Murder in Death's Door County

Text
copyright © 2012 J. M. Schertz

Cover
Art Design: D. C. Charles

First
edition: December 16, 2012

Second
edition: February 2, 2013

Third
edition: February 17, 2013

Fourth
edition: April 12, 2013

All
Rights Reserved

This
book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either
the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any
resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events,
or locales is entirely coincidental.

All
rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner
whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied
in critical articles and reviews. For information, contact the author via the
electronic publishing means by which this book was purchased.

To God, for Your blessings and
protection.

To William, for your continuing love and
support. You are an amazing blessing.

T
OOTHPICKS.

Toothpicks would work, I thought, as I
sat in the most boring meeting known to mankind. Tape, too. Tape would help
hold the toothpicks in.

I felt my chin hit my chest, before it
bobbed right back up. If I could just prop my eyes open with toothpicks, I
figured at least I could look awake and get a nice little nap in on the sly.

I looked out the windows again in a
feeble attempt to perk up. However, the grey autumn sky outside matched the
grey walls in the conference room. Longingly, I watched the birds—envying them
their freedom. But don’t worry; this isn’t THAT kind of story. My name is
Joanna, er “Annie,” Malone and this is the kind of story where a young woman
(ahem, me) gets involved in a bizarre situation. But, I’m getting ahead of
myself…

So, with the boredom of the meeting and
the grey surrounding me, I worried that I’d be lulled into a trance. Oh no, did
I just drool? Crap, I think I did.

“Johanna, what is your opinion on the change
control processes enabling the system to determine the root cause, therefore
aiding in developing a synergistic approach?” asked my boss, Karen Smith,
jolting me back to reality. “And how do you feel about the qualitative measures
needed for the assessment of the reallocation of the artifacts for the
decomposition?”

“Johanna?”

My teeth sat on edge at the
mispronunciation of my name—again. Karen could not get anyone’s name right.
Granted, my real name was close (Joanna), but I still longed for Karen to drop
the darn “h” and say it right or just call me “Annie” like everyone else.

Of course, Karen did have my complete
attention now.

“Yes?”

Karen let out a huge sigh, and repeated
her question.

I blinked at her rather stupidly. I
couldn’t shake the paranoid feeling that Karen was torturing me on purpose. I
knew I could not speak business gibberish. Each meeting I attended made me feel
more and more idiotic. I figured by next year I’d be a mumbling mass of goo.
And when called upon in a meeting? I either froze up from nerves or overshared
from nerves.

True to form, I faltered as I squeaked: “A-a-artifacts?
You mean like in archeology?”

That, and my sputtering, really made me
look like I didn’t know how to actually do my day job (I didn’t, though not
through lack of trying). Rather than a “marriage of convenience,” I had a “job
of convenience,” and it really fell short on convenience.

The hair on my neck prickled as I felt
everyone’s eyes on me. I knew I’d stepped in it yet again. I also knew Karen
would descend upon me the minute the meeting ended. I knew that my face and
ears were bright red. Despite being a brunette, I had unusually fair skin.
Blushing easily betrayed me all the time.

On the upside, I thought, at least I’m
not dozing anymore. Karen gave me a withering look, muttered something sounding
suspiciously like “incompetence” under her breath, and moved to the next topic.

As the meeting droned on, I
simultaneously felt my eyes glaze over and my phone buzz in my front pants
pocket. Ooo, a distraction!

I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket
under the conference room table. The number on the display came from downtown
Chicago, more specifically, from the editor for my moonlighting job as a
ghostwriter. I wondered about the call and hoped he had a new ghostwriting
project for me. The hit on the economy had made ghostwriting jobs harder and
harder to come by.

Yes, I am a ghostwriter in my spare time.
What does this mean? Basically, I write stories for people who don’t want to
write for themselves. When people first hear what I do, they think it sounds
oh-so-glamorous. They think that until I share some of my war (ahem, horror)
stories with them, and the fact that I typically get the bottom of the barrel
client-wise (primarily because I work for a self-publishing company). No
celebrities here. Plus, ghostwriting at my level doesn’t pay the rent on its own.
My editor, Harry Scarpelli, kept promising, “bigger and better things, doll,”
but hadn’t delivered yet.

Hence, the soul-sucking office job
during the day.

Happy for the distraction, I slipped the
phone back into my pocket and daydreamed about the potential of Harry’s call.

After the meeting, I dropped my laptop
back at my desk. Before Karen could catch me, I slipped down to the break room
to listen to Harry’s message.

“Annie, doll, you need to call me right
away. I have a project that’s perfect for you. Be sure to call before seven
tonight.” Great. No details.

While it wasn’t that unusual for Harry
to not leave details, it would have been a nice change of pace, I thought as I
saved the message. When Harry had a project “that’s perfect for you,” I had discovered
it usually meant, “A project no one else wants” and “don’t screw it up.” Since I
had only written a couple of books for Harry and his vanity publishing company,
I tended to get the junky projects that no one else wanted. I figured I’d call
him back after work.

I turned to face the vending machines.
My eyes dilated slightly at the sight of chocolate. I decided to indulge myself
before my battle started with Karen. I knew the battle would begin soon—the
chocolate was my meager attempt to arm myself.

Snickers bar in hand, I headed back to
the trenches. Suddenly, the break room doors burst open and in walked my
nemesis, Tessa Van Slattern. Ever since she started at CritiCentric Labs, Inc.,
she took delight in tormenting me. I had no idea why. And the weird thing is,
even though Tessa was almost universally disliked, she had everyone eating out
of her hand. As the
QA
Test Lead at CritiCentric
(a global medical devices company), I reported to all of the project managers. Karen
was my direct boss and I think (er, knew) she knew I barely knew how to do my
job. Anyway, back to Tessa: With her perfectly straight, blond bob and tailored
suits, Tessa played the part of the up-and-coming young business
executive with ease. Moreover, she knew how to dig her sharpened, Jungle Red
talons into anyone’s jugular with the best of them. Since we had started
working together, Tessa loved to undermine everything I did, which hadn’t
helped my cause at work either.

“Oh, hi Miss Annie!” chirped Tessa. “Whatever
are you doing down here?”

The fakeness just dripped like honey
from her voice.

“Hi Tess. What’s up?” I said,
resignedly.

“What was that display all about in the
meeting?” Tessa sneered. “Cat got your tongue?” She cackled at her own “joke.”

She mimicked my squeak, “‘Artifacts?
Like from archeology?’”

I stood there silently, wishing for
courage. A backbone was what I needed, I knew that. Somehow, the job had become
more important to me than my own individuality, and I was upset with myself for
that. I needed a change, but I didn’t know how. And Tessa’s taunts only made it
worse. The guts to tell her off once and for all always failed me. Tessa had
stolen our coworkers’ ideas more than a few times. Rumor also had it that she
had played “mattress mambo” with the Vice President to get hired by the
company. She tried to come off as a sweet person, by calling people “sweetie”
and “honey.” But no one really bought it, except the head of the department,
Karen. When Tessa needed to strike, she did so with deadly accuracy. I trusted
an alligator more than her (well, Karen too, for that matter).

Stopping just short of sticking my
tongue out at Tessa, I swept out of the room with as much dignity as I could
muster.

“Wow, someone is rude,” I heard Tessa
say as the door shut.

Desperately, I wished—
AGAIN
—for the guts to stand up to Tessa and
pop her in the nose. Well, maybe not actually hit her, but… well, I don’t
really know what. But her goading made me so upset.

I also wished for the guts to leave the
corporate life behind once and for all. Cubicles and the lack of freedom they
represented depressed me. It always struck me as odd that students got more and
more freedom as they went through school. By the time I got to college, I
managed my own time and space. Once I started working, others managed my time and
dictated where I should be most of the time. I didn’t know if others felt this
way, probably not. And I’m not ungrateful for my job. I’m grateful. I just
think I picked the wrong profession for my personality. QA documentation was too
dry and numbers-oriented for my liking. I enjoyed being around people and
helping them.

Furtively, I made my way back to my little
grey cell. I hoped to avoid the inevitable confrontation with Karen.

“Hey, Johanna!” Karen called to me. “Can
you wait up a sec? I need to talk to you.”

Crap! I knew all too well, why she
needed to talk to me. After all, I had caused this mess. So consumed by my
worries, I neglected to notice that Karen lugged three huge books with her.

“Sure, what’s up?”

“Let’s go into a conference room.” Uh oh,
Karen confirmed my fears. That’s never a good opening for a chat with the boss.
If it’s good news, they might want to “walk and talk,” or they simply pop their
heads into the cubicle for a “quick chat.” When they want to drag someone off to
a room with a door that closes, it means they need to say something private and
probably painful.

“What exactly happened during the
meeting just now?” asked Karen. She looked at me with fascination, as if I were
an exotic creature. That others didn’t find Gantt charts and software
development lifecycle processes amazing and wonderful seemed unfathomable to
her. I suspected that Karen thought I was the worst kind of sinner–someone who
neither knew nor cared to know about such things. I knew that Karen had told HR
she thought I was “kooky.” Karen’s obsession with process reflected itself in
her appearance. Always maintaining the ultimate professional composure, Karen
styled her light brown hair in the appropriate pageboy and always wore neutral-colored
pantsuits. Although she was about 50, she looked 40; no grey hair would dare
appear on her head without written permission. Her nails also toed the line with
their trim manicure and clear polish. She looked like a female man, if there is
such a thing. She scared me a little; I felt like Karen’s overly polished
persona could see right through me.

“Wh-What? I’m sorry am I missing
something?” Embarrassed, I refused to make eye contact. I figured the best defense
was ignorance. Yeah, I figured wrong. Go figure.

“Well, when I questioned you in the
meeting, your answer clearly showed you weren’t paying attention. Now, either
you don’t understand what is needed of you, or you need to research the topic
more. I’m going to assume it is the latter. Therefore, I am recommending that
you read these books to learn more about system design processes.”

And with that, she proceeded to drop
three encyclopedic sized tomes in front of me. Boom! Boom! Boom! The table
seemed to sag a little under their weight.