to his, “and this is my cell phone. Feel free to call me on the cell, if you need to.”

I smiled up at him without much pretense.

“It’s best to call me instead of Mr. Nestor, anyway,” I continued, “because I always know how to get in touch with him, and I don’t mind. The clients call me frequently. I don’t have a husband or a roommate or anything, so it doesn’t bother anybody.”

Detective Gus Haglund peered at me.

“I’m saying that I’m single,” I assured him.

Oh friends and neighbors, that was so unlike me. I swear it was that screw deposition that made me into a tramp. But no, you say. You say, Carol, you can’t blame everything you did that afternoon on being bored at work. People are bored at work every day without resorting to harlotry. So I’ll make this admission. I’d been divorced for three years and had been on very few dates. I hadn’t been asked much, hadn’t wanted to go out much anyway, and hadn’t sent out any signals. An entire life upheaval had happened to me back then, and as a result I’d retreated into a protective, quiet little shell that was, if not utterly rewarding, comfortable and easy for me. Emerging on the other side from this extended mental vacation, I found myself feeling more confident than ever and also a little reckless. I was doing harmless eccentric things in every corner of my life—painting my furniture, buying racy shoes, acting rather indifferent to authority. This episode was a bit more extreme than any of the others had been so far, but then again, Detective Augustus Haglund was my inspiration.

How is it that a human can feel mortified and pleased at the same time? I couldn’t believe I’d just announced my availability, but I was proud of myself for having done so. Anyway, what was the worst that could happen? I figured that at the very worst, Detective Haglund would leave the building puzzled and disgusted by the trampy secretary who had assaulted him after just ten minutes of acquaintanceship, and tomorrow when he came to meet with Bill, he would politely ignore me.

What happened instead was that he said, “Maybe you should give me another one of those cards. One has to go in the file, but I’d like to keep one for myself. In case I need to verify any information with you.”

Beaming, I handed him another business card. I hoped my hand didn’t shake when he took it from me.

He said, “Thank you for your time and all your help.”

Oh, no! He had to leave? Probably had some murders to solve, suspects to grill. That sounded a lot more exciting than what I had to do. He had to follow some leads given to him by his streetwise informants, who were doubtlessly all hookers. He was probably friends with lots of hookers. They were probably all hookers with hearts of gold, who looked upon him as their savior. I wished I were a hooker with a heart of gold.

“So I’ll see you tomorrow morning, bright and early,” I said, guiding him back toward the office lobby.

He agreed that he would. So much in common! I kept doing silly things for him, like pushing the elevator button and waiting while the rackety old deathtrap lurched up to our floor. Lucille watched us, hawklike, from the reception desk.

“I forgot to ask you,” said Detective Gus Haglund suddenly. “Did you know Adrienne Maxwell?”

“Not very well, but I talked to her a few times. It was a couple of years ago.”

“I may have some questions for you tomorrow.” The elevator came, yawning open before us. He held it open with one hand, his attention on me. “Nothing intense, so don’t worry.”

“I wasn’t worried.”

“I’ll see what I can get from Mr. Nestor first; it may not even be relevant.”

“You’re such a tease,” I accused him.

“Bye,” said Detective Gus Haglund.

“Bye.” I watched the elevator close and leave. Screw, screw, screw. The words sang softly in my head.

“Scale of one to ten?” asked Lucille rather loudly.

Turning from the doors that had just devoured my new friend, I told her, “His name is Augustus.”

Charlene materialized at Lucille’s side. “Well? What did he ask you?”

“Nine and a half,” I said to Lucille.

The receptionist looked disappointed in me. “Why not ten?”

“Because all the data has not been compiled. Now, I need to get back to work.”

Having declared my need to get back to work, I was cleared to come and tell them everything that had just happened. Women want details, and women provide details. If there is a detail a woman can’t remember, she is perfectly qualified to make something up that is just as good.

So impressive was Detective Haglund that we barely discussed why he had come in the first place. The important thing was that he had arrived looking good, that he hadn’t shot down my advances out of hand, and that he was coming back the next day. His cuteness went a long way to crushing speculation about why he was interested in Adrienne Maxwell’s suicide or what Bill Nestor might be able to tell him about it.

Chapter Two

A legal secretary is not necessarily a secretary who abides by the law, but a secretary who works specifically for an attorney, paralegal, or judge. The qualifications are specialized: one must be capable of performing ordinary secretarial tasks while tolerating whatever brand of mental illness the attorney, paralegal, or judge is suffering. Secretaries who work in the non-legal field may argue with me that mental illness is not exclusive to the legal field. However, like eating disorders and ballet dancing, mental illness and law are a matched pair.

As a legal secretary, I learned to wrangle paper. The practice of law can generate mountains, tides, great rivers of paper like molten lava, so heavy that the fissures could crack open the Earth’s crust if brave souls like myself were not there to file it all away. There are lots of ways to waste paper, and I am proficient at all of them except origami. I can make far too many copies of one document, create a special file called “extra copies” and then stuff them in there; I can just make one copy of something really long and then never look at it again; or I can distribute copies of things to long lists of people who will never read them and then generate a memo telling those same people that I sent them a copy of the thing they don’t care to read. Litigation loves paper. Despite everything that modern courts are doing to convert to electronic data, the legal system finds ways to use email, the internet and electronic filing systems to create yet more paper.

A client of the firm always had a file full of paper regarding his or her case, and I lavished love and attention on that file, stuffing it with all the extra paper, labels, sticky notes, and tabs that I could find. When the case was finished and the client no longer actively being billed, I kissed my gorgeously maintained baby good-bye and sent it to storage where it slept in long rows of boxes full of similar files. Months or years might pass before I needed it again, but always they could be summoned back to me, as a medium might summon a wandering spirit.

Except that I didn’t have a medium; I had Lloyd.

Lloyd must have been dropped on his head as a baby. That was the only reason I could think that he was so automatically and uselessly disagreeable. He somehow had become the manager of MBS&K’s file room despite being the most reticent worker I had ever known. I speculated about his making deals with Satan, though I doubted Satan would have had the patience.

The afternoon before, when I asked him to retrieve the Adrienne Maxwell file from storage, he’d done an admirable job of eye-rolling and sighing. Please understand, “storage” is not in Anchorage, Alaska. It is in the basement of our building. All that evil little troll had to do was take the service elevator downstairs, pick up one file, and then ride the elevator up again. I had the gall to ask if I could get it back the same afternoon.

He responded, “I have sixteen new files to open. I have a copy job rush for Bronk. I’ve got to get five cases of coffee to the break room. I’m expected to get these FedEx’s delivered to the lobby by four.”

Lloyd perpetually had a list of things to do that he would gladly rattle off to anyone who asked him to do something else, giving the impression that he was the lone worker in that vast and manically busy file room. He had three clerks under him, somewhere. But maybe they were hiding.

I asked, “How about tomorrow morning then? At seven?”

The hour of seven offended Lloyd, though I happened to know that he was always at work by six. Come to think of it, I didn’t recall a time when he wasn’t at work. He must have had a cave back in the file room where he slept curled in a little ball, surrounded by the skulls of his victims.

“Bill will need time to review it before an eight o’clock meeting,” I insisted.

“Well, why’d ya wait until the very last minute to ask for it?”

Honestly, I didn’t have to explain myself to this evil little troll, but here I was, doing it anyway. “The meeting was only set up a little while ago.” And then, because he kept staring me down, I found myself explaining even further. “A detective from the police department is meeting with Bill about this case file. First thing in the morning.”

“What’s a detective got to do with anything?”

“This client died last week.”

“Why’s he want to see her file?”

I was beside myself with frustration. “I’m sure I don’t know. Maybe you should talk to him tomorrow morning and find out.”

Lloyd fixed me with a watery, baleful stare.

“Can I please put in a request for the Maxwell file now?”

He grumbled, which is as close to a yes as you’ll ever hear from Lloyd.

*****

And so, on the Thursday morning that Detective Augustus Haglund was going to meet with Bill Nestor, I got to work at seven. The question of what-is-my-sexiest-but-still-work-appropriate-sweater had been answered with my eggshell white twin set, which I had been told looked good on me. I had actually put hot curlers in my dark hair, and I had used a slightly darker eye shadow than usual. But I put a limit on the vamping up, because Gussie was a detective and might notice that I’d gone out of my way to look pretty. So, no halter top, no leather mini-skirt, and I kept my heels at two inches rather than four.

For a moment I hoped my sexier appearance might have a positive effect on Lloyd and he’d just give me my file without grumbling or swearing. “Good morning?” I called into the rows of files. “Lloyd, are you in here?”

Lloyd shuffled out, rheumy-eyed and scowling.

“Good morning!” I insisted. Just try, I thought, just you try to piss me off. I was in a happy place and I was lookin’ fine.

“What is it?” asked Lloyd. He glowered up at me. Lloyd was 170 years old, and his entire face was made of a frown. His eyes always leaked behind his thick, warping glasses. His body, and frankly I don’t even like thinking about it, was both scrawny and pot-bellied. I try never to mock people just because they aren’t especially attractive, but Lloyd was a bastard.

“I’m here to pick up my file. Adrienne Maxwell.”

Let the performance begin. Lloyd executed his critically acclaimed rendition of a man who (a) doesn’t know what you’re talking about, (b) doesn’t know why you’d bother him with your burdensome presence, and (c) isn’t going to make any attempt to discover the answers to (a) or (b). But I waited him out this morning. I was in my eggshell twin set. I was a saucy brunette with smoky eyelids and wavy locks of hair. I had the nerve to smile at him sweetly. We stood that way for fifteen seconds.

He shuffled to a cart laden with files. Mine was on top, and we went through the procedure of Lloyd transferring it laboriously into my arms. Had I tried to pick it up myself, I might have lost a hand.

“Thanks, Lloyd!”

Lloyd probably kept his job because the attorneys were terrified of him. Fear was not my response, exactly. Gruesome fascination was closer to the truth. Over-the-top kindness is the best way to avenge oneself on Lloyd. He can’t stand to believe he hasn’t ruined your day. I planned to buy him a vending-machine candy bar later to thank him for his help. It would drive him nuts.

I took a few minutes to review Adrienne’s file before taking it to my boss. Bill had a thriving legal practice setting up estate documents for people, and as his secretary I attended at least one and often several meetings a week with clients to go over their estate plans. A client from over two years before, namely Adrienne, didn’t stand out in my mind in any good relief. I might have recognized her had she walked through the door, and I’d heard her voice on the telephone a few times, but the meetings themselves? No, they weren’t anything to which I could attest, to use the legal term for it. After enough of these, it all starts to meld together. The same questions, the same forms, the same procedure for getting it all signed. The will, the power of attorney, the advanced healthcare directives, and sometimes a trust.

Lucky for us, Bill took meticulous notes about the people he met. So I could see that Adrienne had been planning to take a cruise with her cousin, and that she taught a community class on low-sodium cooking. This helped flesh her out. With a pang I realized that she was dead.

We had met with plenty of widows like Adrienne. Women tended to outlive their husbands, so it was a common facet of the business. Bill was very good with older women because he was so polite and unthreatening. With any one of them, Bill ran through all the minutia of her property and funds and where she would like it all to go, but to divert the poor thing from dwelling on her own death, he would always ask about travel plans, family, friends and who would be looking out for her. He made himself seem like the ultimate guardian angel, affirming that she locked her doors at night and didn’t talk to strangers. The client usually responded well to this; a woman who has lost her husband doesn’t mind a capable man expressing concern about her well-being. And Bill never did it in a way that seemed lecherous. He wasn’t after their money or out to take advantage of them, and they could sense it in his dark and compassionate gaze.

But he was like that with them all, though in a less intense way with his male customers or with the married couples, but knowing that he had done these things for Adrienne Maxwell still didn’t call up specific memories of her. I looked through her forms, which were the standard set-up with nothing out of the ordinary to help me recall her.

I think Bill learned of her suicide the week before, on the Monday after it happened, when her daughter called to tell him. He mentioned it to me in our morning “powwow,” as he liked to call it.

“You remember Adrienne Maxwell?”

I admitted to knowing the name but not recalling her specifically.

“She died over the weekend,” he said.

“Oh, that’s too bad. She wasn’t very old, was she?” I puzzled through my faint memories.

“Why no, she wasn’t even sixty yet. Listen, Carol,” and here Bill rose from his desk and came closer to speak to me more confidentially. “According to her daughter Clarissa, it looks like Adrienne committed suicide.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I know it’s hard to believe. Sometimes those who have lost a spouse find it hard to be alone. It’s really a shame.”

Sounded like a cliché to me but I had to keep in mind that I was so happy to get rid of my stupid ex-husband that I’d invented a little song and dance about it: He’s gone, he’s gone, do the happy dance, gone to be an ass to someone else, la la la la. Or something like that. I hadn’t really been trying for art. But I had to grant that some people might miss their spouses.

I expressed the same thought to Bill. “I guess I don’t know what that’s like, to lose a spouse and have it be painful.”

“Oh, Carol, you’re too funny.” He pretended to be scowling at me for a moment, waving his finger. “Do me a favor, though. Don’t mention this around the office. Ms. Maxwell’s family has a certain amount of pull around town. They’re rather particular about this rumor spreading.”

“Okay, mum’s the word.” I locked my lips closed. I never gossiped about our clients. It wasn’t good business, and most of the time they weren’t interesting enough anyway.

He backpedaled suddenly, as if concerned that he might have offended me. Bill was always thoughtful about my feelings. “Oh, I know you’re very discreet. And it’s not a state secret. But I know how Lucille can be.”

I smothered a laugh.

Bill did an impression of a Southern belle, saying, “Ah do declare, how shockin’ that our client has voluntarily shaken her mortal coil!”

He did a pretty good Lucille, who was, indeed, the goddess of gossip and who tried to hide her blatant nosiness under a patina of innocent Southern charm. Still, he was right. I understood what he meant, and I didn’t say anything. Thus no one at the firm took much notice that we’d had a client die—hell, Bill was an estate attorney. Death was part of his business. His clients died often enough. If Gus Haglund hadn’t shown up asking questions, I guess no one would have said much of anything.

Bill’s office was a testament to his personal beliefs—a flat, clean, gray tribute to minimalism. Nothing decorated the walls except his diplomas and bar certificates, framed in black and hung with laser precision, one in the center of each of the four walls. Naturally one could look in his desk drawers and find four pencils, sharp, in a line perpendicular to four legal tablets; four red markers with their pocket clips all pointing left; four blue felt-tips beside them but not touching. Of course his books were in rows according to size and color. He kept no plants except one brutally pruned bonsai tree in a bed of virginal white pebbles. He kept his surfaces bare, and when something had to be placed on a surface (his computer, his phone) it was placed with precision up against a corner or flush with an edge. No asymmetry permitted. It was best not to mess with Bill’s stuff.

I could give him files to work on but he didn’t like to keep them overnight in there, for fear that the voluminous paper inside might leak staples and contaminate his stuff. One time he became distraught by a loose staple he found in his carpet, and that weekend he went over the floor himself with a strong magnet to make sure no others were lurking there. It was all right for my desk to be askew and riddled with staples on the loose; I guess he’d been forced to concede control outside his own office door years before. Files were permitted to stay on his desk as long as he was around and could keep an eye on them, but at the end of the day they had to return to my cubicle.

I went to Bill that morning as he perused his email messages at his desk. My job would be to sort them into their own archive files and respond to them. Bill couldn’t type, and he wasn’t comfortable with what he perceived as the complexities of email.

Bill was the most average-looking individual I’d ever known, not in that he was okay-looking, but in that he was nondescript with a face that could vanish from memory within seconds. Much of his vanishing act was caused by how he carried himself, skirting the walls, slumping his shoulders, all but fading into his surroundings. Like me, Bill seemed to have an any-face, open to interpretation if one had the imagination for it. I guess he could have been considered modestly handsome, or totally dorky, or possibly gay, or without any noticeable sex appeal based on the age, sex, and temperament of the person doing the analysis. And I say that with all affection. Once people got to know Bill well, they tended to forget what he looked like physically and focus on his “quirky” personality. But more on that later.

Every day he wore a white dress shirt, a gray suit, a gray tie, and black shoes. His gray hair had thinned on top of his head, but he hadn’t lost it all and wasn’t going to. At forty-six, if he was going to go bald, it would have happened by now. His eyes were soulfully dark and intense, but typically he did not make eye contact with anyone except for clients or me, so not many people realized that.

“Did you get my voice mail message?” I asked as I entered his office, knowing very well that he had. He checked his voice mail religiously. “Here’s Adrienne’s file. The confidentiality issues are in Miller’s hands, so let me know if you’d like me to get him on the phone.”

“Adrienne Maxwell,” murmured Bill, watching the file where I’d left it on his credenza. “I wonder why the police want to talk to me about her?”

“Some dispute as to whether it was suicide, I imagine. It’s probably something to do with her will.”

“Do you think she was killed for her money?” Bill asked me.

“Maybe they do.” I meant the KCPD. “I’ll bet he asks whether there’s been any dispute over the will, if her relatives have ever called or anything.”

“Bet you’re right,” agreed Bill. He knew I was the media-educated professional on murder mysteries. I watched a lot of mystery shows on BBC America. Nobody does the murder mystery like British television, or quite so much of it, and frankly if that’s an indication of how things really are across the ocean, it’s a wonder they have any gentry left standing.

“Did her daughter tell you anything about it?”

“Hmm? Well no, she wasn’t very forthcoming. She’s terribly upset, as you can imagine, and it might be embarrassing to her.” Bill then asked me, “Did you go through the file?”

“No indication of any messages taken since we last saw her,” I said. “The last thing in correspondence is your thanks-for-your-business letter.”

“Still, you never know what they might be looking for.” Bill hadn’t yet taken his eyes from the file, and I wondered if it had just hit him that a client of his was dead. Knowing of a death and fully comprehending it aren’t quite the same things. “I guess I should put in my final notes about her passing, since you’ve got the file out anyway. I’ll dictate something after the detective leaves.”

“Speaking of which, got any letters on here?” I went to his Dictaphone and popped out a tape, replacing it with a clean one and returning the little recorder to its own special place, firmly in the right corner of the OUT box. “You don’t have anything else pending this morning. There’s a board meeting at twelve.”

“Will you be at your desk all morning?”

“Sure will.”

“When will you take lunch?”

“Twelve to one.” I took lunch from twelve to one every day. Bill asked me every day, nevertheless. He liked the ritual, a touchstone in his morning that kept a clock firmly in mind. I used to take lunch when I got hungry, whether that happened at eleven-thirty or one , but that caused Bill a lot of worry. It was better if he always knew where I was. It was a concession to extreme order that I was willing to make because I liked the crazy man. He always remembered my birthday and brought me presents that actually had some relevance to my likes and dislikes. TV shows on DVD, bless him. Last time it had been Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season Two—my favorite Buffy season of all.

*****

Detective Haglund showed up at ten to eight and Lucille called me at my desk. “Is he still cute?” I asked her.

“Oh mah, yes.”

“Be right there.” I wondered if Augustus Haglund would seem as attractive today as he had yesterday. Yesterday he’d brought me back from the brink of insanity. Thursday mornings are always easier than Wednesday afternoons. Still, I had primped in hopes that my lecherous thoughts would bear out. I had, in effect, “gussied up for Gussie,” which was a terrible turn of phrase that I promised myself I would never say out loud, unless to Gussie himself after he and I had been married for fifteen years.

I noticed a number of staff people were having an impromptu meeting in the lobby about the condition of our Internet service. “Terrible,” I heard them say, and “so slow” and “won’t download,” which meant that they were having trouble watching sports news over their broadband connections. The purpose of the meeting was to get an eyeful of the detective, who had somehow overnight turned into an office legend. These kinds of things are absorbed through osmosis. Now the women took turns checking out the cop.

Melinda, the bold one, even asked him, “Are you my eight-thirty appointment?”

“I don’t know; are you Bill Nestor?” he asked her.

She admitted with dismay that she was not. Her groupies, Mary and Daphne, looked admiringly at her for being brave enough to speak to the Bobby Lane candidate.

Lucille had taken it upon herself to turn on the charm again. My new friend, Detective Gus Haglund, was leaning over her reception counter, looking with convincing interest at the biography that Lucille was reading.

“Ah think people are so fascinating,” Lucille said. That much was true. I’d never seen her read anything but biographies.

I greeted Detective Haglund and was rewarded with happy warm tingles when he looked at me. I had to refrain from giggling girlishly because I had an audience. “Let me take you to Bill’s office. How about a coffee or something on way?”

We walked together through the corridors, and he asked me how I was doing this morning. “Not bad at all. I’m getting better and better at being a morning person.”

“I’ve mastered the art of being awake at any hour of the day,” said Gus, “but that doesn’t mean I like it. I hate mornings.”

“We have a brew in here that can cure you of that.” The break room’s tower of coffee pots was already working hard that morning, spewing and hissing, creating a vile black potion. “Tastes like tar and cigarettes, but if you put some sugar in, it can make you glad to be alive.”

“For having survived drinking it?” Gus looked skeptically at the coffee pots.

“Yes, exactly.” I served him a cup with two sugars in a black MBS&K mug. “May I, um?” I gestured to his tie, which was a little off-center. “I’m going to straighten this up for you.” I gave the rose-colored knot a little tug. “If your tie isn’t straight, Bill will be distracted when he talks to you.”

“Will he really?”

“This is valuable information I’m passing along.” And, it hadn’t been unpleasant to fiddle with his clothes. One good tug with my finger, and I could have removed that tie altogether. I took him to Bill’s office and let him in formally.

“Bill, this is Detective Haglund,” I said, trying not to beam. “Call me if you need anything. Copies or anything like that.”

Bill, to my astonishment, took one look at my face and at Gus and made an assessment of keen perception that I thought most men incapable of making. “Uh, Detective,” he said, “Would it be all right if my secretary stayed for this meeting? It might save us some time. She’s very good at jostling my memory.”

“Well sure. That would be a smart way to do it.”

Bill gestured toward his conference table and gave me a look that just might have included a wink. When he did things like that, which was almost never, his typically washed-out, unnoticeable face became lively and appealing.

Bill Nestor was the best boss I’d ever had.

Chapter Three

Detective Haglund did what he could to put us at ease, but something about being interviewed by a detective in any capacity unnerved me. I wouldn’t even call it a guilty conscience but rather a wary one. I had imagined myself being interviewed like this before. I watched so many detective shows that it was only natural I dream myself into the plots sometimes. I imagined trying to be helpful and to recall important details, and then I’d realize that I’d be so eager to please the detective that I’d likely start embellishing facts and making things up. I’m so easily caught up in moments that I’d probably confess to murder myself. “I wasn’t in Kansas City that night. I was on an airplane over the Pacific Ocean with two hundred witnesses, and I’ve never met this man before, and I don’t even know how to operate a forklift or where to get that kind of acid, but sure, it’s possible that I killed him.” I was particularly likely, in this case, to say something overly helpful because the detective in question was my new fantasy boyfriend.

Gussie didn’t come at us confrontationally. That’s a good thing, because a confrontational detective might have sent Bill into a fit of ritualistic office-straightening, or worse, as was always the case when Bill became overwhelmed. No, my Gussie was gracious. He said the appropriate thank yous and produced the appropriate documents that told Bill it was acceptable to discuss the client. Attorney/client meetings are privileged, you see, meaning that an attorney is at risk of losing his license to practice if he violates the confidentiality of anything a client has told him, shown him, given him, or even hinted at. Being Bill’s secretary, I was bound under the same oath to keep Adrienne’s privacy. The investigation of her death changed matters enough so that warrants and releases had obviously been issued and our Quality Assurance and Risk Management Department had okayed this interview.

“Mrs. Maxwell’s death is being considered suspicious,” Gus explained. “It initially looked like suicide by drug overdose, but we have a witness who states that an unidentified subject was seen leaving her house on the night of her death. One of Mrs. Maxwell’s neighbors was out looking for his cat and noticed a person leaving her house. He didn’t think anything of it until the following day when he heard about her death. Also there are some questions about the drugs Ms. Maxwell allegedly took in order to end her life.”

“Questions about drugs?” asked Bill.

“At this point, I’d rather not go into detail about that. In combination with the sighting of the unidentified subject, her death definitely warrants further investigation.”

Bill and I exchanged glances. All very interesting, but why was he speaking with us?

Gus said, in answer to our confusion, “As I’m sure you’re aware, Mrs. Maxwell had a fair amount of money and assets. I found out from her daughter that you, Mr. Nestor, drafted her will and other estate documents for her.”

“That’s true,” said Bill. “We did her estate work in 2004. She paid her invoice and took the originals. We haven’t heard much from her since then.”

“No?” Gus jotted notes in his little detective notebook. “How can you be sure about that? Two years is a pretty long time.”

“When a client calls or emails us,” I explained, “I keep a record in the file. With an email, I’d print a copy; with a phone call, I’d log the call on a blue sheet that included the details. Even though this is an old file that is kept in storage, I’d still send copies to our clerks, who would eventually put them in the right file downstairs. But I checked with the file room, and there’s nothing pending for this file number. So there’s no record of any contact in here until her daughter called Bill last week to let us know what happened.”

Bill picked up the rhythm of my explanation. “And this week, I’ll put together a memo including the details of Adrienne’s death and any conversations I had with her family, and we’ll add that to the file as well.”

“Then the file will be closed?” asked Gus.

“Her file is already technically closed,” said Bill. “Once the estate documents are finished, I often don’t see the clients again. There is no further need for me to be involved in their lives, unless there is a problem with the documents or a change in life status. For example, if Adrienne had gotten remarried, she could have come back to me to draft a new will. Or she could have gone to someone else just as easily. She paid her bill, so we no longer had any obligations to each other.”

“So now that she’s died, what happens?”

“In Adrienne’s case? Nothing here. I’m not her executor.”

“You don’t have a reading of the will?”

“It’s not like in the movies, Detective. There may be a reading of the will, or there may just be a family meeting of some sort. But whatever happens, it will be handled by her daughter, who is the executor of Adrienne’s estate. I’m not their family lawyer. I’m just the guy who drafted Adrienne’s estate documents for her to ensure their legality. Now, if one of Adrienne’s relatives decides that the will is unfair or even bogus, attention would turn back to me—and not in a good way. But I do my best to take care of my clients and make sure that their estate documents are as good as can be. Because everybody dies, eventually.”

I was impressed by this pithy little speech, and Gus seemed all right with the answer, too. He asked Bill, “Do you remember your meetings with Mrs. Maxwell?”

“Oh, fairly well,” Bill replied. “But I do a great deal of estate work, and most of the client meetings progress along the same lines. They all begin to feel the same after a while.”

“How do those client meetings usually go, in estate work?”

Bill was at home with this topic. He was a shy man, not a lawyer who wanted to hear himself talk (a favorite pastime of many attorneys) nor not a dramatist primed for court appearances. He was in his element when discussing the rote procedures of producing a will, a power of attorney, or a trust. He didn’t seem shy at all when he answered the detective.

“We discuss what the individual wants over the course of one or more meetings. We draft the documents, review the documents, and make corrections. We have further review and then a swearing in and signing before witnesses and a notary. The client retains the original documents; we retain copies and then send a bill that, hopefully, is paid. It happens about the same way every time. Some clients come in and change their estate planning every few months, depending on which of their grandchildren they like best at the time. Adrienne was not like that.”

“When you met with Mrs. Maxwell for your initial discussions of her will, did you take any notes?”

Bill almost looked offended by the idea that he wouldn’t have taken notes. He was a copious note-taker. He could give a lecture series on effective note taking. From Adrienne Maxwell’s file I extracted the “Attorney Notes” folder and handed it to my new fantasy boyfriend.

Gus perused the maniacally organized materials and asked, “Any rough draft notes, just initial impressions that you might have jotted down?”

Bill drew himself up indignantly, a faint frown settling on his forehead. “Those are my draft notes.”

Gus glanced from the yellow paper to Bill and then back down again. I knew what they both were thinking. Gus was looking at ruler-straight columns and outline formatting and thinking that only a cyborg would take notes this neatly. Bill, on the other hand, was wondering if there were some way to make his notes neater. Some minutes ticked by as Gus read through the pages. I enjoyed myself by watching his profile out of the corner of my eye as I pretended to gaze out the window.

“She was despondent?” Gus asked, reading something from the first page again.

“Hmm?”

“Here it says that Ms. Maxwell seemed despondent when she came in for her meetings.”

“She had lost her husband quite recently.”

Gus asked, “Mr. Nestor, do you take notes like this on all your clients?”

“Of course.”

“This is pretty intimate stuff. You have a lot of information here that I wouldn’t think was pertinent, considering your job.”

“Is that a problem?” Bill asked, his fingers beginning to fret together.

“You’ve got an outline of her home security measures. And here,” Gus said, gesturing to another page, “is a list of her personality characteristics, and there’s this part about being despondent. Depressed. That sounds like something more from a doctor’s office. Here on this last page, you’ve got a list of her plans for the future.”

Bill’s breathing sounded rapid to me, and I hurried to jump to his defense. Detective Haglund, cute as he might be, didn’t understand how easy it was to upset my boss’s balance. I said, “Bill takes a great deal of time to get to know his clients, and he’s an excellent note-taker, particularly in a case like Adrienne’s. Since she was a recent widow, he wanted to make sure she was taking care of herself and her possessions. The files are confidential, so anything he writes would never become public knowledge. And then, if we have future dealings with the clients, it’s easier to remember them and what we talked about.”

I looked defiantly at both of them. “Not all attorneys care enough about their clients to take the time.”

Bill looked rather embarrassed, but he did seem calmer.

“Understood,” said Gus Haglund. “Can we mark these for copies?” He handed the notes over gently. Each time he looked at me, he smiled fleetingly and flicked his eyes quickly away, probably fortunate because prolonged gazing would doubtlessly cause me to blush and drool. I wondered if Gus had a pair of handcuffs. Would he be willing to demonstrate interrogation techniques, say, in a private setting with some Barry White music playing? After the pages were marked, Gus passed the notes to Bill and asked him to review them, to see if anything unusual struck him. Bill admitted to having reviewed the notes prior to the meeting. “It’s standard stuff, Detective. Mrs. Maxwell left the majority of her estate to her daughter and son, with additional provisions for her grandchildren.”

“Mrs. Maxwell had recently lost her husband when she came to you.”

“Yes, as I said, she was a new widow.”

“I realize this was a long time ago, but did anything strike you as odd about her behavior? Anything that maybe isn’t in your voluminous notes?”

Bill took this comment in the good-natured spirit it was given. “Trust the notes for my impressions. What about you, Carol?”

I came out of a reverie of Barry White’s voice singing “Can’t Get Enough of Your Love, Babe.”

“She was depressed, as Bill said,” I said, sincere and pure as the driven snow in both thought and deed. “I remember her behaving like she didn’t expect to live much longer.”

The men stared at me.

“Sorry if that sounds like assumptions made after the fact. I do remember thinking that. She wasn’t much older than my own mother and didn’t seem to be sick or anything, but she still talked as if she didn’t think she’d live for more than a few months. I felt sorry for her. I figured it was grief.”

“She’s right,” Bill said to the detective. “I remember that, too; that Adrienne was very sad, as if she were carrying an invisible weight. Maybe it finally weighed her down too much.”

*****

To me, it didn’t seem that we did Gussie much good. My hopeful daydream of being able to provide him with the clue that solved the case deflated like a leaky balloon. I had no recollection of Adrienne’s having lurking grandnephews eager to get their hands on her fortune to pay off gambling debts, nor of thirty-year-old suicide pacts she had made with a secret society, nor of threatening letters hand-delivered to her by an obscure courier service. But all of those things would have been neat. I imagined Gussie being impressed and grateful, asking if I’d ever considered being a detective myself.

But I did get to haul him over to the copy machine. Bill was the one who suggested it. “Take the detective with you, Carol, so he can make sure he gets everything he wants from the file.”

That was fine with me. It counted as a second date.

“If we don’t stop meeting this way, people will talk,” I said to Gus as I set out the file to be dismantled, copied, and reassembled. I caught his expression of pleasant-enough confusion, as if he were bewildered by my behavior. Uh-oh, perhaps I was coming on too strong. Some men didn’t like that. Maybe detectives were too macho—was anybody really macho anymore?—to like for a woman to flirt. My brain made a rush to think of an apology, something to do with the early hour and an antihistamine I’d taken for allergies, but instinct told me just to be honest with this one. I’d had my share of mind-games in relationships, thank you very much stupid ex-husband, and this had given me a sixth sense about good times for cutting to the chase. “You know, I’d stop making all these insinuating remarks if you’d just ask me to lunch.”

I began loading pieces of Adrienne’s file in the machine. I could make copies and talk at the same time with ease. The copy machine is an excellent place for gossip; all the secretaries here had learned that trick early on. We could talk as much as we wanted while copying, without receiving any dirty looks from the middle-management menace I called Junior Gestapo Brent, because technically we were still working hard. Two or three of us could gather and have lengthy discussions about non-work related topics and maintain the appearance of diligence. Of course there’s always a chance I’d arrive back at my cubicle with fifty extra copies of something that didn’t belong to me, but it was all part of the art of paper wrangling.

The machine’s chugging filled the silence between me and the man I’d just propositioned.

I said, “Well, my last name is Frank. Get it? You don’t have to ask me out. Just make up something about it being against the rules for you to see a case witness on the side.”

“You’re not exactly a witness,” said Gus. Was that a good sign? He added, “You haven’t asked me if I’m single or not.”

“I’ve been in denial.”

“Well, I am single at present. I’ve been married three times, though. My wives keep ending up dead.”

My hands stuttered briefly on the staple I was trying to remove, and I didn’t look up. My thought process at this moment indicated the sorry, lust-stricken shape I was in. I didn’t think, What happened to all those poor women? but Would I end up dead if I just took him to a hotel for a couple hours? Then from the corner of my eye I realized that Gus was grinning.

“Are you trying to be funny, Detective?”

“So, Carol My-Last-Name-Is-Frank,” said Gus, giving me a more appraising look. “What would happen if I asked you to lunch?”

“I would inform you that I’m free every day from twelve to one, and though that’s a very strict time frame it’s best for me to adhere to it. If that’s too rigid, most of the time I have weekends off.”

“Your boss Bill, he’s kind of anal-retentive, isn’t he?”

“He’s obsessive-compulsive six ways from Sunday,” I replied without any feelings of betrayal. “In a way, that makes him very easy to work for.”

“How so?”

“Predictability is something that a secretary can appreciate.” I tried to find a way to explain this. “There’s a code word for certain types of bosses among clerical people: ‘detail-oriented.’ This is a nice way to say that someone is a nit-picking pain in the ass. A psychotic sadist I used to work for called himself ‘detail-oriented’ which meant that he didn’t feel any qualms about shouting at people for whatever detail he was oriented on at the moment. Bill is detail-oriented, but he’s always detail-oriented in the same way. Figure out the details and everything else is smooth sailing. And he has never shouted at me.”

“I’ve heard a saying that God is in the details.”

“The way I heard it is that the devil is in the details,” I countered. “Personally I believe the more important issue is whether Carol My-Last-Name-Is-Frank is in the details. I’m very good at what I do.”

I handed him a stack of copies from the file of Adrienne Maxwell and said, “It doesn’t have to be lunch, either.”

*****

I hadn’t been on many dates since my divorce. Well, let’s be honest. I had been on five dates since my divorce. These had, all five, been nice times spent with nice enough guys, but nothing I wanted to pursue. I had a bad feeling about men for a while there, even lost interest in sex; I had to recover.

Throwing myself into work was one way to get on with my life, especially since at about the same time I escaped from a bad marriage I had also escaped from the psychotic sadist I worked for and got a good job working for Bill Nestor. But throwing oneself into work is a terrible way to meet guys. At least it is at MBS&K. Same office, day in and day out, working mostly among other women? They’re happy to set you up, if you would like to go out with their husband’s little brother who just got out of prison after a four-year sentence for drug possession, or with their nice friend from church who is still in love with his ex-wife but is willing to take you out if you’ll hear his testimonial about the saving power of Jesus.

The men at MBS&K were married, attorneys, married attorneys, or unmarried attorneys (Bill) who are unmarried for a reason (obsessive-compulsive six ways from Sunday), or they are Lloyd. Besides, and you know, forgive me if this all gets too Freudian, I had the secretarial tendency of mistakenly equating my boss with a husband and/or child. Honestly I don’t mean that in sexual terms. There wasn’t any of that sort of thing between me and Bill. I only mean that, if you’re a simple sort of woman, and you work for a man who really needs you, not just professionally but emotionally, the whole relationship takes on the feel of a marriage.

A lot of women have an internal nurturing mechanism that makes us want to take care of people, and yet there are limits to just how much care you wish to give. Bill was a handful. Outside of work, it didn’t seem that taking on another nurturing burden was a good idea. During the past three years whenever I encountered a potentially attractive guy, I would find myself thinking, “Yeah, but with Bill, and all…” as if he were my child and I had to make sure any new stepdaddy would love him as much as I did. It sounds nuts, but be patient with me. I had survived a stupid ex-husband and the psychotic sadist boss, so my quasi-intimate relationship with Bill was actually the best of the three.

Most of the time Bill’s clients came to us but sometimes he had to go to them, if a client was infirm or hospitalized, for example. More than once, we’d gotten a call from someone about to undergo surgery who decided that he or she didn’t like the set-up of their durable power of attorney or their living will, and we’d embark on a field trip to go make the necessary changes. Bill used to take Suzanne Farkanansia on these excursions but by now he only took me, ha ha. Another point for me in the great office contest of who-does-Bill-like-most, not that I kept track or anything. That would be childish.

Getting out of the office was nice, and Bill and I always had pleasant conversations on the way. I also liked riding in his fancy-schmancy BMW, which he kept as neat as he kept everything else. No breakfast crumbs or wadded tissues in this baby. It was like riding in a brand new car every time.

Thursday afternoon we went to a retirement home where a family was signing powers of attorney for an aging father, who freely admitted that he was getting to the point where he could not reliably make decisions for himself, and also he wanted to sign a DNR (a do-not-resuscitate order, that is). This might sound like a somber occasion, but experience had taught me that making these sorts of arrangements can be very pleasant, even happy, if it’s spun the right way. As Bill would have said, “We’re not talking about how you are going to die. We’re talking about how you are going to live.”

We once tried to draw up these documents for an elderly woman who seemed convinced that a DNR was her family’s permission to murder her, as if as soon as she signed it they’d be free to smother her with a pillow. Poor old thing. Well, of course, we couldn’t force her to sign and there was no convincing her that it wasn’t all a great evil scheme. I remember expressing my sympathy for her family to Bill, and he’d surprised me by replying, “Maybe her family doesn’t deserve to be trusted.”

That day was different, though, as I said. Bill asked me about Detective Haglund on the drive through the city suburbs, wanting to confirm for himself that I’d managed to get at least the promise of a phone call. He was delighted when I told him that I had a Saturday lunch date.

“It’s not like you to play matchmaker,” I accused playfully. “Not that I don’t appreciate it.”

“Detective Haglund seems like a good sort. And you never go out,” said Bill.

“Just means I have more time to spend at work.”

“At your age, you shouldn’t spend all your time at work.”

“What, pray tell, should I be doing, then? I’m not a party girl, Bill. I don’t like bars, and most of the men I meet are so god-awful materialistic.”

“Are they really?”

“No kidding,” I said. “They’re obsessed with money, with gadgets, owning things, having all the latest stuff including the right sort of girlfriend. Drives me nuts.”

“Was your ex like that?”

“He would have been, if he could have afforded it. But he had an issue with working, in that he didn’t want to. He was in a band and called himself an artist and, in his opinion, artists don’t have to work because it clogs up their creative juices or something.”

“I can’t picture you with a man like that.”

Think it was odd that Bill and I were chatting like girlfriends as he drove us to the retirement home? I did, too, the first time it happened, but I realized after a while that Bill was rather like me. He was a life-voyeur who liked to hear about what other people did and why they did it, but wasn’t eager to participate in the actual events.

In response to his comment I said, “Well, you know a different me than I was when I married him. I wasn’t stupid, but I was more impetuous. It was one of those things where a girl goes for the plunge even though she’s fairly sure it will end badly. I was crazy in love, and it did seem, for a little while there, that he might make a success out of being a musician.”

“Really? Why didn’t he make it?”

“Bad luck, maybe, and he wasn’t willing to take criticism constructively, and he tended to give up if things didn’t work out perfectly. Plus, after a couple years he wasn’t interested in being married to me so much as he wanted to be married to my salary.”

“That’s too bad. And you’re such a catch, too. What an idiot he must have been.”

I laughed at his odd praise. “God, Bill, you’re making me blush.”

“I hope you have much better luck with your detective.”

“Well it’s only a lunch date,” I said, “but if it turns into an engagement, I promise you’ll be the first to know.”

Bill relented, looking abashed but pleased with himself. “When you get him alone and at your mercy, try and find out what the big mystery is with Adrienne’s suicide.”

“Really? Is that ethical?”

“Maybe not, but wouldn’t you like to know? Anyway they leak those details to reporters all the time, don’t they?”

“I only know what I see on TV.”

“Still, I’d like to know what it was about the drugs that makes them suspicious. And if the witness has given a good description of the mysterious departing figure.”

I understood Bill’s interest—I felt the same—but I wasn’t planning to undermine the first date with my fantasy boyfriend by making him believe I only wanted case information. “I’ll ask, but only if he brings up the subject,” I said.

“Sure, of course. Only if he brings it up.”

At the retirement home we climbed out and walked side by side through the sliding glass doors. This was a nice place, unusually clean, cheerful, and boasting enough staff. It probably cost a fortune to room anyone there. We had been to both types, the nice places and the not-so-nice ones, but regardless of the circumstances Bill always treated the clients with the same care. And not just the clients, but everyone. Sometimes in the halls of these buildings, he would catch the eye of some lonely old soul and stop to talk, and he would do the same with nurses and orderlies, too. It wasn’t entirely about being neighborly; he’d gotten a lot of referral business this way.

Between greetings in the hall Bill said suddenly, “I’m sorry that your ex-husband treated you so carelessly.”

I was only a little surprised by this admission. And a little embarrassed, too, I guess. It’s never great fun for people to know how gullible I was—or for how long. I was flip about it. “Not as sorry as I am for putting up with him. I thought that if I worked hard enough, I could fix him and fix my relationship with my ex-boss, too, which was abusive in a whole different way. Turns out I couldn’t fix either one. So you can see I’m a little fed up with men.”

“Detective Haglund is a much better prospect.”

“Well, I won’t argue with that.”

We had reached the client’s room, so we ceased our conversation about the perils of love and got to work. We sounded like a chummy little team, didn’t we? And most of the time we were. But if things were really that simple with Bill, he wouldn’t have gone through close to thirty secretaries before he finally found me.

Chapter Four

Way back when I was barely twenty-seven years old, I found myself divorced and unemployed.

Both of these conditions were of my own choosing. The stupid ex-husband brought up divorce, because he had fallen in love with an Icelandic model. She had come to the United States to star in a music video, and now he was going to follow her back to Reykjavik—or wherever the hell she was from—and being married to me interfered with that plan. But I whole-heartedly agreed that marriage wasn’t doing much for my social life, either. I was more active in producing the condition of unemployment, deciding that I’d better quit my job before I spent the rest of my life in prison for murdering the psychotic sadist who dared call himself my boss.

Circumstances landed me on the doorstep of MBS&K, which the headhunter told me was hiring for several staff positions. I did a quick introductory interview with the office supervisor, Donna. Then I was put in the office of Terry Bronk, the “Bronk” of Markitt, Bronk, Simms & Kowalsky, where I interviewed to be his secretary.

I knew within five minutes that I wouldn’t work for this guy. He reminded me so much of the psychotic sadist that I got chills down my arms. He had a plaque behind his desk that said PERSEVERANCE, and he pointed to it a lot, saying things like, “In my firm, we don’t give up until we get it done right. I surround myself with people who are willing to go the extra mile. I believe that the answer you want is always out there if you work hard enough to find it.”

Of course, he didn’t say all those things in a row like that. He peppered his entire monologue with them. And what a monologue it was! I haven’t been to many job interviews in my life, but at most of them, the interviewer questions the interviewee. This guy, this onion-faced, pepper-headed, middle-aged egomaniac, did not ask me a single question. He talked about himself and his partnership in the firm, and about how damned hard they all had to work, and about PERSEVERANCE. Throughout all this boisterous talk, I watched his eyes. Some people can be that devoted to work and it’s great—you can feel the love of their job radiating out from them. Others, or Terry Bronk, mainly, just say these things to justify being the deadly combination of a workaholic and a procrastinator.

“Don’t you want to ask me anything?” I managed to say at one point.

He acted rather put out by the idea that he, a partner of the firm, would waste his time asking questions of me, a mere interviewee. Gruffly he said, “I assume Donna’s already checked your skill set, or she wouldn’t have bothered to bring you to me.”

Bring me to him? Like I was his lunch or a harem girl? I had to sit and listen to him for another twenty minutes before he released me back into Donna’s care. I could have kissed her when I saw her again. As she walked me back through the then-unfamiliar halls of the firm, I noticed a woman seated outside Terry Bronk’s door, answering the phone.

When I asked who that was, she said, “That’s Terry’s secretary.”

Okay, wasn’t that the job I’d just interviewed for? “Is she leaving?” I asked.

“Oh, no. She’s really more of his executive assistant. Terry usually has several people working for him. So, what did you think?”

I’d been through too much hell at work to even pretend I’d tolerate it again. I shook my head. “No, he’s not for me.”

She looked crushed, which made me feel bad. “Why not?”

“I’m sorry. I get a real bad vibe…” and here I almost said “from him” but instead I finished, “…that the two of us have different work styles.”

Something flickered through her eyes and she confided, “He can be pretty high-maintenance.”

Bingo. I knew it. “High-maintenance” is the code-word for “asshole.”

“We do have another position open,” Donna said, with an undertone suggesting she hated to even mention it. “Our estate attorney needs a secretary.”

I wondered what worried her so, what made her shy away from showing me to this next guy after the high-maintenance monster she’d just pushed me toward. Could the estate attorney possibly be worse? She saw my expression and said, “It’s just that Bill is very detail-oriented, and he’s gone through a lot of secretaries. It’s been difficult to find someone who’s a good match for him, as he has some peculiar tendencies.”

This was significant. Donna, as the office manager, was overstepping a huge boundary by confessing to me outright that an attorney was hard to work for. I wanted to meet this guy now, strictly out of curiosity. “I’d like to talk to him,” I said, “if he has time.”

He had time. But Donna was unconvinced. She took me to Bill Nestor’s office and said at the doorway, “Just call me when you’re finished,” with the implication that we’d be finished with each other very soon.

The first thing I noticed was the neatness of his office. The lack of files and paper could make someone think he didn’t work at all. It took me a moment to find the man behind the desk, who was as neat and bland as his office and blended fairly well into the wall. He rose and came to shake my hand, looking embarrassed that he’d been forced on me.

He said, “My secretary just quit because I drove her crazy.”

I blinked in surprise.

Bill said, “I’ve been through three secretaries this year. They all end up quitting or transferring away from me.”

Okay, I was willing to play along. Obviously I’d caught him in that state of utter honesty that only comes about after extreme frustration. I was in the same state, being newly divorced and unemployed, and I was willing to bet I could match him frustration for frustration. So I asked, “Why do they quit?”

“Because I’m inflexible, this last one said.” From his desk he produced a document so neatly formatted, right down to its precisely parallel staples, that I yearned to touch it. Dryly he went through a list of requirements for his paperwork. I found it all rather fascinating. The man knew exactly what he wanted.

We spoke for a while about what he wanted. And it didn’t take me many minutes to begin to see the source of his problem. He wasn’t just detail oriented. He was detail obsessed, to the extent that I guessed, correctly, that he had an actual mental disorder. Yet what I also saw was that the parameters of his obsession didn’t change. That can be a seductive quality to a woman who’d just quit working for a guy who contradicted himself almost hourly and shouted when she couldn’t keep up. This one didn’t seem like a shouter.

“I don’t adapt well to change. I don’t cope well with stress.” Bill continued to list things that would convince me not to work for him. His last secretary must have really done a number on him.

“Do you yell?” I asked. I had no fear of screwing up this interview. With our relationship screwed from the beginning by our own frustrations, Bill and I had nowhere to go but up.

He was quick enough and honest enough not to pretend that he didn’t understand the question. “I don’t think I’ve ever yelled at anyone in my life.”

“Heavy on the sarcasm? Like snide comments?” I folded my arms and practically glared at him. “I just quit working for a sarcastic sonofabitch who enjoyed making asides about how little he liked me. I won’t put up with it again.”

“Nor should you.” Bill looked as I had felt—fascinated. “Were you good at your job?”

“I have no idea,” I confessed. “The only positive feedback I ever got from him was over completely stupid things, like my ability to look up numbers in phone books.”

“But your resume says you worked there for several years.”

“I was tricked. He didn’t really start to show his true colors until I’d been with him long enough to join the 401(k) plan.”

“Golden handcuffs,” said Bill. “They make it so you can’t afford to leave, and then they stick it to you.”

A new code word. I gave him my first genuine smile.

“What do you think of this?” he asked, showing me the insanely neat document from before.

“I think you have a lot of strict expectations that might take some getting used to. But then again, that document looks great.”

“Thanks.” The smile he returned was genuine, too. He said, “I’m sorry Terry Bronk got to you first.”

I recoiled physically, though I tried to sound diplomatic. “Oh, er, I don’t think I’d do well working for Mr. Bronk.”

“Really? You don’t want to work for the managing partner?”

Unable to help it, I muttered, “I don’t think I have the perseverance.”

A small eruption of laughter exploded from Bill Nestor, and he put a hand over his mouth to stifle it. I couldn’t help but laugh too, mostly from the surprise. Though his office door was closed, Bill lowered his voice when he said, “Terry’s the only partner left. One is dead, one is supposedly retired, and Simms is running a hotel in Florida and we haven’t seen her in years. I shouldn’t say this, but there’s a rumor among the attorneys that Terry Bronk ate them in a fit of perseverance.”

Wide-eyed I stared at him.

Bill, recovered from his laughter, admitted, “I’ve lost count of how many secretaries I’ve had.”

“But you need one,” I reminded him, “and if you decide to offer me the position, I’ll be willing to try.”

“The work is repetitive and fairly dull. Estate work doesn’t have the thrills of litigation. I do it because of my problems with stress; that’s how uninteresting it can be.”

“Nevertheless.” I shrugged. “I’m sure you have other people to interview. But keep me in mind. I’ve had enough thrills in litigation.”

We shook hands. We agreed that it was nice to meet each other.

Later that day, Donna called me at home to tell me that, if I was sure I didn’t want to work for Terry Bronk, Bill Nestor’s secretary job was available. I took the job with Bill, and I’ve never regretted it. After I’d been with the firm for a few weeks, someone, said that I’d been offered a choice between working for Attila the Hun or Rainman, and I’d chosen Rainman. I couldn’t imagine anyone preferring to work for someone as “high-maintenance” as Terry Bronk, but an attorney like Bill presents his own challenges. In response to the Terry Bronks of the world, you get angry, or you cry, or you bow down under their tyranny and bear it. Responding to Bill takes more finesse and patience than that, and I guess between the two, I’d chosen what many considered the more difficult path.

*****

I’m not sure what filled the time at offices before the Internet came along. Terrible rumors circulate that in some offices, employees are restricted from Internet use or can only visit sites that have something to do with their actual jobs. I guess we got lucky at MBS&K, where they didn’t monitor our Internet usage, though they probably should have. We could have been on the West Coast, we surfed so much. I suppose that, provided work was finished on time, they decided that their resources were better spent on buying fancy new monitors for attorneys who didn’t know how to use computers. I didn’t debate the logic behind that, because it meant I could check out the TV schedule at bbcamerica.com without being reprimanded. Well, unless Junior Gestapo Brent caught me, which he never did because I could always hear him coming by the sound of his thighs rubbing together.

Before this admission causes any consternation about whether I was doing my job or even deserved it, I’ll reiterate that I was good at what I did. I was an excellent secretary. But I was there almost fifty hours a week, and my job didn’t require fifty hours a week. Maybe it used to when I was still learning, but I’d gotten it down. I got my assignments done. I kept Bill Nestor happy. I helped Suzanne with her extra workload, such as the nightmarishly awful deposition summary about screws that was still, still, still growling at me from my inbox. I got to work on time, I didn’t steal anything but the occasional pen or roll of tape at Christmastime, and I didn’t cause trouble.

The only problem was how to cope with the extra hours while still appearing to look busy. Here are some pointers. Carry a pen and pad of legal paper everywhere you go. It looks as if you’re going to a meeting, doing research, or carrying out an assignment. I have found that it boosts confidence to have some notes written on the pad that hint at monumental tasks. Something like, “Research. Discovery. What are rules? Has anyone dealt with this before? PPT. RSMO. NOT ENOUGH INFO to be definite. Consult Westlaw.” See how industrious that seems? It appears that I have already started the project, been unsatisfied with my initial results, and have determined to dig further with more PERSERVERANCE. Armed thus, I could wander around, stop and chat with Lucille (who knows what everybody is doing, always) and read the front-desk copy of People magazine.

Staring off into space, dreaming about a hunky muscular detective who is going to take you out the following afternoon, can only be passed off as “brainstorming” if you are peering over a piece of legal text. That’s what I was doing on Friday when Charlene materialized at my cubicle to grill me. She had been designated as reconnaissance, for everyone who wanted to know about my date. Robo-Secretary Charlene always got the facts straight. Incorrect information was as upsetting to her as poorly aligned rows and angles were to Bill Nestor, and she was as ruthlessly studious about her gossip as she was about her job.

She stood holding a file under one arm and a pen and paper in the other hand, so she gave the appearance of being extremely busy. Charlene’s face was a supervisor’s dream come true because she always looked focused and vaguely troubled, and that’s the kind of attitude that supervisors like.

“What are you and the detective doing tomorrow?” she demanded outright.

“Lunch is all I’m sure of. Then who knows?”

“Meaning what?”

“I barely know the guy,” I said. “I don’t know what he likes to do. I don’t even know if we’ll have anything to talk about for more than fifteen minutes.”

“All the girls are impressed that you were asked out so quickly.”

“I was very forward with the poor guy.” Still, I felt rather smug. Sometimes I was envious of many of my coworkers, who all seemed to be married to great guys and raising adorable children or still single but taking sexy vacations, building mansions, and buying sports cars. Meanwhile I seemed to do nothing but work for Bill, watch television, and remain divorced. Ha ha, now they could sit on their greener-grass yards and look enviously at me. I could throw myself at a hunky muscular detective that I barely knew, badger him into taking me out, and hope that we wouldn’t cringe at how incompatible we were. Normally, becoming the center of attention at the office required developing a terrible illness, having a baby, or doing something extremely wrong.

“Where is he taking you for lunch?”

“I don’t know. I was so happy he asked me out that I didn’t get details.”

“Then we’ll spin it as a surprise,” decided Charlene. A frown remained on her forehead, but this was her typical expression. “That’s more romantic.”

Hearing Charlene Templeton speak of romance was odd. She was quite decidedly the most unromantic person I’d ever known. Unlike Bill, who appeared ambiguous about all things sexual, Charlene was borderline hostile with men. She was a good match to Aven Fisher, the manically busy divorce attorney for whom she worked, not only because she was Robo-Secretary and could keep up with his demands, but because she gelled so well with his pro-women attitude.

I told her about Bill’s belief that he’d brought it all about.

“Oh that’s sweet,” said Charlene. “Is he being protective of you?”

“No, I don’t think we’re doing the father-daughter thing. Really I think he just wants me to pump the detective for information about the Adrienne Maxwell investigation.”

Knowledge of Adrienne Maxwell’s death had not been a secret in the office since the detective had shown up at the door. Particularly since Gus had said Adrienne’s name in front of Lucille, any hopes of discretion on Bill’s part had gone flying right out the nearest window. Everyone knew that the police were investigating her suspicious suicide and about the witness and the unsub, and the rumors were growing and becoming a little assumptive. I say assumptive because people were taking it for granted that our firm, and Bill Nestor, were in the center of an investigation. As far as I could tell, we were no more than a peripheral interview that was over and finished.

Case in point: Here came Suzanne Farkanansia, the pain-in-the-ass paralegal. She was a few inches taller than Charlene, and I was seated, so she looked down her nose at both of us. She asked me, “Why didn’t you tell me about the meeting with the detective?”

“Because everyone already knows about it.”

My honest answer didn’t please her. She said, “I am Bill’s paralegal; if the police want to meet with him about a client, I should probably be there. Particularly if Bill can’t be.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “That wasn’t a meeting. That was me, trawling for a date.”

“Must be nice, to be so self-confident.” Suzanne disliked me enough that I knew this was no compliment. She glanced sideways at Charlene and then looked back at me again. “I’d like to see your notes on what took place.”

“I’ll get those typed up for you,” I agreed helpfully. I didn’t have any notes from the meeting, so typing them up would be a snap.

“And next time, I’d appreciate being informed when client matters come up.”

Charlene asked, “Why? Did you deal a lot with Adrienne Maxwell?”

Suzanne sighed patiently. “It doesn’t matter if I never met the woman. What matters is that secretaries are paid for typing and filing and keeping calendars, and paralegals are paid to know what’s happening with the clients.”

“Okay, then.” I continued to agree with Suzanne in hopes that this would make her go away.

“Anyway you’re not Bill’s paralegal,” said Charlene, all earnestness. “Just because you’re the paralegal he uses to do a Westlaw search once every six months doesn’t make you his paralegal. You work for everybody here.”

Suzanne shot a withering look at the shorter woman but didn’t respond. She spoke to me instead. “How’s that deposition summary coming along?”

“Great.” That was a lie.

“I’d really like to have that back by the end of next week.” Suzanne turned to leave us and then added, “And when you’re with the detective, I’d be careful about what I said about our firm or about Bill.”

I stared after her in puzzlement. “What do you think she meant by that?” I asked Charlene.

Charlene said, “She’s only jealous. But you really do want to be careful about anything you say, so as not to breach attorney/client privilege.”

It was insulting when Suzanne suggested I was that brain-dead, but Charlene was a sincere giver of advice, even patently obvious advice, and it was hard to take offense. Charlene explained further, “Your detective might make it seem like small talk when he’s actually trying to get information about our firm.”

“What information could he possibly want? He’s already talked to Bill.”

“If he’s a detective then he knows lawyers, and if he knows lawyers then he knows they don’t ever tell the entire truth. Maybe he’s looking for the truth from you.”

She had lost me. I grinned at her over-protectiveness, though it was probably for the firm’s sake rather than my own. I whispered, “The truth about what?”

“Well, that’s just it,” Charlene said. “The truth he’s looking for. We don’t know what that is.”

“Now Suzanne’s rubbing off on you. I really think it’s just an ordinary date that he was pressured into by an ordinary secretary.”

Charlene looked no happier about my blithe attitude. “You know it’s not the first time that he’s had a client commit suicide.”

“Who, Bill?”

She did some mental arithmetic. “Oh, yes. But it was before your time.”

“Some other client killed himself?”

“Another woman, I think. I distinctly remember Bill’s secretary saying something about a suicide.”

This I could believe. Charlene had an excellent memory for what she was told. She and Lucille were my one-two punch of information. Lucille knew what was happening with everyone right at the moment, and Charlene remembered everything that had happened before. Charlene said, “Usually, attorneys make their secretaries want to commit suicide, but I guess he hasn’t driven you to that yet.”

“I thought attorneys made secretaries want to commit homicide, not suicide.”

Charlene grimaced; this was her version of laughter. “Maybe you should talk to your detective about it; if he thinks Bill is driving secretaries and clients insane with boredom, maybe Bill will be arrested for manslaughter and you can take a vacation.”

If Bill drove others insane, it wasn’t due to boredom, I thought laconically. Regardless, though, this gave me an idea. And I had a long Friday afternoon to get through.

*****

Later that afternoon, I put in a new file request to Lloyd. I cornered him between two rows of red-ropes. Red-ropes are standard, legal-length accordion folders that law firms typically use to hold their files, called red-ropes because they are sometimes held closed with a red string. Lloyd saw me coming with a with a pink request slip for yet another file to be excavated from the basement storage, and started complaining before I had a chance to speak.

“You couldn’t have asked for this at the same time as the other one?” he asked, peering at it with contempt.

This file request was for the long-buried records of Bonita Voigt, a former client of Bill’s who had committed suicide. Charlene had set me on this path of discovery, but at the time I wasn’t digging in the files because I thought it odd that two of Bill’s clients had killed themselves, but because I thought it might be something interesting to discuss with Gus Haglund, should conversation lag. The field of law is full of interesting stories, but the field of estate law is not. And my backup work at present consisted of the screw deposition. I was not averse to discussing screwing with the detective, but not screws. And not estate planning. I thought it might be amusing to say, “I was looking at another file similar to Adrienne’s, and I noticed…” Well, I didn’t know how to end that sentence yet. I was hoping that in reviewing the file, I would notice something. Something perhaps interesting to a detective who was investigating a suicide. Something that I hadn’t just seen on a television show.

I used a roundabout way to search Bill’s archived files on the firm’s computer database, looking for the name that Charlene couldn’t recall, and that way produced results more quickly than I ever expected. I searched his old saved letter files for the word “sorry.” Sorry is a bad word for attorneys, who must never imply that they are wrong, mistaken, or regretful of—or about—anything. Laugh though you may, I promise you that the word “sorry” appears so seldom in litigation correspondence that the only place I found it was in letters to bereaved families that said, “I’m so sorry for your loss.”

Since Bill has been doing estate work for over fifteen years, and since much estate work has to do with the elderly, many of his clients had passed away. I found almost a hundred archived condolence letters. I eliminated the men, and then I searched through the women to find the one who hadn’t died of entirely natural causes. I could do this because of Bill’s closing memos, which often stated the cause of death. Once I had a list of dead women’s names, I just searched their files for a closing memo. As luck would have it, only the second file I searched, Bonita Voigt’s, was the one I wanted.

The memo, entered some time after the file had actually been closed, simply stated, “Memo to File: Bonita Voigt died August 15, 1998. Unfortunately she took her own life. What a shock for all of us who knew her. She was a very nice woman and always a pleasure to speak to. I had a good conversation with her brother about her funeral services…” Bill went on for a couple paragraphs after that about dates and various conversations that he’d had. It made me want to look at his handwritten notes, which would contain all the details, and the only way to do that was to get Bonita Voigt’s entire file.

And, as I’ve said, people will do just about anything to amuse themselves at work.

“Why do you have to have it today?” demanded Lloyd. “A file that’s this old?”

“Oh, never mind, then,” I said, plucking the request slip back out of his hand. “I’ll go get it myself.”

“I already locked up storage for the weekend,” he said, “and if this ain’t an emergency, I can’t see the point of opening it all back up again.”

I grimaced at him, not sure I believed that storage would already be locked when it wasn’t even three yet. “Can’t a clerk just run down and get it?”

“This is an old file number,” Lloyd said, pointing accusingly at the slip. “That file’s got to be almost ten years old.”

“Yes, it may be about that old.”

“Ten years old, that’s going to be pretty far back.”

What the hell did he mean? Pretty far back in time? Pretty far back in the storage room? Lloyd would go to any trouble and beyond any limits to complain. He was probably disgruntled for both reasons and a couple I hadn’t yet thought of. It would have given me perverse glee to send him on a particularly disagreeable mission, if only I could say that it was really for an urgent matter happening that afternoon. But the age of the file didn’t support that little ruse.

“Fine,” I said. “Fine, Monday morning, then.”

“So it’s not an emergency?”

I didn’t care for how much he enjoyed saying that. “Apparently it’s not,” I said dryly.

Then I forced myself to forget about Lloyd. Other than my irritation with him, I was surprisingly cool-headed and patient, not anxious in the least about the next day. I had plenty to occupy my attention that evening. I had my little summer project to work on, repainting my kitchen chairs in sunshine orange and green apple, which may not seem offhand like a wise color choice unless you’re a woman who discovered after a long winter that everything she owned was brown. Also I had a disk of Prime Suspect to watch.

Chapter Five

Gus picked me up right on time, which was automatically a gold star in Carol’s Little Book of Dating. I cannot stand tardiness. He’d called me briefly the night before to confirm my address and a pickup at 12:30 p.m. He also said there was no need to dress up because we both dressed up all week and jeans and sandals might be nice for a Saturday afternoon. While we spoke, I heard other voices and telephones ringing in the background. Gus was still at work. He kept it short, but he was polite and hinted at a plan in motion. He said, “I can’t wait,” and sounded sincere.

Gus Haglund in a pair of jeans is a sight to make one grateful to be a woman. As soon as I saw him I was tempted to say, “Just be still, and let me look for a minute,” but I guess that would have been sexist to my big burly date. What I did say was, “I’m really glad I bullied you into this.”

As if Gussie could be bullied into anything.

*****

He took me to his house to meet his sister.

On the following Monday, I wasn’t going to start my date-story by saying that. It sounds like the beginning of a worst-date-I-ever-had story, and that’s not the case. Besides, he wore a steel-blue T-shirt that made his eyes look like the treasure-laden depths of the ocean. I was so smitten that I would have agreed to shear sheep with him, had that been his plan.

We spent the afternoon in Gus’s home where he very efficiently fixed lunch (steaks, salad, and a strawberry shortcake). He was waiting for me to be disgruntled about this arrangement; maybe in the past he had tried this on women who believed that a first date required more elaborate arrangements. But I had no room to complain, since I had demanded he ask me out. And I had no desire to complain, since he was a damn good cook and since I don’t require elaborateness.

I’m not sure that Gus was consciously testing me. Still, I had the distinct feeling that my reactions to this unusually informal first date were being observed. There was the ghost of an ex-wife involved in all this, I’d bet anything. Either it was important for me to be unlike her or important for me to be just like her, but since I’d never met the woman, I just had to wing it and act like myself.

Gus’s house was like his car. Mid-sized, not showy. He, like me, obviously spent a good deal time at work and wasn’t a neat-freak. The bathrooms were clean, which was all I really hoped for in a guy. Showing me around before the cooking commenced, he knocked on an upstairs room, and a young woman answered. I thought, momentarily panicked, that this was his wife? Daughter? Girlfriend? No, thank heavens. It was his sister Lyvia. She was not a traditionally pretty young woman; she looked a good deal like Gus, in fact, and thus had that round-faced, puppy-dog appearance that had suckered me right in. It was a little less sexy on a feminine face. But she also had that killer grin, the Haglund family smile, which I thought there should be a warning about: People with heart conditions should not see the Haglund family smile. May cause palpitations and/or pregnancy.

“I won’t be in your way,” she assured me. “I have a term paper due, and Gus is letting me use his computer. So I’ll be in here all day, all night, and probably through tomorrow and on into Monday morning.”

“What are you doing a paper on?” I asked, noting with sympathy that the desk behind her was piled high with photocopies and library books.

“Migraine treatments, ironically.”

We left her to her torment. Gus explained as he took me back downstairs, “I thought it might make you feel better, knowing there was someone else in the house.”

“Feel better?” It actually took me a moment to plumb the meaning of his words. “I’m not afraid of you, Gus. Is this a cop thing?”

“No, not a cop thing.” That made him shy. “No, you just don’t know me well. And about the first thing I ever said to you was that I’d killed three of my wives.”

“Yes. Well, I sort of assumed you were joking about that.”

“It is a joke. It’s that Bluebeard story, remember?”

“The silly new wife finds the basement full of heads. Yes, that’s a good one.” I was directed to sit at the island in his kitchen, and he offered me a glass of wine.

Gus began to work efficiently in his kitchen. From his refrigerator he gathered steaks, mushrooms, and the simple ingredients for a salad. He refused my offers of help. He chopped vegetables so quickly with the biggest knife I’ve ever seen that I flinched and gasped a couple times. “In college,” he said, the knife rapping like a woodpecker down the cutting board, “I worked in a Chinese restaurant, and they teased me for being too slow.”

Over the frying pan he said, “I was married, actually, but only once. And she’s still among the living, if you can call Omaha living. I have a son named Doug who lives there with her most of the time. You?”

I confessed very briefly to one previous marriage and no children. I asked about Doug, which seemed to be the polite thing to do, but Gus wasn’t ready to share Doug with me yet. I was shown a picture of a boy around ten built thick and hard like his father, with a leaner face and green eyes, but the same curly hair and cupid’s bow mouth. I wondered if the boy was blessed with the Haglund family smile,. I learned that Doug was Gus’s on alternate weekends, four weeks out of the summer, and rotating holidays, and that Gus missed the boy in a constant but bearable way. “With my schedule,” he said, “It only makes sense for him to live with his mother.”

That was all I got of Doug that first time around. That was okay.

“So tell me about television,” said Gus, to get the topic away from his son.

“It’s a box, about so big,” I motioned with my hands, “and it shows these things called programs.”

“You told me that you watch it almost constantly.”

He remembered something I’d said. Another gold star. Let’s see, that totaled about five stars thus far, and we hadn’t even eaten yet.

“That’s right, I do,” I said, refusing to be ashamed of my habit, “But I have standards. No reality television, no game shows, no entertainment-based gossip crap.”

“And no lawyer shows.”

Ding. Another star.

“I won’t say it’s a complete boycott, but they have to be very good. But you don’t watch television?”

“I can’t manage it any more. Now everything that’s on has long story arcs. You have to watch them in order, and you can’t miss an episode or you won’t know what’s happening. My schedule is all over the place. And I can’t stand missing parts of a story.”

“Dear boy, you don’t have to be a slave to your schedule. I watch TV shows on DVD. I am the master of my own fate.”

“Back in my youth,” said Gus dreamily, “an episode was an episode, and everything at the end was back to the status quo. The next week, they started fresh as if nothing had ever happened.”

“I remember those days. What a romantic notion, starting fresh every week.”

Gus chuckled at me, looking unexpectedly pleased.

We were eating strawberry shortcake before Lyvia made an appearance. She peered around the corner of the kitchen and said, “Sorry, can I just come through for some tea?”

Gus motioned her in. He had some whipped topping on his lip that rendered me momentarily speechless, Barry White music floating into my fantasies again, but unfortunately he wiped it off before he said, “Lyvie, do you want some cake?”

“Hell, yes,” she said.

“Sit down with us,” I offered sincerely, able to summon coherent thought now that the whipped topping incident had passed. “Take a break. I have been trying to explain to your brother why lawyers are required to bill so much for their time.”

“He told you about the letter, didn’t he?” asked Lyvia. She sat and helped herself to a double portion of strawberry shortcake. At her age, she could probably do that without immediately gaining twenty pounds. In a fairly good imitation of her brother she said, “That guy charged me two hundred dollars for writing a letter that I could have written myself.”

I shrugged good-naturedly; Gus had mentioned the complaint he had about a little property dispute and the attorney who had solved it for him. I didn’t mind. People were always asking me to explain the reasons why lawyers cost so much, as if I were invited to top-secret meetings where, through some ancient and dangerous ritual, lawyers chose high numbers to call their hourly billing fees.

I was curious at the moment about the age difference between these two, Gus was thirty-five and Lyvia was probably only slightly over twenty, so I asked about it.

“We’re the alpha and omega,” said Lyvia. “Gus is the oldest, I’m the baby, and in between us are Jules and Ty.”

“Being the only girl and the baby hasn’t spoiled her, though,” said Gus, handing her a napkin.

“Wait a minute.” I puzzled through their names in my head. “Your brothers are actually Julius and Tiberius, aren’t they?”

Lyvia and Gus exchanged looks. They were rather impressed with me. Maybe I had just earned my own gold star.

“I, Claudius,” I said, to explain my knowledge of Imperial Roman names. “Everything I know, I learned on television.”

I was having such a nice time just looking at Gus Haglund and humming Barry White under my breath (“Can’t Get Enough of Your Love, Babe”), that I forgot all about Adrienne Maxwell until Gus asked what it was like working for Bill. Like most others, Gussie assumed that Bill was a handful.

“Yes, he’s a handful,” I said, “but that’s not always a bad thing. At least, with him, the handful is always the same and he’s not high-maintenance.”

Gus cocked his head.

“Code word,” I said. “High-maintenance is the code word for asshole. Bill is a handful, but that’s not the same thing. If a secretary goes to an interview and is told that the attorney is high-maintenance, she’d be wise to run the other way.”

“That’s the second time you’ve given me a code word. Detail-oriented was the other one.”

“Legal clerical work is lousy with code words. It’s considered in poor taste to just say what you mean. I suppose down at the KCPD, you guys just say what you mean.”

“Words that would curl your hair.”

“Looks like they did,” I said, and nodded toward his head. He ran a hand through the natural wiriness of his hair and I thought, oooo, I want to do that. But the conversation had brought us around to Adrienne Maxwell. “So can you talk about the case?” I asked.

“Not really. Not much.” Gus wasn’t upset at me for asking. He actually seemed to feel bad that he couldn’t share more.

“Well, speaking generally, then,” I coaxed. “She seemed at first like a suicide. What made you police change your minds?”

“At first there was just the coroner and the crime scene investigators. When they turned up a couple of odd details, the case was turned over to our department, and my supervisor, Sergeant Jackie Paige, handed it over to me.”

“And the odd details? The witness who saw the unsub, and something about the drugs?”

“You know Clarissa, right? Adrienne Maxwell’s daughter?”

“I know of her.”

“Well, Adrienne died from an overdose of combined over-the-counter medications. Stuff she could have easily bought on her own. But Clarissa said Adrienne didn’t use medications. She believed in herbal remedies only. Other than that, I can’t say more.”

“Probably better that you don’t,” I admitted. “Where I work, information is passed by osmosis. If you told me, whether or not I said a word, it would be known for three cubicles in each direction before Monday lunchtime.”

Gus laughed at my joke. By this point he had so many gold stars that we could film an episode of Star Trek in the starry final frontier he’d created in my mind. Carol’s Little Book of Dating had never seen such a triumphant performance.

Gus told me, “I’ve got to be careful what I say. I got reamed a couple years ago for speaking out of turn. I’m not anxious to go through that ordeal again.”

“Understood. I’m sorry. It’s just that we knew her at the office. And everybody there is so bored, they’ll do about anything to pass the time. A murder investigation, well, that’s almost as interesting as The Time a Car Hit the Building and We Thought it was a Bomb.”

I could see I was going to have to explain that one.

*****

I tried not to whine like a disappointed kid when Gus told me that he had to take me home at six. How we were going to run off to Vegas for a quickie wedding if he had to take me home at six? He confessed that he had many errands to run and had to be at work early Sunday morning. To his credit, he added that if he’d known things were going to go so well between us, he would have kept more of his evening free.

Before we left Gus’s house, I went upstairs to wish Lyvia luck on her term paper. She looked a little bleary-eyed and didn’t seem pleased with her work so far. I might add here that I won major brownie points when I paused to help her use the auto-number feature in her word processor. Occasionally the skills of a secretary, which seem so mundane and repetitive when you perform them forty-five hours a week, look like incredible magic to the inexperienced. If there was one thing I can do, it’s work a word processor. Pleased that I could contribute to the good of others, I wrote my phone number down for her. “If that thing gives you any more trouble,” I said, gesturing to the computer’s screen, “feel free to call me. I’ll make it behave.”

“The hell with Gus,” said Lyvia. “I think I’m going to ask you out.”

I walked outside with my afternoon date, squashing the desire to ask what he had to do that evening. That was none of my business unless he offered. I got a clue, though, when he opened his garage to retrieve a gas can. It was possible that his big Saturday night plans involved mowing his yard. My relief—secretly I had feared he might have another date lined up, a lingerie model with a degree in nuclear physics, or hooker with a heart of gold, something like that—anyway, my relief was bright but also brief, because in his garage I saw that he had a Harley. Nothing fancy, but hard and sleek, well loved and cared for. It was one of those great black motorcycles that tough, misunderstood bad boys ride, straight out of a movie. I damn neared swooned.

“Oh, Lord,” I said weakly. “Oh my God, you have a motorcycle.”

“Eh.” I’d made him shy again.

“What kind is it?”

Gus looked fondly at the bike. He said, “It’s a Softail Deuce,” with a throaty undertone that made me dizzy. “I like to ride when the weather’s good. I’m not a Hell’s Angel or anything. You’re not afraid of them, are you?”

It was hard for me to speak through the aneurysm—or was it an orgasm? Felt a little like both. Yeah, I’m one of those women who get a little light-headed over a motorcycle. “One of those women,” in that I think there are only five women in existence, probably holed up in some Quaker town, who don’t love motorcycles. And the big devil hadn’t told me up front, “I own one of your fantasy toys, wanna see me sit on it?” Oh, no. He’d let me see the dowdy sedan first.

“Not afraid of motorcycles,” I said. My knees were weak.

“Great. Well maybe…when it gets a little warmer, we can, you know, go for a ride.”

“Uh-huh.”

“That was really nice, what you did for Lyvia with the computer.”

“Piece of cake,” I said. “I do that stuff every day.”

“I can tell. It all looks like voodoo to me.” Gus put his hands in his pockets, a little insolent and challenging.

I just couldn’t help it. He was the finest thing I’d laid eyes on in years and the nicest thing that had happened to me since I found Bill Nestor. Three steps brought me flush against his impressively broad and immensely hard body, and I kissed him. Firm at first, hardly more than affectionate, just in case he recoiled in horror, but as soon as I felt that he wasn’t recoiling, things softened between our lips and I wound an arm around his neck to pull him closer. Gus Haglund was a thorough kisser, and all that lopsided menace I’d imagined in his smile was alive and well when he kissed me. He took my lower lip in his teeth, and he parted my mouth with his tongue. He took his time and let the blood rush into my head, and after a few seconds, I could feel a hard pulse thumping in every dark corner of my body.

He kept his hands in his pockets. Clever devil.

Finally I let him go, dropped dreamily back to the ground, and was able to focus again. “That wasn’t all about the motorcycle,” I assured him. “The motorcycle just made it unavoidable.”

“My God,” murmured Gus. “What would you do if I showed you my lawnmower?”

Chapter Six

On Monday, my great date story was in danger of being overshadowed by a Kay’s Mother Is In The Hospital story. Kay’s mother was an eighty-something-year-old woman who spent so much time in the hospital that I believed she had actually died several years before and her corpse was simply reanimated every few weeks. That’s a terrible thing to say? Well, maybe, unless you knew Kay. Kay believed that the illnesses of herself, her family, her extended family, her friends, her neighbors, their families and their pets, and their pets’ families, were of concern to everyone at MBS&K. Get enough people together, and someone will always be sick or hospitalized. I could have done the same thing if I’d wanted, but I didn’t because I knew that others simply didn’t care if my auntie was having an MRI of her bladder.

Kay’s Mother Is In the Hospital. What was the matter with her this time? I’m sure that the ailment was gruesome and mysterious, as they always were with Kay’s family of perpetual hypochondriacs. The word spread around of its own volition. Someone wondered if we should send a card. The firm could go bankrupt sending cards to Kay’s sick family.

Over the fabulous weekend, I not only forgot entirely about Adrienne Maxwell and the Bonita Voigt file; once I was at my desk, shutting away my possessions, glancing at the weekend mail, I realized that I’d more or less forgotten what my job was. What was I, some kind of number cruncher? I inspected the desk and found indications that I was somebody’s secretary. Oh, yes. Bill had left a tape of dictation and a list of documents to prepare while he was out in a meeting.

At 8:30, Charlene appeared magically before my cubicle, as she was wont to do, and ducked silently inside. She had a file in her hand, which was good. Junior Gestapo Brent was probably already patrolling the floor, making sure nobody was up to mischief. If we heard him coming, we could revert to our generic business talk. We had a standard set of emergency comments to make: “So have you ever worked on this file?” “No, that file has not been in my workload.” “Who do you think I should ask about this file?” “I think that asking about that file is a good idea.” Junior Gestapo Brent wasn’t that bright, and it sounded like work, so he’d go away to find other evildoers.

When I began working for MBS&K, there was only one secretarial supervisor, and that was Donna. As far as supervisors go, she was a good one. She trusted us to get our work done and, provided that we did that, she didn’t bother us about much else. We could go to her with any problems and she’d try to help. She was also effective at mediating between the secretaries and attorneys when the need arose. But she was one person in charge of twenty secretaries, plus overseeing the office management, plus dealing with the endless supply of nonsense that attorneys can generate, and so she was extremely overworked.

Terry Bronk decided to hire an assistant for her. What Donna really needed was her own secretary, but the idea was too practical. What Terry Bronk hired instead was a useless middle-management clone named Brent Downey. Brent came to us fresh from graduate school where he’d earned one of those meaningless degrees that teach you how to name everything, but not how to do anything. He brought his lexicon of office jargon, starting with “mission statements,” and asserted his authority by getting everyone in trouble as soon as possible. The secretaries are congregating too long in the break room, he said. The secretaries are engaging in personal conversations during work hours. The secretaries are pushing the limits of the dress code. The secretaries are failing to follow firm procedures about font sizes and types. Ridiculous nitpicky baloney, but he could distribute long memos that made it look like he was working.

He wasn’t any help to Donna that I could see. Her job didn’t change a bit. His job, I think, was to create a need for himself by becoming Terry Bronk’s snitch. Absolutely nobody liked him; he had zero interpersonal skills and a huge inferiority complex. Brent had one of those vacant young-man faces that was on the verge of being attractive, but wasn’t attractive because there was no strength of character behind it, and he had lips like a sow. I doubt that women had ever been particularly fond of him, and he took it out on us now by reveling in and abusing his authority over us. Would you believe he tried for the first couple months to get us to call him “Mr. Downey?” As if. Except for etiquette-maniac Mr. Miller, we didn’t even have to call the attorneys by their surnames, and we certainly weren’t going to do it for this weasel. A few of the more naïve secretaries tried to use him as they would Donna by asking him to mediate arguments or solve problems for them, but they quickly learned that in Brent’s school of thought, secretarial problems are caused by secretaries, and the best way to solve them was to use robotic replacements. Barring that option, what one can do instead is call a disciplinary hearing and work the poor secretary over until she’s too afraid to say boo.

Since I’m always the one who thinks of the nicknames, I started calling him “Junior Gestapo Brent,” and I could probably have been fired, if he’d learned it came from me first. Junior Gestapo Brent would have loved to fire me because I did not fear him. I detested and avoided him, but fear? Oh no. In comparison to the psychotic sadist, Junior Gestapo Brent’s reign of terror was like a buzzing junebug wanging itself against a lighted window. He’d catch me looking at him that way sometimes (as a distasteful bug-like creature, I mean), and the rage would bubble up inside him, impotent and pointless. You can’t fire a secretary for thinking you’re an ass.

“Tell all,” ordered Charlene, once we’d established that we were alone and not in danger of being discovered talking by his Royal Pain-in-the-Assedness.

So I told all, including updating the office database of information on what had happened to Adrienne Maxwell, before a dark cloud erupted menacingly over my cubicle, thunder rolled, and lightning flashed. Charlene and I looked up to see Lloyd glaring in at us. He held a file, too.

“Thought you needed this first thing Monday,” he said snidely. He dropped Bonita Voigt’s old file on my desk, and it thudded so hard my coffee nearly sloshed over the sides of the cup.

To my recollection, I had said nothing about first-thing-Monday. Hadn’t I just said Monday? That’s about ten hours worth of wriggle time, there, Lloyd my friend.

He bitched, “It’s been sitting in there all morning long. Thought I’d bring it by, since it was so important.”

All morning long, yes, it was all of a quarter to nine. Had I not been physically immune to any upset that day, I might have mentioned this. Instead I said, “Thank you!”

Charlene looked blankly at Lloyd: of all the employees here, she was the only one who appeared completely unaffected by his moods. She asked, “Are you trying to make a point?”

Lloyd grumbled.

“I don’t understand,” said Charlene. “What are you telling us? That we can’t leave files on your cart? That we have to follow up immediately on our requests?”

Coming from my mouth, these comments would have been considered smart-assed, but Charlene asked these things in complete sincerity. When Lloyd only glared at her, which was what Lloyd did when he didn’t have satisfactory answers, she pressed him. “If you don’t tell us what the point is, we’ll just keep doing the thing that irritates you so much.”

Lloyd finally relented with actual words. “Emergencies are only emergencies for as long as anyone’s paying attention, that’s all I mean.”

“Well that doesn’t make sense,” said Charlene. “You go to storage every day. Carol asked for a file. I don’t understand—”

“I’m busy,” said Lloyd brusquely. He stalked away.

“Did you hear horses braying?” whispered Charlene, eyeing him as he went. I snorted at the unexpected joke; Charlene’s sense of humor always struck like static shock. She glanced at Bonita’s file. “That’s an old one. Look, it still has the letters on the file number.”

“It’s a little archeological expedition. That’s the other of Bill’s client’s who committed suicide.”

After a weekend it is hard to recall anything you said or did the week before, and it seemed to take Charlene a moment to remember that we’d even discussed suicidal clients. She shook her head, though, her fingers touching the stick-on file number. “No, that’s the wrong one.”

“Oh really? Well, it’s too late for it to matter anyway. Thought I’d regale the detective with a little of my own investigative skills, but it’s probably better that I couldn’t.”

“You can’t really discuss our other clients. That’s a breach of confidentiality.”

“I wasn’t going to mention names. God, Charlene, what are you, the hall monitor?”

“I only meant that if it’s something of interest, you’ve got to be careful how you approach it with the police department. Maybe you should ask Mr. Miller.”

I put my hand to her arm to stop her talking. “I promise I’m not going to break attorney/client privilege, Charlene, for heaven’s sake. I was only trying to show off.”

“But it’s not the right file, anyway. This one is way too old. The woman I was talking about was a client much more recently. Her name was Hermione or something—or maybe I’m just thinking of those Harry Potter books. So you actually met his sister?”

I was confused; I didn’t even know Harry Potter had a sister. Wait, no. She meant Gus. I told her about Lyvia and the term paper, and how I used my secretarial superpowers to make myself look brilliant. Then I sent her on her way, trusting that she’d do her duty and tell Lucille what I’d said, so that the goddess of gossip could get the word out. All went according to plan. As I had hoped, word of the motorcycle got around. Kay’s mother wasn’t anywhere near as interesting as that.

*****

Later Bill came bustling in. I went into his office after he’d had a few minutes to settle down, asked him how the meeting went, and began my usual list of reassurances to convince him that all went smoothly while he was away. Bill used to be reluctant to leave the office because he didn’t believe that anything could work without his interference. That doesn’t apply so much anymore; he’s come to trust me to hold down the fort. It’s cute that he seems to think I’m fending off invaders.

I brought him his mail, opened and stapled horizontally (no paperclips!), the files he wanted to work on that day, and a neat stack of typed dictation (12-point Times New Roman font, no bold, no italics, no paragraph indentations, single space after each period, the date precisely one half inch below the letterhead), and the prepared estate documents in spotless manila folders just the way he liked them. At the beginning, it took me about two weeks to figure out exactly how he wanted everything, and after that, he never changed.

“Well, how was your weekend?” asked Bill as he straightened his sleeve cuffs. “Did you and the detective hit it off?”

I’d never had a boss with whom I’d feel comfortable sharing this kind of information, but Bill looked as excited as Charlene had earlier. I couldn’t help but grin. “Yes, we had a really nice time.”

“Seeing him again?”

“I hope so. No definite plans yet. His schedule is weird, and I’m pretty busy, too.”

“I guess he’s busy working on this Adrienne Maxwell case.” At his desk, Bill began to carefully page through the mail. He never flipped through anything, and he never bent corners. “Did you manage to find out anything about it?”

I had a bad flashback right then of the days I’d spent slaving for the psychotic sadist. I often had to call clients or witnesses and interview them for information. The psychotic sadist would say, “Call and ask what medications they’re taking,” and I would do as instructed. I’d get the information, the names of the prescribing physicians and the number of refills, the pharmacy name and the side effects, specific complaints for which the prescription had been given, and anything else I could humanly think to ask. What color are the pills? Do you take them with juice? Then I would give all this information, typed in memo form or maybe in a nice graph, to the psychotic sadist. About half the time, he’d toss the damned thing aside, never look at it again, and absent-mindedly assign me the same task the following week. And about the other half of the time, he would ask me for some rather off-topic bit of information like, “Has she been able to continue doing housework while she’s had these complaints?” Naturally I would not know the answer. His face would grow red. Here it would come; the insinuation that I wasn’t doing my job. That he had to do all the thinking. That I was wasting his precious time with this incomplete, half-assed report.

I felt this many years after escaping him. A dropping dread fell in my stomach, because I was asked a question for which I didn’t have a good answer. I felt prickling in the skin on my shoulders, I felt the urge to snap at Bill, I was ready to fight. The psychotic sadist would probably be pleased to know that, all this time later, I still cringed at reminders of him.

With an unexpected amount of effort, I managed to answer Bill’s question as lightly as I’d been speaking only a moment before. “He really couldn’t talk about the case. I got just the barest details.”

Bill raised his eyebrows and looked interested.

“Only that the medications weren’t something she had in the house. They don’t know where the pills came from.”

“Pills can come from anywhere. She could have gotten them from a friend. And you can order just about anything you want online. I wonder why it’s significant.”

“Like I said, he couldn’t give me details. He did seem sorry that he couldn’t, though. Maybe after their investigation is over, I can get him to tell me more.”

“Yes, that would be interesting.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. I was apologizing as much for thinking he’d ever be as unfair as the psychotic sadist as I was for having a lack of information.

“What? Oh, no, it’s not a pleasant talk to have on a date anyway.” Bill looked at the same piece of mail he’d already checked. His mind was elsewhere, I could tell.

*****

I’d rather lost interest in thumbing through Bonita Voigt’s file, now that my first date with Gus had passed successfully and we had more than suicide to talk about. Since I had gone to the trouble (or rather, Lloyd had gone to the trouble) of getting it out, though, I pulled out Bill’s notes to see what the last few entries had been.

Yes, it was all as I expected. His maniacal attention to note-taking and details was never more beneficial than in hindsight, as Bonita’s file was meticulously rounded out. Bonita Voigt was rather like Adrienne Maxwell in that she came to Bill as a recent widow who wanted to redo her will and estate documents to better suit her new circumstances. Bill’s written notes from her meetings mentioned, “Client is despondent over loss of her husband and is currently unwilling to make plans for the future.” Poor thing.

Bonita Voigt had apparently taken her own life a few months after her last appointment here. No accompanying newspaper article or anything, because Bill wasn’t into scrapbooking and he didn’t like how newsprint faded and smeared. I was hoping to uncover a cause of death, actually. I knew she’d killed herself, but how? With a gun? Slitting her wrists? More pills, like Adrienne? Or maybe she had thrown herself from a bridge? Finding a real newspaper article was a silly idea on my part, considering that the self-inflicted death of an elderly woman probably wasn’t even considered newsworthy. Well, unless she really had thrown herself from a bridge. There was a copy of her funeral announcement that, of course, said she’d passed away but not how or why. What surprised me was that Bill’s notes didn’t mention her method of suicide. Normally he wrote down everything. The only reason I could propose for his neglecting that detail was tact. Maybe he thought it would just be tacky to write a notation about that.

I put the file aside. Then, just because Charlene had piqued my curiosity about the suicide she claimed to recall, I went back to the computer’s archive files. My search criteria for the previous week was still stored on my word processor. I searched for file type “Letters”, file owner “Bnestor,” key word search “sorry”. I ran it again and the same letters appeared. Again I eliminated the men, and this time, I went beyond Bonita Voigt’s name. Here was one in 2001, Bryony Gilbert. Bryony rhymed with Hermione; that’s why it caught my eye.

I picked up my necessary “look busy” pen and pad of paper and walked purposefully to Charlene’s cubicle. She was on the phone when I approached, and I paused outside her cubicle walls so as not to appear overly nosy. Still, I really wanted to stay and listen. I could tell from her tone and words that she was speaking to the pissed-off ex-husband of one of Aven Fisher’s clients, and hearing Charlene in action on the phone was fun.

She was saying, “Well since you refused to accept service of the complaint by mail, we were forced to serve you with a private process server…No, sir, that is state law…Yes, in fact, we are permitted to bill you for it…because your ex-wife is not obligated to pay for your fits of pique…it means temper tantrum…I beg to differ; you were given the opportunity to accept service by mail and, for some reason, thought that rejecting that offer would cause problems for someone besides yourself…well, I think that’s an issue you need to take up with the process service company. That big fellow who served your papers to you would remember who you are…I guess you might have considered that before you impregnated your sister-in-law. Thank you for calling.”

I mimed applause as she turned to face me. She groused, “Men. Men make me sick.”

“Don’t they ever complain about the mean secretary who yells at them?”

“Who cares if they do?”

“I wish you’d been the secretary for my divorce attorney,” I sighed, pleased at the thought of Charlene ripping my stupid ex-husband a new asshole. Technically, I had been my divorce attorney’s secretary. The matter was handled by a junior associate at the firm where I used to work for the psychotic sadist.

“I see these divorce proceedings and can’t even think what brought couples together in the first place.”

“I wondered that myself when I was divorcing my stupid ex-husband.”

“You don’t remember?”

“I remember just fine. Temporary insanity.”

Her eyebrows rose in surprise, and I couldn’t help laughing at her expression. I waved off her curious gaze, excusing myself with, “We’re just going to chalk my first marriage up as a learning experience and hope that if I get another chance, I’ll be smarter about it. Like next time, I might get a guy with an actual job.”

“Like a detective, maybe.”

“In my wettest dreams.” I realized what I’d said and felt my cheeks redden. To cover this female silliness, I asked her, “Was it Bryony Gilbert? Is that the name of the other woman?”

Charlene studied me thoughtfully and tested the name. “Bryony. That one sounds right. I knew it was something Scottish sounding. Irish. Or whatever.”

“Well, okay then. Mystery solved.”

“Is it? Let me know what you find out.”

*****

This time, I wasn’t going to give the file request to Lloyd. Lloyd didn’t need to be a part of this transaction. I found a file clerk hiding behind a mountainous stack of copy machine paper and asked him to go get the file for me. The young man blinked as if I spoke a foreign language. Surely he must work here. He didn’t seem to have seen daylight in a while, though. He was small and ghostly pale.

“I’m Carol.” I spoke slowly so as not to startle him. “I work for Bill Nestor. I’d like you to get a file for me.”

He ducked his head and scooted toward a wobbly table that seemed to serve as his desk. He tried to give me a pink slip of paper.

I took it and filled it out in big block letters, like writing something down for a small child.

He didn’t understand. He looked fretfully up and down the room, reminding me of those pathetic lobsters waiting in a tank to be captured and thrown into boiling water. I did not eat lobster, and I did not like the way Lloyd scared his employees.

“I’m Carol,” I repeated. “What’s your name?”

“Eric,” he said. When he finally made eye contact with me I got a better fix on his age. Pre-law, so probably about twenty years old. It was so hard for kids to get jobs coming out of law school that they were willing to do things like this—work as a lowly file clerk in a big firm—just to have an extra little blurb on their resume and maybe to be able to say, “Please interview me. I slaved under Lloyd for two years so you know that no judge or jury can scare me.”

Speaking gently now, I said, “Eric, it would be a big favor to me if you’d go get this file right now.”

Just when I thought I was going to have to get a candy bar to dangle before him (he didn’t appear to have eaten in a while), Eric broke and, checking behind him, took the request slip. “Do you think Lloyd will mind if I leave?” he asked.

That’s when I decided that eliminating the middleman was necessary. I took the slip back and said, “You know what? I think I’ll just go get this one myself.”

He shrunk back in terror.

“It’s all right. You’re doing a good job. I think it might just be quicker this way.” I searched his stricken face and said, “You’re not in trouble.”

But he didn’t believe me. I felt like I should call OSHA or something, so maybe they could assign a social worker to his case and get him a foster-boss.

MBS&K storage is the scariest place in the building, scary in the way that library stacks can be scary, or catacombs, or a vast garden maze. A person could wander into one of these places and become lost to the world, break a leg, have a heart attack, or fall under a massive weight of old paper and just die and not be found for days. Is that a morbid way to think?

How does one construct a place this scary in a modern office building? Take a good-sized basement room, say about as large as a union banquet hall, and fill it with flimsy soldier-rows of shelves. Then load ’em up, one box after another until they’re stuffed full of paper, plastic, cardboard, and vinyl. Do this for twenty or so years, run out of actual usable space somewhere after seven of those years, and then begin cramming what still must be made to fit wherever you can manage. The result is where I now stood, a labyrinthine crypt of flammable materials.

God forbid anyone should ever light a cigarette in here; the radiant heat would start a catastrophic fire. Everyone in the eleven stories above would die of smoke inhalation within ten minutes because no one upstairs pays the slightest attention to alarms. I know I’m prone to sarcasm, but that’s not a joke. I’d been at work when the fire alarms went off, and people could barely be bothered to look up and say, “What the hell is that noise?” before going back to their conference calls.

It is impossible to light a room like this correctly. The walls of paper block whatever feeble light the fluorescents produce. I don’t know how an old bastard like Lloyd can even see to find things down here, unless he traces files by their scent, which is entirely possible. I was a relative youngster with my eyesight not yet failing, and I was going to have to dive way back into the dark recesses of 2001. That’s five years of real time and five centuries of storage time. Already my skin was itching from the dust mites, an unpleasant thought.

But I was curious now, and as I have mentioned, people will do just about anything to pass the time at work.

*****

When I returned to my cubicle, Bill was pacing in and out of his office door. He looked enormously relieved to see me.

“Where have you been?” he cried. His tone was never that of a demanding boss so much as that of a worried parent. I suppose he thinks I am in the same danger as his files and documents when nobody is around to hold down the fort.

“I was in storage,” I said. I had successfully found Bryony Gilbert’s file and now held it close to me with its file number and name not precisely in Bill’s sight. I wasn’t trying to hide information from him specifically but I was trying to hide the fact that I wasn’t working on an actual assignment. “Bill, I told you I was going to storage.”

“But you were gone such a long time.”

What a nut. I had been down there no more than twenty minutes. Dislike Lloyd though I may, the man did know how to keep things where they were supposed to be. My major obstacle had been that I was only five and a half feet tall and had trouble reaching the shelf where Bryony’s file was stored. Anyway when Bill got like this, when he started fussing over things that didn’t deserve fuss, the best solution was to thank him profusely for his concern.

“I appreciate that you were keeping an eye out,” I said, slipping the file discreetly onto my desk and out of his line of sight. “That storage room is about the scariest place in the building. I’m always afraid I’ll get locked in or injured or something and then not be found for days.”

“Is it possible to get locked in?” Things like that worried Bill very much.

“Probably not really, but you can think all kinds of spooky thoughts when you’re actually down there.”

“You should have a file clerk go down there. You don’t have to be messing around in storage.”

“Oh, sometimes it’s just quicker to do it myself. Anyway I’m back now safe and sound, so what is it you needed me for?”

“I have those letters signed and ready to go,” he said. But he was still distracted. “How could you get locked in?”

Oh, damn it. I’d given him something to obsess over. Despite the fact that Bill would probably never have to go to storage, if I didn’t put a stop to this right now he’d worry for the next week about getting locked in down there, or me getting locked in, or someone being trapped in the storage room. I had no desire to send him into a compulsive cycle of checking, like that time he feared that there were used staples stuck in his carpet or leaves clogging the gutter outside his apartment. In this case, it would likely manifest in his going downstairs every couple hours to make sure there wasn’t anyone locked in storage.

“You can’t get locked in,” I said. “Bill, I was being flip. I was joking around. It’s just a big room with a lot of paper. The door locks from the inside. See? I shouldn’t have said anything, but you know me, always trying to be funny.”

He asked, “There’s no way someone could lock you inside?”

“Absolutely not. The worst thing anyone could do,” and I had to be careful here, because I didn’t want him trying to think of worse things anyone could do, “is close the door. I’d just walk over and open it right back up again. Please calm down. Give me your letters, and I’ll get them in the mail.”

Bill wandered thoughtfully away, a frown of concern still trying to wheedle its way onto his forehead. Had my explanation worked? I couldn’t tell for sure yet. If he started making unexplained trips downstairs, then I’d have to find a way to talk him out of the ritual. I spent enough time doing this kind of thing, and darn it, I was his secretary, not his psychiatrist.

Of course you might not believe that, considering our history. Allow me a little time. I’ll try to explain.

Chapter Seven

My boss Bill wasn’t a popular man among the secretaries at the firm, and a lot of them didn’t know how he and I managed to get along so well. I was his first secretary ever to last more than seven months. We were nearing our third anniversary. He gave me glowing reviews; he was mannered, polite, and soft-spoken to me. Sometimes he was also funny.

When a stressor jumped at him, though, he could go off the deep end into an attack of obsessive-compulsiveness. If his attack went unchecked, he could get so upset that it nearly made him sick. I lived through a couple of these attacks early on, and they scared me—for his sake, not for my own. Even at the height of his panic, his wrath was always turned inward. I was lucky to discover that in a manic state, he responded well to firm commands and gentle humor. If I could figure out the source of his anxiety, as unlikely as that source might be, I could often dispel his fears. And I did not mind. The other women found that hard to understand. Silly girls, who didn’t know the man I used to work for. Manic-but-polite neurotic beats psychotic sadist any day of the week.

I loved working for Bill, as much as anyone can love being someone’s secretary. So why didn’t others like him? Mannered, polite, and soft-spoken though he might have been, he could drive the most patient secretary crazy with his fanatical beliefs in sameness. For Bill, disorder was not just annoying, but physically upsetting. He lost his previous secretary because she spent two days arranging for the copying and distribution of a huge legal brief with an impending deadline and, just before she was about to package it all for mailing, Bill noticed that one attorney’s phone number was formatted (555) 555-5555 and another’s was formatted 1-555-555-5555 (no parentheses and the long-distance “1” glaring before it). He insisted that the entire project be redone. She worked until midnight, ended up driving it to the FedEx pickup site at the airport to make the deadline, and resigned the next day. It’s a legendary story around the office called “The Time Bill’s Secretary Quit Because of the Phone Number Thing.”

The same situation went down differently between us. Another brief was ready to go, and the deadline loomed large. Bill meticulously prepared the document for two weeks. By then I had been over that thing with such care that I felt I knew the patterns of its word stops. It was never content that troubled Bill, but format, and this brief was so perfect in form that it had attained a spiritual beauty of its own. I wanted to keep a copy to stroke lovingly in my old age. “Oh, my lovely Appellee’s Reply Brief,” I would sigh, gazing at it, while the other inmates cherished their grandchildren’s pictures or their old love letters, “though your cover page has faded, the memory of our love never shall.”

Bill came toward my desk, dark eyes shining with worry. As I’ve said, he responded badly to stress, and legal briefs caused him plenty of stress. They’re important documents; sometimes they can win or lose a case for you. Because Bill did estate work, he almost never had to mess with such things, except in the very few cases where disputes among heirs forced these matters to go before a court. This was one such matter. If his last secretary had only realized this and not allowed his worry to run roughshod over her, things might have worked out better between them. As he began to try this silliness with me, I could easily see that I would have to do some intervention right then and there.

Bill’s fingers reached for the original copy of the brief. “I just want to check this over before we send it out.”

“No.” On the impulse of self-preservation, I took it away from him.

He thought I was kidding. He tried to reach for it again, but I held it near my breasts so he wouldn’t dare come closer for fear of an embarrassing harassment suit.

“Carol, come on. We’re on a deadline.”

“That’s right, and I’m mailing this out now. You’re not to touch it.”

“I need to review it.”

“No. It’s been reviewed. It’s beautiful. It’s perfect.”

“I want . . .” unhappily he began. His fingers began to worry at his tie, straightening a garment that could not have been straighter if he’d put it on with guidance from a slide rule. He may have, in fact. He glanced around as if looking for someone to help him.

“You did already. Trust yourself. Trust me.” I put the original brief behind me and put my hands on his shoulders to push. “Go away.”

There was some protesting, and he ground his heels into the carpet so I couldn’t move him.

I commenced with threats. “So help me, if you touch that brief and make me redo a single bit of it, I’ll put all the binder combs on backwards before I send it out. All those teeth, pointing the wrong way. Think of the horror.”

Bill knew that I was teasing him about his abject fear of backwards binder comb teeth, but he was also considering with terror the idea that I might actually do something that evil. He made a move to take a copy with him, but I reached for the bound document and snapped the binder comb hard enough to pull three teeth loose. Bill gasped.

“There’s more where that came from,” I warned. “Get away from my desk.”

He stared at the loose binding, sweat breaking out on his forehead.

I promised, “I’ll fix it when you go away.”

“I don’t appreciate this,” he informed me, not precisely walking but stuttering away, held in the vice grip of the bad binder comb.

“You can fire me tomorrow, I guess.”

He didn’t fire me, though. A new legend was born. “The Time Carol Threatened Bill with Backwards Binder Combs and He Didn’t Fire Her.”

*****

Here’s another anecdote, on a larger scale:

One morning Bill had an astoundingly important nine o’clock hearing before a judge. We had prepped and prepped for this thing; it was almost on the scale of a trial, it was so vital to the case. But on the morning of his hearing, I got stuck in a traffic jam and, thanks to my own carelessness, my cell phone battery was dead. The devil himself couldn’t have arranged more perfectly for Bill Nestor to freak out.

Ordinarily I have a twenty-minute commute to the office from my nearby suburb, but that morning, someone rear-ended someone else on the highway and traffic snarled into an unholy mess, turning the busiest highway in Kansas City into its most crowded and angry parking lot. I should have been there at 7:30 to help Bill get his head together, but instead I found myself racing off the elevator at 8:35.

Lucille cried to me, “Oh thank God you’re here!”

“What, what?” I had anticipated this, knowing that Bill, frantic about appearing before a judge, would be in a state of contagious chaos. He had gone into estate law specifically to lessen his confrontations with judges and juries.

Lucille snapped her fingers at me and gestured violently around. “Find Bill! Find Donna! And find Suzanne!”

“Why Suzanne?” I didn’t wait for an answer, though. I hurried back, dropping my coat and purse somewhere along the way, trusting my coworkers not to rob me blind. I had worked diligently on this hearing’s preparation, and I was not happy that Bill had decided to freak out on the morning of it, just because I was an hour late and he didn’t have anyone who could effectively reassure him.

People had been watching for me to make an appearance. Three different people at once—Donna, my supervisor; Suzanne the paralegal; and Junior Gestapo Brent—each assaulted me from a different side.

“Where is the Swanson Discovery file?”

“Where do you keep Bill’s passwords for online electronic filing?”

“Do you have a courier coming to pick up the boxes?”

“What boxes?” was all I could think to ask. I looked at their harried faces. Bill had been busy, it seemed. These were all people, much like myself, who had been trained to do whatever the attorneys told them to do, and the more emphatic and hysterical the attorney was, the more attention he got. That’s a Catch-22, but it’s hard to break habits.

“The file boxes that are going to the trial!”

“He needs a complete docket sheet for the case!”

“He wants copies of all the documents they have produced so far!”

I wasn’t able to piece together who was talking about what, but that’s okay because the truth is, it didn’t matter. I looked to the closest copy station where stacks of documents were piled around the heaving copy machine while two frantic file clerks passed booklets and binders back and forth, apparently trying to build exhibit notebooks.

“Kids!” I shouted at them. They jumped and turned to me, startled and wary. A boy and a girl, neither of whom could have been older than twenty-two. “Are you doing that for Bill Nestor?”

“He needs four exhibit notebooks by eight-forty-five!” they cried almost in unison.

“No, he doesn’t,” I said. “Stop that right now.”

“Bill said,” Suzanne started to tell me, but I waved her off. Technically, I should have been respectful to her because I worked for her, too. But this was not a time for respect. Bill was trying to turn the office upside down.

I interrupted her. “Forget everything he said. He’s flipping out. He’s wasting time and the client’s money. Just chill; go back to whatever you were doing before he attacked.”

Leaving the horror-stricken clerks behind, I turned and hurried to Bill’s office before he could strike again. My coworkers did not do as I’d suggested but followed me, eager to witness the coming scene in the same way that onlookers this morning had been eager to ogle the car accident, causing the traffic snarl that made me late in the first place.

Bill was in his office, messing it up rather badly, which gave a good indication of how hysterical he was. In his normal state, Bill was perversely neat; it was only when he lost control and began to fear the irrational that he turned into something like the Looney Toons’ Tasmanian Devil—whirlwind, gibberish and all. I’d definitely have to clean this up before he returned from court.

“Bill!” I barked at him from the doorway.

He jerked his head up to look at me, an expression of intense relief crossing his face. “Carol! Carol, you’ve got to help me! I’ve got to leave for court in ten minutes, and I don’t have any of the discovery documents! Where are my discovery documents?” He fumbled with the files before him, showing me how lost he was. “I need a courier or one of the file room guys to get this stuff down to my car. It isn’t all going to fit!”

“Stop.” I lowered my voice to almost a whisper. This was a trick I learned from babysitting my nieces. Lower your voice enough, and a child must quiet down to hear you. It works for attorneys, too. I approached Bill and put my hands on the file box, scooting it across the conference table and out of his reach. “Look at me.”

He looked at me.

“I’m sorry I was late,” I said. “There was a bad, bad traffic jam. Traffic is tied up all over the city. Now follow me.”

Obediently he did follow, saying, “Can you call a courier?”

“No, Bill.” My cubicle was just outside his office, and I led him there before the group of onlookers. “See this?” I gestured to a pristine white box on my desk. “Remember I introduced you to this box yesterday?”

He did not seem to remember. He looked bewildered.

“This is the only box you are taking to the hearing. Everything you need is inside.”

“Exhibits?”

I opened the box and showed him twenty exhibit folders labeled with huge white stickers that proclaimed their contents.

“Copies for opposing counsel and the judge?”

“Right behind the originals.”

“Docket sheet?”

“Right here,” I said, pulling it from a similarly marked folder. I replaced it.

“What about the rest of the file?”

“You don’t need the rest of the file.”

“But what if…”

“No.”

“But the golden rule letters.”

“No. It’s all here.”

“But what about…

“Stop.” I put a nicely labeled lid on top of the box. “This is the special box, Bill. It is nice and clean and neat. See how pretty the label is?”

He looked at it wistfully. Then he grinned at me, for teasing him. “Okay, I remember now.”

“But you let yourself get upset this morning and forgot that I was looking out for you.”

“I’m sorry. You’re right.”

“Of course I’m right. I went to a lot of trouble with this, and there’s nothing missing. You have my word on that.” I shook my head. “Honestly, Bill, you can’t go crazy and start working up the other staff like this just because I’m late. What if I had been sick or something? What if some day I get hit by a bus?”

“You must never, ever be hit by a bus.” He said this to me and then he turned to Donna, Suzanne, and Junior Gestapo Brent. “Sorry about that. Sorry.”

Donna and even Junior Gestapo Brent accepted his apology with relief, slinking away before they were trapped into another ordeal. Suzanne, who did not especially like me or the way I handled Bill, remained and said, “Well, as long as you’re sure that you have everything you need.”

Yeah, she meant that in a bitchy way. Before I came along, she was the only one in the office who came close to being able to control Bill Nestor, and she didn’t like the fact that I took that title away from her. I know it sounds stupid, but in a limited office universe, you grab at whatever renown you can get.

“Everything’s fine,” Bill told her. “Thank you, Suzanne. You’ll have to excuse me. It’s a really important hearing, and I got concerned.”

Concerned was not exactly the right word, I didn’t think. I called him on it. “Concerned is one thing, Bill, and hysterical is another. You mustn’t go tearing into the courtroom like this.”

“No, of course not, Mom.” Now that he was calming down, he could joke along with me. His calling me Mom, though, I don’t know just how funny that was. It wasn’t far from the figurative truth.

“Fetch your jacket,” I instructed. “I’ll carry this down to your car, and we’ll talk about the best route to take to the courthouse that avoids the highways. Absolutely everyone is going to be late today, except for you.”

I was his hero that day. When he came back from court, he brought me a chocolate chip muffin.

*****

Here’s another incident—actually kind of a freaky one. Last year I was enjoying an autumn weekend, minding my own business. I was watching old episodes of The Incredible Hulk (because I can connect most of the things that have happened to me in the last three years to what I was watching on television at the time). And yes, I like that show quite a bit. We can thank Bill Bixby for being able to make turning into a big green bodybuilder every time he got furious a completely credible plot device. I’m not ashamed to admit my fandom. Anyway, not much of that show was available on DVD at the time, but enough was that I had made a perfectly lovely Saturday night out of it when at almost 11 p.m. I received an unexpected phone call from a stranger.

The stranger quickly identified herself as Bill Nestor’s apartment landlord. Apartment? I asked. I had been under the impression he lived in a house. No, she rented his apartment to him. That wasn’t the point, she said. The point was that he was in the lobby of the building, and she couldn’t get him to go back to his apartment. He had been there all afternoon. He was inconsolable over some mysterious problem. She told me almost tearfully, “I don’t want to call the police, but he’s got me so worried, and he doesn’t seem to have any family. When I asked him who to call, he told me to call you. Are you a friend?”

“I’m his secretary,” I said, bewildered. “What’s the matter with him?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know at all!”

A secretary has to set her limits, particularly with a man like Bill. Going to your boss’s apartment at almost midnight on a Saturday is outside the boundaries of acceptable expectations. But his landlord had tugged at my sympathies. I could tell from the stress in her voice that she had gone to some lengths with Bill already and was calling me as a last resort.

I found the building easily, an antiseptic and personality-free concrete stack on the outskirts of an affluent suburb. I’d seen the place before and assumed it was offices. I parked, as the landlord had instructed, in the underground garage and rode an elevator up to the lobby, where I found Bill and his landlord alone, looking out the window.

“Are you Carol?” she asked hopefully. She was about Bill’s age, a very big woman in both length and breadth, with beautiful, flaming curly red hair. Her hair belonged on a movie star. The rest of her was raw, pink and blobby. Her elevated blood pressure flamed in her cheeks.

Bill turned and looked at me with surprise. I’d never seen him outside the office before that night but I wasn’t surprised to find him wearing his gray suit pants, white oxford and tie, just as if he’d been working all day. The lobby, which would not have been out of place in a college dorm or hospital ward, was fronted by dark glass windows and he was fretting in front of them. He either had nothing to say to me or simply couldn’t find words, because he shook his head in desperation and turned away again.

Hmm. A puzzle for Carol. I asked the landlord to describe exactly what the problem was, my implication being that having Bill want to stand in the lobby all night long shouldn’t matter, since he wasn’t hurting anything. What she described sounded familiar enough. He was having one of his episodes. Something was bothering him outside. Throughout the day, he had paced here. Several times he strode outside to the gutter and checked something. She did not know what. Often he got down on his knees—which I noticed were very dirty—and looked into the storm drain. Bill was a good tenant, a nice man. She’d tried to talk him out of his ritual, but nothing worked.

“Why don’t you go to bed?” I asked. “I’ll take it from here.”

The landlord rushed from us in utter relief. She promised various things, that she’d check on him the next day or whatever, but I paid little attention.

“What’s the matter?” I asked, standing next to Bill and peering into the black night. “What’s kept you in the lobby all day? What’s out in the gutter?”

It wasn’t the best start. Probably he’d already been asked these questions a hundred times, and he didn’t feel capable or responsible to answer them.

“Hey,” I snapped at him. “Look at me.”

He did as requested.

“I’m standing in your lobby at midnight on a weekend in my pajamas. This is outside my job description. Tell me what the heck you wanted me for, or I’m lodging a complaint with Donna on Monday morning.”

“She wouldn’t leave me alone,” he whined about his landlord. “She kept insisting that she had to call someone. I couldn’t think of anyone else. I just wanted her to leave me alone, that was all.”

“She probably figures you’re her responsibility, since you live in her building. I didn’t even know you lived in an apartment.”

“Yes.”

“But you’ve always told me things about your house,” I argued.

“It was just a figure of speech,” said Bill. “Like you might call your cubicle an office.”

“Did you not want me to know you lived in an apartment? It’s nothing to be ashamed of.” I was trying to distract him from the problem in the gutter. I tried to think of reasons why apartment living would suit Bill. “You don’t have to care for a lawn, which is messy work. You have a more manageable space. You don’t have to do your own repairs, usually.”

“I like the floors here.”

“Are they all like this?” I indicated the awful flat tiles beneath our feet. “Looks like this used to be some other kind of building. Little offices, maybe? And they converted it when the population boomed around here?” I was guessing, but I was probably right, too. Housing was pricey in this part of town and much in demand.

“I just liked the hard floors.”

“What’s out in the gutter, Bill?”

“Leaves. They’re falling everywhere.”

“It’s autumn, Bill. That happens every year.”

“They’re getting in the gutter out there.”

“Every year,” I reiterated. “Why is that worrying you?”

“If the gutter clogs, the rainwater backs up.” It was not raining. It was not supposed to rain anytime soon. I didn’t even bring it up because an argument like that was not relevant to Bill. He said, “When rainwater backs up, the cars driving through it could hydroplane. There can be accidents and wrecks. People injured. It could be a mess out there.”

“If leaves pile up in the gutter.”

“Those trees across the street are dropping thousands of leaves, and they’re all landing in the gutter.”

That much, at least, was absolutely correct. “Have you cleared the gutter?”

“I’m trying to keep it clear. But every time I go out, there are more leaves. And I don’t know where they are coming from.”

“They probably blow down the street from other trees in other yards. You do realize, Bill, that you’re having one of your episodes?”

“I know.” He pressed his forehead to the glass of the window. It would leave a slightly oily print there when he raised his head again.

“And that any number of things could clog a gutter or cause a car accident, and you don’t have any way to control them all?”

“I know.”

“Come on with me; let’s go look at the gutter together.”

That was how I ended up standing in a gutter with Bill at midnight last autumn, as we inspected the tendency of the fallen leaves to bank themselves against the curb.

“Let them sit for a minute,” I told him. “Let’s see what happens.”

It was not easy for him to let them sit. The ritual was that he could let them sit while he watched from the lobby, but once he’d been defeated into coming out here, he needed to remove them right away. But I put a restraining hand on his arm and told him to have courage. After a few very tense minutes, the wind picked up again and we watched many of the leaves rise and swirl away again.

Bill tried to go remove the remaining leaves, but I made him play “Twenty Questions” with me. He was always keen to try winning a game with me because I invariably chose fairly obscure television shows as my mystery answer and he had yet to get one right. This time my answer was Strange Luck, a short-lived (but I thought quite good) series that had been one of many to try filling the primo time slot before The X-Files, back when that ultimate paranoia-fest was still on Friday nights and gaining a cult following. Bill was determined to someday figure one of these stumpers out. Alas, it was not going to be that night. But that was okay, because the real point was to distract him from the leaves. This method of diverting Bill had helped us before, at the office. Focusing on another, albeit unthreatening, problem upset the ritual enough that he was no longer compelled to perform it. Finally he said, “It’s getting better.”

“Good. Do you think we can go inside? It’s cold out here.”

He didn’t want to come inside, but my appeal to his manners forced his hand; he couldn’t let his secretary shiver on a nighttime street. I insisted on accompanying him up the elevators to his eighth floor apartment. If I left him in the lobby, he might start up again.

“Now, Bill,” I said, stifling a yawn. “You can’t do this to me anymore. It’s not good policy for me to come to your rescue any time you get stuck.”

“I’m sorry. She just wouldn’t stop asking.”

“It’s okay this time. And I wouldn’t have reported you to Donna. Still, we can’t do it. It’s not even for my own sake. I don’t think it does you any good, either.”

“I have this problem,” said Bill. “I get these ideas in my mind. They won’t go away. Even as I tell myself it’s ridiculous, I still can’t stop.”

We stepped off the elevator, and reluctantly he moved toward a drab doorway in the midst of all the other drab doorways on the drab hall. The place was not a dump, but I’d seen more friendly atmospheres in prisons from TV shows I’d watched. He opened his door, and I saw over his shoulder a tiny, nearly bare apartment. It distressed me to see Bill live this way, even though I knew why he had to. Having surroundings that were easy to control was vital to his mental well-being. The apartment I saw beyond that door had one purpose only—to allow Bill three rooms small enough that he could effectively control every inch of the space. It’s not dirt with Bill. It’s chaos he can’t stand. Open-ended things. Loose threads. Everything he had was made of plastic, I saw, or encased in it. It reminded me of a daycare center minus the color, everything smooth and safe with no little pieces to swallow.

“I think there are medications, Bill,” I said at his doorway. “If you went to a doctor or a psychiatrist. There’s a medication for everything out there, and I’ll bet they have one that could help you avoid these kinds of things.”

“Oh, it’s not that serious.” He couldn’t look me in the eye when he said that.

“You have an obsessive-compulsive disorder, Bill. You just spent a perfectly beautiful Saturday monitoring the leaves in your gutter to prevent a car pileup that most likely never would have happened anyway. Have you eaten today or been to the bathroom in the last few hours or anything?”

“No, I guess I haven’t.”

I considered him, and he considered his shirt cuffs, tugging and straightening them as he always did. “What happened to set you off?” I asked.

“Got a call this morning,” he replied, “from an heir in an old estate I worked. Says he’s going to sue me for malpractice.”

“Over what?”

“Coercing his father into signing a will.”

“If he called you, Bill, I doubt he’s really going to go through with it. He would have gone to a lawyer by now, and the lawyer would have told him not to contact you.”

“Maybe so. But this guy was awful. Mean and bitter. Made me feel like I’d done something corrupt.”

“Never on this earth,” I insisted. “You just had to talk to one of the assholes, that’s all. I’ll bet you five bucks you never hear from him again.”

I was with Bill in a weak moment, when he’d had little time to prepare his game face for me. He seemed both younger and stranger than I’d ever known him to be at work. He didn’t take me up on my bet, but said, “Carol, I couldn’t go to a psychiatrist. I couldn’t possibly explain.”

“I know it’s hard to explain, but their job is to listen. And it’s not even stigmatized any more. It’s positively fashionable to see a therapist.”

“I’m almost always okay. It’s only once in a while that it goes out of control.”

My skeptical look told him what I thought of that remark.

“I’ve been like this all my life,” he said pleadingly.

“Aw, it’s okay, Bill. Most of us are so in love with our eccentricities that we couldn’t bear to part with them.”

He appreciated my saying that, I think.

Chapter Eight

On Tuesday night, I was watching my chosen TV show for the week: an intensely good one-season-only show called Nowhere Man starring Bruce Greenwood. It combined many aspects I liked: it was a mystery, a thriller, a little bit of hard science fiction and a lot of conspiracy theory. Possibly watching something this heavy with conspiracy theory wasn’t a great idea for me right then, sort of like when I watched too much thirtysomething right before a high school reunion and showed up feeling fat, poor, and unable to make fascinating small talk.

What’s with my preoccupation about conspiracies? I had spent a good part of the day rushing through my work so I could continue my research in Bill’s old files, and what I had found was pushing all my paranoia buttons. I had uncovered not only Bryony Gilbert and Bonita Voigt as past suicides, but also another woman named Wanda Breakers. That was four, if I included Adrienne Maxwell, but of course she might not have been a suicide, so I wasn’t sure if I could include her in my list.

Regardless of whether I had three or four suicides, I was a little freaked out about the whole thing. Tomorrow morning, I planned to spend a bit more time in storage to retrieve an additional three files that might or might not add to my list. I was beginning to think that our law firm was a magnet for suicidal women. My mind was busily spinning, trying to think of a reason for this, and of course what I imagined could only be described as vague and paranoid, or in other words, conspiracy theory.

Still, I rent or buy TV shows on DVD expressly so each night I can watch a couple episodes. That’s my treat for working all day. This week it was conspiracy theory and Nowhere Man. And that was just a coincidence. Besides, my only alternative was to shut off my DVD player and actually watch real television, something that had become almost unbearable.

Gus called me. He’d said, on Saturday, that he would call me Tuesday night when he would be free to make plans, and here he was, calling just like he said he would. My caller ID said “HAGLUND A,” but it might as well have said, “HAPPINESS.” I took such a long pause to appreciate his consideration that I nearly forgot to pick up the phone.

What a nice break from thoughts of suicidal women. I answered, and we greeted each other with shy pleasure.

“Hey, how’s Lyvia coming with her term paper?” I asked. The young woman had only called me once, on Sunday, to ask how to justify her footnotes.

“She left here yesterday morning to turn it in, and I haven’t seen her since,” said Gus. “I assume she’s at her apartment sleeping it off.”

“And how are you?”

“I’m doing pretty darn well. Some kind of charm has been on me this week, like somebody might have kissed me for luck. How are you?”

I couldn’t get over this man saying things like “pretty darn well” and “kissed me for luck.” I thought that detectives were supposed to be hard-boiled and swear a lot, smoke and drink whiskey with Pepto-Bismol in it, and be world-weary and glum.

“Carol?”

“Hmm? Oh, I’m sorry. I wasn’t ignoring you. I was thinking about you, and I forgot to talk. I’m fine, thank you. I’m just fine, better than fine, now that you called.”

I was gushing. I shut up.

“This weekend,” he said, “I’ve got my son from Friday night to Sunday night, and I was thinking that next week seems like a pretty long time to wait, you know, before I can get any more free legal advice, and I was thinking maybe some night this week, maybe…well, my schedule is unpredictable sometimes…”

“Any night is fine.”

“Wednesday? Thursday?”

I blurted, “Either. Both. You can come over right now, if you want to.”

There was a pregnant pause at the other end of the line.

I put a hand over my face, though I’m not sure who I was hiding from. Whatever happened to playing hard-to-get? “What I meant…”

“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes,” said Gus.

*****

He was there in twelve.

I was a little out of practice at the art of seduction. Would you believe I spent the entire twelve minutes just waiting for him, twiddling my thumbs in my lap while watching my driveway? I wasn’t bored or overanxious. In fact I was thinking such naughty thoughts that the time passed pleasantly. When he actually rode up, on his motorcycle, for God’s sake, it was like a bonus prize. The bike made a fair amount of racket, but I live in a neighborhood full of hot rods and biker dudes, so I doubt any of my neighbors took notice. That single headlight in my driveway snapped me to attention, and I realized that I might have employed this time to brush my hair, find some sexy underwear or make sure I didn’t smell like copy machine toner. I glanced down, remembering that I was wearing long white cotton pajama bottoms and an MBS&K casual-Friday T-shirt that I had gotten for my second-year anniversary. My underwear, as far as I knew, was clean but made of faded pink cotton. I looked not awful, but not really like a tempting siren, either.

Well, I reminded myself, it might be jumping the gun a bit to assume he had come over to for sex.

I opened the door before he knocked and caught him as he stepped onto my porch. For a moment we looked at each other. Gus pretended that he was about to say something, and I pretended that I was going to raise a hand in greeting, but then it all seemed kind of silly. He shot a killer grin at me, and I shrugged in grateful defeat. A moment later I was tangled in his arms. He was so big that he lifted me effortlessly right off the ground.

I need not have worried about my clothes. I was out of them so fast that I doubt Gus noticed what I wore. At first I was just clinging to him like he was the world’s best set of monkey bars, my arms around his neck and my legs around his waist, kissing him hungrily. His big arms went clear around me, and I felt him smile again under my mouth. I felt T-shirt, denim, and flesh under my hands. And I had no qualms about this; I was utterly shameless. I mean, if there were even the slightest doubt in my mind, some iota of restraint that tried to rear its stupid head, it was squashed quickly enough when Gus shut my front door by kicking it. I love stuff like that. It’s so physical. That gesture alone would have closed the deal, had it not already been pretty well closed.

Gus broke his lips away from mine to ask, “Bedroom?”

“That way.” I glanced behind us, showing a direction with my eyes. My question was “Condoms?”

“Plural, eh?” He chuckled into my hair. “Yes, ma’am.”

“You don’t have to carry me,” I said obligingly, unwrapping my legs from his waist, dropping to the floor. He kept hold of my hand, looked like his missed me already. I said, “Follow.”

Down the hall we went. I removed clothing on the way. Off went my T-shirt, down scooted my pajamas. I’m not a bad girl. I just wanted to save him the trouble of wondering when it would be appropriate for him to slide his fingers under my clothes. No clothes, no worry.

In my bedroom, which was badly rumpled with panty hose on the floor and an unmade bed of green-print sheets, I lifted my hair off my neck and asked, “Help?”

Hard warm fingers touched my back and slipped under my bra to unfasten the hooks. “Is this some kind of dexterity test?” asked a perplexed Gus, but his voice was a good deal lower than usual and pleasingly rough, like his fingertips. I smiled secretively; I was perfectly capable of undoing my own bra, but I wanted him to do the work. I really didn’t care if he tore it off, so long as he touched me while doing it. He managed the hooks with only a little trouble, and I shrugged out of the battered old garment. Without being asked to help this time, Gus hooked his fingers in my panties and slid them right down my legs.

“I’m winning,” I said, turning to him. I took his shirt in one hand and gave it a tug, but he was looking at me, and he didn’t respond for a moment. His face had turned thoughtful, observant. That was good. I liked that he could take in a naked woman without embarrassment or slack-jawed drooling. Not that my body really inspired slack-jawed drooling, you know. It was like my face: more of the same open-to-interpretation canvas, nothing too drastic in either direction. One thing my stupid ex-husband had taught me, though he probably had not meant to, was that sexiness is not so much the body you have as what you are happy to do with it. With Gus, I was pretty willing to do anything.

When he reached out to touch me, it was to put a hand on my waist, just above the swell of my hip. I tugged at his shirt again. “Off,” I said to it, because I’d lost Gus’s train of thought. “Bad shirt.” I had to manhandle it, pulling at it to get it over his head. I flung it aside and started working at his jeans because I was impatient and enjoying myself too much. He had a very good chest, my Gussie did, linebacker shoulders and a slightly rounded tummy over hard-as-rock abs, those good hard lateral muscles, and an unbashful dose of fuzziness. I, for one, love a hairy chest, and I think most other adult women do, too. To hell with electrolysis. Give me a grizzly bear. Like this one. I pushed my face into the fur while I continued to yank ineffectually at his clothing. Finally Gus was forced to either help me or fall down. He laughed at me.

“What, am I too pushy?” I was still biting big tastes of his chest and his neck, then his chin, and then his mouth again before he could answer me. He lost the rest of his clothes somewhere in there, kicking them aside. I was not at all surprised to discover that below the waist he was also a grizzly bear, and I’m not talking about hair. My Gus was one of those guys, though personally I’d never met one in the flesh, that make you think, I’m not able to fit that inside me. No way. But let’s try anyway for the fun of it.

“You’re pushy,” agreed a breathless Gus a few moments later, “but I like pushy just fine. Wait, I need those.”

He meant his jeans. No doubt the condoms were in his pocket. But now they were way far off, probably three whole feet away, and if one of us went to get them, I’d have to stop eating him alive. Gus lifted me against him again—and as nice as that had been before, it was a lot nicer naked. He had fuzzy parts that tickled me and that great hot expanse of chest to hold me to. If we separated, I would be living a lie because I didn’t want to do much ever again that wasn’t shoved right up next to this guy.

“Okay,” I said. “Down on three.” I counted it off, and we lowered to the floor, me underneath Gus with a pillow under my back, a sandal by my head, a pair of panties half in my armpit, and an old popcorn bag visible under the bed. So that’s where that went. Gus apparently forgave me my slovenly housekeeping. He didn’t comment on it, anyway, but reached for his jeans and fumbled around in the back pocket.

“Carol,” he said with a desperate little gasp. “Carol, honey, we need to slow down.”

“No,” I pleaded. “No, come on, let’s speed up.”

“First impressions are important,” argued Gus, but I had him laughing again, and I think I may have been shocking him a little with my busy hands. But notice he did not complain.

“Oh,” I said hesitantly, looking up at him with unwarranted wariness, “are you one of those guys who gives it one shot and then doesn’t much like to be touched afterwards?”

“God, no.” Now I had offended his sensibilities. “But I…oh, um…” My hands were busy again. He had impressive expanses of flesh just everywhere. The condom packet fell out of his fingers, and he pressed a strained smile against me as he kissed my throat.

“Then it’s all right,” I told him. “Fast first. Then slow. Takes some of the pressure off, I think. Anyway, there’s no one here you have to prove anything to. It might not be perfectly obvious, but I’m throwing myself at you.”

“Carol My-Last-Name-Is-Frank,” said Gus as he reclaimed the condom package and opened it. “I’m a little tired of you taking all the credit for this.”

I looked properly chastened and took the condom from him. Funny little things, condoms, utterly ridiculous yet necessary and so sexy in a silly rubber way, like a slutty little sock from a school-girl uniform. “Let me,” I said. I was well-practiced at this; it’s another thing marriage can teach you. Aim and unroll, and a little affectionate squeezing was usually appreciated. Gus sucked in his breath and barked laughter at the same time. He seemed to think I was terribly funny. “Are you giving me an attitude, Detective Haglund?”

He was giving me attitude six ways from Sunday, and I had a sudden moment of top-of-the-roller-coaster panic when I wondered if maybe I should have been a little less impetuous because he felt enormous. Maybe there were guidelines to body sizes and men the size of grizzly bears could kill the average woman. But then he eased and pushed, face intense over me as one of his strong hands slid under my back and cushioned me, and I didn’t die after all. He felt heavenly.

“That’s very, very good,” I assured him, because he wanted to know that all was well.

Then, maybe because all I was really interested in was watching him and I forgot about myself, I was suddenly having some really, amazingly exciting sex. My stupid ex-husband and I, ill-matched in life though we might have been, had exquisite chemistry in bed when we weren’t angry at each other, so I knew my way around the intercourse racetrack—and this was quality stuff. I believe my opinion was colored by the company; I liked this one an awful lot. Plus it had been a while since I’d had the pleasure. I was writhing like a snake in half a minute in response to this huge controlled rhythmic pounding. I was unable to concentrate on his face. I wanted to see if I’d get the Haglund family’s killer grin out of him, but I couldn’t focus, damn it; my fault for asking him to get the first surge out of the way fast. I’d had no idea he’d comply so beautifully, or that I’d be the benefactor.

And it did happen fast for me, amazingly fast, so fast I wasn’t sure I hadn’t been tricked somehow. Once I regained coherent thought, I found Gus Haglund looking down at me, not with a killer grin but with something a bit more sly, and I blushed. He continued to rock on me, slowing to the pace that suited him even though a break of sweat shone over his face.

“Almost had me there,” he said with a flash of triumph in his eyes, “but not yet.”

I was thudding inside and out,. I was throbbing, and every stroke of his flesh threatened to drive me mad. I came to the edge of begging him to stop, but each time my body recommended that I just wait a second, just a second more, just let it ride a second more. I felt like three hot points of red light. Gus kissed my breasts and my throat, and put his hands in my hair. He turned my head the way he wanted it and put his thumb on my lips, and I thought, there is no way, there is no way, that I’ll be lucky enough for him to do it to me again.

He did it to me again. Like boiling water. You can pull it away from the heat for a moment and the boiling will calm, but give it a moment on the fire and here come the bubbles again. I didn’t know my body could do that, much less whether it could take that sort of fabulous assault. I gasped a name out—how embarrassing. I called him “Augustus” like a prim little maiden, voice full of Victorian shock.

Amazing. That was the thing that sent him over the edge. Augustus Haglund tensed, surged inside me and said something unintelligible against my forehead. It sounded like “detail-oriented.”

“Grizzly bear,” I replied, without much more sense.

He lay his head down on my shoulder, panting. I’d never felt anything more big or warm.

“Bedroom eyes,” he accused me. “Minute I saw you,” he said, a further fragment of pleased accusation.

“Killer grin,” I replied, fully able to fling back infatuated compliments. “Police badge.”

“Copy machine.” Gus rose up a bit, tugged a piece of my hair that had become stuck to his cheek, and then peered under my bed. In his first complete sentence he asked, “Is that popcorn?”

I offered, “Why don’t I make some fresh?”

*****

“I want to ask you something about Adrienne Maxwell.”

I looked upside-down at Gus through the faint golden light of my bedside lamp. Propped up on a stack of throw pillows, he resembled a well-presented object d’art with a popcorn bowl beside him. “Still Life with Snacks.” I’d microwaved kettle popcorn in the nude—a first, for me—and also brought back two beers. This was turning out to be one of my best nights ever. Now I lay flat on my back, one knee crooked up insolently to swing back and forth in time with my ceiling fan. I had the sheen of this man all over me and intended to luxuriate in it for a while. My head lay just close enough to him that my hair tickled his leg.

Gus said, “Well, okay.”

“I know you can’t discuss the case. I’m not grilling you. But I’ve only known a few people who actually died. A few relatives, grandparents, a coworker who had a heart attack, a friend who died of cancer. That was awful. But I’ve never known anyone who killed herself. Not that I knew Adrienne really well, but it’s still strange to think I sat in a room with a woman who did that. Well, who maybe did that, I guess, since otherwise there wouldn’t be a detective on it, would there?”

Upside-down Gus was listening to me, but I’d said a variety of things, none of which seemed to have a good specific response. I asked, “Do you investigate a lot of suicides?”

“A few, over the years. There are more homicides. I’ve investigated other things too, not just deaths. Burglaries, assaults, missing persons.”

“What’s the strangest thing you’ve ever seen stolen?”

“A collection of casts from broken arms and legs.”

“Someone collects used casts?”

“They were autographed by celebrities. You know, someone famous breaks an arm, and all his famous friends sign the cast. The cast comes off, and someone else buys it. There were almost thirty of them in the collection.”

“Jeez, so you’ve seen the dark side of mankind. Stealing autographed casts. Are you hardened and bitter from looking every day at the underside of life?” I was only half-teasing. I was curious to know if this object of my infatuation was secretly harboring his own death wish.

“Aw, that’s a stereotype. That’s television’s fault.”

“Stereotypes usually have a little merit hiding in them somewhere. They’re useful psychological tools.”

“The only cops I know who are hardened and bitter either started out that way, or they have gotten that way because they don’t have anything else in their lives. I’m lucky to have a good supervisor; she doesn’t let us get too overworked or obsessed. She makes people go home at night.”

“Having a good boss makes all the difference.”

“Damn straight. Also I have my son, who is just the best thing that ever happened to me, and I have my family and a couple hobbies that keep me out of trouble. Recently I met a woman who’s been keeping my mind on happy thoughts.”

I rolled over so he could see my face, all the better to beam at him. Now I was mostly lying on his thigh, not at all a bad place to be. But I said, “You’re disappointing me, Gus Haglund. I’ve been watching detective shows for years, and I expect to see whiskey and dark depression and Russian roulette.”

“I ride a motorcycle. My mother thinks that’s the same as Russian roulette.”

“Oh my God, he talks to his mother, too.”

“I wouldn’t dare not to.”

“Is it me?” I asked. “The woman who’s keeping your mind on happy thoughts?”

He looked at me as if he thought I was crazy. “Sometimes I’m not sure when you’re being funny or serious. Yes, it’s you, in case you were being serious.”

This lovely patch of pillow talk was distracting me from my other concerns. Before it managed to distract me further, I said, “Anyway about Adrienne Maxwell. I was wondering, do a lot of older widows kill themselves?”

“I’ve never seen one do it before, myself. I have heard of it, but the suicides I’ve actually seen have all been men, and a lot of them pretty young or really old. Statistically, I don’t know.”

“Have you been in Kansas City for a long time?”

“I moved here after my divorce, in 2003.”

“So if this were a kind of ordinary thing, around here, would you have heard about it?”

Gus gave me a puzzled look, one of his big, hard hands coming to rest on the side of my face. “I’m not sure I would have heard much. Ordinary suicides, ones that aren’t considered suspect, I’m not involved with those. They’re investigated just because it’s routine, but if the coroner and the assigned officers don’t find anything out of the ordinary, the case wouldn’t get to my level. Adrienne Maxwell’s death was suspicious, so it was kicked up to me and Sergeant Paige.”

“So, if for whatever reason, a lot of women in Kansas City liked to off themselves, you might not have heard about it?”

“That would depend on…Are you worried about something?”

“I’m only curious.”

“You look worried.”

“I have a weird face,” I said. “It looks worried when it’s curious, and it looks confused when it’s thinking.”

“How does it look when you’re really worried?”

“I don’t know; I don’t worry about much.”

“You’re not worried about your mom or something? She would be around that age, wouldn’t she?”

Aw, that was sweet. And rather an intuitive leap, particularly for a guy. In my experience, men don’t tend to make those sorts of transitions. But I had to remember that this was a detective, and perhaps he was more likely to listen to what was said and infer something from it. At last I succumbed to temptation and crawled up the bed to straddle his lap. Gus was not displeased by this change of position. There was a long patch of skin from his earlobe to his chest that I hadn’t nibbled yet, so I got right on that project with enthusiasm. It was a great way to make us both forget any troubling thoughts in the backs of our minds.

Chapter Nine

I wouldn’t have called legal secretarydom a paradise. The job tended to be dull, not wildly rewarding. Working for Bill certainly made it easier. But honestly, would I rather have been touring Europe? Probably. Would I rather have spent my days cocooned in my home watching TV on DVD? Definitely. But it’s okay. I wasn’t an heiress or a mistress, and I had to work. Not being terribly ambitious, I didn’t want to work very hard or be largely responsible for things. I was a lazy Generation X layabout.

At MBS&K, the only real problem I had to conquer was keeping myself entertained. Boredom was the enemy. Crossword puzzles could help with this, or craftily hidden magazines, or surfin’ the net. The second week after Adrienne Maxwell died, the first week after I’d fallen head over heels in lust with Gus Haglund, I had found a hobby that was more preoccupying than I’d first imagined.

By the end of Wednesday, I had a list that looked like this:

Client Name / Date of Estate Work / Date of Death

Adrienne Maxwell / 2004 / March 11, 2006

Wanda Breakers / 2000 / January 18, 2003

Bryony Gilbert / 1999 / August 4, 2001

Rose Ann Trask / 1998 / December 11, 1999

Bonita Voigt / 1996 / August 29, 1998

Alice Hooper / 1995 / February 3, 1996

Coming up with this list had not been particularly difficult; I had done most of the work the first time I looked up Bill Nestor’s condolence correspondence. The reason I had turned up only Bonita Voigt’s name that first time was that, once I’d discovered a suicide, I stopped looking. I didn’t think it could be so common an occurrence to warrant a further search. Bill sent condolence letters to a lot of people, and a lot of them were natural or accidental deaths, but there were also these suicides. I took the list to the scary storage room and spent an hour down there with a cart. Every time I found a file with a particular kind of Bill Nestor summary memo, I put in on my cart, and then I brought them all upstairs and hid them in the bottom drawer of my file cabinet.

The only one that I had known personally was Adrienne Maxwell; the one just before her, Wanda Breakers, had died a few months before I came to work for Bill. But all of these women were widows who had come to Bill Nestor to have their estate work done after their husbands died. All of them were financially secure but not shockingly wealthy. They all lived locally; they all lived alone; and approximately two years after completing their estate documents, each one of them committed suicide. Despite being written by Bill-the-Notetaking-King, the file notes were fairly vague on just how they’d done themselves in.

I didn’t know what I was looking at. I knew it was strange. I knew that it pushed the envelope of believable coincidence. But what did it mean?

Back in my college days, I minored in philosophy, one of the many reasons why I’m not suited for much other than secretarial work. Though philosophy may wear a cloak of whimsical uselessness, it does help you learn to think in new ways. And it hammers home the process of logic. I could not start proposing wild theories based on the information I had gathered. The facts as I saw them could mean all sorts of things, starting with the possibility that widowed women kill themselves a lot more often that I’d thought.

If some kind of conspiracy was going on, though—and conspiracies aren’t wild theories, are they?—some plot that compelled women to commit suicide within three years following their husband’s death, wouldn’t the police have noticed it? Surely they would have noticed it. I didn’t want to act like I’d found something fascinating when everyone on Earth already knew about it. If I went to Gus and told him what I’d found, he might think I was trying to impress him, the boring little secretary who likes imagining that she’s part of a Mystery mini-series. I thought I’d ask Bill first. Maybe he knew something that I didn’t.

*****

On Thursday morning, after our regular powwow, I asked Bill, “Do you have a few minutes you can spare for something not completely work-related?”

Not a common request, coming from good old ask-no-questions Carol. Bill looked surprised, but almost happily he said, “Of course, of course. I hope there’s not a problem.”

“Not a problem, a puzzle.” I tried to think how to begin. “This business with Adrienne Maxwell got me thinking, and then someone mentioned another suicide here a few years ago, and I was looking through some older files. I mean, of course, I made sure all the current work was done first.”

“Of course you did. I know that.”

That’s right, I was dealing with Bill Nestor, best boss ever. I granted him a smile of gratitude.

“Who said that someone else had committed suicide?”

It’s not the number one rule for secretaries, but it’s in the top ten: unless you’re about to pay a big compliment, don’t mention names. It’s not even a good idea when your boss is as nice as Bill. I said, “One of the girls, I can’t even remember which one. But I ran across some really strange information.”

“What information?”

“Does it seem weird to you that so many widows kill themselves?”

Bill was straightening his shirt cuffs when I looked back at him. “So many?”

“Well, I’ve counted six in the last ten years. Of course that includes Adrienne Maxwell, and according to Detective Haglund, they’re still considering that a suspicious death.”

“Because of the witness.”

“And the drugs.”

“Six, huh?”

“Do you want to see my list? I made a little list of their names and dates of death.”

“Yes, show me.”

I’d brought the list with me, of course, and handed it to him. Bill looked at it for a long time, longer than it takes to simply read it, and I was glad that he wasn’t dismissing me out of hand. He must be thinking it over.

“Why did you write this, here?” he asked curiously after a minute, indicating the column where I’d included the approximate date that their estate work had been done.

“I was wondering if there was some pattern, if their suicide was a predictable amount of time after they’d finished their estate documents.”

“You think that’s related somehow?” He looked at me with earnest attention.

“Maybe,” I said. “I’ve heard that sometimes, when someone plans to commit suicide, she’ll start putting her affairs in order. What’s a better way to do that than make out a will?”

Bill reexamined the list. “The times between are rather varied, and some of them are more than two years.”

“It was just a theory. Am I being crazy?”

“That’s not what I meant. This is certainly a very interesting pattern.” He put the paper down in front of him, its bottom edge parallel to the edge of his desk. He took a moment to straighten it until the line looked good to him.

“They’re all despondent,” I added.

“Hmm?”

“All of the widows are despondent; it says so in your notes. Every one of them.”

“Oh, really? Maybe I need to get a thesaurus. I guess that’s the word I use for when someone seems particularly depressed.”

“I guess it makes sense, if they’re all recently widowed.”

“Of course I remember all of these women, but it hadn’t occurred to me how many of them were suicides. Then again…”

“It is odd. But is it…relevant? I mean, insurance companies are the ones that keep track of mortality rates and all that. They’ve probably noticed a pattern like this a long time ago. It kind of makes sense. An older widow might be more likely to kill herself. Could be why it’s hard to get life insurance policies then, I don’t know.”

“Yes, that could be true.”

“Of course, except for Adrienne Maxwell and one of the others, I think it was Wanda Breakers, these women didn’t have life insurance policies. They didn’t need them. It said so in your notes.”

Bill’s eyes flicked up to mine.

I didn’t catch anything in his eyes but cautious interest. So I went on, “But it’s really sad, too. They’re not old women. None of them are much more than sixty-five. That’s just retirement age. And they all had enough money to enjoy retirement if they wanted to.”

“Maybe they didn’t see how to enjoy life with their husbands gone.”

“In some cases, enjoying life without a husband is no stretch of the imagination.” I said, rather more pointedly than I meant to. “I started finding life very enjoyable once mine was out of the picture.”

Bill granted me a laugh; he was usually amused by my ex-husband bashing. “It’s why I never got married,” he’d said once, after hearing one of my many backhanded comments, “so no woman could ever dislike me so much.”

“Actually, I was trying to see it from their point of view,” was what he said now. “Maybe they felt there was nothing left of value in their lives.”

“Their children? Grandchildren?”

“Oh, children. There’s that.”

“Hobbies? Travel? Charity work? Mentoring?” I gazed at the list. “It’s hard for me to understand why anyone in fairly good health with a fair amount of money would just chuck it.”

“Well, Carol…” We’d entered into territory that Bill wasn’t expecting. He thought I’d come to discuss a statistical anomaly. “What are you thinking?”

“Nothing. I just wondered if you think this is typical behavior for widows. I’ve never heard of it before, but I’m just a secretary.”

Bill sat back and thought for a while, perusing his memory. He mused, “A great number of my clients die. It’s just the nature of my work. Some of them are bound to be suicides.”

“That’s true.”

“You say you only found these six?”

“That’s all I found. I guess there could be more. My search methods weren’t completely scientific. Plus, the firm only keeps records for ten years. After that, Lloyd says they go to microfiche at some off-site storage facility. Although that’s not a precise system, either. I found papers in that storage room that date back to the Kennedy administration. But I haven’t checked anything earlier than 1995. I was also limited by how much stuff had been saved on our firm’s database. Those records aren’t perfect.”

Bill looked unconvinced that my list meant anything. “I almost always speak to the family, once I hear of a death, and sometimes they said suicide, but it never seemed more prevalent than when they’d say cancer or heart disease. Still, a list like this makes it look pervasive, doesn’t it?”

I shrugged.

“I’ll do a little checking,” said Bill.

I was surprised.

“Well, it is rather interesting. And if it turns out that Kansas City has an unreasonably high suicide rate among widows, we can publish a paper and the phenomenon will be named after us. The Frank-Nestor Syndrome.”

“Yeah, what a great namesake,” I said.

“Have you mentioned this to your detective?”

For a moment I was so pleased at having Gus called “my” detective that I couldn’t think to answer. “Hmm? No. No, I felt silly bringing it up to him. This is probably something that the police already know about, and I don’t want to sound like a dork.’”

“The police should have caught on by now, especially if there’s some unusual suicide pact among retired widows.” He continued, warming to the topic. “However, this could be a very interesting little statistical glitch.”

“What could be causing it?”

“No idea. But if you’re willing, we can make a little project finding out about it.”

This could go a couple of different directions. Sometimes when a boss mentions a “little project” he means that you’re about to get a buttload of work pushed off on you because no one else wants to do it. But Bill had never done that to me before. He was actually remarkably willing to do his own grunge work.

“How’d you like to spend a couple days outside the office?” he asked me. “I was thinking, if you wouldn’t mind, you could head over to KU’s medical library, maybe UMKC, and do some research for us.”

“Research on what?”

“Actually I’d like to hear your ideas on the subject. National suicide rates? Common methodology? Insurance company studies on who kills themselves and how? This would be a sort of fishing expedition.”

“There are probably actuary tables available for review,” I said. “I could even find out if anyone else has picked up on this pattern.”

“Good idea.” Bill seemed excited by this. “Are you willing?”

“It sounds like it might be fun,” I said. Former English majors may be one of the few breeds who think that spending a day doing research might be “fun”, but I continued, uncertainly, “What about the regular work, though?”

“There’s nothing going on here that I can’t handle. I’ll probably spend most of the day on the phone anyway, and I have a couple meetings. Was there something else you were assigned to do?”

“I have this big screw deposition summary for Suzanne.”

“Don’t worry about that. I don’t know why she pushes that nonsense off on you anyway. I’ll tell Suzanne that you’re out working on a special project for me, and that’s all she needs to know about it.”

“Well, okay then. I’ll see what information I can dig up.”

To my surprise, Bill handed two twenty-dollar bills across his desk to me. “For copies,” he said, “And to buy yourself some lunch.”

“You don’t have to do that. The firm has an account—”

“No, don’t charge the firm,” he interrupted. “This is not a firm project. This is our project. Which leads me to my next request. Which I feel a little uncomfortable asking you.”

Bill had never managed to alarm me before, and he didn’t manage it now. I knew him well enough not to expect anything shady or filthy to come out of his mouth. “Let’s keep this between us, all right?” he asked, turning a bit pink in the cheeks. “And here’s why I’d like that. If it turns out that we’re actually onto something concrete that hasn’t been picked up on by anyone else, I think we might be able to publish our findings.”

“Publish them where?”

“I think that would depend on what we discover. However, you realize that we work with a lot of people who like to take credit for work they didn’t do or to jam up the works with red tape and bureaucracy. The easiest way to get anything done around here is to just do it first and then ask permission later.”

“Never a truer word was spoken,” I agreed dryly, remembering a number of occasions when a painfully easy request had been turned into a committee meeting. Most of the clerical staff knew this truth, but I hadn’t realized any attorneys knew it, too. I thought they loved bureaucracy.

“If this turns out to be significant,” Bill said, “I want the two of us to get the credit for it. Carol Frank and Bill Nestor, and your name comes first not because of the alphabet but because you’re the one who figured it out.”

“Cut it out,” I said, but I was flattered. Getting credit for being clever isn’t something that happens a lot in my line of work. “So when do you want me to go?”

“Right away. Whenever you’re ready.” He waved me off, cheerfully. “Take today, take tomorrow. If you could report to me tomorrow afternoon with any findings, that would give me the weekend to review them. Why don’t we plan on meeting tomorrow at two?”

“Sure, Bill.” I was thinking of all the ways that this could work for my benefit. If I did a really quick, efficient job today, I could have most of Friday off.

That’s probably what Bill had in mind, too. If I hadn’t busy thinking of ways to blow off work, I might have thought about how strange it was that he was willing to go almost two entire days without a secretary. This was a man who freaked out if anything changed, who always wanted to know where I was, and who couldn’t wipe his nose without a confirmation letter.

No, I was definitely thinking about an early evening. Sleeping in on a Friday. Having lunch in a restaurant while I reviewed my notes, looking like someone important.

*****

I was tempted to flaunt my special assignment a little, because heck, they don’t even let the paralegals out into the sunlight more than a couple times a month. But I had promised to be discreet. The only people who got to know were my supervisor Donna, who was really too busy to ask questions, and Suzanne, who automatically saw this as a major invasion of her domain.

Suzanne considered herself to be some kind of Uber-Paralegal, with dominion over all creation. She was the paralegal that Bill used most often because, as I mentioned, he trusted her about as much as he could trust someone (with me being the exception, ha ha). She was also allowed to bring work to me when she became so bogged down in her own super-powered adventures that she could not be bothered to do something so banal as type. That’s how I got stuck with that stupid screw deposition in the first place.

When I first was hired at MBS&K, Suzanne and I got along well, because she assumed I wouldn’t last long working for Bill or I’d become one of those quivering messes that a really neurotic attorney can make of a secretary. She did not understand that I’d just come from the worst boss in the world, and that I was so glad to be with Bill, who was at least nice to me, that I didn’t mind anything. As Bill and I became increasingly compatible, Suzanne became decreasingly nice to me until we lived in a state of virtual tolerance that barely concealed our irritation.

I tried to take into account that Suzanne lived with a lot of pain. She had a strange personal history, and at age 39 she had already lost two husbands. And I don’t mean divorce, I mean they had both died. The first had died of spinal meningitis, and a few years later she married a man who soon afterward was killed in a car accident. So I tried to be patient with her, figuring that if she acted a little stressed out, it was nothing personal toward me. But after a while, I came to feel that everybody has pain in life, and it’s not a free ticket to be a bitch. Then I stopped feeling so sorry for her. In my darker moments I wondered if she had driven her husbands to seek permanent ways to escape her, but that’s mean-spirited. I would never have said something like that to her face.

She was a fairly attractive woman—well, she might have been gorgeous, except for the constant scowl on her face. As my mother liked to say, “You’d be a very pretty girl, if only you’d smile.” Suzanne was very tall, with a boyish figure that looked terrific in clothes, a big fun-looking puff of naturally curly brown hair, and a truly awful pair of tortoiseshell bifocals that went out of style twenty years ago. To accompany her strange history with husbands, she also had a strange history of names. She was then Suzanne Farkanansia, the name she picked up from her most recent dead spouse, which no one could pronounce, much less spell. It was something like Far-Kan-Ann-Sha, but even Suzanne didn’t say it the same way two days in a row. Before that, she was the very unfortunately named Suzanne Cunk, and I think her maiden name was Wedetzsmiller. In total then, her name was Suzanne Wedetzsmiller Cunk Farkanansia, a series of words that will get your movie an R-rating if you say them too fast.

Personally I thought she had romantic feelings toward Bill, an absolutely asexual creature who had never married and never expressed interest in sex of any sort that I knew of. Maybe Suzanne chose him as an object of affection because he was so safe. And maybe it’s also why she responded so sourly to the good relationship I had with him. Romantic jealousy, of all things. Women can build up powerful fantasies about the men they want, and Suzanne had been at the firm for almost as long as Bill. She’d even disposed of a husband—I mean, lost a husband, geez, what an awful thing to say—during the time she’d worked here.

I could see the scenario in my mind. Suzanne worked with Bill for a few years, got to know and trust him, but married someone else whom she lost to that accident. And this was husband number two, so she had a bad track record in the husband department. In the aftermath of her grief, she refocused her energy on safe, reliable Bill and possibly saw him as husband number three, until along came this new secretarial bimbo Carol Frank. Thinking that Bill and I shared some romantic bond was utterly preposterous, but if Suzanne was looking for an excuse for why Bill wasn’t offering her dinner-and-a-movie, I suppose I was as good as the next.

I heard Suzanne in Bill’s office, whining when he told her that I’d be postponing the screw deposition a little longer because he was sending me out for an assignment.

“I’ve been waiting on that screw deposition for a week and a half,” she tattled.

“If it’s that important,” Bill told her, patient as ever, “maybe you should send it to the word processing department or make some time to do it yourself. I’m sure they’d approve the overtime for that client.”

This wasn’t what Suzanne wanted to hear, of course. She didn’t want anyone but me to do her mind-numbing grunge work because that ensured that I knew my place. It was her tremulous iota of power over me.

Suzanne sighed as if the weight of the entire world bore down upon her. Did they know that I could hear them clearly? I’m not sure. Most of us tend to think our conversations are more private than they really are. Truth is, in an office, there is no real privacy. Suzanne said, “No, I don’t trust word processing to do a good job, and I’m just too busy. If it’s important, Bill, maybe I should go to the library for you. I am your paralegal.”

“That’s all right. I want Carol on this.”

She tried to argue again, under the guise of doing it for the good of the firm, but Bill interrupted her, thanked her, and invited her to leave. He was polite about it, and I hugged myself with guilty pleasure. Suzanne drove me nuts with her high-and-mighty and mostly imaginary power. She harrumphed by my desk as I was gathering my things, saying, “Listen, that place is very complex. If you have trouble, you should call me. I can walk you through it.”

“Thanks, Suzanne. I think I remember how to use a library.”

Her eyes glittered behind those big tortoiseshell glasses. “What case are you researching, anyway?”

“Sorry, I can’t really say.” I was all sincerity on the outside, and on the inside I was feeling the joyous smugness that one can really only feel in a hollow victory. Women are so weird sometimes, and I am no exception.

“Oh, it’s a secret mission.” Sourly she appraised me. “You’re just Bill’s little go-to girl, aren’t you?”

That was an insulting thing to say, even for office workers who don’t like each other. Her words weren’t the problem so much as the tone in which she said them, which implied that I was Bill’s little sex slave in addition to being his little go-to girl. For heaven’s sake, there’s a code of conduct to be followed among staff. You can’t say things like that to someone you have to look at every day. I raised my eyebrows to her in surprise, honestly perplexed as to how to respond. She, too, seemed to realize that she’d stepped over a boundary.

She backpedaled by becoming extremely polite. “Let me take this deposition off your hands.” She took the tome from the corner of my desk. “Since you’re busy doing other things. I’m sure word processing can take care of it just fine. They’re so good at completing grunge work.”

*****

KU had a nice medical library. Nice, I mean, in its quiet, cheery orange atmosphere, bright skylighted staircases, and numerous comfortable chairs. I assumed it was also nicely appointed with medical literature—but how the hell would I know? Seems like a bad idea for a medical library to be half-stocked with quack materials but, hey, budgets have to be cut somewhere.

Just as a side note, a medical library’s copy room is a fun place for a secretary to be, because the medical students jam the machines and descend into mad idiotic ravings. It’s a sweet feeling to be able to approach them and fix their problem with a few impressive tweaks of the green release levers inside the cogworks. I appreciate the fact that a brain surgeon can be flummoxed by a copy machine. Copy machines bow before my skills. I reason that they contain a fourth and possibly a fifth dimension in their depths; all you have to do is reach in and grab. I have dug paper out of places it was never meant to be.

But libraries are treacherous too, if you go there with a vague idea of what you want to research but no specifics. Bill said to look up things that pertained to my discovery. I was there for four hours before I realized that I wasn’t even sure what my discovery was.

I left the library at three and went home early. I had a big stack of copies that I could pretend I was going to review, although I wasn’t going to do any such thing. I still had Nowhere Man to watch, and when that was done, Season Three of MI-5. Season Two had ended on a cliffhanger for which I couldn’t imagine a resolution; I was anxious to see the tricks they employed to explain it all.

Spending the day doing something I was not accustomed to doing had tired me. My brain felt drained from processing information, none of which seemed valuable. I shouldn’t have gone to the library in the first place, not without a good notion of what I wanted. I found many articles about physician-assisted suicide and the great debate surrounding it, and many articles about the importance of early diagnosis of elderly depression as a way to circumvent the rising elderly suicide rates. But nothing about these bare, dirty facts of mine: I had a list of names, of similar women who had killed themselves, and is that normal?

Medical researchers don’t like to say what is normal. They like to deal with statistics, which don’t say what is “normal” but what is “average.” And they didn’t talk about what I wanted to know.

Maybe I should ask Gus, I thought. Or maybe I should just talk to Bill first. I hated to go back to Bill with this voluminous amount of paper that told us nothing valuable. That’s pretty “normal” for legal research, but this was a special project, specially assigned by him and specially given to me. I hated that thought that Suzanne Farkanansia might have done a better job.

Chapter Ten

“You’ve been busy!” said a tremendously impressed Bill. He was no dummy, but he too could be fooled by large stacks of paper. Large stacks of paper, of course, always look more productive than little stacks. I had about five hundred pages of copies to sit before him on Friday afternoon. He went through the articles, read titles, and made happy noises and murmurs of interest. It was all baloney. I gave him what I’d copied yesterday, not wishing him to think that I’d been slacking at the library, but only six pages told me anything that seemed relevant. At the local library that dealt in novels and magazines—not the medical library, not the law library, not the Institute of Nuclear Physics, I had managed to find a Surgeon General’s information article about suicide in the elderly.

I showed this to Bill and admitted as much. “All the rest just seems like distraction.”

He didn’t think so. Of the Surgeon General’s report, he said, “Well, this is just generalities, really.” He turned his attention back to the medical articles.

“Keep it, though.” I was alarmed that he seemed on the verge of tossing it into recycling. “After you pore over those snore-fests from the Massachusetts Doctor’s Club or whatever, you’ll start to see it. The pattern I found in those women doesn’t seem to have much to do with medicine. Or with normal suicide patterns. Look, see?”

I had his attention again but he didn’t seem happy about it. Maybe he thought the Surgeon General dumbed things down too much, for the sake of the common slob. Medical journals were more impressive. Lawyers don’t really like to hear any opinion that isn’t spoken by an “expert.” Still, I pointed at a few things I’d highlighted in the Surgeon General’s report. “Women are less likely than men to kill themselves. Women in their age group are very unlikely to commit suicide, even if they are widows. Suicide is most common in men over age 85, and then in young people and teenagers.”

“Carol, Carol.” He took the report away from me like a parent removing something harmful from his child’s grasp. “I’ll read it, I promise. I only meant that a list of generalities about suicide doesn’t further our cause as much as solid research.”

“The Surgeon General isn’t exactly some uneducated schmuck writing editorials. It’s not only a person but an office of the government, Bill.”

“Point taken. I wasn’t talking down to you.”

“I know that. I’m just trying to save you a little time. Those medical articles are beside the point. Twelve years of research to tell us conclusively that people are more likely to kill themselves if they’re depressed or terminally ill? Well, um, yeah.”

Thinly Bill laughed at my impatience. “I’m going to review these materials this weekend and maybe make some calls. I want you to head home and take it easy. You look a little worn out.”

I wasn’t worn out. I had a slight headache from library work, and maybe I was feeling a bit frustrated, but I wasn’t worn out. I had the oddest feeling that I was in trouble for something. Bill seemed distracted and unhappy.

“Carol, go on home. You look absolutely drained.”

I gave it one last hopeful try. “Are you sure we don’t have any work here to finish first?”

“Oh, no, no, no.”

“Okay, well, promise me that you’ll look these things over carefully.”

He promised me.

“You’re not angry at me, are you?” I asked, deciding I didn’t want to spend the weekend wondering about that.

Quickly he answered, “No. Goodness, what a silly question.”

“You seem agitated, though.”

“Oh, this.” Bill made a broad gesture at all the paperwork I’d brought before him and then at my legal-pad list of dead women. “It’s worrisome.”

“Why?” I wanted to know.

“Oh, you know me. I worry about things. Crazy things that never end up actually happening.” He said again, “You know me.”

“I know that when you worry that way, you usually get stuck in a ritual, and then I have to come snap you out of it. Is that going to happen?”

Bill raised his eyes to me, and though I had been half-joking, he was not. But he tried to sound as if he were, and that was surprisingly creepy. In a tone of such weird lightness that I barely recognized it, he said, “Don’t worry. I won’t call you at midnight on a Saturday again. Go on home, Carol.”

“Go on home,” he said again as I backed out, leaving him to watch the almost useless pile of materials I’d brought to him about suicide.

*****

Suzanne Farkanansia caught sight of me and I heard her voice wafting over a few cubicles. “So how was the big research trip to the library?”

“Fine,” I called back, continuing on my way out the door.

She was long-legged and caught up with me. “You were out for quite a while. It must have been pretty productive.”

“Eh.” I shrugged.

“Did you learn anything interesting?” she asked. When I hesitated, she said, “Oh, that’s right. It’s a big secret. You’re not supposed to tell anyone about it. Just between you and Bill.”

“Well it’s just not that big of a deal,” I tried to explain. “Not nearly as interesting as it sounds.”

“Does it sound interesting?” questioned Suzanne. “I wouldn’t know. What’s so interesting about it? What could your buddy-bear Bill have you tracking all over town for?”

“Oh, stop it,” said a third voice, and I turned to see Charlene emerging from her cubicle. “God, Suzanne, quit pestering her. It’s confidential, obviously.”

Suzanne glowered at Charlene. “Hello? Is anyone talking to you?”

Charlene wasn’t susceptible to sarcasm; that kind of thing went right over her head. She said, “There’s no reason to pick at Carol because you’re unhappy with your job.”

“Well, that’s the problem, isn’t it? Because my job is no longer my job. Carol seems to be happy to do my job and doesn’t spend a lot of time doing hers.”

Raised voices in one corner of an office cause dead silence in all other corners; everybody was listening to this exchange and I wished I could crawl under a desk and hide. Since, as an adult, it was unseemly for me to hide, I raised my hands in a placating gesture to the two women. “Hey, it’s nothing to get upset over. I just—”

But they were no longer listening to me. Suzanne probably felt a lot of animosity toward me, because she was not referring to her job so much as to Bill when she accused me of jumping on her territory. Regardless of that, she and Charlene had a long history of rivalry that had sprouted its office-political limbs years before I ever showed up at MBS&K, and I’d bet you even they didn’t fully understand where it all had started. It was like one of those old monster versus monster movies, Dracula versus the Werewolf, or Frankenstein versus the Mummy, where the monsters are in conflict simply because they are both monsters. In this case, it was Uber-Paralegal versus Robo-Secretary, a battle in which the casualties all die of ennui.

“You can’t seriously feel threatened because someone else got sent to do research. It happens all the time. Gail’s done it, and Daphne’s done it, and Melinda’s done it.” Charlene was somehow capable of listing any person who’d ever left the office for a research project, and she would have done so, except Suzanne interrupted.

“I don’t care who gets sent where, as long as it’s not my job they’re trying to steal out from under me.”

Sincerely, Charlene said, “I don’t think anyone here wants your job. Your job seems pretty awful.”

Suzanne blinked in amazement. “And just what do you know about what I do?”

“Well, you never seem very happy with it.”

“We don’t all come swinging in to work humming the Brady Bunch theme song,” snapped Suzanne, shooting a condescending look in my direction, “but that doesn’t mean I’m unhappy.”

Charlene continued, obliviously, “You’re just unhappy because Bill Nestor doesn’t use you any more. So big deal. Everyone else does. You’ve got plenty of work.”

Finally it seemed to occur to Suzanne that their voices were very loud, and she lowered her tone to a whisper when she told Charlene, “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Well, it’s Bill, right?” asked Charlene, also lowering her voice in one of her unusual bows to the social niceties. “You like Bill Nestor and like working with him.”

Like anyone who’d thought her motives were not apparent, Suzanne looked mortified for the briefest moment before saying, “I’m a valuable resource, and I work for everyone.”

“Yeah, that’s what I was saying before. But Bill can’t ask you out anyway; it’s against company policy.”

Suzanne had gone a deep shade of red. “I’m completely uninterested in being asked out.”

“He wouldn’t ask Carol out, either,” said Charlene, as if this was supposed to be reassuring.

“Since you’re so interested, Charlene, Bill is up to his eyeballs in eligible women. They come tromping into the office every week and flash their money around, and he never asks anyone out. So you see, it’s not really an issue about whether Bill has a date this weekend. I’m talking about my job.”

Charlene peered at Suzanne for a few seconds. “That didn’t make any sense.”

“I don’t remember asking for your opinion about anything,” Suzanne said to Charlene. She finally turned her attention back to me. “I dictated some notes that I need transcribed today, but it looks like Bill gave you the afternoon off.”

I was happy to be receptive, if only to stop this ugly scene. “Just give me the tape. I’ll do them.”

“Oh, heavens, no. By all means, go on your merry way. I’ll just tell Brent I need a secretary to cover while you’re gone.”

She flounced away—I was surprised by this, not sure I’d really ever seen anyone flounce before, but there it was. I looked to Charlene, who was watching Suzanne as if mystified.

“That was strange,” said Charlene.

“I didn’t mean for you to get involved.”

“I don’t like her antagonizing you that way,” said Charlene, now speaking very softly indeed. “She’s done this before, picked on a secretary, gotten people transferred or fired. The firm doesn’t get a lot of good, long-term secretaries, and I don’t want to see you driven away just because she’s jealous. Turnover is so unproductive.”

Coming from Charlene Templeton, this was as serious a vow of friendship as I’d ever heard.

*****

My research-weary, preoccupied brain had me feeling punchy, so I had a beer that didn’t make me any more clear-headed but did make me feel better about being punchy. Then my cutie-pie Gus called and made me feel even sillier, in a happy kind of way.

“I’m so sorry; I got so busy this week,” he told me. I had only heard from him briefly since Tuesday night. He’d given me a short call on Wednesday evening saying, “I got paged onto a case, and I have to work on it before my weekend off, but I haven’t stopped thinking about you all day.” The case he was helping with was one that had made the news, the shooting death of a young man in a department store parking lot. I had tried to catch Gus on the news but he wasn’t lead on the case so they didn’t let him talk. Now, tonight, he said, “My supervisor really works hard to make sure I get free weekends with my son, so I try to do all I can during the week to keep her happy.”

“Augustus,” I said, “you don’t have to explain yourself to me. Someone got shot. I think that’s more important than my social life.”

“Hey, I found something interesting today,” he said.

That made one of us. I exclaimed that I was interested in his discovery.

“Seems like a shame to have to wait until next week to tell you about it.”

“That is a shame,” I agreed. “How much time do you have before Doug gets here?”

Doug’s mother was bringing the boy to Kansas City that evening, but the drive from Omaha took several hours.

Gus told me that his son wouldn’t be in town until after nine. So I suggested that he come over to my house and tell me about his interesting discovery, and he was not averse. This was my attempt at lobbying for another dose of the Gus-man, because he could have just told me his interesting information over the phone. It was nice of him not to bring that up.

“Are you still at work?” I asked, hearing the familiar sounds of phones and voices behind him.

He said that he was just heading out the door.

“Come over before changing your clothes,” I said. “Bring your badge.”

He laughed softly, voice low over the phone. “What for?”

“I want you question me, put me under some sort of arrest and maybe search me for concealed weapons.”

“Fine,” said Gus. “But you have to put on one of those little—” and here I was sure he was going to suggest “French maid uniform” or “lace corset” or “leather bustier,” but what he said was, “—secretary outfits with the buttoned-up sweater and sensible pumps.”

“You sick monkey,” I murmured, feeling a thrill all the way through my body.

“Do as I say,” Gus warned, “or I’ll be forced to treat you as a hostile suspect.”

“Oh, God, yes, do that.”

*****

“I’m Detective Haglund with the KCPD.” Said detective stood glowering in my doorway. To my great pleasure, he wore a light trench coat, even though it was seventy degrees outside, and had his badge flipped out, pushed toward me. “Ma’am, I’d like to ask you some questions.”

And in keeping with his request, I wore a tight pencil skirt, my four-inch pumps and a silky blouse buttoned as high as it would go, nearly pinching my neck. I’d even fastened my hair back in a prim little barrette. I wore not a stitch of underwear.

“What is this about, Officer?” I asked.

“I’m investigating suspicious activities,” he said, filling the doorway with his big solidness.

“Well, I’m sorry, but I can’t help you.”

“Ma’am, I’m afraid this is not a voluntary interview.” Gus moved through the door, and I blocked his path ineffectually and purposefully. Our bodies had to smash together for him to get by, his arm had to circle my waist to keep me from tipping over on those ridiculous heels. My skin had little defense with just that filmy blouse between him and me, leaving my nipples deliciously grazed and standing out rather sharply against the material. Gus’s eyes lingered there and tickled me.

“You can’t just barge in here making all kinds of demands,” I told him haughtily as I closed the front door. “I have my rights.”

Gus caught me by the shoulder and spun me around with startling ease, herding me against the wall of my front hallway. “Put your hands against the wall, ma’am,” he instructed brusquely, and I did so without thought, utterly at his command. I hadn’t heard this tone of voice from him before. I loved it. A yelp of surprise escaped me when he kicked my feet apart, and I would have fallen but for his arm around my waist. He held me steady, kept me from twisting my ankle or stumbling, pressing my hips enticingly against his groin which was, I noticed breathlessly, showing signs of enjoying this game as much as I. Then he leaned into me and began a full body search. As his fingers stroked from my wrists down to my ticklish armpits, he said in my ear, “We have received information that you are exerting influence on an officer of the law.”

“I haven’t done anything,” I argued, trying not to giggle when he poked at my underarms.

“Be still,” he ordered softly, his mouth so close to my ear that I could feel his breath there. “Our source is utterly reliable. He states that you seduced him by a copy machine. He states also that you exerted unfair influence over him by charming his sister.”

“Neither of those things is a crime,” I said defensively. “It’s not my fault his sister doesn’t know squat about her word processor.”

He paused for a moment, and I realized that he was controlling his laughter. Then the full-body search was on my breasts and lingered there for a few seconds, teasing me until my limbs began to melt into a pool of pure lazy liquid. I sagged into the gorgeous bulk of him, ready to be ravished.

“Don’t try that with me,” he said roughly, giving my arms a gentle tug upwards. “I’m not just some dumb cop. You’re going to answer my questions.”

“You haven’t asked me any questions,” I murmured, eyes half-closed.

His hands came to my hips, snagged my skirt and began tugging it up my thighs. “What I want to know is why a beautiful woman like you wants to seduce some dumb cop.”

I twisted earnestly under his touch. “I have—,” I tried to say, though his full body search had reached fully into my body, and it was a little hard to speak, “I have parking tickets I want fixed.”

“Is that so?”

“And that dumb cop was extremely sexy.”

“Interfering with a law enforcement officer is a felony. But he refuses to testify against you.”

“He can do anything he wants against me.”

“Don’t get cute.” Gus cushioned my head and then pushed me against the wall, his massive frame pressed hard behind me. I think he had four hands. They were all doing fabulous things. “If you want to avoid prosecution, you’re going to have to get very cooperative with me.”

“Yes, Officer.”

“That’s Detective.”

“Yes, Detective.”

“I’ll need to confiscate your belongings.” He meant my clothes. I was already half out of them. But as I tried to reach for my buttons he stopped me. “Did I say you could move? You assume the position, and I’ll take care of this.”

“Yes, Detective.”

“I think you can leave the shoes on.”

“Oh absolutely.”

I was permitted to move, a little, to accommodate the strip search. Now ordinarily I might be a little shocked at the thought that I’d be stark naked in high-heels while a detective interrogated me in a kinky sex game, but at the moment it seemed like a perfectly reasonable thing to do. I was happy to comply with all the demands; I am a law-abiding citizen, after all.

“I win again,” I said softly as my skirt hit the floor. “I’m always the first one naked.”

“You should be naked all the time,” confessed Gus, not in his play-acting voice but in his dead-serious horny-Gus voice which was just as good.

“You get naked, too,” I said. “I’m eager to bribe you to drop the charges against me.”

I felt rather than saw him shake his head, and I heard rather than saw the unfastening of his belt buckle. He turned me again and kissed me for the first time since he’d arrived, and I hadn’t realized how much I’d been looking forward to that. I felt tender like an open wound, his clothes softly scratching at my skin. Into my hand he pressed a condom and said, “The dumb cop says you’re handy with these.”

“That dirty rat.” I performed the requested action and the empty package drifted to the floor beside my blouse. Then suddenly I was lifted, my back against my cold hallway wall, my only means of support the imposing bulk of Gus Haglund. You always see people having stand-up sex in the movies and stuff and it looks cool but it doesn’t entirely seem plausible. Turns out all you need is a strong enough guy. I linked my ankles behind his back and my arms around his neck and held on. He still had on his work clothes and his trench coat, making me feel more than undressed. I felt positively and thrillingly exposed. Inside me he felt big enough to tear me in two, but, you know, in a good way. I kissed him deep and hard, I trusted him to take care of everything, and I let him have at me. The next day my shoulder blades would have pale purple bruises, my back would be scraped as if by a rough plaque of cardboard. At the moment, though, I noticed no discomfort except for the yowling ache inside me and Gus was fixing that problem. He pinned me with his eyes and shoved—at the count of five, I think my whole uterus turned inside out. It was that hard. He almost scared me, because we did this so well together. But what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

When Gus let me back down on the ground, a few magnificently grueling moments later, I could barely stand. I grabbed his arm for support and he toppled; we both fell to the floor and Gus clonked his head on my wall. He held his head, laughing and howling in pain at the same time. I climbed over his bulk, inspecting him for blood while trying heartily to control my own giggles.

“Oh, you devil woman,” he accused.

“Listen, I have a perfectly good bed, and no one said you had to perform acrobatics in the hall. Can we do it again?”

“No strength…condom made of Kryptonite…can’t reach…utility belt…”

“You seem to have a concussion. You’re speaking in a delirium.”

“Need beer…”

“You need to either zip up your trousers or take them off altogether. You’re making quite a spectacle of yourself.”

“Yes’m.”

“Find a chair or something. I’ll be back in a second.” I left him lying in the hall and went to my fridge for the much-needed refreshment. Walking around in my heels like a hooker. A hooker with a heart of gold? Maybe that would be the next game we could play. I heard him moaning and making his way to the bathroom.

When I returned to Gus with beer, he had refastened his clothes and lost the trench coat—it was really too hot outside for that anyway—and done as instructed by finding a chair in my living room upon which to recuperate. He looked me over carefully, as now I was the stark naked, spike-heeled woman handing him a beer, and he asked, “Is this heaven?”

“You’re a corndog.” I went to my room. Rather, I should say, I sashayed to my room like a trollop, lost the shoes and found a robe, and went back to Gus.

“Oh, well, that’s nice, too,” he acquiesced, looking a little disappointed at my wardrobe change. I picked up the clothes that had been scattered in the front hall and wondered if I could wear them to work again with a straight face. “What kind of food do you like, Carol My-Last-Name-Is-Frank? Cause I’d like to take you out sometime. You know, as much fun as it is to show up at your house and have you win the naked-contest, I thought…” His facial expression changed suddenly. “Hey, I was going to tell you something.”

“Oh, yeah.” I did recall that he’d mentioned a discovery, when he’d first called. I snuggled up on my couch and smiled receptively. “What did you find today?”

“Something very interesting. And since you’re the one who pointed me in this direction, I thought you should know.”

I begged to know.

“Tuesday night you asked me if I had investigated many suicides, and whether it seemed like a lot of middle-aged women did themselves in. So when I had a little free time today, I did a records search of the Kansas City coroner’s database for the past five years.”

My post-coital glow suddenly didn’t seem as warm and glowy.

“In addition to Adrienne Maxwell, I found five other suicides in the past five years for women in that age group. These were definite suicide rulings, of course, and didn’t include auto accidents or self-inflicted injuries that most likely were not meant to be fatal. Here’s what’s interesting. Of the five, two killed themselves in an almost identical fashion to Adrienne’s method. Both widows. Alone in the house, overdose with a combination of sleeping pills and painkillers, and no suicide note.”

I couldn’t pinpoint precisely why I felt alarmed. But I asked, as if quite interested, “Were those suicides investigated?”

“Apparently not in any depth. They weren’t considered suspicious.”

“Do they seem suspicious to you?”

“In light of Adrienne’s case, I’m inclined to look at them a little harder.” Gus drank a good portion of the beer I’d brought him, and then said, “I’ve been so god-awful busy this week. I wish I had more computer time. Or a better computer. Anyway, after I ship Doug back to his mom, I’m going to expand the search to the past ten, maybe fifteen years and see if I turn up more of these.”

“Why, what do you think you have there, Gus? A serial killer?” As soon as I’d asked the question, I wished I’d kept the term to myself.

“I know, I know,” said Gus, not noticing my discomfort. “Every detective secretly hopes he’ll encounter a serial murderer because it’s a great way to get famous off a book deal. It’s also a great way to have a nervous breakdown.”

“But that’s kind of silly, isn’t it? How could suicides be the result of a serial killer?”

The question was a stupid one, and I knew it as soon as I’d said it. Gus had the graciousness to answer me anyway. “I guess it wouldn’t be the first time that someone committed murder and made it look like suicide. If that’s what actually happened, the killer was good, because the coroner and the crime scene investigators never picked up on it.”

“So you’d really be shaking things up, if you cracked the case of the Suicide Killer.”

Gus smirked at me patiently.

“I wasn’t making fun of you.”

“Naw, I didn’t think you were. Anyway I just thought you might be interested in what I’ve found, since you were the one who brought it up first.”

“Did I?”

“You made me think about it, sure. Since we don’t have much information on Adrienne except for the worst witness’s description ever, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to check past files, see if anything similar has ever happened. And you said that not many retired women kill themselves.”

“No I didn’t. I asked you if they did.”

“Was that it? Well, they don’t. The coroner’s database shows suicides, in Kansas City, anyway, are mostly committed by young adults, the terminally ill, or depressed elderly men.”

“Yeah, that makes sense.” Of course it made sense. I could hand him a copy of the Surgeon General’s report that confirmed how much sense it made.

“Carol, honey, don’t look so mortified.” Gus tried to get me to smile, goofing a big grin on his face that I was meant to mimic. “I don’t really think there’s a madman on the loose, talking widows into overdosing on their headache medication. There’s some other explanation for it.”

“Sure. Like what?”

“I don’t know yet. But if it’s something that can help me with this Adrienne Maxwell case, it’ll be great. The whole thing’s gone pretty cold, and I’ve been helping on this shooting case this week. Departmentally, I think the Maxwell case is getting pushed to the backburner because it isn’t nearly as topical. You know, gunplay is more newsworthy than an ordinary old suicide.”

He finished his beer and declined a second, since he would have to drive himself home later. Then he continued, “But the Maxwell case is mine. If I could turn up a result on it, it would look good. I just wanted to let you know that you might have helped me. Especially if it turns out to be something juicy, like a suicide cult.”

“A suicide cult!” I exclaimed, startled because I had thought of this before myself.

“That’s a joke. I’m joking.” Gus examined my expression and grew worried. “I’m sorry. You don’t think it’s funny. Am I being an ass?”

I wasn’t accustomed to men who made inferences or had logical trains of thought. Had to remember this was a detective. I liked him an awful lot, and I wasn’t upset that he’d gone digging into something I hadn’t even realized I was suggesting.

What bothered me was that, if he did a more thorough search of the coroner’s database, he’d find at least a couple of the ladies on my own list, and when he did, he’d try to find out what they had in common. Aside from their age, sex, and manner of death, that is. How long would it take him to discover that they’d all had their estate documents prepared by my boss? And what did that mean, exactly?

Serial killer, I had joked.

I could tell him right then. Gus, the strange thing is that Bill Nestor represented these women.

I almost said it. And then I didn’t. Why not? I was just uneasy, not even frightened or truly suspicious of Bill at that point. As much as I liked Gus Haglund, I had been with Bill Nestor longer so I was obligated to talk to him before I spoke to the police.

“It’s fine. It’s very interesting,” I assured Gus. “Really. Let me know what happens. You know how much I like detective stories.”

Chapter Eleven

Gus had his son Doug for the weekend, and I wasn’t nearly established enough in his life to warrant an introduction. He could hardly bring the boy to me and say, “Doug, this is Carol. I’ve known her for ten days, and we’ve been having lots of sex.” That’s not a cool thing to do to a kid, particularly when he only gets to see his dad every other weekend. That was father-son time, not meet-the-squeeze time. Anyway as much as I enjoyed my temporary all-access pass to Gus Haglund’s body, I was accustomed to being alone and not unhappy about it.

After Gus departed my house on Friday evening, I finished Nowhere Man and then on Saturday morning I gave up on Season Three of MI-5 after only four episodes. That was quite a disappointment, but I hadn’t liked it nearly as much since Season One anyway. Besides that, I guess half the cast got movie deals and left the program. Most shows can’t survive major cast changes, yet in this case, my disappointment was more about the tone of the program turning gloomy and dull. Ah, well, they can’t all be masterpieces. For Saturday night and Sunday, I had Wire in the Blood Season 2, and that would be enough to round out my weekend. Sunday is an excellent day to watch British mystery series. Something about the atmospheres of a lazy Sunday afternoon and a murder mystery complement each other perfectly.

Always, in the back of my mind, were the two conversations I’d had with the two most important men in my life. My talk with Bill, in which he’d promised to review my suicide data, with a look on his face that had been forlorn and dreadful. My talk with Gus, in which he’d promised to find out all about Kansas City’s suicidal widows, with a look on his face that had been clever and eager.

What did it mean? Hell, I kept telling myself, it didn’t have to mean anything.

I almost called Bill’s cell phone to talk to him about this. I didn’t, though, because I’d been so vehement with him about keeping our off-business hours separate that it didn’t seem right. If I called, it would mean I was really worried about something. If I didn’t call, it surely would mean everything was fine.

*****

I took time on Saturday afternoon to continue my chair-painting project. The first chair was orange with apple-green piping, the next would be apple-green with orange piping. Oh sure, it sounds gaudy, and it probably was, but I thought the colors looked like a fruit salad, and I wanted them in my house instead of the same old stained wood crap that I’d been looking at for years. It wasn’t as if I was painting over quality oak. These chairs were cheap factory knockoffs, and I was doing them a favor.

I felt very industrious and craftsy. I set up a big square of newspaper on my back porch, laid out my brushes, cans of paint, and the hammer and screwdriver I used to open the paint cans. Then I hauled my chair and supplies outside in the sunlight and ran a little scrap of sandpaper quickly over all the chair’s surfaces. God, I hate sanding things. First I can hardly bear to touch sandpaper; it gives me the shuddering willies from my fingers clear into my brain. Second, it’s just stupid. My father would doubtless have plenty to say about my shortcuts on this project, as men in general seem to believe that painting a chair is a project that should take about five years. I’m supposed to strip it, then wash it, then sand it, then sand it with some different grade of sandpaper, then use steel wool, and then perform some other wood-techno chores—like stain, maybe varnish and possibly peel—and then for sure I must sand it some more until I’ve reduced the mass of the chair by 30 percent, and then I can prep the wood or by golly just sand it some more. Fifty-eight months later, I’d be ready to put on the first coat of paint. Men love sanding things. But there weren’t any men here. I guess I was just going to have to paint the frigging chair all by myself and pray that everything turned out all right.

Against all the carpentry gods’ mandates, the paint was willing to stick to an unprepped chair, and in less than an hour, my dull kitchen chair was a happy apple green. It looked yummy. The weather was clear and mild, so I thought that I would go to the grocery store, and by the time I returned the chair would be dry enough to paint the orange doodads. My kitchen chairs were going to be cool. In the spirit of painting whatever color I wanted, I thought about other things I could paint as I went to shop. My bed stand. My cabinets. My shutters.

I didn’t live in the most affluent neighborhood. Be fair, Carol. My neighborhood had almost no affluence at all, except for the retired guy down the road who had an RV. I also think my across-the-street neighbors had a trampoline. Is that affluence? To add some perspective, I’ll say that the RV was probably worth more than any house on the block.

The stupid ex-husband and I moved here when we first married because it was all we could afford—and it continued to be all we could afford because he never kept what one might consider a “job” or made what one might call a “steady paycheck” or bothered to help in earning what one might call “money,” so I was paying for the place all by myself on a not-great secretarial salary. I had been there for almost ten years now. I liked the place quite a bit without the stupid ex-husband in it. I was making a much better salary now, and I could have moved, if I’d really wished to, but I’d fixed the place up and I felt very comfortable there. One woman certainly does not need more than six little rooms, unless she builds cars inside or, I don’t know, conducts exercise classes or holds candle parties. God, don’t get me started on candle parties.

What was I saying? Oh, yes, about the affluence. We weren’t a gated community, and our population was diverse—retired people and young couples and slightly less young couples with hundreds of badly behaved children that roamed all hours of the day through the yards, doing what, I don’t know. Hunting? Gathering? They looked about as smart as your average chickens, scratching and pecking in the dirt. So many people came and went that we as a neighborhood barely noticed a new face or a different car. There was a different car every week in front of that house where the slutty teenage twins lived.

Still, someone was being nosy in a philanthropic way because when I returned home from the grocery store, as I pulled into my garage, I saw ZZTop guy from across the street hurrying toward me. I should have known this guy’s name; we’d been neighbors for a decade, and I’m sure I’d been told his name three or four times. It was one of those names in the category of Bob, Rob, Tom, John, Ron, or Don that simply slide out of my mind to be replaced by a much more descriptive name like “ZZTop guy,” thus called because he had a beard worthy of the band and usually wore sunglasses, probably to hide the fact that he was always high.

I got out of my car to see what he wanted. The last time he came over to speak to me, his son had run the car up into my yard and torn up my grass. If he hadn’t said anything, I might never have noticed.

“Just thought I should let you know,” he said, “that someone was looking around your house.”

“Looking around?” I joined him on my front lawn, and we looked back and forth as if whoever it was might still be there, waiting to be caught.

“He was out in front for a minute, and then he moved around the side for a while. When he was done, he walked off down the street. You should be careful. He might’ve been looking for unlocked windows or ways he could get inside.”

“God.” What a thought. “Did he seem to be doing anything besides looking?”

“Hard to say.”

“Did he have a camera or a notebook or anything? Was he reading the meter? Maybe he was my insurance agent. They assess the property every so often. What did he look like?”

“Eh, kind of a medium-sized fella. Had on a baseball cap and a big jacket so I couldn’t tell how big around he was.” Back and forth we went for a while, with ZZTop guy giving me a completely unhelpful description that could have described most Caucasian men and a good number of women living in the United States. What emerged was that someone, probably a not particularly tall man wearing jeans and a big dark jacket, and with no features that could be discerned by a stoned ex-hippie, looked at the front and the side of my house. Maybe he was carrying something, or maybe he wasn’t.

“The FBI is going to have trouble drawing a composite on this one,” I said. For all I knew, some guy out walking had seen a raccoon and watched it around the house, maybe stepping up through my lawn to make sure the little devil wasn’t going to get into my trash. Our neighborhood was like a small-animal wildlife preserve.

“Might be a good idea to check yer windows and such,” remarked ZZTop guy.

“I will. Thanks for being a good neighbor.” And I did mean that sincerely. Most of us paid little attention to our neighborhood surroundings. Most of us didn’t have the kind of time that ZZTop guy seemed to have, either. He moseyed back across the road to his house, and I took a moment to walk the perimeter of my own, just to see what any potential spy might have seen.

In the backyard, my chair painting project was as I recalled having left it, except that the two brushes, stirring stick, screwdriver and hammer had been rearranged. First, like this: stick, brush, brush, screwdriver, hammer. They lay now in a measured row, two inches between them, their bottoms lined perpendicular to the edge of the newspaper. The little can of paint was turned so its label faced forward, and it sat precisely an inch from the tops of the two brushes.

How organized it looked! I didn’t remember doing that. Had I done that? Heaven knew I did plenty of things in my house, at my job, that I never precisely recalled doing, but this really didn’t look like my handiwork. I was a stacker; I made piles of things. Why would someone wanting to rob my house take the time to reorganize my weekend paint project? No, this looked more like my previous idea of someone checking on my property for me. Some man, the insurance company’s assessor or the meter reader, came back here and saw that I was doing a sloppy, girly, under-sanded job of painting a chair and cleaned it up a little for me. Because, I thought, what potential burglar would stake out my house during a sunny, late Saturday afternoon, when anyone could spot them doing it?

This looked more like something Bill Nestor would do, I thought. Perhaps he had looked through the research I gave him and decided, as I had in the back of my mind, that it could cause trouble, so he had come over to tell me that. I don’t know why he’d bother to walk around my yard, or why he wouldn’t have called first, but this straightened-up project was precisely what he would have done, assuming the other things had happened, too.

Or, I thought, maybe he came over here to kill me because, as they say in the spy shows, I “knew too much.” Spared the trouble of killing me because I wasn’t home, he decided to tidy up instead.

No, I wouldn’t believe it. That is, I believed he would tidy up. I did not believe he would wish me harm or wish anyone else harm.

Then I saw that my back door was open. Spring air rushed into my kitchen. I did not remember if I had left the door open, but I suppose I could have. Except that I didn’t leave doors open because I don’t like bugs. Bugs are awful, and I didn’t have a man around to kill them for me anymore.

I made myself be calm. I checked through my house. Nothing was out of place; nothing was missing; nothing was disturbed in any way that I could see. Not like I was an immaculate housekeeper, though. A football team could have charged through there, and their presence would not have been detectable in the aftermath. For a minute I thought about calling Gus, or at least just calling the police, but what would I say? “My back door was open, and somebody might have straightened up my paint supplies for me.” With my luck, they’d just scold me for not sanding my chairs well enough.

*****

I don’t have a dark side. I’m not nearly interesting enough. Not that I wouldn’t enjoy having a secret life only hinted at by the barest of clues hovering about me, like if I spent the weekends as a hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold. I spend most of my spare time watching television. I know television gets a bad reputation for promoting violence and all that, but I believe that in many cases it keeps people at home and out of trouble. But anyway, no secret life for Carol.

Nevertheless, a lot of people do have secrets. Secretaries have a reputation for gossiping, and we pretend to love knowing what skeletons lurk in the closets of others. Still, honestly, there’s a limit to what you really care to know. For example, it was funny that Terry Bronk got sanctioned by the Federal Court the year before, even though that was supposed to be a secret. When jerks get in trouble for things at which they profess to be awesomely capable, that results in a humorous situation that everyone can enjoy. Everyone except Terry Bronk, I guess, because one didn’t go around mentioning this event unless one was looking to get booted out the door of MBS&K. Okay, so that’s one side of the coin. The other side is knowing something really unhappy or even distasteful about a person you have to see every day, and that’s not fun for anybody. Gossip is an unstoppable force of nature, though.

Everybody at MBS&K somehow knew about Aven Fisher’s wife. Charlene’s boss Aven, the guy who would only represent women in divorce cases, lost his own wife years before. She drove her car into a concrete embankment, or so the story goes, and apparently the guilt over this tragedy was the reason he was such a staunch supporter of women’s rights in divorce cases. I liked to see the wry side of things, but even I couldn’t find anything funny about that, and I didn’t like knowing it about him. I’m not even sure how I learned this ugly story or when it came up. The sordid tale was simply knowledge that came after an allotted amount of time at MBS&K: after one year, you were eligible for the 401k, and after eighteen months, you knew the story of Aven Fisher’s dead wife.

Even Charlene, who seemed to have no life outside the office and not even a single vice, had a dirty secret that I wished I didn’t know. She was the food bandit. Charlene was the backbone of the office, yet I knew that every month or so she went into the kitchen and stole three or four lunches out of the fridge. This infuriated people, as you might expect. The thefts caused endless speculation, too, as no one else seemed to have figured out who was doing it. Those who “lost their lunch,” as it were, were different each time. There seemed to be no pattern to who got robbed. The food never turned up in any trash can; the storage containers vanished from the office; and the thefts took place at such varied times of the day that no one had been able to pin them to a specific schedule.

I figured it out only because I’m such a life-voyeur. On one day of food-thievery, I saw Charlene take a knobby sack into the elevator, saying she was going to her car for something. On another occasion, she seemed to know about the theft before she logically should have known. And finally, my own lunch, which I stored in my Avengers lunch box (a replica, not an original, or I’d never have brought it to work), had never been taken. You may not think that these sparse little tidbits of information would be sufficient to convince me that Charlene was the food bandit, particularly in light of what a straight arrow she was in every other aspect. But I knew I was right; call it women’s intuition or a little bit of sixth sense. A couple weeks before, when she’d joked about Gus Haglund finding our food bandit, I’d almost choked. Sometimes I forgot that my knowledge was my own little dark secret.

I wished I hadn’t known, but due to friendship blinders, I elected simply to ignore this ugly habit of hers. First off, MBS&K would have fired her for it, if they’d found out. Stealing from your coworkers is grounds for dismissal, even when it’s just a tuna fish sandwich in a baggy. Secondly, I didn’t want to confront her. The only thing worse than knowing the truth was coming out with it to her, embarrassing her into knowing what I knew. I’m not a chicken, but I’m sensitive about the people that I like—and I did like her. That was the third reason. I was attempting to be sympathetic about this weird glitch in the otherwise perfectly functioning system that was Charlene Templeton.

We all needed our outlets, especially those of us too wrapped up in work to have a real life. If engaging in petty theft once a month kept my friend from going bonkers, I was willing to let it slide. Sure, it was rough on the folks who lost lunches, but I think people rather enjoyed the drama of it all. A disappearance of lunches was really the highlight of the entire week. Given a choice, most everyone would rather continue being outraged by the food bandit than put a name to this villain.

So what is the point of this essay on dark secrets? Just that anyone can have one, obviously. If that wasn’t the case, then they would not be secrets and they would not be dark. They’d just be things you know about somebody, and it wouldn’t be uncomfortable. Like, hey, someone I know likes to do crossword puzzles. That’s not disconcerting. Or hey, someone I know has a bunch of pennies in a jar. That’s just peachy. But not, hey, someone I know might have cased my house today, to see how easy it would be to get inside. For some reason. And I did not like knowing that.

There was no one there any more, though.

The remainder of the weekend was uneventful. I finished painting the second and third chairs. And Wire in the Blood is a really good show.

Chapter Twelve

I got some news on Monday morning. As I came through the front door, Lucille, perpetual font of knowledge, said to me, “Guess who’s quitting.”

I guessed a few names. You always know the ones who aren’t going to last. They have a look about them, either unhappy or far too happy, and they don’t fit in. I was wrong on all counts.

“Suzanne Far-kan-sha,” said Lucille, leaving a couple of useless syllables out of the last name. “She turned in her two-week notice this morning.”

“You’re kidding.” This was a surprise. I thought Suzanne loved it here. She had illusory power; people needed her; and she could boss me around. “Is she moving or something?”

“From what I hear,” said Lucille, “it is too emotionally distressing for her to work here.” Lucille’s accent made a term like “emotionally distressing” sound rather glamorous. Lucille added, “Sounds like a load of hooey to me.”

“She got a better job offer,” was my guess.

Turns out I was wrong. Nobody, not even goddess of gossip Lucille, knew the real reason why Suzanne was leaving except for Bill Nestor, and he actually told me.

Though I went into his office to discuss our suicide widows, and though my anticipation over these had reached a sort of fever pitch, the first thing he said to me was, “I guess you heard Suzanne is leaving.”

Fine, we could do this first. You almost couldn’t get Bill to change topics once he started. I said, “I did hear that.”

“I’m glad she’s going,” he whispered. “I don’t need that kind of trouble.”

“Trouble?” I closed the door (a lot of our meetings lately had involved closed doors, it seemed) and waited for him to explain. Sometimes Bill seemed to be as big a gossip as any woman in the office. He told me all sorts of details about the other lawyers of the firm, some of which I’d rather not have known, like who was a weekend nudist and who had once been arrested for soliciting a hooker. All of these details, I learned after swearing a sincere oath of secrecy.

And in fact, the next thing Bill said was, “You can’t tell a soul.”

“Not a soul,” I said.

Bill was genuinely upset, I realized. With bewilderment he told me, “For some reason, she thinks we’re an item.”

“What do you mean?” Questioningly I gestured between us.

“No, she thinks that she and I—Suzanne and me—are an item. Or rather,” he paused to find the right words, “she thinks we were on our way to being an item. Carol, she came to my apartment this weekend. She showed up Sunday and said she thought it was time we talked.”

“God, how awkward.”

“You have no idea. And when you think of the trouble it could cause. Sexual harassment suits. Hostile workplace. I’ve never done anything to lead her on.”

“I know you haven’t.” In fact, I doubted anyone who really knew Bill would ever suspect him of such a heinous crime as flirtation, and it didn’t help my opinion of Suzanne much. I hadn’t liked her a lot before. Now she sounded delusional.

“She wanted to have this talk,” Bill said desperately, “about where our relationship was going, and about whether she should look for another job so it would be okay for us to see each other socially. I’ve never done anything to encourage this.”

I put up my hands, assuring him that I needed no further convincing. “It’s not your fault, Bill. I think Suzanne has been in a lot of strange relationships, and maybe she gets her signals mixed up.”

“She certainly was mixed up. But I didn’t ask her to quit. I hope she hasn’t told anyone that.”

“What did you say?”

“I told her that she had misunderstood me. And that I didn’t like her that way.”

Sounded like junior high. I like you, but I don’t like you like you. Surely this could not all be about my getting assignments that she thought were rightfully hers. Yet it probably was. Women can get accustomed to taking care of a man, be it son, father, boss, husband, brother, or just a friend. If he starts getting his care from someone else, it felt like a slight, whether or not it was. But none of this was something I wanted to explain to Bill. He was too upset by being the object of passion. No need to bring psychology into it. And I definitely didn’t want to suggest that Suzanne’s confrontation had probably been because he’d given me a special assignment last week, and now she thought I was a threat to her love life. That would crush him with embarrassment and make things strained between us. I wouldn’t give Suzanne the satisfaction of messing up my good thing. I certainly didn’t need Bill feeling more uncomfortable around me at a time like this, knowing the touchy subjects I wanted to discuss with him.

“Well, good riddance to her anyway,” I said, a bit unfairly.

Bill was happy that I was still on his side. “If you hear any rumors…”

“I’ll squash the ones I can and let you know about any others. But I don’t think you have to worry. Everyone knows she’s flaky.”

“Flaky? Well, there’s something off there, anyway. I wish I could stop worrying about it.”

“Apparently in two weeks she’ll be gone.” To divert his attention, which could be so easily preoccupied with strangeness, I said, “Now, let’s talk about my research from last week.”

“Yes, we have a little ordinary work to catch up on, but not too much,” he told me, handing me two tapes of dictation. “Two new estate clients this week and a little bit of discovery due on Thursday. These are just some status letters, no rush. Later today is fine.”

I took the tapes and looked from them to him. Was I being put off? “Okay. Did you have a chance to look at those articles this weekend?”

Bill straightened his desk as he spoke to me, which was a comical endeavor because it’s quite a trick to straighten a desk that is already about as straight as it can possibly be. To do it, he had to pick things up and replace them exactly where they were before. Sometimes he had to create a little mess in order to clean it, like dropping some paper clips on his desktop, putting them in a line, and then putting them away again. He fiddled and scooted and twitched. I supposed that it was more of his upset over Suzanne’s strange behavior.

And as he did all this, he answered my question. “Yes, I did. Yes, I looked them over quite carefully. And it seemed for a while that there was something there…something noteworthy.”

“What?” I pressed. I didn’t know what he had found that was noteworthy. Aside from our list of dead clients, there wasn’t anything in those materials that was even very interesting.

“The patterns, the statistics. You know I have a undergraduate degree in accounting?”

I did know it. The degree was on the wall, along with his law degree.

“I took a good look at the statistics. The mean, the average, of the deaths that you listed. Simple stuff, really. Just the information you found and a few additional mathematical calculations. A sort of word problem. I’m fairly convinced that we have a quirk in the statistical analysis that might draw the eye but doesn’t have statistical significance.”

I gave my head a shake to show him I didn’t understand what he meant.

“What’s your favorite food?” he asked.

“Uh, spaghetti, I guess.”

“All right, spaghetti. If you went outside today and polled ten people about their favorite foods, they might all say that their favorite food is spaghetti. But you would be mistaken to believe that meant spaghetti was everyone’s favorite food, even though you could technically say that ten out of ten people list it as their favorite. You found a quirky sample, but not a statistically significant one. Poll another two hundred people, and then you’d start to have some results that have statistical significance.

“Six women committing suicide is not significant within the entire population of people who commit suicide. It was a quirk that you encountered in this sample, but your data-gathering technique had a bias. You were only looking for women who were dead, to start with.”

I put up a hand to stop him from yammering on about statistics. “Bill, I wouldn’t look for a sample of suicide victims among living people.”

“But you see what I mean.”

“Not really.”

“I’m sorry; I know it’s complex. The short version is every year in the Kansas City area, well over a thousand people inflict injury on themselves. Some of them end up dead, and some don’t. But six women over ten years in a city of this size? It’s so insignificant as to not even make a spike in the data.”

I had worked around attorneys long enough to know that their speech was littered with unnecessary hooey. Listen hard to them, and you’ll find that they’d never say in six words what can be said in sixty. Yet Bill had never tried this on me before. Frankly I didn’t care for it. “Bill, the metro area has half a million people in it,” I pointed out. “In the past ten years, at least six widows of late middle age have killed themselves—and they were all our clients.”

“Yes,” Bill agreed, “which shows an odd quirk in the data that must be a factor that we haven’t yet considered.”

“What could we have not considered, factor-wise?”

Bill was remarkably able to glean my question from that mush. “It could be anything, any remote influencing factor. Our location. The socioeconomic status of our clientele. There’s a good chance that, since our clients have usually been recommended by other clients, we’re getting a biased population, because this means most of our client base come from very similar backgrounds and cultures.”

“Oh.” I looked at the tapes in my hands. I felt something like devastation. It seemed like an inappropriate way to react, but I couldn’t help it. My boss, my Bill, the best boss ever, was trying to dupe me with numbers and jargon. Why would he do that, I wondered. Why on earth.

“Statistics are highly sensitive,” said Bill, sensing my disappointment. “You never know what little factor can sneak in there and mess with them. That’s why advertisers find them so easy to manipulate.”

I didn’t know how else to approach this except to be honest. The time for cajoling had passed as soon as Bill decided to lay a big fat lie on me. I asked, “Why are you doing this?” He pretended to not understand my meaning. I said, “Why are you trying to bullshit me?”

My use of a vulgar term made him draw back in surprise. He wasn’t a prude when it came to swearing, but he and I had a good enough relationship that my own swearing habit seldom came up when we were together.

Still he didn’t answer. I pressed him. “Bill, you’ve never done this to me before. If you really know something about this, I wish you’d tell me.”

“Something about what?”

“The suicide widows. Why they come to this firm. Why they die a couple years later.”

“I can’t tell you why. I don’t know why people kill themselves. You can’t make a person kill herself.” He gestured sharply at the spot on his desk where my stacks of research had rested last Friday—even though the papers were no longer there. “This research tells us that, if nothing else, suicide isn’t anybody’s fault and that no one can be blamed for a person—“

“The research,” I interrupted, “says nothing useful about why six women clients of this firm killed themselves. Do you understand why I’m focused on this?”

He harrumphed.

“What did you want me to find, when you sent me out of the office for two days? What information were you really looking for, Bill? Because I didn’t find anything that answered my question. Pre-retirement age widows who are clients of this firm tend to kill themselves. Why?”

He nodded toward the long-gone stack of papers and said, “There’s plenty of information.”

“There’s nothing there,” I reminded him. “It’s all smoke and mirrors. Just like your little speech about statistics. Which I assume was meant to distract me from something.”

“Distract you?”

“Yes. You’re familiar with the term, right? Distraction? Subterfuge? Obfuscation?” From my memory I pulled terms that I’d learned on The X-Files, the ultimate paranoia TV show, except maybe for that old series The Prisoner, but that one didn’t teach me as many words.

I said, “Based on the statistical crap you’re throwing at me, I’m starting to think my two days in the library were nothing but a diversion.”

“Are you insinuating something, Carol? Why don’t you just come out and say it, if you have something to say? If you…” and here he paused, looking wildly around his desk as if he’d lost something, “if you’d like to imply that somehow I have the power to guide a woman to overdose herself to death. Like I have suicide telepathy or something. Maybe that’s what you’d like to say.”

“Can I ask you something strange, Bill? Were you at my house this weekend?”

“Was I what?” He pulled his hands into his lap, almost protectively as if I’d punched him in the stomach. “What do you mean?”

“It’s a simple question. Did you come to my house this past weekend?”

“No. I didn’t. Why would you think that?”

“Because someone was at my house, who hates disorder almost as much as you.”

“No. I wasn’t at your house. As I told you, I was rather busy this weekend.”

“I doubt that Suzanne’s making a pass at you took the entire weekend.”

“What reason would I have to come to your house anyway?” When I didn’t answer his question right away, he folded his arms and glared at me. Bill was not a stupid man. He could make as many leaps of logic as I could. “Well Carol, we have some work to catch up on. If you’re not too nervous around me to work, that is.”

I pressed my lips hard together, turned on my heel and left him. This is really what chaps your hide about working in an office. Regardless of what happens, be it disaster or tragedy or serial killer, everyone is still expected to get their work done.

*****

I tried to type the dictation tapes and couldn’t even concentrate on that. I couldn’t focus on my computer’s monitor. I couldn’t make myself pay attention to the morning’s mail.

What I felt was not comfortable or even familiar; I had reached what I think they called a fork in the road. I had to make a decision, and it wasn’t an easy one, not like would I rather watch The Inspector Lynley Mysteries or Angel, Season 5 this weekend, not like would I rather paint my kitchen orange or green.

No, this was would I rather press the issue of the dead women or not. Bill Nestor was lying to me, but I didn’t know why. In life sometimes it is okay to know that people are lying to you. I’ve been lied to before and known that it was done in an effort to protect me from something far less pleasant; hell, sometimes it is pleasant and preferable to hear lies. Like: “No, honey, I never even notice other women.” Or, “Gosh, Kay, I thought your poem about playing volleyball for God was terrific.” Or, “Of course, the employees here wash their hands before serving my meals.” Even the time I spent in philosophy class learning about the value of veracity didn’t convince me otherwise. Lies have their good side as well as their bad.

I was very upset, and the root of it all was not whether I was being told lies or whether I was involved in some vast evil conspiracy of widow-killing, but whether I was obligated to do anything about it all. I was just a secretary, for crying out loud. If a woman wants to take the world in her hands, she probably does not become a secretary. We secretaries like to do our typing and then go home, leaving the big decisions and the big responsibilities to someone else. I wanted to do that then. My mistake in this whole mess was getting involved. How to become un-involved, at this juncture, was the biggest, most unfathomable question in my mind.

In my distress over the chasm between me and Bill, I forgot completely about Suzanne. So she had quit; I didn’t really care. So she had declared her intentions to Bill—big deal. That was only news to him. Lucille caught my attention by the reception desk as I listlessly wandered off to lunch at my allotted time and said, “Ah can’t believe that Suzanne’s quitting. What happened?”

I dared not utter a word of what I knew to Lucille, or the knowledge would spread throughout the office at goddess-speed. I was noncommittal in my response. “I haven’t talked to her.”

“She’s not even working today.” Lucille looked miffed. “So much for two weeks’ notice, if you don’t even bother to work them.”

I considered the humiliation I might feel in Suzanne’s place and didn’t find it so strange. I wouldn’t want to face Bill Nestor, either, if I’d been the one rejected. Charlene Templeton appeared unexpectedly behind me, and Lucille turned the same question to her. “Do y’all know why Suzanne quit?”

“I only knew she was unhappy,” replied Charlene, who appeared to be genuinely saddened. “I hate that. I just hate it when we lose good people who have been here for so long. It’s a blow to the whole firm.”

I exchanged a glance with Lucille, whose thoughts had apparently gone the same direction as mine. Charlene caught it and asked, “What?”

I admitted, “We, well, I, anyway…I didn’t think you and Suzanne got along very well.”

Charlene stared at me. “Why would you think that?”

Helpless in the face of all this denial I swung back to Lucille, looking for help.

“Well, y’all are always sniping at each other,” answered the brazen Lucille. The term “y’all” softens a lot of the force behind a phrase, and I wished I knew how to use it.

Charlene gave a slow shake of her head. “No, that’s just how Suzanne talks. It’s all right. I feel sorry for her. She’s had a hard time. I know she’s unhappy.” Perplexed still by our behavior, Charlene walked past us and went to the elevators. “Are you coming, Carol?”

“Yeah, not just yet.” Once Charlene was gone, I looked back at Lucille and said, “I can’t cope with magnanimous people.”

“Ah think you’d get a different story from Suzanne,” was Lucille’s response to that. Her eyes were glittering. “There’s unhappy, and then there’s just plain catty. We’re shed of her, whatever the reason, and Ah’m not sorry.”

*****

After the longest damned day of my whole stint at MBS&K, during which time dragged so badly that I thought I might have actually died and been consigned to Hell, Bill poked his head out his office door and said, “Carol, can you come in here for a minute?”

I hadn’t seen him since that morning. I took his stack of letters, larger than usual because it contained makeup work from those two days I was out the week before, and one of his favorite pens, and went into his office. Once inside I set the letters on his credenza and said, “If you hurry up and sign those, I can have them out in the mail by 5:00.”

“Just forget the letters for a minute.” He didn’t take the pen from me. He didn’t close the door, either. Leaning on his credenza, he folded his arms over his chest. Not defensively this time, but shyly, like a man who just didn’t know what to do with his hands. “I’m sorry about this morning.”

Pensively I waited.

“I was wrong to speak to you that way. You’ve got to understand. I’ve been very concerned about this situation, and you know that I don’t cope well with things that feel threatening.”

I surveyed his office and saw a perfect line of large paperclips end to end across his desk, and I wondered how many times that day he had placed them, and how long it had taken him to break out of the cycle. He didn’t miss that and tried to laugh it off, shrugging his shoulders. “All right,” he said, “we have a situation. It might help for us to talk about it. Outside the office, even. If you didn’t have any dinner plans, I could—”

Suddenly Lucille’s voice crackled on the overhead saying, “Carol Frank, call the operator please.”

Bill rolled his eyes, moving toward his desk. “I think she likes to hear herself over that intercom,” he said, almost coaxing a smile from me. Pressing the button for his speakerphone, he called the front desk and said, “Carol’s with me, Lucille. What do you need?”

Lucille’s voice over the speakerphone sounded delighted. “Detective Haglund is here to see her.”

Bill’s eyes flashed at me.

“Tell him I’ll be up in a second,” I said, returning my boss’s gaze anxiously. Once we were disconnected from Lucille, I said, “This is unexpected.”

“Did you call him?” Bill asked sharply. “Is he out there with a search warrant? Or maybe a warrant for my arrest?”

I glanced sharply at his office door, which was still wide open to an office that was still relatively full of our coworkers. I fiercely whispered, “Stop it, Bill. I haven’t called anyone.”

“I wondered today how long it would be, before your detective boyfriend heard about our research project.” He shook his head at me, disappointed in a way he’d never been before. His fingers reached for the paperclips again, to move them into a new line, and his body was tense like a bridge cable. “Thank you for your faith and loyalty, Carol. I guess you should go talk to the detective.”

“Bill, you know that I’ve gone out with Gus a few times. Socially. I’m sure that’s all it is.”

“Of course, socially,” said Bill.

“We don’t talk about work,” I said.

“Of course.”

“Bill.” I forced him to look at me in return. “It’s social.”

But the color was gone from his face. My stressing to him that the whole arrangement between Gus and me was extremely social in nature had done nothing, except assure him that I was fully aware of something extremely anti-social going on.

“I’ll go find out what he wants. I’ll tell him we’re still working.”

“No,” snapped Bill. This was the first time he’d ever spoken to me that way. He spat a hard little laugh out at me. “Go on and talk to your detective. By all means, go.”

*****

My Gus was all smiles, all big, placating hand gestures. “I know, I should have called, but I thought I might surprise you.”

“It is a surprise,” I said.

He read my face and looked apologetic. “No, I’ve caught you at a bad time. Look, sorry, I thought I would take you to dinner. You know, like we talked about last week. I have a little something to celebrate, and I want to celebrate it with you.”

“She’s about done for the day,” said Lucille quite loudly. “You can go, can’t you, Carol?”

“It’s okay,” Gus assured me. This was perhaps the first moment we shared that wasn’t completely compatible. “We can do it another night.”

“No, wait.” I caught his arm. “No, I’d like to go. I was just concentrating on a project ,and you surprised me. I didn’t mean to be weird.”

“Stop being so weird, Carol My-Last-Name-is-Frank,” said Gus. He looked very happy. “Finish up whatever you need to finish, and I’ll just wait out here, if that’s okay with the lovely Lucille.”

Of course, it was okay with the lovely Lucille. After giving her that descriptive name, he could have probably slapped me around in front of her without causing any consternation. I parked him in a lobby chair and promised to be back in ten minutes. As I left them, I heard Lucille ask, “Where are y’all going to take Carol to dinner?” She could ask bold and nosy questions because of her accent and the “y’all” thing.

I hurried back to Bill’s office to tell him that it was just a dinner invitation. But Bill was gone.

*****

Gus walked me across the street to a fragrant and atmospheric Italian restaurant that was very popular with my office crowd. This thoughtful gesture kept me near my car. In fact, most everything Gus did that evening was thoughtful, but Bill’s behavior had me preoccupied enough that I, for example, did not notice until the pizza was placed in front of me that Gus had preordered for us. Our food was ready as soon as we were seated in our cozy, red leather booth. I looked up and expressed my gratitude; women like men who think a little bit ahead. I’ll resist the temptation to compare him yet again to my stupid ex-husband, because so far Gus had managed to trump him in nearly every category.

“Here, eat.” Gus served a slice to me, its cheese leaving delectable ropes from pan to spatula to plate. “Hope I remembered the kind you like.”

“Am I on some kind of reality television program?” I asked, picking up a fork. “Because I didn’t know human males could be this terrific.”

“I’m not terrific,” Gus said. He looked flattered, though.

“Oh, honey, if you’re not, then there’s no such thing.” I scalded my mouth on pizza, then whistled and grimaced and gulped iced tea. I didn’t recall if I’d eaten breakfast. Gus was more careful than me, and he seemed to think my gluttony was amusing and my punishment deserved. I smirked at him, then asked, “Okay, so what are we celebrating?”

Gus set down his fork and smiled broadly, cat-swallowing-canary style. “Today,” he announced, “I took eight old suicide cases to Sergeant Paige and asked her to review them. When she was finished, she agreed with me that we should open an investigation, and I have been made the lead detective. It’s my baby.

My whole anxious, unhappy day came whooshing back to me. “Eight? Meaning Adrienne and eight others?”

“That’s right. In the Jackson County coroner’s database, I’ve found eight suicides in the last fifteen years that all match the MO of Adrienne Maxwell’s.”

“That MO being what, exactly?”

“Death by overdose of painkillers and sleeping medication. All of these women lived alone, had been widowed for two to four years, were roughly the same age, and, this is the big thing, they all decided to off themselves on a Saturday night.”

“Is it…” I hesitated to even say the words. “Is it a serial murder case, Gus?”

His eyes gleamed. “I’m not supposed to use that term. But everybody’s thinking it. This is big for me, Carol. Hell, it’s big for Kansas City. But I’ve got to be careful. None of those eight deaths were considered suspicious at the time because nobody was looking any further than the current death. They were all ruled by the coroner as death by suicide. So what happens if I discover a link between them and it’s something that the coroner’s office or the previous investigators never picked up? You have to be careful not to step on anyone’s toes, if you want to come through something like this looking good.”

“As if you could ever look bad,” I said wistfully.

“Are you sad?” Gus asked with sudden concern.

I felt very sad, it was true. I told him that I was fine. I asked, “What kind of connection are you looking for?”

“It could be anything.” He continued to peer at me. “It could be that they all used the same gardening company or something.”

“How could a gardening company cause a woman to overdose on pills? How could anyone?”

“I guess that’s something I have to discover.”

“Nine women,” I said, staring down at my plate with my appetite gone.

“This is upsetting you. You think I’m being opportunistic?”

“No, of course not.” I tried to smile. My face wouldn’t play along. Gus did something then that almost broke my heart, although I think it was an unconscious gesture. He mimicked my facial expression thoughtfully, as if he’d like to take my misery into himself. Well, that was quite enough of that. I certainly wasn’t going to let this example of terrific male perfection believe that he was hurting me. I told him at least part of the truth when I said, “It’s a shock to hear about real death happening to real people. I’m anesthetized by television detectives, and I never expected to learn about serial murder involving someone I actually know.”

Of course, Gus thought I meant Adrienne Maxwell when I said that. He took on an attitude of apologetic teasing, trying to lighten my mood. “I’m really sorry. That’s the hardened-and-bitter cop talking there.”

This guy never stopped surprising me with the same damned trick: he remembered things that I said. Like his killer smile, this talent seemed like a simple thing until he struck with it, sending me reeling. If Bill Nestor hadn’t racked up a considerable amount of devotion in the Carol Frank Book of Loyalties, I would have spilled everything to Gus, right then and there.

“God, what did they do to you at that office today?” Gus asked me pointedly. “No offense, Carol, but you look absolutely wrung out.”

“Yeah, it was a rough one,” I admitted. “But office work is so boring. Don’t let me start blabbing about it.”

“And then I come at you with serial murder. Nice combination. I am sorry.”

“I really am interested,” I insisted. “I do want to know. But what I’m accustomed to are TV killers who like to leave elaborate clues behind, like puzzle games, and the detective has to solve riddles or decipher codes, and then there’s a game of cat-and-mouse and probably some sexy but fairly twisted romance thrown in. Plus I know the victims are paid actors who can invite all their friends over to see them die on DVD. So you see how it’s different.”

“But I like to think of myself as a sexy but fairly twisted romantic,” said Gus. He waited for me to smile, and I couldn’t help myself. Bolstered by that, he went on to assure me. “If it makes you feel any better, I don’t think the women had really bad deaths. If someone really is coercing them into overdosing, it’s happening in a relatively gentle way—otherwise someone would have cried foul a long time ago. Assuming that another person is involved in the deaths, these circumstances remind me more than anything else of the few cases of assisted suicide that I’ve seen, where the ‘killer’ believes he’s doing the victim a favor.”

A caring killer. Just someone doing a favor. Well, great. Up until now I’d been keeping my suspicions at bay with the belief that Bill Nestor would never harm another human being, but murder as a perceived act of kindness put a whole new spin on things. I laughed, sounding brittle in my own ears. “A favor? And he believes this strongly enough to convince nine women to overdose on pills?”

“Well, that’s the million dollar question, isn’t it?” Gus decided that I was recovered enough that he could eat his dinner. “So tell me, what a TV detective would say about solving this one? I like the line about the game of cat-and-mouse.”

“You’re so sheltered, Gussie. After you mention a game of cat-and-mouse, then you have to ask, dead seriously, ‘But which one of us is the cat?’ and then we fade to black. How are you going to proceed with your investigation?”

In his exuberance, Gus couldn’t help but continue. “Some of the case files are rather old. They’re just suicide files, so they won’t be very big, and the remaining relatives might be hard to find. I don’t know how long it will take. The Hooper case is ten years old, and the Voigt case is nine…”

Hooper and Voigt. My Gus was practically standing on the firm’s doorstep, warrant in hand.

“Oh, God. I’m sorry. I have to go,” I said, scooting abruptly out of our booth.

“What?”

“I forgot something I have to do at work. It’s very important.”

“Really?”

Oh, I almost couldn’t bear leaving him like that. He looked so sweet and confused. I reached out to put my hand on his cheek and said, “Can I call you tomorrow?”

“Did I do something wrong?”

“It’s work,” I tried to assure him, though I didn’t succeed. “Thank you for dinner.”

“Carol!” He tried to rise to come after me.

“Tomorrow!” I called back over my shoulder.

I went back to the office. No Bill. So I went home, my phone in my hand as I drove, and throughout the evening, I repeatedly called Bill’s cell phone and home phone numbers. I left messages until his voice mail was full. I waited up until after one that morning for him to call me back, but he never did.

Chapter Thirteen

Bill was not at work on Tuesday.

My boss Bill was not a guy who just didn’t show up at work. He craved structure too much. Every day since I’d come to work for him, he’d either been at work between 7:30 and 8:00 a.m. or he’d left me a voice mail saying where he was, if we hadn’t already discussed it the day before. I always knew that if he ever did a no-show, it was because he was in trouble. His car had wrecked or his heart had failed or he’d been abducted by aliens. That kind of trouble. Or this kind, the kind we had now. Dead clients and suspicion. And a detective about to discover the things that I already knew.

When an attorney produces estate documents for a client, the attorney’s name is not necessarily anywhere on those documents. In the state of Missouri, and I assume in most other states, the attorney is not required to sign off or register any sort of acknowledgment. Of course an attorney can put his or her name all over these documents if he or she wishes to do so, but it’s not required, and Bill was never nuts about putting his name anywhere it didn’t have to be.

I could have Bill put together a last will and testament for me, and I would get the original document to put in my safe deposit box. Five years down the road, you might be hard-pressed to figure out who had done the work for me, particularly if I were dead and therefore unable to chat about it. And nowhere on my death certificate would it say, “Bill Nestor was this woman’s lawyer” or anything like that. The path to finding out who prepared my will would be a little thornier than that. My family might be able to say, “Oh, sure, we happen to know that Carol used Bill,” or you might find a canceled check that showed I paid MBS&K for Bill’s time. You might find a business card somewhere in my personal effects.

Witness signatures might be another way to discover where a will was created. Wills required two witnesses and a notary public to sign along with you, and at our firm, the witnesses and the notary were typically whoever had the time to hurry into a meeting and sign. The wills of these women were produced so far apart in time that there was no guarantee that the same witness or notary signatures would be used. Turnover at a law firm is frequent. However, when a witness signed a will, he or she included an address, not usually the business address but a home address. An industrious detective would only have to track down the will’s witnesses or notary public to discover where the will had been produced.

The next question became, then, whether the industrious detective, meaning Gus, would think to look at the wills of these women. If he didn’t, he might not discover their connection of sharing an estate lawyer for several days or even weeks. And if he did, it might take him about half an hour.

My roundabout point here is that I didn’t know how much time we had before Gus found us out. I don’t know who would think to find a connection based on who produced someone’s will—I’d never seen that on television. If I were a detective, I might be looking at the beneficiaries but not the mostly unrelated lawyer.

Assuming that all these suicide widows had the same lawyer, that is. Nothing said that Gus’s list of widows matched mine. Yeah, right. Of course it didn’t match mine. He had extras. He had women that I’d missed.

But Bill was not at work when I arrived, and nothing on his calendar indicated that he had a reason to be absent. I gave him some wiggle room. I wasted an hour at my desk, hoping he’d turn up eventually But when he did not, I called his cell phone again and his home phone again, and I was met with the same dead ends I’d encountered the night before. If he was screening his calls, he knew it was me, and he just didn’t want to talk to me. Either that, or he was dead.

Sitting at my desk, I made a plan. First, I would go to Bill’s apartment and see if I could find him. I should have done it the night before, I realized, but I’d been operating under the assumption that unchangeable Bill-Law was still in effect, and that I would surely be seeing him in the morning. So, live and learn. I’d go check there. If he was home and just avoiding me, I’d tell him what Gus knew and that time was of the essence. I would recommend that he and I meet with Gus and decide on the best course of action to clear Bill’s name.

If he was not there, then I supposed I’d better just tell Gus by myself. Then maybe he and I could meet with the Quality Control people here. Maybe Donna, my supervisor, could advise us on the steps we should take. I thought that if we could all just share our information freely and in the spirit of good faith, we could avoid all manner of trouble. I felt in my gut that there had to be, had to be, a reasonable explanation for the suicide widows.

*****

I often wished I had a television job, where I could just stroll out of work whenever the plot required it. On television shows, characters with grunge jobs (meaning those that aren’t the point of the entire program, unlike doctor, lawyer and cop shows) always have some kind of job but you seldom see them do much actual work; TV-show jobs like this are character-defining (He’s a garbage truck driver!) or comedic devices (She’s a sexy housemaid!) or just handy sets (He’s a waiter at the diner where all the characters hang out). Since the characters and, obviously, their bosses, all know how unimportant work actually is to the storyline, they have almost unlimited freedom to chat and meander, come and go at convenient times, and use their place of business for fabulous parties or sexy encounters.

But I worked in a real office under the supervision of Junior Gestapo Brent, who was unfortunately sitting behind Donna’s desk when I hurried over to tell her that I was going to Bill’s place. Junior Gestapo Brent liked to sit at Donna’s desk when she wasn’t using it, because then he could dream about the day he took over.

Seeing his greedy little weasel-face made me stutter. I caught myself and said as frankly as possible (for my last name is, after all, Frank), “Bill is home sick today, and I have to go pick some things up from him. I’ll be back in an hour or so.”

“What now?” Brent picked up a pen and clicked it thoughtfully.

If Donna had been there, I would have been more forthcoming. Donna, I trusted. This guy, no. I wouldn’t have told Junior Gestapo Brent anything, not even under torture. I repeated what I had said before, slowing down a little to account for his mental deficiency.

“Bill is sick?” The question expressed his doubt that an attorney would ever become ill. In my experience, attorneys became ill just as much as the next person, but they didn’t believe in staying home sick. They liked to come to the office, infect everyone else, cough loudly and distractingly, moan about how sick they were, and continue to charge the clients for their time.

“Yes.” I summoned patience because a creature like Junior Gestapo Brent could sense how badly I needed something and then proportionally invert how much time it took for me to get it.

“What does he have?”

“I don’t know. But he asked me to come fetch some things from his apartment.”

“What things?”

“Work, I assume. I didn’t ask.”

Clicka, clicka, went the pen. Junior Gestapo Brent asked, “Are you sure this is something that you need to make a trip for?”

“He asked me to come.”

“Maybe I should just call Bill and find out the details.”

Why, that little bastard. Was he actually suggesting that I was lying about it? My boss is home sick, so I’ll take this opportunity to go shopping and say it was a work-related run? Donna wouldn’t do this to me. I had been here almost three years with not a single smudge on my work record, and now this. I could barely keep myself from flinging my purse at him.

Ah, but observe the seasoned secretary at work. Long hours under the tutelage of a psychotic sadist had taught me how to bear up under asinine behavior. I recited Bill’s cell phone number aloud and invited him to yes, please, call Bill and clear up any uncertain details. I was bluffing, of course, but I didn’t think this one had the testicular fortitude to call a bluff.

Junior Gestapo Brent did not call Bill. Of course, he wouldn’t. That would require him to do something besides bully me. He approached this from a different angle. “When will you be back?”

“Ten.” I had no idea if this were true. I didn’t care. In fact I was beginning to wonder why I’d stopped to ask permission in the first place. If I vanished from my desk for three hours, I wasn’t positive anyone would notice, and if they did, I could just say I’d been in the bathroom.

“Weren’t you out a couple days last week?” The Junior Gestapo agent asked me sharply.

I cocked an eyebrow at him. For God’s sake, I was worried about my boss and not in any shape to be the practice dummy for Brent’s employee-interrogation techniques.

“I have to go,” I said, and turned away.

“Carol…” came his voice, as I had known it would. “Carol…”

“Talk to me when I get back.”

*****

For the second time ever, I came to my boss’s apartment, which against all odds looked even uglier in sunny daylight than it had at night. I found a parking place next to his BMW and rode the elevators up to his floor, my hand on my cell phone in case I needed to call an ambulance. I had the half-formed idea in the back of my mind that Bill had done himself harm. Barring that, I hoped urgently that he would be home and let me help. My job, after all, was to make his life a little easier. I’d always been able to do that before.

He was home. When Bill opened his door, he was physically intact. He was dressed for work in his never-changing gray-suit uniform, but he was rumpled and wrinkled, his hair mussed, his face ashen. He looked awful. I would have bet a hundred bucks that he had not changed his clothes since yesterday.

“So you know I’ve been calling?” I asked with irritation. “What, are you not speaking to me now?”

“I thought you didn’t want any contact with me outside of work hours.”

“Don’t be a baby,” I said, “and don’t lie to me anymore.”

“What do you want me to do? You think I’m killing my clients.”

“I was worried about you.” I pushed past him into his stale little set of rooms and flung my purse and keys onto his bare coffee table where they crashed and clunked disconcertingly. I could tell he didn’t like them there and that he itched to clear the table of the clutter. Insolently I sat on his plastic-covered couch. “Sit down, for heaven’s sake,” I told him. “When did I ever accuse you of harming anyone?”

“It’s not a matter of accusations. It’s in the questions you ask me. It’s in your face.”

“I have a strong suspicion that something unsavory is happening, that’s all.”

“And that it’s my doing.”

“And that you’re involved, to the extent that these women all came to you. Yes.”

“Well, at least that’s out in the open.” Bill sat down as I’d requested, finally, but he reached forward and pushed my purse and keys to the floor. I allowed him that. “So why are you here?”

“Because you won’t take my calls. I’ve been trying to reach you since last night.”

“What’s the point? I know what you’re doing.”

“I’m doing my job. Or I would be, if you’d let me. I’m trying to make things easier for you.”

A harsh laugh erupted from Bill, and he began plucking at his shirtsleeves.

“We need to talk to Gus Haglund together. It’s better if he finds out from us what’s happening, rather than finding it out on his own.”

“Pray tell, how is Detective Haglund going to find it out on his own?” From the look on his face, I gathered he already knew what I was going to say.

And I didn’t know how else to approach this now except to be honest. “Including Adrienne Maxwell, Detective Haglund has found nine suicides with identical M.O.’s in Kansas City coroner’s records for the last fifteen years. He’s reopened their case files, or opened a whole new case file, or maybe both, I’m not sure. His sergeant has assigned him to investigate them, and they’re not saying the words out loud but they are looking at it like a serial murder case.”

Bill stared at me. Even his hands stopped straightening shirtsleeves. I’d rarely seen him so still. I held his gaze, and after a few moments he said, “You’ve given your list to Detective Haglund.”

“No, I didn’t. I didn’t tell him anything that we’ve discussed. Detective Haglund found his own list in the course of investigating the Maxwell case. But…” I bit my lip, unsure of how to say this. “I inadvertently may have given him the idea.”

“Inadvertently.”

“Hey, you told me to grill him about Adrienne Maxwell’s case.”

“No, I did not tell you to ‘grill’ him.”

“God, let’s not bicker over terms. How long do you suppose it would take a smart detective to figure out the connection between them?”

“You should tell me, Carol. You’re the detective expert.”

“Don’t you understand what I’m saying? Detective Haglund is forming a list of suicides. He is investigating them. And I have my own list which I feel obligated to share with him, since my own more-or-less innocent questions are what started this mess, but I didn’t want to share it with him until I talked to you.”

“Why do you have to tell him anything?” asked Bill. “What business is it of yours or mine?”

“That’s a very naïve way to think,” I warned him. “He’ll find the connection.”

“You don’t know that. You don’t know that his list matches yours.”

“I know that three of the names do. We’ve got Adrienne Maxwell, and last night he mentioned Alice Hooper and Bonita Voigt.”

“I knew it,” Bill accusingly cried, jerking his eyes away from me as if he could no longer bear my presence. “I knew you went with him last night to talk about this.”

“Yes, but it’s not like you think, damn it!” For a moment I rubbed my forehead. There was no reason not to be calm. I had found Bill. I could make this work. This was no different than getting him ready to appear before a judge in one of his cases. “You and I must go together and show him our list. It will look better that way. We’ll be cooperating.”

“It’ll look better than what?” asked Bill, turning his eyes back to mine with a considerable fire of desperation behind them. “Than nine dead women? Than my dead clients? Or the copies of the notes I took for their files that have all their personal information including where they keep their spare keys and whether they have attack dogs? The fact that I haven’t noticed in fifteen years that an unusual number of my clients eat pills until they die? My inability to have an alibi for any night of my life because I’m always alone? My history of mental illness?”

At the end of that tirade, I had to force myself to relax. Tension had seeped into me like ice water pouring. I mustn’t patronize him. He wasn’t stupid. “Yes,” I said, “for all those reasons, you’ve got to talk to him.”

“So he can figure out what I’ve done,” Bill said in desolation. “How I’ve managed to cause nine women to die.”

After a serial killer is captured or killed, our media always tracks down his acquaintances, friends if he had any, family members if they’ll speak, and it’s always the same story. He was such a nice, quiet guy. Never caused trouble. Kind of a loner. Good member of the community. It’s never “Oh sure, you could tell just by lookin’ at him that he was running over virgins with a lawnmower.”

After Bill said those words to me, I had a bad moment where I thought he could have done it. If anyone really can force someone else into suicide, then Bill must be considered a possibility. For all the reasons he just listed, and for others. Like, why exactly had he come to my house last weekend—if indeed he had? And here I sat across from him in his maniacally neat living room, and he could do almost anything to me. I’d probably never see it coming.

The very next thing I thought was this: Bill was the best boss I’d ever had, and if he had to go to the electric chair, who was I supposed to work for? We’d had three peaceful years together. My nights and weekends were my own, not plagued by thoughts of attorneys shouting at me; I had no worries about being blamed for things that were someone else’s fault or no one’s fault at all, and experienced no weird sexual one-upmanship or tension. Everything was just about working well together and then getting paid, and then just being okay with that. If Gus and his reopened case were to suddenly disappear, could I go on working for Bill as if nothing had changed? We can forgive a lot from the people we really care about.

Nine dead women, I thought dismally. All my mother’s age. No, of course, ultimately I couldn’t live with it, tempting though it may have been.

Of course, Bill saw the moment when I seriously considered the possibility of his guilt. I’m not very good at hiding my thoughts, and Bill knew me well. He nodded sagely, watching his hands in his lap. “Do you think I have time to leave town?”

This was a moment to keep cool. I thought fast. “I’m sure you do. If you don’t waste too much time, you could probably be on the other side of the world before Gus figures it out.”

Don’t be startled at my agreeing with him. I knew very well that Bill Nestor was no more likely to travel to another country than he was to travel to the moon. Public transportation upset him badly; it was far too disorganized. All those disorganized people climbing in and out of the plane, leaving their things tucked haphazardly under their seats. What if a backpack strap flopped into the aisle and tripped the stewardess, and she fell into the drink cart and the plane crashed? What if all the overhead compartments came open and dumped luggage on everyone’s heads, and there were multiple concussions and the plane crashed? If he couldn’t drive somewhere in his car, he simply found a way not to go. I saw him shudder at the thought of flying away.

“Or I suppose you could drive somewhere,” I continued, “but in this country, you can’t hide. Everything’s on videotape. Everyone’s a detective. They’ll have your picture up on the news from here to Timbuktu; they’ll trace your credit cards and your car; they’ll hunt down every friend or relative you’ve ever had.”

“I suppose so,” he said. Of more concern to Bill would be the horror of staying in strange beds and eating in strange places. I knew he could cope with business travel because I’d sent him out of town often enough, but it was stressful for him, utterly exhausting if he had to be gone for more than a couple days. Rigidly straightening every room you enter is a tiring activity.

“But hiding will make you look guilty.”

“Guiltier than I already look? Is that possible?”

“Hold on. Just hold on a second.” A sigh heaved out of me of its own accord. “Bill, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Nobody’s even said for certain that there has been any wrongdoing.”

“Nobody needs to say it.”

“Let’s go together to meet with Detective Haglund and explain everything to him.”

“Turn myself in, you mean.”

“No, it would keep you from having to turn yourself in, Bill. It’s only if you run that things will begin to look really wrong.” That felt like a hollow statement in the face of everything already looking as wrong as it did.

“Are you patronizing me, Carol?” His mouth quirked into a weak smile.

“Maybe a little bit. I’m sorry, Bill, but what am I supposed to say? I’m trying to think of a way to make this go more easily for you. I’d like for you to let me do my job.”

“This isn’t really part of your job, though, is it?” For a few seconds we looked at each other, and I felt his assessment of me like more of that cold water that had been trying to seep into my veins. Bill had never regarded me without a certain baffled affection until these past couple days. I didn’t feel I deserved it, either, his sudden drama over what he saw as my awful betrayal. This mess was not my fault just because I was the one who had noticed it first. I was going out of my way to keep his situation under control.

Finally Bill asked, “Do you think they’ll beat me up? The police?”

“Beat you up? God, no! Why on earth would they do that? Besides, I’ll be with you the whole time. It’s just a meeting, Bill.”

“Like a lunch meeting,” he said wryly. “Would you like to call your detective now and set up a lunch meeting?”

“Sure, a lunch meeting.”

“Did we have any other appointments today?” he asked off-handedly. “I didn’t remember anything on the schedule.”

“No. Your calendar is clear today. Hand me my purse.”

He picked it up from the floor and passed it to me, and after I dug out my cell phone, I began searching through my purse for Gus’s business card. I hadn’t known him long enough to have phone numbers memorized, and besides, I’d never called him at the police station before. I found Gus’s card and concentrated on dialing, listening to the phone tree directing me on how to leave a message for Detective Haglund or how to have him paged. I watched out the window as Bill shuffled around the room behind me. He kept his distance, doing nothing to alarm me. I pressed the numbers to speak to a dispatcher or receptionist and waited while they paged Gus. “Yes, it’s urgent,” I said. I gave my name. I was on hold then, listening to a soft-rock station playing Simon & Garfunkel.

I stared out the bare window into the daylight. Bill didn’t have curtains on his windows, I supposed because he couldn’t stand the chance that the material wouldn’t fall evenly. Outside it was a clear and sunny day, and it was hard to believe I was discussing with Bill how to best go the police and admit our numerous connections to a possible serial murder case. I heard a jingling behind me and turned to look at Bill.

He gestured to the door and a set of keys gripped in his hand, and mouthed something about water.

Just then Gus’s voice was on the phone. “Carol?” he asked.

Bill pantomimed some strange motions that I believed were meant to show him tipping something onto something else.

“Hello, Carol?” Gus said again.

“Yeah, just a second,” I said to Gus.

To Bill, I said, “What?” and he said, “Watering the plants. Neighbor.” Then he turned and walked out his front door, leaving it wide open. He moved away and a second later, I heard him knock on the next door down the hall.

Gus asked, “Carol, is everything okay?”

“Gus, I need to see you. Bill and I both need to meet with you. It’s about Adrienne Maxwell.”

“Really? What’s happening?”

“It’s about your list of suicide widows.”

“Suicide widows?”

I had forgotten, that this was a term I’d only used between Bill and myself. “I have a list too,” I said. “Alice Hooper, Bonita Voigt, Wanda Breakers, Rose Ann Trask, Bryony Gilbert.”

On the other end Gus was silent for a few seconds, then he asked, “How did you know all those names?”

“They’re all Bill’s clients.”

“Bill? Your boss, Bill Nestor?”

“Yes, my boss Bill Nestor. I’m with him right now. I know this is going to sound obnoxious, but can you meet us? Can you come to Bill’s apartment? I’ll give you the address.” Out in the hallway, I heard a vague chiming sound. What was that, a doorbell? I had to concentrate to recall Bill’s street address.

To his credit, Gus overcame his confusion enough to sound businesslike with me. “Sure, sure.” He copied the address down as I recited it.

“Can you come soon? I’m not sure I can keep him still for very long.”

“Carol, you’re not there alone with him, are you?”

I ran my eyes over the apartment behind me, everything neat and sealed and clipped close. Moving to the open doorway, I looked into Bill’s hall, which was utterly empty.

“Carol?” Gus asked, his voice rising in concern. “Are you there right now?”

I stepped into the hall, looking wildly around. At the far end of the lifeless slate gray hallway, I heard the elevator door lurch closed.

“He’s leaving!” I shouted in disbelief, no longer actually speaking to Gus. “He’s going!”

I started to race for the elevator and then remembered my car keys—in case I had to do something like a TV detective and “follow that car,” so I rushed back into Bill’s apartment to get my purse and then I realized something. My keys weren’t in my purse. They’d been dropped to the floor when Bill couldn’t stand the sight of them on his table. And when Bill had left the apartment, the set of keys he’d held up to show me had been my own. He’d taken them.

Chapter Fourteen

Bill didn’t take my car. He only took my keys so I couldn’t use my car. He left his apartment building in his own BMW.

Much later, I learned that Gus ran Bill’s plates and put out an APB for the car, which was spotted (with Bill at the wheel) by three different intersections’ videocameras and found forty-five minutes later in the parking lot of a small local business that was unfortunately not under any sort of video surveillance. Bill was not with the car, obviously. Nearby where he’d abandoned it, there was a metro bus stop, but it was a busily bustling little area of Kansas City, Kansas and the bus was not the only direction he could have taken. Whatever direction that was, he’d managed to disappear for the time being.

I didn’t know about that at the time. All I knew was that I was stuck at Bill’s apartment building, numb with disbelief, waiting for police to show up. I didn’t even go back upstairs to Bill’s rooms, just sat in the lobby staring at my shoes. Outside I could see where I’d stood with Bill, trying to convince him that he did not need to scrape up the leaves that clogged the gutter.

Footsteps sounded on the tile floor of the lobby, and I looked up to see Gus and a uniformed officer. She was a young woman who observed me as one might observe a friend’s unattractive pet. You know, you have to be nice to it, but you don’t really want to touch it.

“Hi, Carol,” Gus said, stopping before me. His tone was gentle, his eyes kind and full of concern. But there was something else in his face as well, hectic and wild. “Are you okay?”

“I’m okay.”

“Good. You should come with us.”

*****

I was going to say that I wouldn’t bore you with the details about the day that followed, to make myself sound magnanimous. But to be honest, I don’t remember clearly enough to describe it all in any coherent detail. All I can say with any certainty is that I told Gus and then about two hundred other people how I came up with a list of suicide victims from Bill’s records, how I got from having a list to asking Bill to come forward so he’d look less suspicious, and how I’d managed to do this so badly that I’d scared him into running away. The authorities were alternately angry with me for different reasons. How could you have been so careless as to go to his apartment? And then, the very next question, How could you have just let him walk out the door?

I told the story to Gus in the middle of Bill Nestor’s apartment. Then I told it to his supervisor, the gargantuan Sergeant Paige, who didn’t look like any real human woman had ever looked. She was like a middle-aged Barbie doll incarnate—boobs, hair and all—and was probably 6 feet, 3 inches tall. I spoke with Sergeant Paige in an interview room at the Kansas City Police Department. Gus stood nearby, in what I hope was a protective manner.

“Do you know where he is?” the statuesque Sergeant Paige asked. “Where he may have gone? We have units outside both his apartment and your law firm. Where else should we look? I understand from your supervisors and Detective Haglund that William Nestor is a fairly private man and that you are the only one who has a clear idea of his patterns.”

“His patterns?” Yes, this was feeling more and more like a bad dream. I think it was when she called him “William Nestor” that my feelings of guilt and horror began to overwhelm me. I said, “I need coffee.”

“I’ll get it,” said Gus, my hunky knight in shining armor. “Take a deep breath, Carol, and go over what’s happened recently. We need to know where he is. We think you’ll probably be able to help us with that. Now, you think it over, and I’ll be right back with an espresso.”

You see, that’s why he was not hard-boiled: because they served espresso at the police station. MBS&K didn’t even have an espresso machine, but the cops had one? Gus left me with Sergeant Paige. I watched him go, and then I looked to his boss. “This is the strangest thing that’s ever happened to me. I’m sorry if I act like a flake.”

She didn’t look any less threatening, but she said, “If it makes you feel any better, I think we can take him without any violence. If you can just let us know where to find him.”

“Give me a minute. Let me think.” But I couldn’t think. I was worried. I said, “Bill Nestor is not a bad man. You don’t have to ‘take him’ at all. He just acted as the attorney for those women. It doesn’t have to mean anything. There are sixty people working at that law firm.”

Sergeant Paige’s expression did not change. How many of those sixty people, she was thinking, had ever met these clients? How many of the sixty had been at the firm for fifteen years? How many of these sixty people had turned to run as soon as the police were called into the matter? Or maybe she wasn’t thinking those things. Maybe I was the one who couldn’t stop thinking them.

“Easy there,” said Sergeant Paige. Perhaps she saw I was on the verge of hyperventilating.

“I can’t come up with anything.” I was referring to places Bill might be.

“Detective Haglund,” Paige said, seeing Gus return with my espresso. “Stay with her. See if you can’t calm her down and get some place names from her.”

The door to the interview room closed, and I was able to gulp half the espresso and resisted the temptation to begin sobbing. Crying wasn’t going to solve any problems, and it would just make Gus uncomfortable. Gus knelt in front of me, but he didn’t try any charm. Probably a good thing; I couldn’t stand charm just then. I felt like an evil traitor to Bill, and I also felt like an evil conspirator in front of these nice detectives. Maybe I shouldn’t have espresso. My nerves were wound tightly enough. At least without Commander Barbie in there, I could gather my thoughts.

“There are a few places he could be, if he’s just running errands,” I said. I reached for the pad of paper and pen that had been left for me, and wrote down the name of his grocery store, his dry cleaner’s, the place where he rented videos, the offices of his doctor and dentist, the place where he had his haircuts. Staring at this, I thought: running errands? What on earth would make me think he’d be running errands? Does a man grab a quick haircut before turning himself in? Or perhaps it is terribly rude to go into hiding when one’s video rentals are overdue. I gave the tablet to Gus and then I admitted sheepishly, “I doubt he’s at any of them. But it’s hard for me to think of him in any other way.”

Apparently my emotional instability was forgiven. “Can you help us with next of kin, family or friends, places he might go if he wanted to hide?”

“He doesn’t have any family that I know of. And lawyers all seem to know each other. He could be parked in someone’s garage. But as for friends?”

I didn’t even say it out loud to Gus. He could probably read my mind though. I was Bill Nestor’s only friend.

So for the rest of the day I talked into microphones; I signed things; I talked again to a panel of gruff looking men; I talked to alternate interviewers of indiscernible purpose; and then, just when I supposed that they were as tired of hearing me talk as I was of talking, we started over again and Sergeant Paige came at me with the same questions asked a new way. Were they trying to trip me up? Did they suspect I was covering for Bill? I would not have been surprised to end up in a cell, after a point.

While I was undergoing interrogation that would have made Junior Gestapo Brent go into climactic ecstasy, MBS&K was in its own upheaval. I learned this much later, and never in great detail, but my grapevine network at the office eventually told me all they could.

By one that afternoon, the KCPD was at the firm with a truckload of warrants and Sergeant Paige and Detective Haglund at the head of the brigade with two prosecuting attorneys and, if rumor proves true, the President of the United States and the reanimated corpse of John Wayne. They tore Bill’s office apart. Then they hit the storage room. Boxes were removed. People were interviewed. Emergency meetings were held. Riots broke out. Senior attorneys had heart attacks. Somebody’s lunch was stolen. Judges were called, and orders were issued. I do not know how most of the KCPD managed to invade Markitt, Bronk, Simms and Kowalsky while at the same time they were horsewhipping me with questions. Maybe they called in reinforcements.

But at the end of the day, Bill Nestor was still missing.

*****

And at the end of the day, I had to admit that, though this was certainly the worst day I’d endured in years, it was still better than working for the psychotic sadist. I could comfort myself with that. I was surprised, when taken out of the police station by Gus in his department-issued car, that it was growing dark. It was after eight that night. Sometime during the afternoon, a nice young officer, the one who’d been with Gus when he’d first arrived at Bill’s apartment, delivered a sack lunch to me—ham and Swiss on white bread, an apple, a soda and a cupcake. But I was starving now. Gus took me through a Taco Bell drive-thru lane and bought a jumbo bag of tacos, and then he drove me home.

Outside my poor little house, a police car waited with two very large men inside.

“A car will be outside all night,” Gus explained. “These two will be here until ten, then go off duty and be replaced by two more. They’ll do perimeter checks. No one is going to come near your house. But one of them can stay inside with you, if you want.”

“No, it’s fine.” I had no real concern that Bill Nestor would come sneaking around my house.

Gus led me to my front door, but I shook my head—I still was missing my keys and had to go through the garage to get inside. In my kitchen, we sat on my newly painted apple green and orange chairs and ate tacos. I ate ravenously, Gus more reservedly, and we didn’t speak much. Aside from telling and retelling my story to him that day, we hadn’t spoken much at all. Not even in the car.

When he finished eating, Gus said, “I can’t stay. Got a lot to do tonight. But I wanted to make sure you got home safe and sound.”

“Thanks.”

“Is there anyone I can call to come and stay with you?”

“No, I don’t need anyone. I’m okay. Just tired and worried.”

“Think you can get some sleep? You look exhausted.”

“Eh, maybe I’ll watch some television.” Probably not. I didn’t think I could concentrate that much.

Gus made a move as if to stand but then didn’t. He asked, “Why didn’t you tell me yesterday that you knew about the women?”

That was a fair question. My answer sounded lame, in retrospect. I just had to shrug and say, “Bill’s my friend. I wanted to talk to him first. I want to think the best of him.”

Gus sighed and cleaned up his trash as he spoke, not exactly meeting my eyes.

I added, “He’s not a maniac, Gus. He’s not violent. When you catch up with him, be calm and reasonable. He’ll cooperate. He likes things neat and orderly. This running is just not going to agree with him. He may come to you eventually, if you don’t find him first, and…and just don’t hurt him.”

I saw Gus’s jaw tighten at that. Sure, I thought. He’s not a violent maniac. He’s a gentle maniac. So I tried to explain further, “He’s running because he is afraid of disorder, and very bad at coping with stress. Bill can see what the circumstantial evidence looks like as well as you and I can, and what’s worse, he’s got this obsessive-compulsive disorder that sometimes makes him believe his actions have these…I don’t know, these far-reaching effects.”

“So what are you saying?”

“That, just because he’s running, isn’t a confession.”

“We’re all aware of that.”

“Just please, stay aware of it.”

Standing now, Gus peered at me with puzzlement. “I could understand this kind of loyalty, if he were your father or husband or something. But he’s just your boss, Carol.”

“Yeah, but he’s a really good boss.”

“I have to go.” Gus turned to do that.

I figured things were already as awkward as they could be, so I had little to lose. I asked, “Why are you angry with me? Is it because I knew about suicide widows and didn’t say anything?”

“I’m not angry.” He put his hands in the pockets of his slacks and looked down at my wildly painted kitchen chairs. He rethought his words. “I guess I’m a little angry.”

“Because?”

“I’m a little angry that you went to his apartment without any thought of your own safety.”

“Bill wouldn’t hurt me.”

“Carol,” Gus said, turning a warning glare to me, “if I had a dollar for everyone I’ve heard say those words…I hear them before and I hear them after. I see a woman beaten within an inch of her life, and she says, ‘Oh, he didn’t mean to hurt me; he would never hurt me.’ You went to his apartment fully aware that he was afraid of something, and when people get afraid, they get unpredictable and desperate.”

“But you said yourself that the murderer was gentle, and so—”

“Good God, Carol! I said the murderer was gentle when I was trying to keep my girlfriend from crying over the deaths of nine women. There is no such thing as a gentle murder. It’s not just an oxymoron; it’s an offensive thing to say. I’m sorry I said it.”

“Am I really your girlfriend?”

“So help me, I’ll shake you until your teeth rattle…”

“Okay, fine, fine! So it wasn’t the best idea for me to go to Bill alone.”

He wasn’t finished with me yet. “No, it was not. And you knew about all this on Friday night, didn’t you? It wasn’t just last night, when I told you I’d been assigned to a case, but last week, too. And you’ve been suspicious of these deaths almost since we met, haven’t you?”

I nodded, chastised.

“But didn’t feel it was anything you needed to tell me about.”

“I haven’t handled this very well,” I admitted. With my hands folded in my lap and my head bowed so that I looked up at him through my eyelashes, I’m sure I appeared to be the penitent. The truth is, I was very tired and strung out, and being scolded like this was making me pretty horny. It was like last week, when he came over and rousted me and did a full body search. His roughness was a turn-on then, and he’d only been pretending. This time it was in earnest—and rooted, I thought, in concern for my well-being. I felt so wriggly inside I could barely sit still.

With self-deprecation Gus announced, “So this great case that I thought I’d discovered all by myself turns out to just be suggestions fed to me by the secretary of my main suspect.”

“No!” Now I stood, too. I didn’t like him underestimating himself. “I asked you a couple of questions, that’s all, and you figured out all the rest by yourself.”

“God, I feel like Doug used to get when I’d let him win chess games. It pissed the kid off. It pisses me off.”

“You’re not just a little angry. You’re really mad at me.” The idea of this gave me pleasure, though, because you have to care about something to get good and mad.

“And another thing,” said Gus, stepping back from me once he noticed how close I was, “is that this can’t happen anymore.”

“This?”

He looked at the empty space between us, seeing the embrace we would have shared if he hadn’t started backing away. “This. Our thing we’ve been doing. Now we have a big fat conflict of interests, and I’m not even supposed to be here.”

“Really?” I asked in dismay. “Somebody actually told you to break it off?”

Gus’s face went firm and unemotional. “No one had to say it, Carol. It’s just common sense.”

I sagged unhappily away from him. I hadn’t reached far enough into his affections to warrant anything more than this brush-off, I guessed. I wasn’t some femme fatale beauty who could inspire men to throw it all away. I was just a brash secretary, when all was said and done. Gus Haglund had too much riding on this—his job, his reputation, his responsibilities to his son—to risk anything stupid for my sake. What else could I have expected? We’d almost done the relationship thing backwards; we’d jumped into a physical tangle way too soon and not taken time to actually get to know each other or form any sort of solid emotional bond.

There was no point in being a baby about it. I couldn’t help but sigh, but I tried to add an oh-well laugh at the end of it and say, “Guess I should have seen that coming.”

I put on my brave smile for him. But Gus wasn’t smiling back. He glowered until my brave smile faltered, and then he closed the distance between us in two strides and jerked me into his arms.

Gus had already gotten me worked up by being grouchy and concerned; what I hadn’t realized was that he was worked up, too. I was a shadow of myself, worn out with worry, disappointment, and confusion, so I clung to my big police detective like he could put the strength back into me by force of will, and he seemed to know it instinctively. He kissed me so hard I felt welded to him. He kissed me a long time. His lips were salty from nacho chips, and the salt stung delectably.

“Come on, quick,” I said, pulling him unsteadily toward my bedroom. I added the “quick” because I did not want to give him time to change his mind. Perhaps I shouldn’t have worried. Gus was as eager as I was, frustrated in a way I had not known from him before. Oh my God, was this good-bye sex? I refused to believe it wholly—and yet some part of me had already given itself over to the idea that I had devour him like a glutton because I might not get another chance.

For the first time in our brief history, we made it to the bed on the first try. We left the light off for the sense of solitude the darkness gave us, a shield from the knowledge of my protectors waiting outside. His big hands undressed me by sense of touch alone. It was like being in a hazy dream with a trusted seducer. For once all the messy bedclothes seemed like luxury instead of clutter as we became tangled in them. I twisted a wandering bedsheet around my wrist and then twisted it around his so Gus was tied to me and I could pull his hand wherever I wanted it to go. I pulled it to my face and welcomed his weight onto me, welcomed being held down to earth by him as he came at me with a carefully measured, gratifying violence. All wrapped up in his tree tree-trunk shoulders and thighs, I was no more than a little slip of fever, with my teeth in his neck, my feet locked at the small of his back.

We didn’t say a word until we were finished with each other, and though that only took about eight minutes, according to my bedroom clock, they were an extremely good eight minutes. Poor Gus, I was always rushing him, but when I was with him, I simply could not wait. I urged him to go faster and harder so I could fall headlong into the eruption. Gus made love like he flashed that wicked smile—he was all sweetie-pie cuteness until I had him in a corner, and then bam, he was all grizzly-bear teeth and claws.

Now he said we had to stop this? The thought was almost as distressing as the idea of sending my beloved boss to prison. My amateur detective playacting had possibly cost me both Bill and Gus, and I had yet to see what it had gained me except for some interesting stories to tell at work.

But I felt too sated and sleepy to be completely maudlin. In the wake of our plundering, I felt as if I might need a bulldozer to dig me out of the bundle of my bedsheets and our various articles of shed clothing.

“My legs are shaking,” muttered Gus.

“You did, in fact, shake me until my teeth rattled.” I felt him smile. “It does add a little spice when there’s a couple of great big cops waiting outside, and they’re perfectly aware that you’ve had plenty of time to tuck me in with my tacos. Not that we needed much more spice.”

Gus’s head lay on my chest, dropping his heavy dark blonde curls in a tickling halo all over my breasts, and I felt the vibrations of his words through my body. He sighed, “Why can’t you be difficult about anything?”

I stroked his hair for a moment, not understanding. “I thought I was a total screw-up.”

“Sure,” he agreed. “Put your life in danger; put my investigation on the fritz. True enough. I meant, why can’t you be difficult about something that would let me walk out on you? It would help if you’d ever be demanding or suspicious or selfish or vain. Instead of being so easy.”

I couldn’t help but chuckle again, and it made his hair shift and tickle me more. “Are you saying I’m slutty?”

Gus growled low in his throat and bit me lightly on the stomach.

“Because I’m only slutty for you,” I reminded him.

“I have to go,” he said, making no move to do so.

“I know. I believed you the first time you said it.”

“Quit giggling. It’s not funny.” But I had him starting, too. When your head is on a woman’s naked chest, she can tell if you’re laughing. Still he insisted, “I’m not the kind of guy who does this, you know, grabs a little action and leaves the lady alone afterward.”

“If only I were a lady.” Amusing as I thought I was, I saw that my teasing was keeping him pinned. He was afraid of hurting my feelings, because he’d announced that we shouldn’t be dating (the polite code word for what we were really doing) about a minute before he grabbed me in my kitchen, and as a kind-hearted man he did not want me to think myself used. So I got serious and said, “God I’m so tired. I’m glad you have to go, because I won’t be very good company.”

For a few seconds in the gloom he was silent, motionless. Then he eased himself off me, planting a kiss on my forehead as he went in darkness. He said, “You’re doing it again.”

*****

Falling asleep that night, I remembered something. Rather, I had never actually forgotten it, but I relived the experience in my pre-dream twilight.

I’d been working for Bill nearly a year when I mixed up two documents and filed the wrong one, irretrievably, through the Federal Court’s electronic filing system on the night of the deadline on an important case, when we were working for a client that was not in the mood to hear bad news. It was a brain-dead oversight on my part, so big and bad a mistake that it did not occur to me that such a stupid thing even could happen. I never checked for it, because it was so unlikely. Bam, just like that, it was done, and it was irrevocably wrong.

Had I been working for the psychotic sadist at the time, I might not have survived. The psychotic sadist inflicted his injuries with words, not physical weapons, but I imagine he would have lacerated me with shouts and sarcasm until my soul bled out.

The next morning, when Bill and I discovered what I had done, what Bill said was, “Oh my.”

I was horrified. Nothing, not even the deadliest of sarcasm, hurts me as much as letting someone down. What a bone-headed idiot I was. What an irresponsible ditz. I said, eyes closed, “Oh my God, what a stupid thing to do. I’m so sorry. Tell me how I can fix it. Or if I need to clear out my desk.”

Without a moment’s hesitation, Bill said, “I’ll call the judge and tell him there was a simple mistake. These things happen sometimes.”

I couldn’t open my eyes yet, from fear and embarrassment.

Bill actually gave a snuffling little laugh, and he patted my shoulder. “Now stop that. Do you think you’re the only one who’s ever mixed things up? Once I spent fifteen minutes arguing the wrong case in front of a judge.”

I peeked out at him, cringing.

“Absolute truth. Anyway, fetch a phone number for the clerk’s office, and we’ll set this straight.”

That was all he said about it. It did get fixed, though we had to file an extra pleading to do it.

It has always been difficult to describe to others what I felt when he was so gracious about my big boner. Gratitude and humility, and undying devotion. I would have thrown myself in front of a bus for him that day. Don’t laugh at my melodramatics. When you have to work for a man almost fifty hours a week, it certainly helps to consider him a decent human being.

Recalling this, in the folds of my blankets as I drifted away to sleep, I understood that I did not believe Bill Nestor was guilty. Maybe that was bone-headed, too, but I was prepared to be loyal to him. It was the only thing that felt right.

Chapter Fifteen

I went to work on Wednesday because I wanted to help. I thought perhaps if I was there, I could show people where things were or help explain the situation better to anyone who wanted to know. I was every bit as upset about these bizarre developments as anyone there—even more upset, I was willing to wager—and was happy to do my part to make this problem clearer, if not better.

Since I was still without my car, the protectors outside my house drove me to the office.

When I worked for the psychotic sadist, his office was in a downtown building that housed several other law firms. The one that shared our floor specialized in criminal law, meaning that some of their clientele lacked social skills. One such client phoned them one day, displeased with the way his case was being handled, and threatened to come in there and kill them all. You might correctly surmise that the building was shut down. There were so many detectives, police and security guards there that the whole place looked like a scene from a dystopian nightmare. No one, not even the work-obsessed psychotic sadist, minded the extra measures, because once finished with the target firm, the disgruntled client might think he had nothing to lose and come down the hall to our firm to continue the murder spree. That whole situation resolved. the disgruntled client was picked up near his home and his parole was, not surprisingly, revoked. Judges aren’t forgiving about death threats, no sir. One thing I remember clearly about the incident was that, throughout the day, there was an atmosphere of such tension and suspicion that it made us almost unable to work. The feeling was due to the dark-browed figures lurking around every corner, whispering to each other in their radios and peering at everyone and everything, as if it were an object of potential danger.

When I got to MBS&K on Thursday morning, the atmosphere was much the same. A palpable sense of law enforcement and suspicion was in the air. At every entrance to the building, I saw a couple extra dark blue cars, and there were a surprising number of men lounging around the front doors, by the elevator causeway, and at the garage entrances, pretending to read newspapers unless they were actually in their cobalt blue uniforms. I guess the KCPD thought they’d better cover their butts, in case Bill decided to spend the day at work before slinking back to whatever dark corner that hid him. I’ll admit that scenario was in the realm of possibility: Bill liked his routines.

Stepping off the elevator, I said to Lucille, “Well, I see they’ve got the building staked out.”

Lucille motioned me over, as furtive as I’d ever seen her. “How are you?” she asked.

“I’m very tired.”

“Everybody here is just devastated,” she said. “It’s like working in a graveyard. Listen, ah’m not sure anybody thought you’d be here today.”

“Oh? Well.” I didn’t know what to say to that. Was your boss being wanted for murder adequate grounds for taking a personal-leave day?

“Let me tell Donna you’re here.”

“I could just go to her office.”

She shook her peroxide-blonde head rather sharply. Perplexed, I watched as Lucille paged my supervisor, motioning for me to wait. I hadn’t been expecting kid-gloves treatment. When Donna called Lucille back a moment later, Lucille said, “Carol Frank is here…Ah will…okay. Ah know.”

“Listen,” Lucille began as she turned her attention back to me, “they want you to wait in the conference room.”

“Who does?”

“Donna and Brent.” She had known me too long to be distant. We were buddies. She gave a surreptitious look around and then said, “Charlene says your desk and Bill’s office have almost been taken apart. And ah think Terry Bronk wants to meet with you.”

I felt an inward shriveling. I had known I’d be called upon to talk it through again, but I hadn’t really thought a partner would want to hear it all from me. I still didn’t like Terry Bronk, that frizzy-headed, middle-aged, foul-tempered man. I’d never had to work a day for him in my three years at MBS&K, but I’d heard plenty. I’d learned that Terry frequently made his secretaries cry, swore at paralegals, and threw temper tantrums that would embarrass three-year-olds. He worked his staff until outrageous hours of the night because he put everything off until the very last minute, ensuring time and again that he caused stress levels that registered on the Richter scale. And, although one uttered this office legend at the risk of being fired, I had heard that a year or so before, the big jerk had actually received an ethical sanctioning by the Federal Court on a particularly overblown lawsuit. He was not disbarred, unluckily for us. Do not ask me how a man with such bad habits managed to not only stay out of prison but also make partner, when my sweet boss Bill was not a partner and was being hunted by the cops for supposedly offing nearly enough people to start a baseball team. Fate is often strange and unpredictable.

So now I had to talk to Terry Bronk in the same room as Junior Gestapo Brent. Whee, fun. At least Donna would be there. She could always be relied on to be a friendly face.

“Just try to answer their questions the best you can,” Lucille told me, worry on her brow.

I went to the conference room, as I’d been instructed. I still had my purse, and I hadn’t had any coffee. I wondered how badly my desk must be damaged, if they didn’t even want me to go look at it first.

Not only the evil Terry Bronk, Junior Gestapo Brent and Donna came into the room, but Mr. Miller from Quality Assurance, the comptroller Lily and two members of the executive board. Suddenly I wished I’d worn one of my suits because I felt as if I was entering the most intimidating job interview ever. I tried to assure myself that all was well. First and most importantly, I was wearing my go-to skirt, which was my favorite and had never let me down in a crisis. You can laugh at that, but most women will tell you that wearing a good skirt can make the difference between triumph and tragedy. Anyway, secondly, I was trying to help these people, after all. Lawyers can come across as combative and argumentative even when they don’t intend to, so I just had to remember that we’d all had a hard week and keep my cool.

To my dismay, Junior Gestapo Brent, who had taken a chummy seat at Terry Bronk’s right side, spearheaded the meeting by saying to me, “Carol, to decide how to best proceed in this situation, we have some questions for you to answer.”

“Sure. Fire away.”

“We’d like to know when, exactly, you started investigating the past client records of Bill Nestor.”

My explanation was almost memorized because I had given it so many times the day before. I gave it again.

“And so,” Junior Gestapo Brent summarized, “you made multiple trips to the storage room for files to research a subject that was not actually part of your assigned work duties.”

I narrowed my eyes at him, but not dramatically. This was really typical of the little jerk, to find an infraction in every action. I said, “Mostly I went on my break times and lunch hours.”

“Are secretaries supposed to be in storage at all?” Terry Bronk asked Donna.

Donna said, “There’s no specific rule against it. I don’t think they like to go down there, ordinarily, but if Lloyd was busy…”

“Was Lloyd too busy to go down there?” Bronk asked me.

I thought we were getting rather off-topic, but I answered, “I didn’t bother Lloyd. As Brent has made clear, this was not precisely firm business, and I didn’t want to bother anyone else with it.”

“So you will admit,” said Junior Gestapo Brent, “that you were conducting an investigation on company time without any specific instructions to do so.”

I stared at him. Suddenly I sensed the need to choose my words carefully. “I’ll admit that I wasn’t instructed to do so.”

“And when,” continued Junior Gestapo Brent, checking an item off a neat little list in front of him, “did you start communicating with the Kansas City Police Department about your findings?”

“I think your phrasing is a little off there.” I glanced at the numerous faces surrounding me. “I wasn’t communicating with the police. I was dating a detective. I went out with Gus Haglund three or four times, and during our conversations, I mentioned that I was curious about suicide and retired widows. But I never said—”

Terry Bronk interrupted. “Can we assume by that statement that you were trying to impress the detective that you were dating?”

“What?”

“Were you investigating Bill Nestor in an effort to impress your boyfriend?”

“Wait a second,” I said, taking another glance around the room. The atmosphere in here certainly didn’t feel supportive. I had thought it was just Junior Gestapo Brent’s lousy attitude, but I was getting that bad vibe from every corner. Was it possible that I was actually in trouble? “What kind of meeting is this?”

“This is a meeting I have called,” said Terry Bronk, “to establish what actions you took and what actions we should take in turn.”

“What actions I took?” I looked to Donna, the closest thing to a friendly face. “Is this a disciplinary hearing or something?”

“Does it need to be?” asked Junior Gestapo Brent sharply.

Mr. Miller, the quality-assurance man, stepped into the fray at this point. He was a milquetoast little creep who I’d barely ever spoken to, and in a whining voice he asked, “Ms. Frank, why did you elect to go to the police with your findings rather than your supervisor?”

“What?”

“When you suspected that Mr. Nestor might be having problems of a personal nature, why did you neglect to report this in the proper format and to your immediate supervisor?”

I noticed suddenly that I was shaking, a combination of nerves and anger making me shiver as if under a blast of cold winter air. I laughed. I couldn’t help it. “What would the proper format have been?”

“Work-related problems are properly reported in written form to your immediate supervisor.”

“Oh, well, I didn’t know it was a work-related problem, per se. What I thought was that my boss had a strange client record. I went and asked him about it, and he gave me a research assignment pertaining to that.” Several pairs of eyebrows shot upward. I asked Mr. Miller, “Does that count as reporting it to my supervisor?”

Miller didn’t answer me. He asked, “When did you question Mr. Nestor about this?”

“I’ve talked to him several times about it. Which one do you mean?”

“I’m referring to the conversation in which you told Mr. Nestor that the police suspected him of murder. When was that?”

“Yesterday,” I began. “But—”

“Job abandonment,” muttered Junior Gestapo Brent.

“What?” I barked at him in disbelief.

“Wasn’t it yesterday, when you fabricated a story to me that Bill was sick and you had to go to his apartment. You said you’d be back by ten but you never came back at all. Doesn’t this qualify as job abandonment?”

My mouth fell open so far that my jaw nearly hit the table.

“We’ll save the job abandonment issue until later,” said Terry Bronk, giving me an evil look. “The matter at hand is why Miss Frank decided to completely subvert the methods of reporting a work-related problem and instead just told it to her boyfriend at the police department.”

There was no question out there, so I didn’t say anything.

He smacked the table, startling everyone except me, and I was already so high-strung I couldn’t have been more alarmed by gunfire. “Did you not,” he demanded, “have self-serving intentions?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Did you intend to blackmail Bill Nestor with your knowledge?”

“I did not!”

“Did you intend to besmirch the reputation of this law firm in retaliation for some imagined slight you suffered?”

“I did not, assuming I understood what the hell you just asked me.”

“I don’t think this is a good time for you to be a smartass,” Bronk told me coldly.

At this point I recalled that slavery is illegal in the United States, and I didn’t have to put up with this. The imminence of my unemployment seemed suddenly quite liberating. Without Bill Nestor, I wasn’t sure I wanted to work at this dump anyway.

I leaned back in my chair. I stopped shaking abruptly, like a little switch turned off inside me. What were they going to do, kill me? Ha, that I doubted. Contrary to what His Majesty Terry Bronk had just said, it did seem like a good time to be a smartass. I gestured at Mr. Miller, who had an Employee Handbook with him, of all things. “Show me in that book,” I said, “the list of instructions that explains what to do when you suspect you’re working with a serial murderer.”

“Obviously there’s not a specific list of instructions for every scenario,” Junior Gestapo Brent said.

Terry Bronk cut him off. “You’re fully aware that there is a system in place for reporting any issue you have with a fellow employee.”

“What I’m fully aware of,” I said, “is that Bill Nestor has worked here for almost two decades, and apparently, in all that time, no one but me has had the presence of mind to notice that every couple years one of his widowed clientele killed herself.”

Something passed through the room, a wave of discomfort that affected even the ruddy-faced monster Bronk.

“Oh, so that’s it,” I said. “You’re afraid of getting sued by the families of the clients. Do you think they have grounds? Like, hey, someone at MBS&K should have noticed that their firm a bad track record with retired widows, and if they had, my mother might still be alive.”

No one said anything, probably because I was mortifying them all. I had broken one of the unspoken rules, which, coincidentally, has to do with how much stuff needs to remain unspoken.

“And so,” I continued, “if I had gone to my immediate supervisor Donna and told her the work-related ‘problem,’ then MBS&K could have taken credit for discovering this strange phenomenon and made itself look better in the process, thus subverting or at least lessening possible lawsuits.”

This came out nicely. I was glad that I hadn’t stumbled over my logical little argument. In the back of my mind, I was counting up how much money I had in savings and trying to remember where the local office was for filing an unemployment claim. Oh well, it was usually pretty easy for an experienced secretary to find work.

Terry Bronk glared at me hard, but to no avail. I wasn’t afraid of him. Sensing this, he took a business-like tone. “We’re going to go through this again. We have other issues to address before we can fully come to the conclusions of our meeting.”

“Oh, I can hardly wait,” I muttered.

“Brent?” Now Terry looked to the Junior Gestapo agent at his side, and I understood that through a rigorous program of back-stabbing and ass-kissing, Brent had established himself as the teacher’s pet. Donna was too busy doing her actual job to ingratiate herself to Terry Bronk that much, and so in a couple years Junior Gestapo Brent would probably be her boss and tattling on her for something, too. Not my problem. I wasn’t going to be here, anyway, was I?

While I pondered this, Junior Gestapo Brent returned to his checklist of “Things Carol Did Wrong.” He’d been flustered by the little explosion of Bronk’s temper and my smartassed-ness (if that is the word for it?), but there’s nothing like a checklist to get a meeting back on track. His expression returned to contented smugness as he said, “Can you shed any light on why Suzanne Fark-arn-sha quit her job?”

This wasn’t a good time to giggle at this umpteenth screwing of Suzanne’s last name, so I kept a straight face. Strange question. I didn’t know what it had to do with me, but I was surely about to find out. No telling what kinds of affronts were being attributed to me and my evil plot. I shrugged and said, “I heard she was unhappy here. Hard to imagine that.”

“Would you postulate that there was any connection between Suzanne’s resignation and your investigation of Bill Nestor?”

Oh, good Lord. She had turned her resignation in on Monday, hadn’t she? Despite its only being two days before, Monday was all but a blur to me now. On Monday, my life and my job had still been halfway normal. But I did recall Bill’s embarrassed admission that Suzanne had come to his apartment and thrown herself at him. Had that even been the truth? Probably. Just because Bill was on the lam from the police didn’t cause me to doubt his veracity. Still, he’d asked me to keep it quiet, and while I might have been a lot of things, I kept my word to friends. It wasn’t the business of any of these jerks, that’s for sure.

“Carol?” pressed Junior Gestapo Brent, impatiently, because I was not responding.

“Sorry, I don’t know what ‘postulate’ means.”

Junior Gestapo Brent stammered for a moment. “Uh, it means to propose. Er, think about, or maybe a theory you might have.”

“She knows what it means.” Terry Bronk broke in again, thundering, “What did you have to do with Suzanne’s resignation?”

“Hell if I know. Why don’t you ask her?”

“Were you lobbying for Suzanne’s paralegal position?”

“I don’t want to be a paralegal.”

Junior Gestapo Brent found his voice again. He was always at his strongest when finding a way to get somebody in trouble, after all. “Were you accepting special assignments from Bill Nestor that would ordinarily be Suzanne’s job?”

“I went to the library for him; that was all.”

“For what case?” demanded Terry Bronk.

“It wasn’t for a specific case.”

“You were out of the office for two days,” Junior Gestapo Brent reminded me and everyone else. “What non-specific thing can you investigate for two days?”

“Widows and suicide,” I answered, “and whether that’s normal.”

They stared at me.

“Under my boss’s instructions,” I added. I wished I hadn’t. I didn’t want to give them the satisfaction of coaxing excuses from me.

Junior Gestapo Brent smiled with cold significance. “And the next Monday, Suzanne just happens to turn in her resignation.”

“And?”

“That’s what we’re asking you.”

“Well, maybe you should ask her. Did she have one of these little meetings too? Can we call her in here right now?”

“This is a private meeting,” Mr. Miller said. He was the confidentiality man.

“Oh, well, I don’t mind,” I said. “Let’s bring her in as a witness to my nefarious deeds.”

“Stop it,” said Terry Bronk. “Don’t try and distract the purpose of the meeting.”

“Which is what, exactly? Can I have one of those little outlines that your Nazi-in-training is holding?”

Donna suddenly snorted into her hand, covering her laughter badly.

“Those kinds of remarks aren’t going to help your case,” Terry Bronk coldly said to me. His shot a filthy look at Donna.

“What case? Am I on trial here? If I were an attorney, and thank God, I’m not, I’d be focusing on the real problems that are facing this firm and not looking for someone to blame them on. And ask Suzanne why she quit, not me. Suzanne doesn’t tell me anything.”

My poor supervisor Donna looked on me with both pity and impatience and said, “Carol, Suzanne’s not even here today.”

“So we’re having this meeting because I’m the one who is here.” I looked to Donna and asked, “What’s the matter, is Suzanne sick?”

“That’s none of your business,” Junior Gestapo Brent said. I supposed I could call him that to his face, now that I’d made the Nazi comment aloud. He looked at his checklist again. “Is it your contention that you were not lobbying to obtain Suzanne’s paralegal position?”

But I didn’t answer him, because my brain had gone down a little path all its own. It certainly wasn’t interested in anything further that was said in this blasted meeting, the point of which seemed to be to blame everything involving the suspicious deaths of nine women on Carol Frank, including the fact that anyone found out about the suspicious deaths of the nine women, which was just bad for business.

No, what my attention had turned to was the fact that Suzanne Farkanansia was not at work that day. That Bill Nestor was still missing. And that, before I had made an appearance in Bill’s life, Suzanne was his most trusted associate at the office. Did any of these idiots know that? Did any of them know that Suzanne had proclaimed her “love” for Bill the weekend before?

“Carol, we’re going to need an answer from you,” said Junior Gestapo Brent.

“I’m going to the bathroom,” I said. I got up from my chair.

“Take your seat,” Terry Bronk told me. “We’ve only been here ten minutes; no one needs a break yet.”

“Speak for yourself,” I said. “I just got here after sitting in traffic for half an hour, and I had two cups of coffee this morning.”

I headed for the door, leaving my purse on the table, so it would look like I was coming right back.

“Fine, we’re taking five minutes.” The tone of Terry Bronk’s voice suggested that I was systematically destroying any chances I might have to save my job, but I hadn’t supposed I’d come out of this room employed anyway. Screw him. Screw, screw, screw. I walked quickly away from the conference room and into the main office, cubicles as far as the eye could see. I marched to Charlene’s cubicle, as was my intention, and thanked my ever-loving stars that she was in there.

“I need your help,” I said over her shoulder, as low as I could.

She didn’t bat an eye, didn’t stop typing for a second. Out of the corner of her mouth, she said, “Whatever you need.”

“Back row, file room,” I said. “Bring your car keys.”

*****

Charlene was close behind me after I’d ducked into the crowded back row of red-rope files. As requested, she had her car keys in her hand. “Where are we going?” she asked, her eyes alight.

“Just I’m going,” I said, “if you’ll let me use your car.”

“Sure, that’s fine. What are they doing to you in there?”

“Scapegoat,” I guessed with a shrug. It didn’t surprise me that Charlene had a good idea of what was happening in my “meeting.” She always knew more or less what was going on.

“Are you okay? Where are you going? Is it about Bill?”

“I hate to sound melodramatic,” I said, “but really the less you know, the better. If anybody asks, just say that I told you I had an emergency and needed to borrow your car. And play dumb about anything else.”

“I don’t know how to play dumb.”

“Then just look angry for being interrupted. One more favor?” I asked her. “Can you get me a copy of the employee address list?”

“It’ll take a second,” she said. “Wait here, and be really quiet.”

She left me there, in the rows of red-ropes. I was so grateful to her. One might not expect for Charlene to be so eager to help me in my escapade, because she was such a staunch supporter of the rigors of the law firm. However, I happened to know that she detested Terry Bronk. He wasn’t ethical enough for her tastes by half, and any time he sent down a mandate or said something about the practice of law, I could see her cringe. So I could rely on her to aid me in any way that would irritate him.

I had another problem, though. I had a car; I’d soon have Suzanne’s address, but I was stuck in the back row of the file room. Assuming I could walk out of the office without Donna, Junior Gestapo Brent, Terry Bronk or any of my other inquisitors seeing me, I’d have to stroll off the elevators into the parking garage where half a dozen police officers would see me leaving. At least the two who’d escorted me here that day knew perfectly well who I was and my relationship to Kansas City’s Most Wanted. They might be curious about where I was heading.

And maybe they should be. Should I tell them? It was probably a better idea to have the police pay a call to Suzanne than for me to go knocking on her door. I’d already involved myself far too much and look at the trouble it was causing. I was being pegged as an opportunist and a blackmailer and lobbyist and probably a skank, too. All I had to do was suggest that Suzanne Farkanansia might have a motive to help Bill Nestor, and that maybe they should check with her.

Two things made me decide to go there myself, though. The first was blind stupid stubbornness. I was pissed off at the way I was being treated by my so-called employers, and this felt like a satisfying action to take. The second was that at the bottom of it all, Bill Nestor was still my friend and still a good boss, better than any of those jerks back in my “meeting,” and I thought I could talk him into turning himself in. I’d almost managed it the day before.

Unfortunately, my reality was stuck here in the file room, not dashing to Bill’s rescue or thumbing my nose at Terry Bronk. Hell, assuming I somehow got from here to Suzanne’s house, nothing said she’d be home or have any idea of Bill’s whereabouts anyway.

If that were the case, I’d just go home and watch Battlestar Galactica.

*****

Charlene had the same concern when she returned with the employee address list. “How are you going to slip by them?” The conference room was directly on the hall leading to the elevators and stairs.

“I guess I could try for the back doors,” I said, doubtfully.

“They’ll catch you,” Charlene said. “If you walk that far.”

“Well, so what if they catch me? There aren’t any bars on the windows. I can damned well leave if I want to.” My voice didn’t have as much bravado as I liked. I needed to be able to leave here as quietly as possible, if I wanted to do Bill any good.

Suddenly, to my horror, a face appeared at the end of the aisle, ugly and menacing. The evil troll Lloyd had found us. Charlene, apparently feeling the cold prickling of his gaze down her spine, turned and stared at him as well.

He sneered at us. “Want to tell me what’s going on back here? I thought it was just the file clerks who liked to hide in these back rows.”

Charlene started to say something, but I interrupted her, putting a hand to her arm to show it was nothing personal. I was fed up to my eyeballs with asinine behavior and if I wasn’t going to take it from Terry Bronk, I certainly wasn’t going to take it from Lloyd. Even though Lloyd was scarier.

“I’m in trouble,” I told him, softly but clearly. “And Bill Nestor is in trouble. I’m trying to get out of the office without anyone seeing me so I can help him.”

Charlene looked wide-eyed at me. “Do you know where he is?”

“Maybe. I’m not sure.”

“Where?” asked the scowling Lloyd.

I looked from Charlene to Lloyd with a heavy sigh and then finally said, “I’m not sure, but I think he could have gone to Suzanne’s house.”

“Makes sense,” said Lloyd.

“I can’t believe no one else thought of it,” said Charlene.

I resumed, “But the point is moot if I can’t slip out of here unnoticed. I can’t get to the stairs or the elevator without passing the conference room, and there are six pissed-off administrators in there who would love to fire me. At the front garage door are just as many cops who possibly don’t have Bill’s best interests in mind, and I’m in a pickle.”

Rheumily Lloyd stared at Charlene. “What’s your business in this?”

“She’s using my car, if that matters—”

“Where’s your car?” he asked her.

“Um, it’s…” she gestured vaguely in the air. “On Level P2, by the air conditioners sort of.”

“Take the service elevator, then,” Lloyd said, as if this were the most painfully obvious thing ever. He motioned for me to follow, and I did it because I was too stupefied to do anything else. He led us through the back stacks, mostly out of sight from the rest of the office, to the corner of the file room where the maintenance access rooms were located. The service elevator was here, and as a security measure, it was unusable to anyone except the maintenance staff, Lloyd, and his minions. You had to have a special all-access keycard to even open the doors.

Lloyd produced said keycard and opened the elevator for me. I stepped inside, still too shocked to find words.

“Remember it’s the red Corolla,” Charlene said to me, her eyes flicking nervously toward Lloyd, as if she were standing beside a raccoon that might or might not have rabies.

I nodded mutely.

“Think you can help Bill out?” Lloyd asked me, and I nodded again as the elevator doors began to swoosh closed. Lloyd said, gruffly, “I always liked Bill Nestor.”

My daring escapade came close to a crashing halt in the garage, though, over the stupidest little thing. Full of smugness for both getting a car and finding a sneaky way out of the office, I pulled up to the exit, rolled down the window, and reached for my keycard to open the garage door. But then I remembered that I wasn’t in my car and that I hadn’t thought to ask Charlene where she kept hers. I fumbled in the console for a moment, glancing up to see an eagle-eyed young police officer watching me intently. He was on the outside, viewing me through the glass of the fire exit door that was next to the garage door, and I figured that I had about thirty seconds before he came to ask me what the problem was. To ask me where I worked. To ask me who I worked for.

Most of us kept our cards in our cars somewhere. There were only two or three good places to keep a card. Okay. Not in the console, not in the glove box. I checked spot number three, in the sun visor, and felt a wash of relief so great it dizzied me, when Charlene’s blue electronic access card flopped into my lap.

As I drove out, the uniformed officer looked at the license plate of Charlene’s car and then looked briefly into my face, which I kept half bored, half impatient. He drew himself up as if he was going to stop me and ask a question—maybe it had been fairly apparent that I was in an unfamiliar vehicle. On an impulse, I held up the employee address list that Charlene had printed for me, and waved it as if it meant something. Good old rules of looking busy: always carry a piece of paper, and always look a little worried. The officer waved me through, and I was outside on the sunny streets of Kansas City.

Chapter Sixteen

I knew Suzanne’s end of town well enough to find her house after one missed exit and a couple of wrong turns. She lived, as most of us did, on a cluttered residential street of young trees and exactly-the-same houses. The only thing that distinguished her putty-colored home from the others was the godawful long name on the mailbox.

Since it was a weekday morning and still during the school year, the neighborhood was mostly deserted. A retiree was out walking his retriever. Nothing else.

I parked Charlene’s car in Suzanne’s driveway and climbed out, inspecting the house critically for signs of Bill. Aside from a dead giveaway, like his poking his head out the window and waving at me, the only other sign I could think to look for was maniacally neat curtains. But Suzanne had shades, so I saw nothing except an ordinary house. I had driven all the way out here, so I might as well give her a knock and see if Suzanne had heard from Bill. If she actually was sick, she might not know anything about what had happened, and she could have spoken to him without understanding the importance.

I went to Suzanne’s front door and rang her doorbell. On the way here, had I actually been able to bring my purse along with me, I would have called Gus and told him what I was doing. A guilty feeling hit me when I missed Suzanne’s exit that perhaps this little blow I was striking for my self-respect was counterproductive to the job the police were trying to do. My lecture from the night before—as nicely as it had ended—actually did make an impression on me about the importance of communicating with the authorities. I even reached for my purse to call the police department before remembering that I’d left it back on the conference room table.

Brilliant. Not only had I left my purse, but I wasn’t even in my own car. Why couldn’t I hold onto my possessions this week? My plans to head home and immerse myself in Battlestar Galactica, assuming this adventure didn’t work out, were for naught because I had to take Charlene’s car back to her. I sighed deeply, distressed at the minutia of adventure. On television detective shows, nobody ever had to mess around with returning cars or losing keys or purses, or finding the stupid keycard that opened and closed a garage door, or locating someone’s address and finding the right damned exit off the highway, or explaining why she ran away from work in the middle of a disciplinary hearing. On detective shows, they just skip to the good parts, when all the action and romance happen.

Suzanne answered her door looking terrible. Normally she came to work with perfect hair and perfect makeup, but today she was bare-faced and her hair lay flat and unstyled. Without any grooming, her huge tortoiseshell glasses were all one could really see of her face. Her enviably long-limbed body, which always wore pantsuits so well, just looked gangly and mannish in a gray sweatsuit. But there was something more to her dowdy appearance than day-off slovenliness. She looked exhausted. She didn’t even bother to greet me. “Why are you here?”

“Hey, Suzanne,” I said with great false cheerfulness. “I was wondering if you’d heard anything from Bill.”

“Why do you want to know?”

“I’m worried about him. No one has seen him in a couple days…” I trailed off, wondering if it were possible that she really had no idea what was happening at MBS&K. “Haven’t you talked with anyone at work? No one’s, um, called you or anything?”

“No. I guess since I resigned, no one feels the need to tell me things. Why should they? I call in sick, and they just say, ‘Oh, fine, whatever.’ ” She glanced behind herself and then looked back at me. Flatly she glared at me for several seconds. There was some inner conflict going on. I had committed an insult to her, yet she needed me for some reason. And I understood what it was as soon as she opened her mouth to tell me. “Come inside. Maybe you can talk him out of it.”

*****

She took me through her house, which was no bigger than my own but filled with much nicer stuff. Let’s just say that her dining room chairs would never submit to being painted apple-green and orange. She had real art on her walls; had spent time with her wallpaper trim and moldings; and had collected fine china, brass lamps, good sets of books, and all those sorts of things that one doesn’t have money to buy when one spends all her money on DVDs of television shows. Suzanne didn’t comment on anything that we passed even though I tried to make a few impressed noises. Complimenting a woman on her house usually seems like the proper thing to do, after all. She lead me through her kitchen to a basement door, and down we went into a remodeled, dark-paneled rec room, complete with a bar and a pool table. And here was where I saw Bill Nestor.

He looked frightful. Never had I seen anything like it. For all I could tell, he wore the same suit I’d seen him in the day before and the day before that, but now it was quite dirty, with what appeared to be real dirt. He had scratches on his face and hands. Here was a man who had crawled through a ditch or a hedge or both, and I doubted whether he’d slept the night before. I could see that he was caught up hard in one of his obsessive rituals. He had all sixteen of the pool balls from Suzanne’s table lined up before him on the felt surface of the table, all exactly spaced from each other, lined in numeric order except for the white one which had a place as a “zero,” I guess, and he was watching them as if they threatened to do something dangerous.

“It’s just about time,” Suzanne said, nodding toward him.

“Time for what?”

Bill answered my question himself by suddenly seizing the white ball and hurrying around the corner of the table, where he placed it in a new spot. He proceeded then to do this with each other ball, one at a time, until he had them lined parallel to the long side of the table. This took a couple minutes, and Suzanne and I watched the whole spectacle with morbid fascination. Once he’d made the transition, Bill set about spacing them evenly from each other, and the balls, which wanted to roll, made this a merry little game for him. Bill looked about as merry as death, but the balls seemed to be having a good time.

“He’s been doing this for almost fifteen hours now,” said Suzanne wearily, “and I can’t talk him out of it. At three this morning, I took all the balls away from him and threw them outside into the culvert. He went in and got them, and he shouted at me not to ever touch them again.”

“Bill shouted?” I asked.

Suzanne held her lips firmly together and nodded.

“You don’t have to talk about me like I’m not here,” said Bill. “I’m sorry I shouted.”

Suzanne whispered to me, “You’re the big expert. Fix him.”

“How did you know I was here?” Bill asked me, looking up briefly from his work.

“It was a lucky guess. I couldn’t think of anywhere else.”

“He showed up yesterday afternoon,” said Suzanne, aside, “and asked if he could stay with me.”

I didn’t want her to elaborate on what that exchange had been like. Had I been in her place, I would probably have been overjoyed that a man I truly wanted turned up on my doorstep, asking for refuge. I suppose I might have maintained some semblance of that joy until about the fifth hour he lined up my pool balls, and then thoughts of romance probably started to die down. Talk about uncomfortable.

I announced, to Suzanne, but loudly enough that Bill could hear me clearly, “Bill is wanted for questioning by the police. That’s why he asked you to hide him, and that’s probably why he’s stuck over there playing a game of pool with himself. I tried to get him to have a meeting yesterday—”

“Meeting is a code word,” said Bill with an unpleasant glimmer in his eyes, even though he wouldn’t look up from his game.

I replied, “Yes, well, now that you’ve run off like a guilty man, it’s probably a code word for throwing your ass in the slammer. But doing it in the most dignified way possible. Is that okay with you?”

“What in the hell are you talking about?” Suzanne demanded of us both.

“The police want to speak with Bill about the death of Adrienne Maxwell, is all,” I told her.

“Why? Do they think he killed her?”

“Well, Carol does,” said Bill. He just about had the line of balls where he wanted them, and now it was time to stand back and watch them to make sure they didn’t go nuts. He said, “She wants me to turn myself in for causing nine of my clients to kill themselves.”

At this point Suzanne must have decided to stop asking questions. She folded her arms, pursed her lips, and didn’t look at either of us specifically.

Bill put his hands to the edge of the pool table and glared at the balls. I knew what was going on here: the same thing that always happened to Bill when something in his life scared or overwhelmed him. Escapism is a human trait. Some of us drink; some of us turn violent; some of us retreat into fantasy; some of us watch a lot of television; and some of us, or at least one of us, became obsessed with some kind of ritualistic behavior that closed out the possibility of any other coherent thought. I wasn’t blind to the comfort in what he was doing. When the world surrounding him threatened disorder, he took comfort in creating extreme order in a very confined way.

If I wanted to talk to my boss, I had to break him out of this.

“What’s the matter with the balls, Bill?”

“I can’t stand the sound they make when they clack together.”

“But they don’t clack together unless someone is playing with them.”

“No, but they could. All it takes is a vibration through the floor, a breeze going through the room, something bumping against the table. Then they clack together.”

He didn’t elaborate further, but I knew there was more to it. For example, he could not bear the thought that he might leave this house altogether and these shiny colored balls would be left to their own devices, free to clack and clack and clack. Like the details of a murder investigation, these pool balls might come together and make noise.

I went to stand beside him, surveying the line of balls. “Would it work if we put them each in a different drawer or something?”

“I tried that,” said Bill. “I put them on those shelves, one to a shelf. They wouldn’t be still.” He was referring to the shelves across the room where Suzanne had an impressive assortment of collected exotic beer bottles, board games and sports-related memorabilia, and he meant that the balls wouldn’t be still in his mind, no matter how perfectly still they might be on those shelves.

“What about pressing them all together tightly, like in a sack?”

He visibly shuddered. “No, no, that’s…that’s even worse. They rub together and make this sound.”

“And what about Suzanne’s idea, of throwing them out?”

He shot Suzanne a very dark look, which caused her eyes to widen in anger and her lips to press more tightly together. She was one of those women who get more and more quiet, the greater her anger becomes.

“Okay, then.” I studied the problem for a minute, trying to think of how to keep these balls from mocking my insane boss. When Bill broke his pose to reach for the white ball, ready to begin forming a new line around the next corner of the table, I stopped him with an upraised hand. “Wait,” I said. “Let’s play Twenty Questions.”

“I can’t. It’s too awful.”

“Bill!” I said in exasperation, but he was already off and running, and Suzanne threw her hands up in fury and stalked up the staircase, stomping her feet as loudly as possible.

But she was back a moment later, saying, “Did you actually bring the cops with you, Carol?”

I hadn’t heard many more welcome words in my life. No, I hadn’t brought them, but I could see easily enough what had happened. Charlene had done the smart thing and told someone my idea and where I was headed; she had done what I should have done before stepping in here.

“Where are they?” I asked.

“Parked outside and heading for the door.”

On cue, Suzanne’s doorbell chimed through the house, and Bill, pausing in the middle of his ritual, put his hands to his face and rubbed violently.

“Okay, go answer it,” I told Suzanne calmly, “and stall them for just a couple minutes.”

“Stall them!” exclaimed Suzanne. “What am I supposed to say?”

“Anything except that Bill is down here.”

My boss peered at me from between his fingers. “I thought you wanted me to turn myself in.”

“I do. And you’re going to. But not like this. We’re going to do this the right way, not with you freaking out about pool balls in the basement. You’re going to walk upstairs and politely agree to go wherever they want you to go.”

“I can’t; I can’t…”

The doorbell chimed again, and Suzanne turned to hurry back up the stairs.

I called after her, “Tell them I’m here. Tell them I’ll be up in just a minute. Say I’m in the bathroom or something.”

The bathroom was my big excuse for the day. Hadn’t I already used it a couple times? Bill, more shaken and desperate than ever, plunged back into his ball-lining ritual. On an impulse, I raced upstairs after Suzanne.

In her kitchen, I searched hurriedly through her cabinets. I could hear her in the living room, speaking to the police officers at the door. I figured I had maybe two minutes to fix Bill’s craziness. This crap was definitely not in my job description, and I’d have felt entitled to a pay raise if not for the fact that I had probably been fired.

I found what I wanted in the fifth cabinet I’d searched—shortening. I grabbed the can, relieved to discover that it was nearly full, and hurried back downstairs. Bill watched me in horrified fascination as I tore off the lid and began scooping handfuls of shortening out on the pool table—Suzanne was going to hate me for this. Then I took the balls in my grease-covered hands and stuck them in the shortening and then, as best I could, buried them in the stuff until I had sixteen mounds of shortening surrounding sixteen colored balls. I’ve tried to think of a simile to describe what this looked like, but for the life of me, nothing in the world looks like sixteen pool balls stuck in sixteen mounds of shortening. And really, nothing should.

“That’s gross,” said Bill. “That’s going to ruin the felt.”

“Will you just, please,” I said slowly, staring at my shortening covered fingers, “please, just let me do my job, Bill?”

Now that I’d ruined his game, if one could call it a game, he said, “Carol, I just want to go back to work.”

“I’d like that too. Though I don’t think I actually have work anymore.”

“What happened?”

“We don’t have time to talk about it right now. Right now, what you have to do is let me take you upstairs.”

“So I can be arrested for causing women to kill themselves.”

“Well, I think that’s what they believe has been happening.”

“Even though I never laid a hand on anyone.”

“If you’re innocent, Bill, just say so. Give them an alibi. Give them the information they need.”

“But you said,” Bill hissed, “you said the evidence was overwhelming. That everything pointed to me.” He paused and stared up at the ceiling as if doom awaited him. “I tried so hard to find a way that it wasn’t my fault. As soon as you showed me that list, I knew something was terribly wrong and I just hoped it was all in my head. That’s why I sent you to the library—to find the proof that widows kill themselves. That there wasn’t anything I’d done to cause it. I never tried to lie to you or distract you, Carol, honestly. But it all just pointed back at me, didn’t it?”

“Only if you look at it all in a certain way.”

“I don’t have alibis. I don’t go places. I don’t know people. I don’t have anything to prove I never hurt anybody.”

I put my hands on his shoulders and made him look at me and fully focus before I spoke again. We stared eye to eye as footsteps clomped overhead. They were coming to get us.

“I believe you,” I said to my boss. “Overwhelming evidence be damned.”

Bill drew back, straightened his shoulders. He didn’t look unburdened, but he did look better. “Thank you, Carol. That means a lot.”

There were voices at the top of the stairs, two I did not recognize and one that I did.

It was Gus. He said, “Carol, are you down there?”

“Yes, we’re here. Bill and I are both here. There’s nothing to worry about. We’ll come upstairs together now.”

“Great,” said Gus’s voice from above. “As you’re doing that, I think you and Mr. Nestor should both keep your hands where we can see them.”

“Yes, sir,” I said, and I nudged Bill on the arm. Bill called up, “Yes, Detective.”

“When you get up there,” I said softly to Bill, “and when you talk to them, don’t start in with your spiel about somehow causing their deaths. Your actions do not cause people to be murdered, Bill. I know you like to believe in the synchronicity of all things, but the police are looking for a confession and that sounds like one.”

Anxious as he was, he managed to smile self-deprecatingly. Yes, we both knew how he could get. We mounted the stairs together, and I kept my hands where they could see them, covered with shortening. I got some very strange looks from Suzanne, from Gus, and from the two officers who had come to the door with Gus. I recognized them. They were the two who had sat guarding my house the night before.

They did not handcuff Bill. Nor did they read him his rights or anything else that I had come to expect from my vast television experiences. Gus told Bill that he was being asked to come voluntarily to the police station for questioning in connection with the suicide deaths of a formidably long list of women. I got the idea that if Bill refused or made a fuss, warrants and arrests might come into play, but Bill looked exhausted, defeated. He agreed meekly to go with them.

“Detective Haglund,” he said, on his way to the door, “I’m sorry about yesterday and avoiding our lunch meeting.”

“Our lunch meeting?” Gus replied, raising his eyebrows.

“Code word,” Bill said, of course not making much sense to anyone but me. “Anyway, when something causes me stress, I tend to react badly by engaging in ritualistic behavior. I’m not fully under control when that happens.

I wished Bill would shut up about his mental problems in front of these three police officers. I saw glances exchanged among them. And what’s worse, I could see what came next, after Bill got into an interview room, like the little claustrophobia-inducing cell I’d been imprisoned in the day before, and after they started coming at him with questions about dead clients. Would they be able to control the resulting Bill Nestor brand of insanity? I said, rather too loudly, “Maybe I should come along. To see if there’s anything I can do to help.”

Gus stepped between me and the door. “Not this time. We’ve got this under control.”

I looked up at him beseechingly. He was so handsome when he got stern. He had on a very nice jacket that day, light summer linen in navy blue that made his eyes turn that dark oceanic color. I wanted to go to the station almost as much to be with him as to protect Bill. But there was no reason for me to be there, and the police didn’t let people come to interviews just because they wanted to.

“I can help,” I insisted, knowing it was pointless.

“Carol,” said Gus with a patient sigh, “this is really twice now that you’ve overstepped your bounds and put yourself in possible danger.”

“Danger!” exclaimed Bill and Suzanne at the same time in the same incredulous tone.

Gus ignored them. “And though I appreciate your situation, you’ve got to back off. We will be in contact with you when we need your help again.”

“Hey, now,” said Bill, from the front door of Suzanne’s house. “There’s no need to bark at Carol about this. This is my fault, for panicking yesterday. All she’s done is tried to be a good secretary to me.”

That remark, kind though it was, made me feel like a first-class heel. I looked over Gus’s shoulder (not an easy task, even on tiptoes) and said, “No, it’s my fault it’s happening this way, Bill, and I’m sorry I didn’t handle it better from the very beginning.”

“Well, it’s not the kind of thing that comes with a manual,” Bill said kindly, though I suppose Terry Bronk and Mr. Miller and Junior Gestapo Brent back at the office would have been willing to argue the point. Then Bill was led away to the police car. Not in handcuffs, but with the two huge officers flanking him, he might as well have been.

“Listen, why don’t you go home?” Gus said to me in a softer tone. “If you keep doing all my work for me, you’re going to make me look bad.”

“Call me later?” I asked, hoping despite the evidence.

“I’ll try.” Under the circumstances, it was about the best answer he could give me. He then looked down at me with a curious frown and asked, “What the hell is on your hands?”

“It’s shortening,” I said. “I had to immobilize some pool balls.”

Gus did an admirable job of pretending like this answer explained everything. “I see,” he said. Then he turned and strode away. Moments later they left, carting Bill away as my heart sank. I realized I’d been left alone with Suzanne, as opposed to being in a car with my perfectly nice boss and an adorable detective, and my heart sank even lower.

“Sorry about that,” I said to Suzanne, sounding lame. “Also I should warn you that the felt on your pool table may need cleaning. You can send me the bill.”

Suzanne went to a nearby sofa and collapsed onto it. “I am confused, and I have a headache.”

“Yeah, me too. Mind if I wash this off my hands, and I’ll get out of here? I have to take Charlene’s car back.”

“Charlene’s car?”

“Mine is at Bill’s place. He stole my keys yesterday when I was trying to get him to turn himself in.”

“Oh, naturally, I should have realized.” Suzanne grimaced, rubbing her forehead painfully. “So everyone thinks, what? That Bill had something to do with Adrienne Maxwell killing herself?”

“It’s a long story, and I’m not sure that I’m supposed to discuss it any more. I got keelhauled at work this morning, and most likely I’ve been fired by now. Maybe if you call Donna she’d tell you.”

“Well, I’d certainly never ask you to violate your trust with Bill. Since apparently you’re his sworn protector.”

“Yeah, that’s one of the bullet points on my mission statement.” I was in no mood to engage in the battle of favoritism with Suzanne, who was lashing out for a whole new set of reasons besides just disliking me. Having her dearest crush-monkey escorted from her house by cops, after a night of pool ball escapades, had doubtless left her feeling cranky.

I left her to her grumbling, went to her kitchen sink in the next room, and began the laborious process of cleaning my hands without making a greater mess. Not an easy task. Shortening is a terribly sticky, clingy, greasy substance. Perhaps I shouldn’t have volunteered to foot the bill for cleaning.

When I returned to Suzanne’s front room she asked dully, “Are you going back to the office now?”

“Yes, I have to return Charlene’s car.”

After a moment she said, “I knew Bill had problems. I already knew. It shouldn’t matter.”

She did not seem to be speaking directly to me. I murmured, “So…I’d better go. And sorry again for your pool table.”

But you’ll notice that I didn’t volunteer to go down there and clean it up myself.

As soon as I got the hell out of Suzanne’s house, I expected to feel triumph and relief. I had achieved what I’d believed to be my goal: getting Bill safely into police custody. But of course this was what Junior Gestapo Brent would call a “short-term goal,” which should only be “a building block leading to success of the long-term mission.” In Junior Gestapo Brent’s world, for example, a short-term goal might be to limit secretaries to one cup of coffee per day to cut down on bathroom break times, and the long-term mission would of course be to completely eliminate any excuse we had for walking around the office, lest we speak to each other, smile or enjoy ourselves. My short-term goal had been safe police custody, yes. Now I recognized my complete dissatisfaction with the outcome of the morning and realized with great dismay that my long-term mission was somehow proving that Bill hadn’t hurt anyone.

This was a significantly larger task. In fact, it might well be a task I wouldn’t be allowed to perform. Or able to perform, come to think of it. What was I going to do, uncover DNA evidence with my home lab kit? I couldn’t even properly sand a chair.

I drove back to the office, barely noticing what I did, caught in the throes of a fairly unproductive brainstorm. As far as I could see, I had one advantage over the KCPD, their crime labs, and their adorable detectives. I knew the people who worked at MBS&K. And I knew this too: that despite Bill’s being the most likely suspect to have contributed to the suicides, he was not the only possibility. Bill’s files were open to any employee of the firm who cared to look at them.

I recalled a little venomously the strange jealous attitude of Suzanne Farkanansia. Who would be more likely to see Bill’s files than the paralegal who had worked with him for most of the years he’d been there? I had a hard time imagining anyone I knew being capable of murder, and yet Suzanne was so needy of Bill’s time and attention. I had supposed she was just lonely, and that Bill filled a certain space in her life. He filled a space in my life, too, you know, and I didn’t get insanely jealous about his dealings with other women.

Of course, I wasn’t twice widowed.

Suzanne Farkanansia was, though.

*****

With Bill Nestor having been found, the police state at the office was diminished. I let myself back into the building’s garage and returned Charlene’s car to her parking space without anyone asking questions. In a haze of thought, I pocketed Charlene’s things and walked to the elevator. I was prepared to go back upstairs and give her stuff back, but I faltered as my finger reached for the “UP” button.

I was in trouble. This infraction made two days of job abandonment in a row, the second not excusable in the slightest way because I had quite purposely sneaked out of the office in the middle of my own disciplinary hearing.

Tomorrow, I thought. Tomorrow I will go to work and face the music, accept my dismissal like a grown-up. The thought of losing my job was not one I relished, but I’d made a choice when I decided to be Bill’s advocate in this mess. Even if it turned out that he was a mad serial killer, I was not going to regret what I’d done. He had been a good boss to me.

Instead of going upstairs, I went down the basement hall to the great paper labyrinth that was the storage room. A building phone in there could put me through to our office, I guess so that Lloyd would always be able to call down to yell at whatever clerk was taking too long finding a file. Nah, I should be nice to Lloyd. He had actually assisted my escape earlier, and that was probably the most surprising thing that had happened all week. I called Charlene’s desk directly. She didn’t answer the first time I called, so I spent an uncomfortable ten minutes waiting on a stepping stool and then I tried her again.

“Good morning. This is Charlene.”

Morning? God, was it still morning? I felt as if the day were over hours ago. “It’s Carol. I’m back with your car.”

“Okay. And where should I look for it?”

Crafty Charlene. She knew better than to announce to everyone within six cubicles that it was me on the phone.

“I’m downstairs in file storage. You mind coming down? I don’t think I want to come back upstairs right now.”

“No. You don’t. Give me a couple minutes, okay?”

I went back to my stepping stool and waited.

*****

As she entered the storage room, Charlene said “When he found out that you had left, Terry Bronk threw a fit. I could hear it from my desk. It was really funny.”

I wondered at that, judging by her flat expression. “Are they going to wait until I come back to fire me officially?” I asked.

“I didn’t hear, one way or the other. Still, it was like something out of a horror movie. I think some of his brains are still on the ceiling. I don’t think he could believe that someone just walked out of a meeting with him.”

Yeah, I doubted Terry would believe I’d just been in the bathroom this whole time. Now there would be a new office legend. “The Time Carol Frank Walked Out of a Disciplinary Hearing to Find Her Serial Killer Boss and Terry Bronk Fired Her.”

“Thanks for sending the police along behind me,” I said.

“What?” She looked momentarily startled and then feigned ignorance.

“It’s okay. It’s a good thing they came. Halfway over there, I thought I should have notified them myself, but I didn’t bring my cell phone.”

For a moment it looked like she was going to continue denying her participation, but then she relented. “I was just worried about you and about Suzanne. Bill can get so strange when he’s stressed out.”

“It was the right thing to do.”

“What happened?” she blurted. Then, looking abashed, she added, “If you can tell me.”

“Nothing dramatic. But Bill was there.”

“You knew he would be.”

“I just thought, you know, where else would he go?” I shrugged. “And once we got him calmed down, he went voluntarily with the police.”

“Oh.” Charlene looked vaguely disappointed, as if she’d been hoping for a more dramatic retelling. “I figured once they arrested him, he might start flipping out.”

“Actually they didn’t arrest him. They were calling it a voluntary interview when they ‘escorted’ him from Suzanne’s house.”

“Didn’t arrest him? That’s surprising. After the way they tore his office apart, I thought they had decided he was guilty already.”

I still hadn’t seen Bill’s ravaged office or my desk, but a thorough search by the police doesn’t always mean anything has been found. I knew that from television. To Charlene I said, “Oh, come on, you can’t honestly believe that Bill is capable of harming another human being.”

“God, Carol, that’s what everybody says after they discover somebody’s been eating the neighbors. ‘Oh, he was such a nice quiet guy. Such a loner.’ And Bill is so quirky.”

“He’s quirky six ways from Sunday, but I don’t believe that he’s hurt anyone. He’s like, the embodiment of kindness.”

Charlene grimaced. “Well, maybe he believes that what he’s doing is kind, in its own way.”

“He’s not doing anything.” Leaning against the counter I pushed my face into my hands, groaned loud and long. “Oh my God, I don’t know what to do next.”

“Do? What is there to do? You got him to the police, Carol. Isn’t that what you wanted?”

“Short-term goal. I wanted him safely in police custody, but not so they could lock him up forever. I want them to find out that he’s innocent. I mean, clear his name, if he hasn’t already lost his reputation completely thanks to this mess. If I’m going to lose my job and be forbidden to see my new boyfriend for the foreseeable future, I at least want it to have been worth the sacrifice.”

I looked to Charlene carefully, remembering to whom I was speaking. “You can help me,” I said. “Charlene, you remember everything.”

“Help you? No, no. Carol, I have to get back to work. Aven’s left so many files on my desk, it looks like he’s building a fort.”

Her job, yes. Charlene, unlike me, still had a job. And a boss. Envious of her luck, I said, rather accusingly, “I wish I’d never opened this can of worms, but I did. And you’re the one who got me started. So I don’t think it would kill you to help a little bit.”

Charlene looked appalled. “Got you started?”

“Yes, got me started. You told me that Adrienne Maxwell wasn’t the first client of Bill’s to commit suicide, and after I found Bonita Voigt’s chart, you were like, ‘Oh no, that’s not the right one. You have to find the one that rhymes with Hermione.’”

Her eyes flicked away from mine.

I went on, “So I kept looking, and found more and more of the suicides, and…” I trailed off, realizing for the first time the implications of what I had just said. “Hey. Charlene. Did you—you didn’t—know already?”

I actually expected her to scoff a little at this. Scoff, scoff. But no. She hesitated, still not making eye contact, and then said, “I only suspected. I wasn’t sure.”

I was a bit too curious to be completely thunderstruck, though this news should have rendered me speechless. “How long have you suspected?”

“Well, God, Carol, it’s been happening for so long, I can’t really remember. It’s just that, you know, women would end up dead, and after a while I started thinking, ‘Wow, that’s an awful lot of suicides.’”

“I don’t follow you. How did you know they were suicides?”

“Because I’d hear.”

“But Bill would never announce something like that to the whole firm.”

“Of course not. But I’d hear it, oh, from his secretaries or from the newspapers.”

Still my doubt must have showed, particularly because I didn’t think that newspapers were much for printing details of quiet and unspectacular suicides. I’d discovered that much in my own research. Charlene looked pointedly annoyed with me. “Obviously I heard it from somewhere, Carol.”

“And so, how long before you started thinking that something was strange about it?”

“Well after two or three I thought it was strange, but it wasn’t until your detective showed up, after Adrienne’s death, that I began to worry that Bill was really doing something wrong. So I just, sort of, suggested that it might be something to look into.”

“Why me? Why not just say something yourself?”

Charlene gave a tired little sigh. “I don’t like office politics any more than you do, but I know how they work. I couldn’t afford to lose my job. I’m too old to get a really good new position, and I’d never be able to get the same benefits and pension.”

I felt positively wounded. I actually took a step back from her, as if she’d tried to slap me.

She said, “You’re young. You’ve only been here a couple years. I thought you could cope better with it than I could, you know, if this sort of thing happened.”

“That’s just super. You set me up.”

“Oh, stop it. That sounds like TV talk.”

“I think I’m entitled to a little melodrama. I think I’m entitled to a little help from you, too.”

“No, I can’t.”

“I promise I’ll leave your name out of it. I have so far.”

“This is going to be hard enough on the firm without me putting my nose in the middle of it. The firm will need people like me to be the backbone.”

“Wow, your devotion to the firm is an inspiration.”

“You’re not hearing me. I believe Bill is probably guilty. They’re his clients. He’s the only one who makes any sense.”

“No. It doesn’t make sense. I’ve gone through this all in my mind again and again, and it’s not logical. Just listen to me for a little bit.”

She leaned forward and peered at me. “Carol, you’re not, maybe, in love with him or something, are you?”

“He’s my boss and my friend. Suzanne is the one who is gaga over Bill, and frankly I wouldn’t be surprised if she was the one offing all the attractive widows who come to his door.”

“Hey, come on.” Darkly Charlene frowned. “That’s not funny. Don’t say things like that, not about someone you know.”

“Think about it, Charlene. We’ve got a string of suspicious suicides all connected by this firm. Bill’s not doing it, I’m sure of that, so someone else must be. Almost seventy people work here—though only a handful have worked here long enough to account for all the deaths.”

“Stop it.” Charlene looked almost disappointed in me. “I don’t feel comfortable listing my coworkers and deciding which ones are capable of crimes.”

“Well, I’m sorry. Excuse me very much. Ordinarily I don’t come to work and try to pick out the one guy who’s likely to start a shooting spree—though that would be Howard—”

“Oh, yes, Howard would.” Charlene nodded vigorously.

“—but now my boss Bill is in trouble, and I can’t help but consider the other possibilities. And Suzanne’s one of them. She’s got the seniority and the motive.”

“Motive! What motive?”

“She’s jealous of Bill’s time and attention. What was it she said about rich women parading in here flashing their money? You were there; you heard her.”

“I’d forgotten about that. So you really think that’s enough of a motive to murder people? I can see maybe one killing in a jealous rage, but then, these suicides are different. Whoever’s doing it obviously has some greater purpose than something as silly as jealousy over a man. That’s a small motive, and this looks like a big motive, like there’s a real meaningfulness behind it that we don’t understand.”

She had a good point, and I was not overly surprised that she knew so much. People must have been talking a lot yesterday. I admitted, “The motive—the method—of the entire scenario escapes me, to be honest. How in the heck do you talk a reasonably healthy and financially secure woman into killing herself with no fuss?”

“Just because they might be healthy and wealthy doesn’t mean they don’t want to die.”

“Well I find it hard to believe that all nine of them were so clinically depressed that it only took a phone call to convince them. I can’t think of any way to do it except at gunpoint.”

Charlene’s eyes widened. “That’s not so. You could threaten the widow, let her know that you’d kill her family or something if she didn’t cooperate.”

“I guess that might work, for some people, but I doubt you’d get the same neat, clean suicide-look. The widows would leave a note for someone, a warning or a message of some kind.”

“Not if they were despondent enough, they might not…”

“Despondent?” I repeated, remembering the word from Bill’s numerous notes. “Despondent still, two or almost three years after their husbands are dead?”

“There’s no time limit on grief.”

“Are we even talking about the same thing? These are not suicides. Nine widows didn’t just sit down on a Saturday night and eat over-the-counter meds until they went to sleep and died. Even if there’s no trace of foul play or evidence that anyone else was there, I can only see this working at gunpoint. And frankly—because my last name is Frank, you know—I only see it working if a woman is the one holding the gun. Thus, Suzanne.”

The gaze Charlene directed at me was cool and decidedly not amused. “Explain.”

All right! Time to put my minor in philosophy to work and exercise the old logic skills. I began, “Um, okay. The unsub—that’s unidentified subject—goes to the widow’s house. She confronts the widow, with a gun, and says something serious but not life-threatening, like, ‘I’m going to rob your house because I need money for my dying mother’s operation,’ or something of that ilk. Then she says, ‘I want you to take this handful of sleeping pills so that I don’t have to tie you up,’ and she says, maybe, ‘I don’t want to have to hurt you.’ You know, makes it the lesser of two evils. And she probably says either that the pills are mostly harmless or that she’ll call an ambulance from the payphone down the street, as soon as she’s done robbing the widow’s house. But no ambulance ever gets called because the entire point of the exercise has been to make the widow overdose. For whatever motive. I don’t know why.”

Charlene, to my surprise, looked near tears. Resentfully she asked, “Why does it have to be a woman?”

“Well because,” I stated. This was obvious enough to me. “Because if it were a man, the widow wouldn’t be so willing to quietly knock herself unconscious. Would you want a man drugging you until you were helpless? I’d sure as hell put up a fight; I’d make the sonofabitch shoot me. That’s what I’d do.”

“I suppose it makes some kind of sense. But I still think it’s just as likely to be Bill doing it.” In response to my perplexity she said, “Because it’s Bill, they know him, and they trust him. He’s their lawyer.”

“No, doesn’t work. The widow can’t know who her attacker or see the face, because otherwise she wouldn’t be willing to take the pills. The widow would figure, ‘I’ve seen the criminal’s face and can identify her, so if she knocks me out, she’ll kill me afterwards.’”

Charlene said, “Then it has to be Bill.”

“God! Why?”

“Because there’s no sign of a break-in or, what do you call it, unlawful entry. He’s the only one who could be getting in undetected.”

I hadn’t thought of that and, in the face of my prideful logic, her argument mortified me. She had made another excellent point. Bill was the one who took the notes on their home security systems, their spare keys, their watch dogs or lack thereof. Bill was the only one who knew those things. Bill, and me, I guess.

Or—and here my spirits lightened again—anyone else who read his notes. I felt like a dolt. Of course, anyone who read his client notes would know that information was in there. Conversely, anyone who had never read Bill’s notes would not know that information was in there. It was in that moment, when I made that logical leap, that it occurred to me that I was standing in the storage room with the serial killer.

You know, it was not just the fact that Charlene was aware of the content of Bill’s client files. That alone would not have convinced me of anything. Anyone who worked in this office could open Bill’s files and read them, if she wished to bore herself silly. Yet this fact, accompanied now by a rush of other information my detective-show-educated brain was compiling, decided me against her. Charlene had been with the firm long enough to account for all the deaths. Charlene was a woman, duh, and I found no flaw in my logic on the point that our killer was probably female.

But more than these circumstantial logistics was her backstage pushing of me towards discovering the pattern of deaths and blaming it on Bill. It seemed to me that a person who suspected serial murder, as she claimed she had, would not wait years to say something about it merely out of fear of losing a job. The police get anonymous tips all the time. Charlene had, just five minutes ago, told me that it was only when Gus showed up at the office, investigating Adrienne Maxwell’s death, that she’d decided something had to be done. Seemed to me that panicking at the sight of a detective was the action of a guilty conscience.

But mostly, I think the thing that damned her was when she used the word “despondent.” It’s not a patented word; you don’t have to have special permission to use it, I understand. Yet she had used it, and it was Bill’s word, and I saw what was standing right before me.

I think Charlene knew her own truth just a fraction of a second after I had discovered mine. Something in my eyes, I don’t know—Bill had seen the same look the day before, when I’d considered the possibility that he was guilty. And now, just like yesterday, I felt sad and mystified and a little out-of-sorts, but not especially fearful. This was Charlene, my friend. Imagine this if you will: crimes don’t sound quite so criminal when they are committed by someone you like. Or perhaps that is what happens to a woman’s judgment, when she watches too much television.

“Charlene,” I said, with concern. “Oh, you poor thing.”

“Save it for Bill,” replied Charlene wearily. “I don’t need nurturing.”

“It’s the despondent thing, isn’t it?”

She looked genuinely surprised. “How did you know that?”

“Code word,” was all I could think to answer. I was unable to stop myself from asking, “Why are you doing this?”

Her shoulders slumped, and her voice dropped even lower. “I don’t even remember how it began exactly. But what I’m doing is right. Happy marriages are so rare. When they end because of death, there shouldn’t be anyone left behind. I wait for them. I give them some time to see if they can find someone else to love, but true love doesn’t come around that often, so I help them to not suffer any more. It’s like Romeo and Juliet.”

It really wasn’t, and I didn’t think it fair to Shakespeare to pull him into this fiasco. That was a beef that could wait for another time, though. I said, “What I meant was, why did you push me to find out about it? You know you could have gone on meting out your own brand of romance indefinitely. No one knew about it.”

“Your detective was going to find out. Your detective came here. No one else has ever gotten anywhere near, except for years and years ago at the hospital.”

“The hospital?”

“But I fixed that problem, and I could keep helping here, where the widows came. And I could help end the good marriages and the bad marriages, too.”

I didn’t suppose Aven Fisher knew about this alternate side to his practice of domestic law. I had a terrible impulse to laugh, but I held it in. This was probably not the best time for uproarious chuckles. Charlene caught the near-hysterical twitch at the corner of my mouth and told me, “You’ve probably never seen how beautiful it is, and how brave it is, for a woman to die when she loses the man she loves. The women in my family were never afraid to do the right thing. My grandmother wasn’t. And when I was very young, my mother—”

She stopped herself and peered at me hard. Perhaps I’d looked a bit too interested in this. Succinctly she finished, “It’s the right thing to do. I’m helping.”

Charlene was too intelligent to believe that I’d wholeheartedly agree with this, so I did not pretend to do so. I said, “Charlene, you have to know that you’re not helping anyone. You’re hurting a lot of people. Otherwise you wouldn’t be trying to pin the blame on someone else.”

“What the law says is right and what I know inside to be right are two different things—and the law and everyone else doesn’t see any difference. You don’t, obviously.”

“What I think doesn’t matter.”

“All of a sudden, what you think seems to be the only thing that matters.” She didn’t look at me, but at the floor when she asked next, “What are you going to do?”

“What do you want to do?”

She shrugged her shoulders absently and stepped away from me to walk part of the way down a narrow row of shelves heavy with boxes, gazing at them as if she were perusing titles in a bookstore. I realized this was the second time that day that I’d hidden in a file room with Charlene. It seemed like almost everything I did gave me a bad feeling of déjà vu. I had expended almost all my energy coping with Bill, so I was not thrilled to have another case on my hands.

“I’ll stop,” Charlene said, suddenly spinning to face me. “I promise I won’t do it again. If you could just let it go, we don’t need to ever hear any more about it.”

I refrained from pressing her as to why she’d decided killing widows was a cool idea in the first place. There were not enough hours left in the day for me to hear or understand that story. And though once again this was just what I’d heard on detective shows, I didn’t think serial murderers could “just stop” whenever they want to. That was not really important at the moment. What mattered was getting her back upstairs to the office where I could deal with her in a crowd of people, hopefully some of them armed.

“So, how would that work?” I asked. “I really don’t want Bill to have to take the blame for this.”

“He won’t have to.”

“He already is.”

“Right,” she said rather spitefully. “They didn’t even arrest him. What I mean is, there’s a file upstairs. It’s still there today; the police haven’t found it yet, I guess. It’s on Bill’s miscellaneous file shelf in Lloyd’s file room. The police must have missed those yesterday, but I was sure they’d be back.”

“Okay, but what’s in the file?”

Charlene didn’t say, but she slid a slow, lurking smile in my direction that made me feel like I’d just run my nails down a piece of dry stiff velvet. She said, “If they don’t find that file, I doubt they’ll ever be able to make a firm case against anyone. So, how about I just take the file away, make it disappear, and that’s the end of it. That clears Bill and everyone else, and I’ll go to Aven and ask him to make sure you don’t get fired. I’m sure Bill will go to bat for you, too. No harm done.”

I thought that “no harm done” was a relative phrase, since she’d racked up a body count of at least nine, but arguing about ethics was better left to others. I said, “Whatever we do, let’s do it upstairs. I need to go get fired, and like you said, Aven left a pile of work on your desk.”

“Okay. Hey, can I have my car keys?”

The original purpose for our storage room meeting seemed like an event from another decade. For a second I couldn’t even think why she was asking me for such a thing. Then I snapped back to reality, slipped my hand into my skirt pocket, and pulled out the ring of keys. I had to take a couple steps toward her, still flanked by the rickety old shelves. The claustrophobia was hard to take. I did not want to be close to her. She sensed this, too, and refused to budge, just holding out her hand as I dropped the keys into it. There was a little smirk on her face. What was I going to do? I was trying to convince her that all was well enough that she and I could just go back to work—or go back and be fired from work, respectively.

But then she turned her head sharply toward the dark recesses in the back of the room. Her face screwed up with exasperation. She raised her voice and spoke into the darkness. “Hello. Who’s back there?”

I turned to see what she was talking about. I hadn’t heard anyone, but another employee in the room would be a great relief. My mind flashed to a quick thought. Lloyd?

“You might as well come out,” Charlene told the hidden voyeur, as she dropped back out of my line of sight

“I don’t think there’s anyone there,” I said, turning back to her.

The word magicians use is “misdirection,” which is what Charlene had just done to me while she picked up a weapon from the wide selection of debris in the room. I had a moment to register surprise that her arms were raised over her head. Then something dark swooped down, and the world split apart and cracked brightly as Charlene brought a loose file drawer bracket down on my left temple. File brackets are about three feet long, made of steel, sharp edged and capable of doing serious injury to an unwary secretary’s fingers. It was the equivalent of being bludgeoned with a dull axe. The impact knocked me sideways into the shelves of boxes, stunning me so that I didn’t even feel pain. A second blow landed on the back of my head. That one was more powerfully incapacitating, dazing me enough that I dropped to my hands and knees. Three bright red drops plopped onto the floor before my eyes and made big crimson circles that doubled, tripled and then swam in an amazing, nauseating loop as more blood fell. Moaning, I squeezed my eyes closed.

“You’re crazy about Bill Nestor, and you turned him in to the cops the first chance you got,” said Charlene’s voice from somewhere near the ceiling. “I know you’d give me up in a heartbeat.”

While she spoke, I struggled to sit up. I was unsuccessful; all I managed to do was lurch in a sloppy half-circle, like a drunken dog trying to find a place to sleep. Charlene’s voice moved into the next aisle and deliberately, with one great straining groan, she pushed the entire world down on me. Out of the corner of my swimming vision, I saw a barrage of forty-pound boxes hurtling down from the tipping shelf, slamming into me, knocking the wind out of me so that the only noise I could make was one pathetic “whoomp” before I was smothered under a landslide of paper. A few more painful thuds registered through my pummeled body, but I still didn’t have the presence of mind to be more than stupidly baffled by my predicament.

From somewhere beyond my landslide grave, I heard, “I’m sorry, Carol—I really, really am.”

Then I heard the sound of her footsteps, muffled through the haze of my slipping consciousness, and a moment later, the door slammed closed as everything went utterly dark.

Chapter Seventeen

Somewhere across town, Gus Haglund was interviewing Bill Nestor and seeing, as I had known in my heart, that this lawyer was a decent human being who happened to have obsessive-compulsive disorder but certainly was no killer. Suddenly, Gus looked up as if his name had been called from a long distance away. He had a terrible feeling that something was wrong. My face flashed in his mind, and he rose to his feet, saying, “Get a squad car over to MBS&K stat!”

Within fifteen minutes, I was being extracted, bloodied and badly bruised, but otherwise unharmed, from under the boxes in the storage room. Gus seized me and held me against him, saying, “Thank God we got here in time.” Then I was taken to a private hospital room where I convalesced for several days until Terry Bronk came to my room and begged me to come back to work because no one else could do my job. I demanded a raise and got it, so I said, “Sure, I’ll come back right after my honeymoon in Paris.” That’s where I was soon to be headed with Gus, my fiancé.

*****

That sounded like a perfectly reasonable rescue to me, as I lay under a crush of boxes in the total darkness of the storage room. Except that I may have gotten some details wrong. Gus and I didn’t share any psychic link that I knew of. Also, detectives don’t say “stat;” doctors say “stat.” The scenario didn’t account for why anybody would think to look for me in the storage room. And imagining that Terry Bronk would offer me my job plus a raise was really just the ravings of a woman with a concussion.

At first my head was shrieking with the bright agony of being creamed with a sharp metal bar. When that pain faded to a raging roar, I had the rest of my pummeled body to contend with. I did not think I’d broken any bones, unless Charlene had managed to crack my skull, but I hurt, badly, in parts that had never had hurt before. But this pain, too, began to fade into obscurity as breathing became increasingly, scarily difficult. The air I could manage suck in, as if through a straw, was woefully under the legal limits for sustaining life.

But I must, must, must stay calm, I told myself. The more frightened I felt, the harder it was to make use of the reedy whispers of air left to me. I counted to twenty, gasping, and made myself concentrate. The darkness, I was relieved to realize, was thanks to Charlene’s snapping off the lights, and not because she had actually blinded me. Still, knowing the cause of my blindness didn’t help cure it. If I couldn’t figure out which way was up, freeing myself would be all the more difficult. And my progress was being clocked by my aching lungs.

All right, then. “Up” was where the paper and boxes were crushing my back. Okay. “Down” was my face, smashed against the cold tile floor and sticky with blood. Where were my hands? I located them at the ends of my arms. Could they move? One of them could. My left hand was not pinned, though most of my left arm was from the elbow up. The fingers were tingling but not yet numb. Fine. One hand is better than nothing.

In addition to the numerous heavy boxes on my back, the two metal shelving units that were now braced against each other had made an upright dam that kept everything in place, with me as an unwilling lodestone at the bottom. I couldn’t hope for an avalanche to provide freedom. I thought perhaps I could lever myself against the floor and shove my way out from under the enormous weight. Actually, there was no “perhaps” about it. I had to do this because it could be hours before a clerk or Lloyd came down here, and I could easily suffocate by then. If I lost consciousness, I was a goner for sure.

I remembered, in those dark minutes, that I had failed to prepare a will. If I made it out of here, I’d have to ask Bill to draw one up for me. And I must make it out, because it would be so humiliating to be the first secretary in history to die literally buried under a mountain of paperwork.

When you’re squirming to get out from under a ton of boxes, you think things like, “I should have worked out more.” I needed powerful thigh muscles to extricate myself from this, but I didn’t have them. Struggling takes up so much damned air. Freaking out was once again sounding like a good option. Maybe if I freaked out, I could bust right up through all this junk like the Incredible Hulk, my shirt torn to ribbons from my bulging green muscles. No such luck. I couldn’t move forward, not an inch. But after a time, which seemed like airless, hallucinating hours, I discovered that I could move backwards. The lower half of my body wasn’t nearly as trapped as the upper half (the half, unfortunately, that liked the oxygen so much), and I found I could wriggle and writhe my legs and hips.

Over the long, sweaty course of scraping myself hideously against box corners, metal brackets, binder combs and notebook flaps, whimpering and yelping as the boxes rearranged themselves and squashed me hard, I wormed my way backwards until finally I emerged, utterly exhausted, gasping and in more sorts of agony than I’d ever cared to know. But I could breathe again. That was something. I didn’t even mind that I’d almost wriggled my way right out of my clothes. My skirt was rucked up around my waist, and my blouse was halfway to my neck. Everything I wore felt shredded as I pushed my clothes back into place, wincing and sucking breath through my teeth. Now would be a terrific time for some clerk to turn the lights back on and find me this way, I thought. I tried to touch my head where Charlene had struck me, but it hurt too much and I was scared to find out how deep the wounds went. But I could stand. More cause for celebration.

If I had been completely in my right mind, I probably wouldn’t have celebrated by attempting the next phase of my escape, which was to claw my way, in complete darkness, back around the boxes and the fallen shelving units. Stupefied determination seems to lend one a certain amount of leeway, though. Spelunking to the door was far easier than getting out from under the boxes. I was positively giddy. Truthfully, I was probably delirious with shock and blood loss. With the only dose of pure dumb luck I got that whole day, I found my way to the door without killing myself, turned on the lights and stood blinking in the glare like a cave dweller who had made a wrong turn.

Long though the time may have seemed, I had probably only been trapped for eight or ten minutes at the most. Freed of oxygen deprivation and impending death, I suddenly wondered if Charlene Templeton was still in the building.

*****

It took some effort to remember what floor I should select in the elevator. My badly scraped fingers hovered at the buttons for several seconds before I took a guess. Did I work on the tenth floor? I thought I probably did. I was swooped up with a lurch that made me feel quite ill and then jerked to a halt as two women climbed on at the mezzanine level and, after looking at me with shock-widened eyes, displayed the utmost in elevator etiquette by facing squarely forward without further staring. They got off two floors later, and one of them said to me as she departed, “Um, your head is bleeding, did you know?”

“Yes, thanks,” I replied, impatiently. I had not seen my head or dared to touch it, but I could see my blouse, which now sported an impressively large, brilliant red spread of blood from my neck to my bustline. I had heard that head wounds bleed abundantly and found that to be true. That was just the one on my temple, the one that hurt the most. I had almost forgotten about the blow across the back of my head, which might be doing anything: leaking blood, bone, brains, all sorts of stuff. I didn’t want to know. The doors closed, and up I lurched again, holding onto the rail now to keep steady. I sure wished I had worn flats that day.

I finally fell out onto MBS&K’s floor and through the lobby doors. Lucille looked up from People magazine and screamed—one can scream with a Southern accent—causing me to scream in return because she’d startled me so badly. On her feet, our goddess of gossip raced around her counter to stare at me, and I gathered my sense of purpose enough to ask, “Where is Charlene?”

“Oh mah God, what happened to you?” shrieked Lucille.

In response to Lucille’s scream, footsteps scurried toward us, the clack of business-casual heels on tile. I heard expletives, none of which seemed horrified so much as wildly entertained. “Holy shit!” “Look at that!” “Is that Carol?” “What the hell happened?”

“Charlene Templeton!” I shouted at Lucille. “Did she come this way? Is she back at her desk?”

Lucille’s mouth opened and closed for a moment. Finally she pointed toward the main room, but when I rushed past her, she announced, “Ah’m calling an ambulance!”

“Good! Yes!” I blundered on, hearing more cries of surprise as I went.

Lucille added, loudly, “And Terry Bronk wants to see you!”

I’m sure you’re thinking that going to Charlene’s desk was a stupid idea. “She just confessed to murder and then tried to kill you, Carol,” is what you’re thinking. You’re probably also wondering what she would be doing at her desk. But secretaries—particularly ones like Charlene, who have been at it for a couple decades—have a chip implanted in their heads which makes leaving before all the work is done very difficult, even in the most pressing circumstances. I once saw a woman stay at her desk with a gushing nosebleed, typing with one hand and jamming paper towels against her nostrils with the other. “Just let me finish this letter,” she’d said. So finding Charlene at her desk would not be outside the realm of possibility. I figured at least she would have come here to get her things before going on the lam, which was where I would be going, if I were Charlene.

I hurtled into her cubicle, but it was empty. Behind me, an ancient, technology-impaired attorney named Paul shuffled to a stop and said, “Carol, can you help me send a fax?”

“I’m in such a hurry,” I replied apologetically. Paul had not looked up at me yet. “I bet one of the file room clerks could help you out.”

Now the old guy looked at me and frowned. Perhaps he did not trust his vision. He tried to raise the fax pleadingly toward me.

Somewhere across the room I heard Junior Gestapo Brent’s loud, vindictive voice: “Oh, she’s back now?” and I knew I had to move. To Donna’s office now, ignoring various interested questions as I passed my coworkers. “Is that blood?” “Did you know Terry Bronk wants to see you?” “Are you hurt?” “Did you fall?” And my favorite, “Carol, did you know your head is bleeding?”

Luckily, being covered in blood and dirt, and spouting insanity, keeps people from wanting to touch you, so no one dared to put a restraining hand on me. At Donna’s office door, I stumbled to a halt and said, “Have you talked to Charlene?”

As she looked up at me, all the blood drained from Donna’s face. Her hand reached blindly for her phone and picked it up, holding it in midair as if it might offer some assistance.

“Charlene Templeton!” I shouted at her.

“Carol!” barked the scariest voice at MBS&K. No, it was not Terry Bronk. It was Lloyd. I whirled around with claws bared.

“Charlene came into the file room, grabbed a red-rope file off the shelf, and ran out again,” Lloyd explained. His appraisal of me was no different today, as I stood wavering and covered with all kinds of interesting gunk, than it had been on the day I’d curled my hair and put on extra makeup.

“She, she,” stammered Donna, “she said she had an emergency and had to leave.”

“Well crap!” I yelled at no one in particular. I hurried back toward the front of the office and Lucille.

Right into my pathway stepped Junior Gestapo Brent. He raised a finger to point at me in accusation and victory but, thanks to horror at my appearance, was unable to complete what I’m sure had been a well-rehearsed telling-off. I shoved past him. Behind me he said weakly, “Hey, you can’t come to work looking like that,” and Donna’s voice came right behind it, “Carol, what’s happening? Do you need a doctor?”

I did not fully realize until I was back in front of Lucille that I had picked up a parade of followers: Brent; Donna; elderly Paul holding his fax; bold Melinda and her groupies Mary and Daphne; and Lloyd and the timid little file clerk, Eric. I gave them an unsure glance as I asked desperately, “Did Charlene come back this way?”

“Ah haven’t seen her since she came back from the storage room. Ah’ve called an ambulance. Don’t sit on the furniture.”

“Where could she have—” I began, then to Lucille, “Don’t sit on the furniture?”

“It’s new. You might bleed on it.”

“She took the stairs?” asked Lloyd, who seemed to be the only one who understood that I wanted to get to Charlene badly enough that I was willing to run around bleeding to death to do it.

“Well, crap!” I shouted again and pushed toward the elevators. Over my aching shoulder, I added to Lucille, “Call Detective Haglund at the KCPD and tell him that Charlene Templeton confessed to me and to get over here as fast as he can. I’ve got to get down to the garage.”

“What’s happening?” Donna, Brent, Melinda, and Eric the File Clerk cried almost simultaneously as we waited for the infernally slow machine to haul itself back to our floor.

“Charlene Templeton told me that she’s been killing the widows,” I said.

Some of the responses I heard to this comment were, “You’re kidding,” “You’re crazy,” “You’re full of it,” and “Your head is really bleeding a lot,” but I’m not sure who said what because I had closed my eyes to try and gather the focus I needed to stay coherent for maybe five more minutes. All of us piled into the elevator, though I think that they were mostly going along to see what I was going to do next, or how far I’d make it, and not so much to aid me in any attempts at apprehension.

Leaning against the elevator wall now and speaking through a furry-sounding haze, I said, “If I’m right, Charlene’s leaving here with a file full of evidence that she’s been hoarding. I’m not positive that a case can made against her if she gets away and destroys it. And if we can’t make a case, then we’ll never really be able to clear Bill.”

Donna was the only one of the bunch who wanted to get near me. Standing at my side she said, “Carol, I want you to sit down. I don’t think you realize how badly you’re hurt.”

“I will. In just a minute. Just let’s get to her first.”

We were in the basement, spilling into the P2 level garage, when I saw Charlene’s red Corolla at the garage doors, just sitting there, idling. Why, it was almost as if she couldn’t get out the door. Ha ha.

As a group we approached, with bloody, bedraggled me at the head. When Charlene finally realized we were there and focused with horror on my face, I pulled her keycard out of my pocket and waved it at her.

She flung her car door open and leapt out. Her car, which had been in “drive,” rolled forward and thunked loudly against the garage door. Eric the File Clerk hurried over and leapt inside, nimble youngster that he was, and put the car in “park” while Charlene stood before me, hands spread.

“Oh my God,” she said directly to me, “Carol, I’m so glad you’re okay. I’m sorry I had to hit you, but I have a right to defend myself.” Now to the crowd she said, “Carol was accusing me of killing the widows, and I was trying to tell her that accusing other people wouldn’t keep them from discovering what Bill had done…but she was so insistent. She’s determined to protect her boss!”

“Is this the file you meant?” asked Eric, lifting the red-rope file off the front seat of Charlene’s car. He yelped and dropped it, when what appeared to be a hunk of hair fell out. Looking a little queasy, he got out of the car.

Charlene looked at him sharply and then turned her extremely annoyed eyes back to me. “Give me my damned keycard. You’re always doing this. If you use something, put it back where you found it. It’s not hard. But all the time, you’ve got the high-volume, three-hole punch just sitting on your desk when it should be back in the file room, or you’ve got the packing tape stuck in your drawer—”

“What do you mean, all the time?” I demanded, plucking her card out of her reach when she made a grab for it. “One flipping time I had the three-hole punch, and I wasn’t finished with it!”

“You never fill out your docket sheets correctly! Plus you’re a mouse-clicker; didn’t anyone ever teach you how to use a keyboard?”

I drew back in shock—what a nasty thing to say. I cried back, “Well, you’re the food bandit, and I’ve known it for months!”

“Shut up!” Charlene gasped at me.

There was suddenly hushed silence in the crowd surrounding us.

“Ladies,” Donna said loudly, “I think what we need to do right now is have everyone just come inside, and we’ll wait for the police and Carol’s ambulance to come. Let’s go back upstairs now.”

Charlene glanced toward the glass exit door as if she might run for it. But, let’s be serious here, a nearly fifty-year-old, out-of-shape secretary was not going to be able to outrun any of us, except for me in my present state and elderly Paul with the fax in his hand. Brave little Eric the File Clerk, who had stopped the car and touched the hair-filled file, was now placing himself between her and the door because he had decided to continue his fine tradition of heroism.

“Good,” said Donna, as if she had understood both Charlene’s intent and her rethinking of it. “Come on. Everybody inside.”

“Yes, let’s all go inside and wait for the police,” announced Junior Gestapo Brent, probably so he could claim that his cool-headed thinking had saved the day. If I fell against him, I could get blood all over his shirt and tie…but no, I didn’t like the thought of touching him.

The elderly attorney Paul turned away, murmuring something about someone maybe helping him send his fax, and Eric the Heroic File Clerk went to take care of Charlene’s car. I vaguely saw Charlene snatch her arm away as Junior Gestapo Brent tried to take her in hand.

Donna gently suggested, “Carol, let me help you.”

“Oh, that’s okay,” I said. I had quite suddenly lost my ability to remain upright. “I think I’ll just wait here.”

I did not crumple, precisely, but I did sink with unexpected grace (unexpected to me, anyway) to the garage floor. The floor was hard and filthy. Still, it seemed cool, and I thought I might like to rest my aching head against it. There were voices all around me, but until one of them said something interesting or useful, I thought I could just tune them out.

Chapter Eighteen

If you’ve ever been to the emergency room, particularly if you’ve been escorted there by a couple of football-league sized paramedic women, you know that the medical community enjoys hearing the story of your injuries almost as much as a bunch of detectives at the Kansas City Police Department might. But after the third or fourth time I said, “My coworker beaned me twice with a file cabinet bracket and then pushed a shelf on top of me,” it didn’t even sound like the truth any more. I got a lot of significant “looks” from my listeners.

The paramedic women, who rescued MBS&K from the chance that I might bleed on the furniture, exchanged so many “looks” that I thought they might drop me off at the local insane asylum rather than the hospital. I was willing to forgive them because they gave me a whopping dose of pain medication and let me lie down on their gurney—at that point, they could have left me on the side of the highway and I would have been at peace. I didn’t even notice them strapping immobilizers onto my neck. I was breathing and drugged, and that’s what was important.

At the Emergency Room, I was forced to rouse myself out of the drug stupor and tell four doctors, eighteen nurses and seven radiologists the same blunt sentence. Their reactions were even less supportive. People wanted to know why my coworker would do such a thing. “That’s a damned good question,” I would respond. I was given a CAT scan, and they x-rayed me from head to toe, which took forever. The two lacerations on my head were stitched closed. Though the young intern who did the stitching assured me that it had taken a total of seventeen stitches, I will bet money that it was more like seventy. In a strange turn of events, the anesthetic he used to numb my head was more painful than the fishhook he kept cramming into my cranium.

When he was finished, I begged for more painkillers, and they were given to me willingly. Apparently I looked a fright. I know that my entire body was beginning to feel like I’d been dropped from a tall building onto a parking lot and, when I dared to look down at myself, I saw some startlingly large bruises forming on my arms and legs.

I was wheeled back into a room that looked temporary, helped onto a reclining examination table, and informed that I should make myself comfortable while I waited for all those scans to come back. I looked up to the nurse who had brought me here, a small dark woman with a reassuringly sweet face and a name tag that said “Serita,” and asked, “Where are my clothes?”

“Carol, don’t you remember? They were cut off you.”

“Cut off?” I had been wrapped up in a hospital robe almost as soon as I’d arrived, but I didn’t remember anyone cutting anything off me. If I didn’t have any shattered bones, they were going to send me out of here—my insurance wasn’t that great—and I didn’t even have shoes to walk home in. “Why’d they cut them off?”

“We didn’t know the extent of your injuries so we needed to undress you.”

“My favorite skirt?”

“Oh, it was all but ruined anyway. I am sorry. You can have a friend bring you some clothes from home,” said Serita.

“Ruined?” I asked again, looking away. That had been my favorite skirt. That was my go-to skirt. And the blouse had an embroidered collar that had pushed its price into the stratosphere. Ruined? “That bitch,” I said under my breath. It was the first moment that I was able to get angry at Charlene for something she’d done to me rather than to Bill.

Serita left me alone with my mounting rage.

And here’s another thing—where was everyone? All that had happened to me since that nice nap on the garage floor had been me responding to medically trained bullies who demanded my explanation of why I worked with crazy people. Shouldn’t police officers be swarming around me? Shouldn’t the press be crowding in the emergency room, wanting to take my picture? Was that something that only happened on television? Maybe so. But I rather resented that nobody from MBS&K had come to check on me. I guess I was in that much trouble.

I formulated a plan of action that would swing into effect after I heard my test results. Step One: demand a prescription for painkillers that would make me unable to feel anything for the next two weeks. Step Two: find my cell phone and call my parents to come and rescue me and to bring clothes. Step Three: come up with more steps later. I went to sleep on the narrow little hospital bed before I fully got through Step Three.

But they don’t like people to sleep in hospitals, and there is a vast plan of action to prevent you from dozing more than half an hour at a time. The intern woke me to say that I was covered with contusions—uh, yeah, I had guessed that, but then, I don’t have a medical degree—but that, bone-wise, I seemed to be unbroken. I could expect, said the intern, to feel some soreness and discomfort over the next several days. “Soreness and discomfort” are medical code words that mean “pain so excruciating you won’t be able to blink,” which I gleaned when he gave me a stack of prescriptions for anti-inflammatories, muscle relaxers, and painkillers that was almost as thick as a Reader’s Digest.

“Can I go home?” I asked him. I wanted to be near my television.

“I’ll authorize your release provided you have someone who’ll stay with you for the next few days,” he said, “but I think you’re supposed to talk to Detective Haglund first.”

Glad as I was to hear that Gus was at the hospital, I wished I’d had a chance to comb my hair. But judging from his expression when he entered the room, combing my hair would have done little to help. He stared at me with undisguised horror.

“That good, huh?” I asked. I tried to pull myself into a sitting position.

“No, lie still,” Gus said, rushing to my side. “Oh, good God, honey, why do you keep doing this to yourself?”

“I didn’t do this to myself.”

Glaring at me, he said, “You’re lucky that it looks like a truck ran you down, or I’d strangle you.”

This was perplexing. I wasn’t sure what I’d done wrong. I asked the reason for the potential strangling.

Gus was happy to explode at me, and he ranted, “Because you keep putting yourself in rooms with suspects and inviting them to try to murder you. I don’t understand why you refuse to tell me about these informational revelations until after the suspect has escaped or tried to bludgeon you to death. I could charge you with obstruction of justice. In fact, I’d like to. In fact, I may just do that right now.”

“Would that involve a full body search? Because I’m a little sore tonight, but maybe tomorrow?”

He refused to laugh at that. But he stopped yelling at me.

“What’s happening? Did you get Charlene? Did anyone tell you what happened?”

“We have Charlene Templeton in custody,” replied Gus, rather grudgingly. “And I have been to the basement of your firm’s building, where I was not at all happy to see about twenty-eight quarts of your blood and five hundred pounds of paper on the floor. Your boss Bill has been released with a strong suggestion that he stay where we can find him. He tried to come here, but I asked him to go home and leave you alone for now.”

“Aw, Bill’s sweet. And he didn’t do anything,” I insisted. “Charlene’s the one who’s been killing the widows.”

Gus looked toward the door, then moved closer to me and spoke as if he wasn’t really supposed to tell me these things. “She’s not speaking to anyone about that. We can keep her because she attacked you, but she says she only attacked you because you accused her of murder and threatened her. Charlene says you’ll do anything to protect your boss.”

“If you thought Bill was guilty, you wouldn’t have just turned him loose.”

“No, I wouldn’t have.”

“So you believe me about Charlene?” I searched his sweet and caring face, but all I saw there was concern. I hoped it was concern, anyway, and not repulsion at my newly-stitched, Frankenstein’s monster look. About Charlene I said, “I think she’s been tracking Bill’s clients through his notes.” I recounted my theory on how Charlene may have managed to gain entrance to homes and convince widows to take suicidal doses of pain medication.

“Okay, honey. I’ve got it. You know we’re going to have to get your statement, but…”

“But she panicked when she learned that a witness saw her leaving Adrienne Maxwell’s house. And she started pointing me in the direction of Bill’s old files. She wanted to set him up. I didn’t even realize I was being led by the nose. I’ll bet she was the one who came to my house last Saturday and tried to make it look like Bill had been there.”

“Someone was at your house on Saturday? You didn’t tell me this.”

“There was a chair that I didn’t sand very well.”

“Carol, would you like me to call the doctor back in here?”

“She’s proud of what she’s been doing,” I remarked suddenly, as much to myself as to him. “I think she considers it a humanitarian act. Maybe if you appeal to her vanity, she’d be willing to talk.”

I noticed that Gus was staring at me cockeyed, as if my words had struck him as precocious or possibly pretentious. I explained, “I watch a lot of detective shows.”

“Yes. Yes, I do know that.”

“There’s something at the office, some kind of evidence, that she said was in a file of Bill’s. She’s been keeping evidence from the crime scenes, maybe just for fun, but now she’s planted it somewhere so it can look bad for Bill. Have you found anything like that?”

Gus looked anxiously toward the door before he responded, “Don’t you remember, Carol? According to your coworkers, you chased her down to the garage while she was trying to get away with the file. We have it.”

I puzzled over this; my memory of everything from the time I’d been whacked over the head was hazy. After a long moment, some images came back to me: the file clerk, old Paul with his fax, Donna’s kindness toward me. “Oh, yeah,” I said. “Some hair fell out of it. Is it the victims’ hair? Has she been keeping hair samples? Ask her about the hair samples. I bet if you check that file for prints, Bill’s won’t be on it. Bill never goes in the file room. I do all his filing. Tell Charlene that. Maybe it’ll crack her!”

“Maybe we should just wait until you can come down and conduct the interview yourself.”

For a moment that booger got me excited about the prospect: a real police interview! But then I saw he was teasing me. I wasn’t going to be embarrassed, though. I said, “Whatever I can do to nail that six-ways-from-Sunday nut job, I’ll do. I thought she was my friend, but she attacked me. And she ruined my go-to skirt. And she also tried to push all the blame on poor nutty Bill. About the murders, not about my skirt.”

Gus shrugged. “Since they were Bill’s clients and since he had an obvious mental illness, Bill Nestor would be an excellent fall guy.”

Excellent fall guy. Now that sounded like detective talk. I realized that Gus and I were having a denouement just like they do on TV shows. It was really fun, especially since I was drugged to the gills. I smiled at Gus adoringly.

“Don’t you grin at me, Carol My-Last-Name-is-Frank. I’m furious with you.”

But he wasn’t furious at me. He was furious at what I’d done. That’s not the same. I couldn’t stop this so-called grin in the face of all that adorability.

“Stop that,” he commanded. “For God’s sake, I’ve seen zombie movies where the walking dead looked better.”

“Hey, there’s no need to be nasty.” I scolded him, even though he wasn’t being nasty. Gus compared me to the walking dead out of concern. I tried to explain, “I didn’t know Charlene was our killer when I met her in storage; I actually thought Suzanne Farkanansia was our most likely suspect. This is Charlene we’re talking about. I’m not sure I’d believe it yet, except that she started filling in all those weird details.”

“And maybe that she assaulted you with a deadly weapon and pushed a shelf of boxes on top of you.”

“Aw, I don’t think that was a legitimate murder attempt. I think she just wanted to slow me down until she could get rid of the evidence in the file. That way, the hot lead detective could never make a definite case against anyone, and it would just be her word against mine about anything that was said or done in that storage room.” Vaguely I recalled her garage claims that she’d only been acting in self-defense. “She could make me out to be the scary nut job.”

“That was a potentially lethal way to slow you down.”

“Yes, but women are temperamental that way.”

“Are you high?” Gus asked, looking at me suspiciously. He seemed ready to summon the doctor.

“I’m on a significant buzz, but I am not high.”

“I was wondering how you could lie there looking like death and sounding happy as a clam.”

“Gussie, I had one objective in this whole mess, which was to make sure that Bill Nestor came through it okay. That being done, I feel I have the right to be happy as a clam.”

“Even though your friend could have killed you.”

“Even though.” I paused. “Bitch made me ruin my best skirt, though,” I muttered.

“So I don’t think tonight is the best time for us to take your statement,” surmised Gus.

“No, maybe not. I’ve had better days.”

“No doubt you have,” said Gus. He pressed his lips hard together, and I sensed that he had swung back towards anger again. In retrospect, I think it was because I’d expressed concern over a skirt rather than my head. He cleared his throat before speaking again. “So this time you spent with Charlene in the storage room, allegedly chatting away about her motives and all, you didn’t think was better spent, perhaps, running away? Or phoning for help? Or at least staying out of arm’s length so she couldn’t split your skull open?”

Best to stop cracking wise and admit my faults. “That was a mistake.”

“And I believe last night we had a discussion about what people can do when they’re afraid. That they get unpredictable. That they get dangerous. And you are not in the middle of a television show. You could have died today.”

“Yes, Gus. I’m sorry. I’m not stupid, but it’s hard to believe anything really dramatic could ever happen in the middle of a law office.”

Gus took my hand and held it gingerly. I squeezed his hard with my fingers, because my hand was one place on me that actually wasn’t hurt. I said, “I know that officially you’re not supposed to be fraternizing with me, but can you stay for a while?”

“You’re my key witness and a victim. I can probably invent a good reason for being here.”

“I could use some help finding my way home. I was going to call my parents to come rescue me.”

“Your friendly police liaison—that being me—would be happy to help you with that.”

“Though I was hoping you could meet my parents under better circumstances.”

For a split second Gus lost his gloomy frown, considering this turn of events. He said, “Actually, I might come out of this looking pretty good to your mom and dad.”

“That’s the spirit.” I wanted him to join me in my increasing happiness. I had fixed things for Bill; I had not died in file storage; and despite the fact that I was forbidden to fraternize with Gus Haglund, here he was at my bedside. The only downside was the loss of my go-to skirt, and even that one was not Gus’s personal favorite of my skirts, which he had so efficiently removed from me in our little role-playing game.

“What are you grinning about?” he demanded.

I answered innocently, “Don’t mind me. It’s the drugs.”

Chapter Nineteen

At long last, I got my car and keys back from Bill. He drove my car over to me Friday night. That was an amusing meeting: Bill, my mother, and I sitting in my less-than-tidy living room, me loopy from medication, my mother overprotective, and Bill utterly horrified at a number of things. He was beside himself emotionally over my appearance, my trauma, and what he saw as my rescue of his life, but mostly that he didn’t think they’d gotten my stitches in very well, because they weren’t what he’d call “evenly spaced.” While he was there, he straightened my bookshelves, and he managed to charm my mother, who was like me in her ability to be open-minded to insanity so long as the crazy person was polite. Plus, he let her know in no uncertain terms that he was eternally in my debt, an opinion that she shared.

I told them both to stop being so dramatic. I figured, and I told them so, that eventually Gus would have discovered, if not that Charlene Templeton was guilty, then at least that Bill Nestor was not guilty. Bill wasn’t convinced. He didn’t have my faith in Gus. Besides, he said, in the time it took them to accept his innocence, his entire life could have been ruined by his assumed guilt. I granted him that. Yet I don’t like to get too much credit for simple loyalty and a bit of lucky guessing.

I still felt that most of my motives, from the start of this little adventure, had been rather selfish. Occupying time at work. Trying to impress Gus. Trying to impress Bill. Wanting to keep my good boss, even at the risk of working for a serial killer.

*****

Gus came to see me on Sunday morning. My mother sat in the same room with us as we spoke, like some chaperone from the Victorian Age. Actually this was preposterous because, yes, my hormones jumped into high gear whenever Gus was around, but Sunday morning saw the full fruition of my bruises, contusions, and swellings. Even if I had felt physically capable of passion, I had my doubts about whether Gus would have been willing. I thought he probably liked his women to look human. As I had hobbled into the bathroom that morning I’d thought I looked sort of cool, a black-and-blue girl who’d had a wild night at the roller derby. That was before my hot cop boyfriend showed up. That’ll make a black-and-blue girl wish for some concealer. But he was my big, sweet grizzly bear, regardless of my hideous appearance. He brought me a large bouquet of wildflowers, which was so nice of him, and the complete first season of Lost, which was absolutely brilliant of him.

The official reason for his visit was to apprise me of the situation with Charlene Templeton and what had been learned from her lately. First of all, she admitted that she was the one who’d been at my house the previous Saturday, and had straightened up my supplies to make it look as if Bill Nestor had been there. This was, I suppose, all part of her plot to throw suspicion on Bill.

More interesting was the history that Gus had learned from her.

Before she came to MBS&K as a secretary in 1991, Charlene Templeton had worked as a secretary in a hospital legal department for several years as her first job out of school. During those years, there had been at least three less-than-satisfactorily explained hospital deaths. This happened back before absolutely every hall in every public building had video surveillance. I barely remember the time.

“They were badly injured, middle-aged women,” Gus explained. “All three were hospitalized for injuries sustained in accidents where one or more of their family members had died. Two car accidents, and one house fire. Investigations were conducted, but eventually closed; because of their ages and injuries, there was only a vague suspicion of malpractice from the hospital. However, when we mentioned this to Charlene, she started talking again. About her mission from God, or whatever the hell she thinks she’s doing.”

He also told me also that my piecing together of Charlene’s modus operandi had been close to correct. Unfortunately my boss Bill took notes that were far too detailed and included information about the widows’ home security systems, watchdogs, and even where they kept their spare keys. Once she’d found a victim that both fit her profile and had an accessible home, Charlene could easily enter the widow’s house with her face covered, confront the widow under the guise of being a thief, and tell her victim that she’d shoot her if she didn’t ingest the pills. The widows complied without overwhelming protest because Charlene promised to call for help after she left the house. And because she was obviously a woman, the widows didn’t fear being raped or molested while they were unconscious.

Charlene apparently told them the pills were just mild sedatives meant to ensure that they didn’t call the police until she’d ‘made a getaway,’ but nothing she gave those women was a mild sedative. She was feeding them heavy-dosage sleeping medications and highly toxic amounts of over-the-counter painkillers. Charlene never left behind any indication that she’d been there and obviously was able to do this eight times without detection. On her ninth murder, she was spotted leaving Adrienne Maxwell’s house by a witness who could not have identified her for all the tea in China. But Charlene, I suppose, had not known that. There were two aborted attempts, if we could believe what Charlene said, but no one ever saw her face so these were just reported as attempted burglaries. Bill Nestor therefore had a couple of clients who were lucky to still be alive.

Also, in Bill’s miscellaneous red-rope file, which was kept with all the other miscellaneous files in Lloyd’s great file cavern, the crime scene investigators found six little locks of hair from various victims on the list. Where the other three victims’ hair was, I didn’t know and didn’t much want to know. Charlene planted the hair in one of Bill’s seldom-used miscellaneous files on the day she sent me searching for the Bryony Gilbert file.

“Has she said anything about her childhood?” I asked him.

“That’s something the psychiatrist is going to deal with,” replied Gus. “I’m more concerned about things I can send her to prison for.”

“Like attempted murder,” interjected my mother, who had kept quiet through the horrific details.

“Charlene said something when we were in the file room,” I mused. “Something about her mother and her grandmother, and I felt, kind of…”

I didn’t want to complete that sentence. Everyone seemed plenty annoyed with me over nearly getting myself killed and plenty annoyed that I wasn’t angrier about it. Gus finished for me, though, without sounding especially irritated. “You felt sorry for her.”

He looked at me with surprising tenderness. I liked to think that he was bowled over by my generosity of spirit, though he may just have been sympathizing with a drug-addled, badly bruised dingbat. There was sure something in his gaze, though, because my mother suddenly stood up, declared that she forgot to do something important in the kitchen, and rushed away to leave us alone and unchaperoned.

Gus moved to sit beside me on the couch. He didn’t touch me—that was a no-no. He said, “You’ve been really understanding about this boycott my boss has put on our…”

“Affiliation?”

“Affair, I was going to say.”

“Oh I like that—it sounds exotic.”

“It doesn’t bother you much, I guess,” he ventured, in an uncharacteristic show of doubt, which I was compelled by adoration to fix immediately.

“It bothers me some,” I admitted, “but you’re seeing that as a lack of commitment to our ‘affair’ when in actuality, it’s the opposite. I’m completely secure. I’ll wait for the case to close— for a month or six months or six years.”

He looked pleased but didn’t seem to want to look too pleased. “You would wait six years? No you wouldn’t.”

“Excuse me, but have you failed to notice that you’re a detective who has promised me a motorcycle ride? I’d wait sixteen years.”

“Carol, I’m serious. I’m so sorry about this.”

“I’m serious too. People always think I’m joking when I’m serious.”

“You’re not worried at all?”

Was I not? Was I really so confident about us that I had not a shadow of doubt? You might be thinking that I was ignoring one obvious problem—I was willing to wait for up to sixteen years for a detective on a motorcycle—but was that same detective willing to wait even that first postulated increment of one month for a bruised-up secretary? I may have been on a heavy dose of medication that day, but the fact that Gus brought it up first and seemed truly anxious made me think he was probably almost as patient as me. All we had to do was keep our clothes on.

Chuckling hurt some, in my ribs and certainly in my face, but I did it anyway. “Everything’s going to be fine. I’m in complete denial of any other outcome.”

“My girlfriend is such a pain in the ass,” muttered Gus as he grinned at me.

I explained, “I know all about this; it’s another benefit of watching a lot of television. Many great television pairings thrive on the sexual tension of being kept apart. Scully and Mulder kept their hands off each other for years. In fact, on Moonlighting, when they finally had sex, it ruined the show. And have you ever seen Wire in the Blood? Her name is Carol, too. She and Tony—”

To stop my lecture on televised sexual tension, Gus leaned over and very, very carefully kissed me. The combination of painkillers and muscle relaxers made my lips feel strangely numb. I had to kiss back hard to get my share.

“Well,” said a husky-voiced Gus when he drew away, “I’d better go before I do something stupid like kiss you.”

“Okay, then,” I said. “See you Wednesday?”

Wednesday was our next date. I was going to the police station to give my formal statement. If my bruises had faded by then, maybe I’d show up in a tank top and fishnet stockings. But then, I remembered that Gus Haglund liked secretary clothes.

*****

So, would you believe that Monday morning, I got up and went to work? I know what you’re thinking. Carol, you’re thinking, you didn’t even have a job any more. But no, that was not the case.

Over my long weekend of drugged lethargy, I got a lot of phone calls. My mother, who was kind enough to stay with me and field the calls, didn’t let many of the callers speak to me. I did talk to Donna, who told me: Yes, she was still my supervisor. No, I had not been fired. Yes, surviving attempted murder by a coworker is an acceptable excuse for being absent. Yes, I was technically guilty of job abandonment two days in a row. But, no, nobody was going to smack me around for it. I was informed that a note had been made in my permanent record.

“I’ve been written up?” I asked her, which everyone knows is code for “you’re on your last leg here, sister.”

“Not written up,” Donna had told me. “There’s just a notation that we had a conference with you about it.”

A notation. But not written up. I didn’t know what to make of it. Perhaps they feared a worker’s compensation claim for injuries I sustained when my coworker tried to kill me. Anyway Donna told me to take as much time off as needed and come back when I was ready.

Saying that I was “ready” on Monday morning was perhaps an overstatement. Physically I was still banged up. I moved like a woman three times my age, and the blow to my left temple had turned into a great, blue bruise that no amount of makeup or clever hairstyling would cover as it puffed up and discolored my cheekbone.

But I went stir-crazy at home. I worried about the millings of MBS&K and about what might happen without me. And television, my great love, is really fun when you use it as a reward for a hard day’s work or as a weekend tele-stravaganza, but not when you’re trapped and sore, and there’s nothing better to do.

So against my mother’s pleas, I went to work Monday morning. I assured her, and myself, that if I got there and started feeling too bad, I’d just come back home again. What were they going to do, refuse to let me? Not when I looked like I’d just gone nine rounds in a prizefight.

Upon returning to MBS&K, I had expected a crowd of people to bombard me, asking for a thrilling retelling of my adventures. However, I was studiously avoided. Everyone’s head seemed to be down over their work. Even Lucille, the goddess of gossip, just exclaimed pityingly over my injuries and told me that it was “so great” to see me back. As if I’d been gone for months, instead of three days.

I suppose the truth was that I was too big a part of an ugly incident. This business with Charlene and the dead clients was going to be far-reaching, most likely involving lawsuits and investigations, and there was no guarantee that the firm would survive as a business. Think about it. Would you want to be a client of the firm where other clients had ended up victims of a serial killer? Well, maybe you would. Whatever floats your boat. The point is, the mess with Charlene was by far the worst thing that had happened here, even worse than “The Time That Gail Went into Labor in the Bathroom and Didn’t Tell Anyone and Almost Had her Baby in There.” No one much wanted to speak to me.

I figured they might more logically be angry with Charlene, who was, after all, the one who had been offing clients.

I was under an oath not to speak of matters pertaining to Charlene Templeton. I wished I could, though, because it peeved me to be shunned as if I were the cause of all the trouble. As if things would have been better, if I’d just left Charlene to her serial killing and minded my own business. I wanted to remind these folks that my participation in her downfall had been almost totally passive.

Oh, never mind. I’d never worked here for the social life, anyway.

I moved slowly through the office, my half-lame state giving me plenty of time to notice how little attention was being paid to me. Upon reaching my cubicle, I found it empty. I’d heard that it had been upended, but empty? I went to Bill’s office and saw that it was practically empty itself, stripped down of everything that belonged to him, with only the furniture and his little bonsai tree remaining. Hell, it was probably a minimalist look he would appreciate. No clutter whatsoever. Bill wasn’t there, but I remembered, from normal life a thousand years before, that often I got to work before he did.

Hobbling back through the office, I went in search of Donna. It took what seemed like six hours to make it to her, and I was delighted to see that she was at her own desk, instead of Junior Gestapo Brent being there and pretending importance.

After I’d let her express her doubts that I should be working and ask after my well-being (I’m sure they feared that severe psychological trauma would be part of my worker’s comp claim), I finally got to ask, “What happened to my desk? Surely the police didn’t take my chair and stuff.”

“No, they didn’t. But I took the liberty of moving your things for you. We put you in the empty cubicle next to Melinda. It’s closer to Aven’s office.”

Yes, indeed it was. Though what Aven had to do with my cubicle, I was unsure.

She saw the look on my face. “Now, it’s nothing you have to rush into. We insist that you take your time. Aven is looking forward to working with you, but he knows what you’ve been through.”

They do this at offices. They break news to you, by talking about the news as if it has already been broken and letting you fill in the details in your head. They are hoping you’ll feel too stupid to actually ask what you “missed,” and that saves the supervisor from having to say something unpleasant out loud. Like “You’re not working for Bill Nestor any more. Now you’re going to work for Aven Fisher.”

Well, no thanks. I had been through quite enough baloney lately, and I felt entitled to some respect. Of course, I understood the logic in assigning me to Aven Fisher, since I was in part responsible for sending his secretary Charlene to prison, but I was not interested in karma at this time. I said, “Back up, and tell me what happened to my job with Bill Nestor.”

“Bill has turned in his resignation,” she said, as if I should have known.

“He didn’t mention this to me.” I waited, challenging her to suggest that Bill didn’t have to clear his comings and goings with me. She didn’t quite dare. “When did this happen?”

“This morning,” said Donna.

“It’s 8:15,” I countered, pointing to her clock.

“I mean that he’s in Terry Bronk’s office now, turning in his resignation.”

“And you’ve had time to move my desk already,” I said.

Donna couldn’t maintain eye contact.

“Oh, come on,” I begged her. “Come on, Donna, you’ve always been a really decent supervisor. Tell me what the hell is going on.”

She sighed. “Terry Bronk is asking Bill to resign.” Before I could yell something foul, she continued. “Carol, we just have to. This whole mess with Charlene looks bad enough for the firm, and these were all Bill’s clients. Maybe we should have noticed what was happening, but he especially had an obligation.”

I stared at her in disbelief.

“It’s better than firing him,” said Donna, trying to convey that Bill was being done a favor. “This way, he can go somewhere else—”

“Excuse me,” I said to her, and turned on my heel.

Funny, but I don’t remember feeling any pain as I hauled ass down the long hallway to Terry Bronk’s office. Maybe righteous indignation is a hell of a painkiller. I was loose and strong and fast. I plowed past the cubicles and right past Terry Bronk’s ass-kissing secretary and flung his office door open before I’d even thought clearly about what I was planning to do.

Three surprised men looked up at me. Terry Bronk; Bill, of course; and Junior Gestapo Brent.

“Are they forcing you to resign?” I asked Bill directly.

Brent rose to his feet, showing all the telltale signs of preparing to say something asinine.

“Sit down and shut your mouth,” I snapped at him. “The Third Reich has ended. You’re going to have to find another outlet to compensate for your sexual inadequacy. Bill, are they forcing you to resign?”

For a terrible moment, the idea occurred to me that they weren’t doing any such thing, and that I’d just done the stupidest act of my entire life. Junior Gestapo Brent did sit down. He looked to Terry, as if hoping that insubordination such as mine were punishable by death.

“Um, Carol,” said Bill, coming slowly to his feet. “Maybe you shouldn’t, um…”

I looked to him desperately. “Please answer my question, Bill. Please.”

“Um, yes.” He glanced at Terry from the corner of his eye. “I am tendering my resignation. But this isn’t something that has to involve you.”

“Well obviously it involves her now,” Junior Gestapo Brent sniffed haughtily.

“Obviously,” I agreed. I looked to Bronk, who lorded behind his great oak desk like he thought it made him a king, like keeping his minions a few feet away made him more powerful because they couldn’t reach over to throttle him. I asked, “Your next chosen scapegoat?”

“Get out of my office.” His tone was almost bored.

I said, “Because he didn’t notice something that no one here noticed, and no one probably would have noticed unless the killer herself had started dropping hints?”

“I’m going to call building security.”

“Go ahead and call him. I don’t think Danny gets here until 9:00 anyway.” I looked to Bill now. “They think that they’ll be sued for not noticing the mortality rate of their clientele. They want to make it look like it was your job and therefore your fault. And if you don’t work here anymore, it’ll make them look better, or so they think.”

“I know,” said Bill, with a shrug that indicated none of this surprised him.

Dryly, Terry Bronk remarked, “Bill, it’s not in your best interest to join in Carol’s histrionics.”

Bill, always earnest, said, “Terry, if you’re finished with me, I think I’ll just let Mr. Miller wrap my severance package up over the phone. Thank you for accepting my resignation.”

He walked swiftly to my side, took me by the elbow and tried to steer me out the door.

“Incidentally,” I said to Terry Bronk, “everybody at the firm knows that you were sanctioned by the Federal Court last year. So your secret-keeping sucks. But good for you, for persevering.”

The look on his face. Ha, if only I had had a camera or something. Junior Gestapo Brent said the only intelligent thing I’ve ever heard come out of his mouth. “You, uh, you know that you’re fired, right?” And he didn’t even have the presence of mind to sound gleeful about it.

Bill hurried me out the door and down the hall before I could say anything else about Nazis. I went with him automatically. I was still anesthetized by anger, and our walking was swift.

It hardly bothered me, being fired. I had assumed I was fired last week. I had been amazed to find that I wasn’t fired. I suppose they’d thought that if the firm could rid itself of Bill, it didn’t need to rid itself of me. He was a much better person to blame for their problems, and experienced secretaries were harder to come by than attorneys. I would have been deposited in a new secretarial position with a different attorney and then forgotten about, had I not decided to insult MBS&K’s managing partner and his goose-stepping sidekick. Bill would have placidly agreed to do as instructed, and they knew it.

The whole mess made me sick. And I ranted about it, as Bill guided me through the firm. “You make money for them! Your clients always pay their bills! You bill forty-eight hours a week! I can’t believe that they’re doing this to you!”

“Shhh,” he said as we approached our old stomping grounds. “Are your things here?”

Gruffly I grabbed my purse, which I’d left in my empty cubicle. I could tell that everyone within earshot was listening to us, whether or not they dared to show their faces. The room was so silent I could hear the hum of the fluorescent lights.

Bill announced, loud and clear, “I really appreciate your agreeing to come with me, Carol. I couldn’t find another secretary like you in a hundred years.” Then he winked at me. He was so bad at winking conspiratorially that it made me laugh.

“Come on,” I said, over my chuckles. “Let’s go to our new office and check out the swimming pool.”

“I think we should restock the wet bar,” commented Bill with enthusiasm. He stepped into his office to get his bonsai tree and then returned to my side.

We left together as if we’d meant to all along. On the way out, I told Lucille that I was no longer employed there but that she should call me to get details, which of course she would do because the goddess of gossip would no more go without details than she would go without her make-up.

In the elevator, I asked Bill, “Are you all right? No chance you’re going to start a little freak-out session?”

“I feel fine, all things considered,” he replied.

“Because I’m in no mood to try to unstick you, and I don’t have any shortening.”

But he did look fine. A little disoriented, maybe, but who wasn’t on that lovely spring morning? He certainly didn’t seem on the verge of scraping leaves out of a gutter. Maybe he wasn’t truly stressed by this. Maybe, like me, he wasn’t a bit surprised.

As our descent slowed, he said, “I wish you hadn’t quit for my sake.”

“Yeah, well, screw them.”

The elevator deposited us on the parking garage level, and we wandered out toward our cars. My bruised body, which had responded well to adrenaline and rage, now began to throb again in this aftermath of impotent disgust.

“They’re only doing what they feel is best for the firm overall.” Bill was being far more forgiving than I was, and he made me feel like a petulant child.

But I couldn’t stop myself. “Why are all these people missing the point? A serial murderer has been offing our clients for fifteen years, and they’re worried about the employee handbook, the order of reporting work-related grievances to supervisors, and whose job it was to notice the unusual suicide rates among people we hadn’t seen in years. The only thing they care about is covering their collective ass.” I felt like stamping my foot. My words echoed off the garage walls around us.

Bill tilted his head at me. “You do know you’ve been working for a law firm, right? And that 99 percent of the field of law is about covering your ass.”

Aw, he’d made me laugh again. “Well, if I didn’t know it before, I know it now.”

I found that we were standing by Bill’s BMW, and I realized that I was waiting for him to put down his bonsai tree and tell me what to do. But why should he? Why should I wait for him? He was no longer my boss, and for the moment at least, I was nobody’s secretary.

Or was I? Had he been joking upstairs, or was that a serious job offer?

“Say, Bill,” I said, “did you mean what you said about coming with you and still being your secretary?”

“I don’t think so,” he said. My heart sank. But Bill wasn’t very good at bluffing, and it only took me a moment to see that he was teasing me. He explained, “I was thinking that with my ‘severance package’—which is a code word for ‘hush money’—I might hang out my own shingle and start a small practice of estate law. I could use a good office manager.”

“Oh, I see. And ‘office manager’ would be the code word for the person who does everything you don’t want to do?”

Now it was his turn to look disappointed. He thought I was refusing, and I was a better bluffer than Bill. He thought fast and then said, “I’ve seen you eyeing those plasma-screen TVs in the electronics circulars. How about I throw one in as a signing bonus?”

Plasma screen. I thought I heard angels singing.

His face lit up. “We can write it off as an entertainment expense!”

He didn’t need to bribe me. I had been more or less willing to keep working for him even when I suspected him of murder. But then again, those plasma screens were truly beautiful things.

“No,” I said reluctantly. “Bill, I was kidding. You know I’d work for you for nothing.” I hesitated, then added, “Or for roughly the same salary that I was making before.”

Bill broke into a wide grin. “Sorry. The offer is on the table, and if you work for me, that plasma screen is yours.”

“Maybe we should actually have a law firm before you start talking about signing bonuses.”

“Good idea! Now we have an action plan.” Bill inspected the bruise on my cheek and asked, “Do you feel well enough to take a ride with me?”

I checked and found that, despite my soreness, I was doing better than expected. I admitted with some surprise, “I feel remarkably liberated.”

With a bit of exaggerated drama, he checked his watch and then said, “Our schedule for the day seems to have freed up. How about we go look at office space and televisions?”

Who was I to argue? Bill was my boss, after all.

The End

About the Author

Christina Harlin has worked for ten years as a legal secretary and paralegal in Kansas City, Missouri, law firms and is a member of the National Association of Legal Professionals. She has been involved in medical malpractice, workers’ compensation, real estate, employment, and estate/probate cases, among many others. In her spare time, in addition to writing, she enjoys games, puzzles, and great television as well as mystery, thriller, and romance novels. She is an avid movie fan who writes reviews under the pseudonym Fearless Young Orphan at http://www.themovieorphan.com. She lives in the Kansas City area with her family and is currently working on the next two Carol Frank novels, My Boss is a Dead Man and My Boss is a Wanted Woman. You can visit Christina at http://www.christinaharlin.com.

Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen