Death Loves a Messy Desk (8 page)

Never mind, I have lots of good friends. I didn’t need to be sniffling into my tub of ice cream just because he was hardly ever around anymore. I didn’t have to wither on the vine. I picked up the phone and called my friend Margaret Tang.

“How about a movie?”

“I can’t. Ow.”

“Margaret?”

“Ow.”

“What happened?”

“Ow. Ow.”

“Are you all right?”

“I cut myself, if you must know.”

“You cut yourself? Is it serious? Should I call 911?”

“Better not. I’m just shaving my legs. I have a date in twenty minutes.”

“A date? You have a date? What date? Since when do you have a date?”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, Charlotte. I am a reasonably presentable professional woman, not yet thirty-one. The kind of person who might even be able to get a date, in fact.”

Oops. “I’m sorry, Margaret. I’m not suggesting that you couldn’t get a date, it’s just that . . .”

A chilly silence drifted over the line.

“Just what?” Margaret said.

“It’s hard to know what to respond to first. The fact that you’re shaving your legs while you are on the phone, a form of multitasking that can lead to permanent disfigurement, or the idea that you have your first date since moving back here and yet you didn’t mention it to me, your friend for what? Nearly twenty years?”

“I didn’t mention it to anyone because I didn’t want to have this exact conversation. What exactly is wrong with me having a date, Charlotte? What am I, some kind of pariah?”

“Of course not, but didn’t you tell me that
date
was a four-letter word?”

“That would be then. This would be now. Oh crap, it is bleeding. I don’t have anything to stop it. I suppose I’ll have to go on my date with scraps of tissue on my legs. Maybe I’ll wear jeans. Maybe I will call 911. Mona Pringle probably knows what to do. Thanks a lot, Charlotte.”

“But—”
Click.

I didn’t call her back merely because I wanted to know who the date was. I had advice. Good advice. That’s my job. To help people.

“Try cornstarch,” I said when she picked up the phone. I listened in disbelief as she swore. “I didn’t know you had words like that in your vocabulary, Margaret. You’ve always been so . . . restrained.”

“Shaving injuries change a person. Get used to it,” she snapped.

I decided it wasn’t the best time to ask who the date was with.

Margaret sniffed. “Did you say cornstarch? I have a box somewhere in my kitchen.”

“Just pat it on and before you hang up again, I’m curious, who’s the date with? Anyone I—”
Click.

Oh well. Obviously, it was a tense moment and I had to give her space. But who was she dating? Why wasn’t I in on this? What was the good of being friends for all these years if we didn’t share every little detail when we were lucky enough to have little details? What had Margaret done to get little details? That’s all I wanted to know.

Next I tried Sally, just in case she was up to a second girls’ night in a row. Sally’s husband, Benjamin, informed me that Sally had had a rough day with the four children and was flaked out on the rug in the family room, snoring. I considered calling Margaret back to warn her that dating can lead to falling asleep on the rug after a rough day with the kids, but I didn’t want to get another earful of new vocabulary.

So much for the misfits sticking together forever.

To top it off, my friends Lilith Carisse and Rose Skip owski were in L.A. on a belated visit to Rose’s daughter.

It always pays to have a Plan B when you feel like company and find yourself alone. My Plan B usually involves decluttering. There’s always something that needs to be done. I keep a list of tasks handy, especially the type of ten-minute chore that a person tends to forget about until it becomes a problem. I headed for my medicine cabinet and checked the expiration dates on my medications. Then I hit the fridge and checked the vitamins. I put the ones that had outlived their dates in a small basket and parked it in my cupboard out of reach of the dogs until I could take it to the local drugstore for disposal. I jotted that onto my master To Do list.

There’s a great feeling that comes from getting rid of silly stuff that clogs up your life. Especially items you couldn’t use because they were past their best-before date and still you couldn’t quite bring yourself to throw them out because you paid good money for whatever it was.

Naturally you will feel so virtuous that you will reward yourself. Enough work and worry. I knew exactly how to do that. I picked up my iPod and selected my James Blunt favorites. I curled up on the sofa with a cuddly throw and my pooches and a few purely medicinal chocolates. Luxury.

“You’re beautifulllll,” James warbled.

What a great way to make sure none of the toxicity of Fredelle’s office and her office mates got under my skin. Wouldn’t want that to contaminate my life.

My subconscious inquired exactly how Fredelle had learned that Barb Douglas had tried to run me off the road. My eyes popped open.

I hadn’t told her.

I hadn’t told anyone.

The truck drivers? Mel and Del? There had been no one else around. But could they be part of the great “get rid of Barb Douglas” conspiracy?

At five minutes to ten the next morning, I arrived at Quovadicon. There was a slight September nip in the air, and I wore a crisp fitted jacket to give myself that extra bit of authority I thought might be necessary, a flowered skirt, and my purple leather stiletto boots.

Fredelle was already hovering around the door spreading anxiety when I got there. Her cotton sweater today was a deep and beautiful periwinkle. The pin appeared to be a squirrel or possibly a chipmunk. I spotted a glimmer of lavender in her nail polish. Maybe it was the periwinkle that made Fredelle look pale as a breeze.

Autumn sat at the reception desk biting her lip and staring. The phone rang, but Autumn didn’t appear to hear it. She watched, transfixed, as Robbie Van Zandt paced back and forth in front of the desk, clenching and unclenching his fists. Maybe that was why Autumn seemed on the verge of tears. Although possibly she was trying not to laugh. Robbie was definitely not the type to inspire fear.

I said, “Good morn—”

“She’s not here,” Fredelle whispered.

“Who?” I said, hoping the answer was
Dyan
.

“Barb. She didn’t come in.”

“Oh.”

“Can you blame her?” Robbie blurted. “She’s practically being persecuted by all of you she-witches, and you expect her to come in and take it day after day? What is the matter with you people?”

She-witches? Puh-lease.

At that moment Dyan slunk into the reception area and shot Robbie a look of pure tanned malice. Today she was even more dramatic in black with stud decorations than she had been in leopard pattern.

Robbie pointed at Dyan. “It’s you. You’re the one behind it. Don’t worry, it will catch up with you. What goes around comes around. You will be sorry and I mean it.”

Dyan upped the ante by laughing. Autumn emitted a tiny gasp.

Fredelle straightened and snapped, “That’s enough, Dyan. Robbie has reason to be upset, even if he is misjudging
most
people in this office. You will treat him with respect. And you will treat Barb with dignity, too.”

The tiny quaver in her voice hinted at how hard it must have been to stand up to Dyan.

Dyan sneered. At every encounter, she managed to act like someone who was auditioning for a B movie. A living stereotype of bad behavior, not to mention egregious style. “People should earn respect, if you ask me. I don’t think too many people here can say they do.” The sneer seemed to be split between Fredelle and Robbie, with plenty left over for the absent Barb, and spillover for Autumn and me.

What kind of workplace was this where an employee would openly disrespect the manager? Not to mention also laughing in the face of the owner’s son? Dyan was special, that was for sure. I couldn’t imagine why she’d been allowed to continue working there. She must have had something on someone. But what?

She slunk out of the room, swaying her black leather butt.

“Well,” I said, “there might be a better time for me to talk about my observations, Fredelle.”

“Please don’t leave. I can use your support.”

Robbie stormed past me and out the front door, his keys clutched in his hand. The heavy glass door closed with a
thunk
behind him.

“Perhaps in your office, Fredelle?” I said, with a reassuring smile at Autumn. “Everyone needs to chill out a bit.”

Fredelle closed the blinds on her glass wall. “Perhaps it was a mistake to do this. Barb must feel humiliated.”

“Fredelle, I didn’t tell anyone that my visit was about Barb’s messy desk. Did you?”

“Of course not, I would never do that. I couldn’t single her out for that kind of bad attention. And I would never, ever, say anything about Barb to Dyan. I like Barb. She’s kind and capable and cheerful. Dyan is . . .”

“A bitch,” I said. “High-ranking, specialty type. So if you didn’t tell Dyan, then who did?”

Fredelle stared at me. “I have no idea.”

“Somebody wanted to make a bit of trouble for you and for Barb.”

“I didn’t tell anyone, because I felt that would be underhanded. I didn’t want any of the staff to think that I would do things behind their backs. Although I suppose I did.”

“What about when you spoke to me on the phone?”

“The door was closed, the blinds were pulled. No one could have heard, unless they were bugging my line, which is”—she paused to chuckle—“ridiculous.”

I said, “I imagine we’ll get to the bottom of it. So one more question: How did you find out that I had a near collision with Barb on the way in yesterday?”

Her mouth formed a perfect pink O.

“You’re thinking about that, Fredelle. Is that because you believe there’s a connection?”

She shook her head. “Couldn’t be. I got a call from Mr. Van Zandt. He told me. He was upset that someone visiting our operation could have a close call as a result of an employee.”

“Did you tell him why I was here? About the plan to have me come up with solutions to the desk problem.”

“Oh no. He wouldn’t have liked it. Might have been disappointed in Barb and anyway, I should have been able to handle it on my own. That’s what I’m paid for. He has enough to worry about without having to run the office.”

“Did he say it was Barb Douglas?”

“Yes.”

“Did he mention who told him?”

“That wouldn’t be like him. He just said to make sure you were all right and to find out—”

I waited.

She took a deep breath. “—to find out what the goddamn hell was going on over there. He meant here.”

“And I’d like to,” I said. “Do you think it could have been the two truck drivers who stopped to help?”

She stared at me blankly.

“Oh, I guess I didn’t mention that. It didn’t seem important. They were kind to me, that’s all.”

“I don’t think . . . they wouldn’t know how to reach Mr. Van Zandt at home. He’s not listed. And why would they? They could have told the foreman, but he was off sick yesterday and today. If they were really worried, they’d let me know. Who were they?”

“They said their names were Mel and Del.”

“Mel and Del?”

“Yes.”

“Are you sure?”

I laughed. “Well, who could forget that?”

Fredelle bit her lip. “But we don’t have a Mel and Del.”