An Intimate Murder (The Catherine O'Brien Series) (8 page)

We gave each other a hard time but we both played on the same team, and neither of us held any real malice toward one another.

“What do we lose by asking about the Grandmother’s murder?”

“Time,” she said.

“One phone call, Louise. We’re not talking about driving to Duluth for God’s sake.”

“How about information that sends you on a wild goose chase?”

Louise opened her bottom desk drawer and pulled out her slim purse. I toed my purse out from its hiding place.

“That might be helpful in dealing with Jane Katts,” I said. “Maybe it would give her a project.”

“Speaking of.”

Louise fanned a stack of pink
While You Were Out
notes that someone had dropped on the top of the stack of papers in my
In Basket
, which no one ever used anyway. If they needed me to see something they just left whatever it was on my chair where I wouldn't mistake it as just one of the other ignored files that littered my desk.

I did a quick flick through the stack. Every single message was from Katts.

“Why didn’t she just leave a message on my voicemail?”

I glanced at my phone and noticed the red light above the abbreviation MSG blinked a rapid blink that meant more than one message. I lifted the hand set, pushed the message button and then when cued punched in my pin number.

Your mailbox is full
. The sweet automated voice said.

That explained why I was receiving pink message slips. I bet Arnie, who manned our main reception area, had cursed my name every time my phone rolled to the main switchboard.

The first message started to roll.

“Hi Officer O’Brien this is Jane Katts.”

I hit the number nine on the keypad.

Message deleted
. The sweet automation said.

The next message left a few minutes after the first began. “Hi Officer O’Brien, it’s Jane Katts, again.”

Nine.

Message deleted
.

This process continued until the final message, the last satisfying,
message deleted
, chimed in my ear.

I slung my purse over my shoulder.

“Anyone important?” Louise smirked at me.

“I think it was a wrong number,” I said. “They kept asking for an Officer O’Brien. They must not have realized they’d been transferred to
Detective
O’Brien instead.”

I shrugged. “It was probably just someone wanting to renew a newspaper subscription.”

“You’re not interested then?” Louise asked.

“No, I’ve decided to get my news from reliable sources, like the
Weekly World News
.”

“Jonathan Luther was a saint.”

Liz Trainor, Jonathan Luther’s boss at Balsam Real Estate stabbed her finger toward us punctuating each word with a thrust forward. Each stab fanned the air around her and sent the heavy smell of some high-class perfume I couldn’t identify wafting toward us. The smell might have been nice if Liz Trainor hadn’t bathed in the perfume.

“He would have never, could have never hurt anyone.”

She sat back with such force that her Dolly Parton-esque boobs rippled up and down in grotesque waves of fat. Her deep-veed, gauzy white blouse barely covered the bottoms of her breasts let alone the top.

“I have no doubt that he wouldn’t hurt anyone,” Louise said. “But someone did want to hurt him.”

“They succeeded,” I said.

“Are you the Detective I saw in the paper this morning?”

Liz Trainor looked at me with deep concentration. I squirmed in my chair.

“You are, aren’t you?”

The wrinkles on her face smoothed with resolve. Her lips flattened and she nodded.

My gut twisted into knots. I had a sudden overwhelming urge to bolt from the room. Instead, I stared wide-eyed and mute.

“Yep, you are,” she said. “You’ve botched the investigation and now you’re here trying to dig up some dirt on the victim. Well you’re not going to find any skeletons in Jonathan Luther’s closet.”

“We’re not looking for skeletons.” My tone was surprisingly calm and even, considering the irritation grating at my nerves. I was sure an edge of malice would lace all my conversations today. “We want to find the truth.”

“Well, you just found it. Jon and his wife would give you the shirts from their backs. They were probably attacked by some junkie,” she said. “Did you check for finger prints? Whoever it was probably already has a record.”

Gee, why hadn’t we thought of looking for fingerprints? I mentally rolled my eyes.

“Do you mind if we go through his desk?” Louise asked.

“What are you looking for?” Liz Trainor folded her chubby, fake nail-tipped fingers together. The thin-banded rings looked as if they would cut into her flesh or break in half from the pressure at any second.

“I don’t know yet,” Louise said. “I’m hoping we’ll find something that might give us a direction.”

“We’d like to speak with his co-workers too,” I said.

“I think I’m going to call my lawyer first.” She turned to her credenza, punched up an address book on her computer, and scrolled through the names. “I don’t want you people crawling through my office trying to find a way out of the hole you’ve dug yourself into.”

“Mrs. Trainor –”

“It’s Ms. Trainor. I’m not married.”

“Ms. Trainor.” I corrected myself, though I couldn’t care less if she were offended by my non-politically correct title. The correction was more to smooth her hackles back down, than a genuine show of courtesy. “We’re not trying to dig ourselves out of a hole. We haven’t had time to dig a hole yet.”

Louise and Ms. Trainor exchanged raised eyebrow looks. Louise grinned and then Trainor’s face split into a full smile.

“What?”

Trainor snickered and Louise laughed. I rolled back the last words out of my mouth. Understanding slapped me across the face.

“Give us a little more time and I’m sure we can really screw up the investigation.” I joined their reverie.

Liz Trainor set the phone back in its cradle. “I don’t mean to be a hard ass but I need to know that Jonathan’s investigation isn’t being handed off to someone with their head up their butt.” She gestured toward the door. “Half the people in the other room were brought in here and trained by Jonathan. My business wouldn’t be the success it is without Jonathan.”

She sat back and studied us as if she stared long enough the answers of the universe would appear on our foreheads. Her gaze rested an extra long time on my face. She looked away for a brief moment then back at me again, this time her brow smoothed.

“I’ll tell you what, Detectives. I’m going to allow you go through Jon’s desk and question my employees.”

I opened my mouth to utter a grateful thanks but Liz Trainor interrupted before the sounds would come out.

“Two conditions. One –” She held up both of her index fingers. “You cannot browbeat my employees into speaking to you. They must volunteer.”

“Of course,” Louise said. “What’s the other condition?”

“The second condition.” She closed her eyes. “God help me for saying this; if you find out that Jonathan was involved in something illegal, you don’t embarrass this company. I want to hear about what you find first, not read about it in tomorrow’s paper.”

She flicked her gaze to me as if I would have some particular interest in talking to the newspaper. Probably to cover my own ass, if she still believed that I needed a fanny shield. All she had was my word and a shared laugh (not much comfort at the best of times) to tell her any different.

“Agreed,” I said. “Are you sure there’s nothing else you’d like to say?”

She cocked her head. “Why do you ask?”

“Because you looked at me funny a few minutes ago. Like you might know me.”

“Yeah.” The rolls on her neck contracted and expanded with the bobbing of her head. “I think I do know you.”

I shook my head. “I don’t think so. We’ve never met before.”

“No, we haven’t,” she agreed. “But I do know you and not just from the paper. You’re Gavin O’Brien’s wife aren’t you?”

A shockwave thundered through me at the sound of Gavin’s name. It was the same feeling I get when Gavin runs into friends when we’re shopping, or out for dinner. Gavin has a whole world away from me, and he knows people I don’t. That thought disturbed me.

Of course, I knew people he didn’t, too. Par for the course when you both work outside the home. I saw him every morning when I left and there he was every evening when I got home. There’s a little piece of my brain that takes over from time to time—it’s only purpose is to delude me and doesn’t like to be confronted with reality. That section of gray matter makes me believe that Gavin sits at home hermetically sealed until my key turns in the lock to reanimate him.

Yet here was reality, in the form of an overweight, overly perfumed, real-estate agent.

“Yes, I am.”

“I thought so.” Liz Trainor nodded satisfied. “I usually have a good memory for faces. It helps in this job.”

“Then the two of you have met?” Louise asked.

“No.” Liz said.

I shook my head at the same time.

“Then how did you know she was married to Gavin?”

Thank God, Louise was there to ask all the questions I would kick myself later for not asking. Now, I was too stunned to form a complete thought.

“I saw a picture of you on his desk.” She shrugged. “Well it’s more of a table than a desk. Anyway, your picture is in his construction trailer.”

What picture could Gavin possibly have of me? I maintained the mantra that my image didn’t show up on film, so it wasn’t like I’d gone down to the local
Glamour Shots
for one of those cheesy, feather boa, photos that the guys in my office had of their wives. I couldn’t understand why men thought that bouffant hair, bright pink lipstick, and lots, of gauze and Vaseline over lenses made women look glamorous.

When this case was over, I’d have to take a trip down to his construction trailer. That was if I could remember where Gavin had said he was working this month.

“So you’ve worked with Gavin?” Louise continued to channel my questions.

Liz Trainor nodded. “I do commercial real-estate as well as private homes. I’ve worked with Gavin a few times in the past.”

She gave a lascivious wink that made me want to punch her.

“You’ve got yourself one hell of a firecracker. Gavin O’Brien is a damn good business man, and darn cute if you don’t mind me saying so.”

She winked again.

I did mind her saying so. She was a colleague of his not a horny teenager. Liz Trainor needed to keep her eyes and mind off my husband.

“Some of the girls in the office can’t wait for the days when Gavin has an appointment. They all make sure they’re at their desks when he comes for a visit.”

My breath hitched in my chest. The delusional part of my brain screamed,
NO! NO!
Not only did Gavin leave the house when I left for work, but other women were looking at him the way I used to look at him.

Bile crept up the back of my throat. I couldn’t speak. All I could manage was a weak smile and pathetic laugh that must have sounded to Liz Trainor’s ears as if I was agreeing with her. She waggled her brows up and down at me and chuckled.

“Where did Mr. Luther sit?” Louise finally broke the painful deadlock between us.

Liz pushed back from her desk and stood.

“Follow me,” she said. “I’ll show you.”

Liz Trainor had to have been at least three hundred pounds and close to six feet tall, but she moved with the grace of a lithe dancer. She wove her way through the maze of desks and open file drawers with the ease of water flowing down an open drain. She came to a stop next to two partitioned walls tucked into a corner. Light showered through the windows and washed across the particleboard desk.

“This is Jonathan’s area,” Liz said.

Photos of Chad at various stages of his life, littered the credenza behind the desk. The largest showed Chad with both his Mother and Father on his graduation day. Chad swathed in cap and gown in the center with arms embracing both parents, who had the,
I just won the lottery
, smiles on their faces.

“Try not to make a mess,” Liz said. “And don’t remove any files unless you clear it with me first.”

We weren’t going to find anything in his desk. I could tell by looking at how open the area was. If Jonathan Luther had been involved in anything illegal, he wasn’t talking about it on the phone in this office. Everyone within fifty feet would be able to hear his conversation no matter how quiet he tried to be.

I nodded my agreement and Liz left us.

Louise took a seat behind the desk and I sat in one of the guest chairs across from her.

“The desk isn’t locked, is it?” I said it as a statement of fact instead of a question.