Killer Blonde (5 page)

The miserable day was finally over. Most of our department was already in the bar at Harper's getting plastered.

Believe me, they weren't celebrating Vicki's promotion. They weren't holding a wake, either, although their hopes were dead. This was survival time. The men eyed each other warily, like dogs about to turn on one another. Every man there was drinking so he could do what he had to do—something scummy to keep his job.

Next Monday was the start of evaluation week, and it would be payback time for Vicki. The now all-powerful executive would wreak revenge on everyone she thought had snubbed her or laughed at her.

The boys remembered the times they'd done Vicki imitations, flirted with Minfreda, or taken the cameo blonde to lunch. Vicki was vindictive. The office deadwood could hear the echo of the ax.

As the day crawled on, the boys realized they would have to do some serious puckering to save their jobs. They were a spineless lot. I knew they'd turn on Minfreda. I couldn't completely blame them. They had wives, college-bound children, and thirty-year mortgages.

I had principles, but I could afford them. I didn't care about being promoted. The worst Vicki could do was fire me, and then I'd sit by the pool at the Coronado, drinking screwdrivers.

That's what I planned to do tonight. That blasted memo from Mr. Hammonds was going to send me to the vodka bottle. Every time I read it, it got worse. I think it was the third time through that I noticed something new. Vicki was staying on as the head of our department
and
running the division. There would be no promotion for Minfreda. Vicki would force her out. Minfreda was a reminder of her boss's own treachery.

Minfreda understood this. She knew she had nothing to lose. That's why she was preparing for a showdown with Vicki tonight. If she lost, she wouldn't have a desk, much less a corner office. I watched Minfreda's cameo face freeze into a marble mask. Her hands clenched and unclenched. I could almost see her gripping a sword. She was a warrior princess, preparing for battle.

In a fair fight, Minfreda would win. But Vicki didn't fight fair.

I looked up Jennifer's phone number at Bradsco, and left it on Minfreda's desk. I didn't say anything. I squeezed her shoulder and went back to my desk.

It was after six
P.M.
when I put the plastic cover on my Underwood, watered my philodendron, and locked my desk. Only Vicki and Minfreda were in our office when I left.

What happened next is guesswork, but I think it's accurate, based on the evidence I found the next morning.

When the elevator doors shut on me, Vicki was in her purloined office. She'd stayed late to plan her ascendency to the division throne. No more girlie pink for her. Her new corner office would have power colors, burnt orange and brown. Vicki sat at her desk making little sketches of how she'd arrange the furniture and what she'd put on the walls. I suspected she'd buy herself a new wardrobe to match. Couldn't have her suit clashing with her sculpted shag carpet.

Vicki didn't notice that Minfreda was still in the office, but why should she? Minfreda always worked late.

Minfreda didn't bother knocking on Vicki's office door. She was bolder now. She swept into Vicki's office, blond hair swinging like a battle banner. Her eyes blazed with righteous fury.

Vicki looked up and said in a sugary voice, “Why, Minnie, working late again?” Her pale pink blouse had a pussycat bow. She had canary feathers on her pink lips.

“My name is Minfreda.”

“You'll always be Minnie to me. Underneath that dyed blonde hair is a scared little mouse.”

“Not anymore.” Minfreda slammed Vicki's door shut so hard the glass rattled. For the first time, Vicki seemed nervous. She glanced around the room.

“Don't bother looking for help,” Minfreda said. “They're all gone. It's just you and me, and we're going to have a serious talk.”

“There's nothing to talk about.” Vicki sounded like she was trying to convince herself that she was in charge.

“Oh, yes, there is.” Minfreda moved toward her, lithe as a golden cat. “You stole my ideas and you stole my promotion.”

“I did nothing of the kind.” Vicki sounded more snippy than scared.

“Liar!” Minfreda screamed. That single cry unleashed years of buried rage and humiliation. Minfreda grabbed the pussycat bow around Vicki's neck and twisted it tightly.

“Stop!” Vicki gasped, clawing at her own neck to pull away Minfreda's fingers.

But Minfreda only twisted tighter. Vicki's color went from delicate pink to stroke-out red. “Not till you tell me where you hid those carbons.”

“File . . . M.” It was all Vicki could manage, but it was enough.

“Don't move,” Minfreda ordered as she marched to the file cabinet. There was no chance that Vicki would run away. She could hardly sit up. She was gasping and trying to catch her breath.

Vicki's natural color was coming back by the time Minfreda said, “Aha!” She had the pilfered carbons. “What's your name doing on this title page?”

“I . . . I typed it,” Vicki said. She had a sandpaper rasp after her near strangling.

“So you did. But I typed the rest of this report.”

“You can't prove it,” Vicki said.

“Oh, but I can. The page you typed was done on a different machine. You're not as good a typist as I am. Notice how your
T
s float and your
W
s jump? Even Mr. Hammonds will be able to see that. And if he can't, I'll hire an expert to explain.”

Minfreda could feel the tension loosen in her neck and shoulders. She had the proof of Vicki's theft. She would sit at her beloved partners desk after all.

“Now you're going to write a confession,” Minfreda said.

But Vicki felt bold now that she could breathe again. She laughed, a sarcastic sound, sharp as a slap in the face. “After you tried to strangle me? Over my dead body.” Then she added a mocking, “Mouse.”

Hot new rage flowed over Minfreda's old, impacted anger, and it ignited with a deadly roar. “That can be arranged,” she said.

Vicki's desk was loaded with lethal weapons: a daggerlike letter opener, a pink granite paperweight, a silver memo spike. That last was so dangerous offices don't allow them anymore.

But Minfreda had sought the unconscious irony. She hit the world's worst boss with the
WORLD'S BEST BOSS
coffee mug. She hit her once, and felt the fragile bones on the side of Vicki's skull crack. Vicki stared at her in dazed surprise, as if her stapler had learned to talk. Her lip curled into a nasty sneer, but she didn't get a chance to speak. Minfreda hit her again. And again and again. Minfreda kept hitting her until the heavy mug broke and the side of Vicki's head was soft and squishy.

Blood spattered Vicki's blonde hair and ran down her cheek. There was an ugly abrasion over her ear. But Minfreda had mostly battered the white bones beneath the pink skin. Vicki was deader than last year's vacation schedule. She sat in her executive's chair with a death's-head grin on her face.

The old mousy Minnie would have panicked when she saw her battered boss. The new Minfreda kept her cool blonde head. She calmly considered what she needed to do.

Vicki's blood was dripping on her suit and heading for the floor. Minfreda whipped off her neck scarf and wrapped it around the dead blonde's head. Better, but blood was seeping through it already. Minfreda looked around for something else and saw my typewriter cover. I was the only person in the department who used one. The others didn't care about their machines. The cover was gray plastic. She bundled it around Vicki's dripping head.

She had to get rid of the body. Vicki was not tall or heavy, but she was a deadweight, no pun intended. Minfreda was strong, but she couldn't move the body without help. She went back to the construction area.

The old sun-faded curtains from the corner office were still in a heap in the back hall. She also saw a lumber cart, like the ones you get at Home Depot nowadays for hauling large purchases.

Minfreda bundled the curtains onto the cart and trundled them back to Vicki's office. She spread the curtains out on the lumber cart, then tipped Vicki's chair forward. The exterminated executive landed in the dusty drapes with a deadweight thud.

“It's curtains for you, boss,” Minfreda said out loud, and tried to suppress a giggle.

The cart was harder to maneuver with the body on it. Minfreda had to shove Vicki's desk aside to get the cart through the door. The dead blonde's foot caught in the door frame, and her pink heel was pried off. Minfreda tossed it on top of the body, then cleared a path through the department, carefully moving waste cans and steering around desks until she got to a clear aisle.

Minfreda was sweating like a construction worker. The cart was heavy and awkward. She was worried someone would come back to the office. She kept her ears open for the
ding!
of the elevator doors. But Minfreda was no mouse. Her fear didn't paralyze her. It made her think more clearly.

Once in the dingy back hall, Minfreda pulled the cart near the old torn-up carpet and spread the rug out flat. Then she tugged on the curtains until the body slid off the cart and onto the carpet. She heard the rotted, sun-faded fabric rip, but not before she'd moved Vicki.

Minfreda had a sneezing fit from the dust, but she rolled up the carpet with Vicki inside. A Vicki taco, if you will. No, a Vicki crepe with a poison pink center.

Minfreda grabbed the carpet roll and dragged it to the construction chute, rejoicing that the opening was close to the floor. She was about to drop Vicki headfirst down the chute when she saw a pink heel on the floor. Minfreda put it on the dead blonde. Vicki's foot was still warm, and she had pale pink polish on her toes. They looked small and sad.

Minfreda shivered a little. But then she remembered what Vicki had done to her. She straightened her shoulders and walked resolutely back to Vicki's office.

As she stood in the doorway, she could feel the rage she'd set loose in the room. But Minfreda had work to do. Fragments of the shattered coffee mug had flown everywhere. She even found one chunk on Vicki's filing cabinet. She brushed broken bits off the desk, then crawled along the pink shag carpet looking for pieces buried in the thick looped pile.

She threw the shards in the rolled-up carpet. She was about to send the dead blonde down to the Dumpster when she panicked and remembered something important. The plans! Vicki's plans for her corner office were still on her desk. Minfreda shoved them into the rolled-up carpet.

Now, at last, she slid the bundled body down the chute. The carpet made a good solid landing, and stayed rolled up. No pink-painted fingernails showed, no pink shoes peeked out. There were no telltale hanks of blonde hair.

But Minfreda took no chances. She threw plywood scraps, broken plaster, torn-out molding, and discarded ceiling tiles down the chute until Vicki was covered by a foot-thick pile of construction debris.

“Sorry I won't be in tomorrow, but I'm feeling just a little bit under,” Minfreda said, and fought the urge to giggle again. If she started laughing, she wouldn't stop. She wanted to run through the building yelling, “Ding-dong, the witch is dead.”

When Minfreda went back to Vicki's office, the atmosphere seemed less poisonous. She pulled Vicki's desk back in place, straightened her desktop, and righted the vase with the pink rose. She even refilled its spilled water. She vacuumed Vicki's rug. The office cleaning crew could be haphazard. She also vacuumed the hall and the path she took through the department, making sure there were no traces of the fight or the body removal.

When she finished, Minfreda's hands were grimy. She caught her reflection in the bathroom mirror. She was a mess. Her suit was torn under one armpit and streaked with dirt and grayish-white plaster dust. She had runs in both stockings. Her golden hair straggled down her back, and her makeup was smeared.

Minfreda washed and repaired her face and combed her silky blonde hair. She threw away her laddered stockings, figuring bare legs would be less noticeable. She shook the dust off her clothes. She couldn't do much about her torn suit, but she had a plan to disguise it.

Now she had to write a farewell letter. Minfreda rummaged in the janitor's closet until she found a pair of yellow rubber gloves. They made her hands feel thick and clumsy. Good, she thought. She would type more like Vicki that way.

Minfreda pulled out a sheet of Vicki's pink personal stationery with her name on the top. She sat down at Vicki's typewriter and wrote:

Business is no longer relevant to my life.

I want to live! I want to love! I want to follow my heart! Call me wild, call me crazy, but call me gone. Please don't try to follow me. I want to be free.

Before I go, I'd like to set one thing straight. Minfreda should have had my promotion. I stole her ideas. I put my name on the report she prepared for Mr. Hammonds. Her original carbons on my desk are the proof. I was co-opted by the Establishment.

By resigning today I will lose my job, but regain my soul. Try not to judge me. I am leaving to be a new woman and a better one.

Good-bye and good luck.

Minfreda typed one last word at the end:
Vicki.
She wasn't going to attempt her late boss's signature. It was too flowery.

Minfreda bent her golden head, rereading and admiring her work. All those
me
s and
I
s. That refusal to accept any responsibility. It was so Vicki. It was so brilliant.

Minfreda typed one more letter and put it in a pink envelope. She took that one with her. She didn't want it found right away.

She checked her watch. It was eight thirty. The cleaning crew arrived at nine. She had to leave now, but her work wasn't done yet. She knew Vicki rented a small house off U.S. 1. Minfreda looked up the address in the company directory.