The Graves of the Guilty (Hope Street Church Mysteries Book 3) (12 page)

“That movie was a total flop,” Nathan said as he ejected the DVD. “I’ll drop this off on my way home. Thanks for a great dinner, Coop. Without you, I’d never eat my vegetables.” He planted a brief kiss on her lips, squeezed her tightly, and then jogged out to his car.

Cooper watched his pea-colored BMW back out of the driveway. Long after the cylindrical beams from his headlights had been swallowed by the darkness, she stared out the window.

“Something’s up with him,” she muttered.

Suddenly, she recalled the breathless feeling of Edward Crosby’s hand closing around hers and pulling her to him. She heard his whispered voice and his promise to watch over her. The blood rushed to Cooper’s face and she pushed the memory aside.

“Why am I thinking about the wrong man?” she asked the blue-black sky. With a sigh, she turned away from the window and got ready for bed.

• • •

When Cooper walked into Make It Work! the next morning after catching an early breakfast with Quinton, Angela met her at the door. Dressed in a tight red pencil skirt and a snug black sweater, Angela’s curves were accentuated by a wide leather belt cinched tightly at the waist. A chunky bead necklace encircled her neck and her nails and lipstick were of the same tomato red as her skirt. Her platinum hair had recently been touched up at the roots and her fake eyelashes were especially dark and lush.

“You’re a vision,” Cooper told her friend. “Are you celebrating a special occasion or are you and Mr. Farmer going on another hot lunch date?”

“This most certainly is a special occasion!” Angela announced. “We landed a major shredding account. So major that we’re going to need a new truck and a new employee to drive it. The company wants us to start in two weeks. I can’t wait to tell Mr. Farmer! We need to put an ad in
Job Finders
as of yesterday!”

“Convince him to hire a woman. Even up the numbers around here.” Cooper pointed toward the front doors. There was Emilio, leaning against the hood of a Trans Am as he flirted with one of the employees of the Sun Goddess Tanning Salon located in the next building.

Angela shook her head. “You make a good point, darlin’. Look what happened when he hired that Yankee Doodle Hunk.”

Cooper recalled how Emilio’s arrival had disrupted the peace and camaraderie between the current employees and hoped the next new face wouldn’t upset the group dynamic the same way.

“Mr. Farmer’s not in yet?” Cooper was surprised. She glanced at the clock behind Angela’s desk. “I don’t think I’ve ever beaten him to work. He usually likes to pore over the latest issue of
Wired
first thing in the morning.”

“Tell me about it.” Angela put her hands on her hips. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to compete with a bunch of gadgets and gears? It’s enough to drive a gal mad!”

“No machine could hold a candle to you,” Ben said gaily as he picked up the day’s work orders from Angela’s desk. “The boss man’s parking his car. I think this is the only time I’ve ever gotten to the office before him.”

Mr. Farmer entered the reception area with a listless wave. He slowly pushed a ski cap off his head and stuffed it into his coat pocket. Static cling caused the remaining strands of his salt-and-pepper hair to stand straight up, like soldiers at attention. He then removed a handkerchief from his other coat pocket, honked twice into its folds, and sighed. His nose was pink and his eyes were bloodshot and watery.

“Sounds like you have one heck of a cold,” Ben said sympathetically.

Their boss nodded and allowed Angela to take his briefcase so he could use both hands to sneeze into the handkerchief. “Made worse by lack of sleep,” he grumbled and walked back to his office without saying another word.

The employees exchanged perplexed looks.

“Don’t look at me! I stayed home to watch a Cary Grant marathon on AMC last night.” Angela trotted behind her desk, sprayed a curtain of perfume into the air, passed through the fragrance with her eyes closed, and clasped Mr. Farmer’s briefcase against her bosom. “I’ll take care of him. Emilio!” she shouted as their coworker sauntered through the door. “You’re late! Y’all hustle off and get on with your work orders! We need some peace and quiet ’round here!”

As Angela sailed past, cloaked in a heavy layer of scent, the phone at her desk began to ring. She ignored it and continued down the hall and into Mr. Farmer’s office. When a second line began to ring, Emilio turned to Cooper and asked, “What gives?”

Cooper shrugged. “No clue. But I’m not sticking around to find out.” She gestured at the flashes of red lighting up on Angela’s phone. Their consistent blinking conjured up images of irritated callers. When the third line lit up, all three employees sprinted to the locker room to change into their uniforms.

Quinton called Cooper’s cell phone shortly after she arrived at her second assignment—a small advertising firm located in the Fan District. A chic, young secretary led Cooper to the room where the copier was kept. She eased opened the door and flicked on the lights without actually looking inside.

“I apologize for the mess,” she whispered and blushed. “Um, I believe some of the executives were celebrating in here last night. Mr. Bowman has this unusual tradition. He likes to make Valentine’s Day cards using pictures of his . . .” She stopped and then began again. “Let’s just say he’s gained some weight since last Valentine’s. You’ll see what I mean when you look at the copier. Uh-oh! I need to bring Mr. Bowman his cappuccino. Excuse me.”

The sound of men’s voices caused her to hustle off, patting her hair into place as she returned to her desk to greet her superiors and distribute the carton of Starbucks beverages she’d been busy labeling when Cooper showed up.

The room Cooper entered indicated that the evening’s festivities had been quite raucous. Empty wine bottles were toppled across the surface of a polished conference table, a whiskey bottle was overturned in the sink, and the detritus of vegetable crudités and a fruit and cheese platter filled the room with the odor of rotting food. Kicking aside an empty cardboard bucket from KFC, Cooper noticed that a collection of stripped chicken bones were heaped in the exact center of the table. Balled-up napkins littered the floor and, to Cooper’s horror, a pair of ladies panties dangled from the light fixture above the conference table.

The sudden vibrating of the cell phone in her back pocket was a welcome distraction from the sight of the ruined copier.

“Are you busy?” Quinton asked

Cooper glanced around. “I’m responding to a repair call, even though the company should have called a waste disposal service instead. This copier is toast. Not only did some drunken VIP break the glass by sitting on it, but it looks like he proceeded to give it a good beating with a seven iron.” Retrieving the offending weapon from beneath the closest chair, she examined the scuffed metal surface.

Quinton laughed. “Oh, man! That must have hurt! I’ve heard of people my size busting the copier glass, but I thought it was just an office myth.”

“I’d take a photo and post it on YouTube, but that goes against Make It Work! ethics.” Cooper leaned closer to the top of the copier. “Yuck. There’s blood on a lot of these shards. I feel really sorry for the ER nurse who had to pick out the rest of the glass with her tweezers.”

“Or his tweezers!” Quinton added with an amused snort. “I like the idea of some bulky guy named Angus or Hans pulling them out. Roughly.”

“I doubt the patient felt a thing. You should see all the empty liquor bottles in this room.” Cooper examined the copier’s battered paper drawers. “Any luck following Miguel’s paper trail?”

She could hear a rustling on the other end of the line. “Miguel had been using his current set of credit cards for less than a year. I can’t find any financial records for this guy before that period of time. No bank accounts, tax refunds, nothing.”

Cooper was confused. “But he had another job before this one. Wouldn’t he have had a W-2?”

Quinton was silent for a moment. “Not if he got paid under the table. What was the name of his former employer? I’ll give them a call and pretend to be with the IRS. Maybe I can find out his previous salary and position.”

“Double A Auto. In Norfolk.” Cooper kicked aside a shard of glass with her work boot. “Though the recommendation letter might be a fake, too. I doubt Miguel is his real name.”

 “The documents aren’t real, but he could still have had them made with his name,” Quinton explained. “He didn’t steal anyone else’s identity. I already checked on that.”

Somehow, Cooper was pleased to learn that Miguel wasn’t guilty of identity theft, even though he’d clearly committed a minor crime by purchasing false documents. “Where can one buy a fake Social Security card?” she wondered aloud. “It must have been made by experts. After all, it was good enough to fool the Human Resources folks at Love Motors and the DMV as well.”

 “Can’t help you with that one. I’m fresh out of underworld contacts,” Quinton joked.

Cooper picked up a sliver of glass and touched its jagged point. “But I’m not,” she mumbled and pictured Edward leading her into a shadowy alley. There, between a Dumpster and the rusted fire door of some vacant store, he’d slip a folded bill into the hand of a figure wearing a hooded sweatshirt in exchange for a name.

Unintentionally, she gripped the piece of glass too firmly and the edge bit into her finger. The brief flash of pain jerked her back to reality. Cooper thanked Quinton, got off the phone and told the embarrassed secretary that the damaged copier would have to be replaced. She then headed off for her next assignment.

Cooper returned to the office shortly after noon bearing ham and cheese sandwiches on pumpernickel for herself and Angela. Ben and Emilio opted for Buffalo Wild Wings for lunch, but Angela refused to dine there on the grounds that she’d spend the rest of the day smelling like hot sauce.

As she approached the reception desk, Cooper was greeted by the sound of high-pitched barking, and she smiled as Angela’s Yorkshire terrier slipped and skidded across the laminate floor in order to reach her.

“Why, Betty Boop! You look mighty sweet.” Cooper scratched the tiny dog behind the red-and-white polka-dot bow between her ears and admired her polka-dot sundress. “Angela, you and Betty are quite the fashionistas. Did you spray her with your perfume?”

Angela swatted Cooper’s arm with an unopened letter. “What kind of mama do you think I am? She’s just come from the groomers.” She scooped up her dog and planted a series of kisses on her small black nose. “I wanted to show Betty off to Mr. Farmer, but he hasn’t come back from lunch yet.”

 “Is anything wrong?” Cooper asked as she handed Angela a sandwich and a bag of Rold Golds.

“Mr. Farmer’s actin’ real funny today. He said it was awful timin’ to have a cold because he needs every spare drop of energy to face his one o’clock appointment.”

Cooper waved her pickle spear at the clock. “Who’s he meeting?”

Angela frowned. “No clue! I’m just his office manager—the person who books each and every meetin’ he’s had in the past five years. I don’t know a single thing about this
appointment,
and do you know what? I’m not too happy about that!” Angela angrily bit a pretzel in half.

Hoping to distract her friend, Cooper told her about her plans to invite Edward Crosby to join her for a night of club-hopping on Saturday in hopes of discovering new information on Miguel.

“And Nathan doesn’t mind?” Angela’s pencil-drawn eyebrows rose.

Cooper fiddled with her sandwich remains as her neck flushed.

“Oh, my word, you’re not going to tell him!” Angela shouted and then leaned toward her friend. “Why, Cooper Lee, I do believe you have the hots for a drug dealer.”

“Former drug dealer. And I do not!” Cooper retaliated and then tore one of her bread crusts into shreds. “Actually, I don’t know what I feel about him. But every time I’m near him, my body turns into jelly and I get the sensation that someone turned up the thermostat. I can barely breathe.”

Angela shook her head. “Girlie, you are in a fix! This boy’s got a hold over you and you’d better figure out what to do about it before you see Nathan again.”

“I know, I know.” Cooper sighed.

Just as Angela launched into a string of questions regarding Cooper’s weekend plans, a woman’s voice called out, “Hello? Does
anyone
work here?
Hel-lo!”
Cooper indicated that she’d take care of the lunch debris and Angela hustled out to her desk. By the time Cooper approached the area in order to collect the afternoon work orders, the visitor was roaring at Angela.

“You
dare
tell me that he’s not back there and that you have no idea where he is? Are you a secretary or a call girl?”
Though she wanted to retreat in the face of the woman’s overt hostility, Cooper had no intention of abandoning her friend. Taking one look at Angela’s crossed arms and pursed lips, Cooper stepped in front of her.

“Can I help you, ma’am?” she asked the grim-faced matron.

The woman, who was short and pudgy but carried herself with authority, closed her eyes, exhaled loudly, and looked Cooper over. “Well, perhaps
you
understand the Queen’s English.” She spoke very slowly, as though addressing a simpleton. “I am here for an appointment with Mr. Farmer and this
secretary,
” she spoke the word as though referring to something incredibly distasteful, “
insists
that he is
not
in the building.”

“I’m afraid our employer is not on the premises,” Cooper said simply. “And he failed to tell Angela, his highly skilled secretary, when he planned on returning.”

The woman pushed back her coat sleeve in order to examine the face of her gold watch. “Well!
I
am a busy woman and I’m also a tired one, so I’ll march back to his office and wait for him there. No need to show me the way.” She raised a gloved hand at Angela.

Angela shook her head. “I’m sorry, but I can’t allow visitors in Mr. Farmer’s office without his prior approval.”

“You can let me in!” She opened her Gucci purse and dug out a silver flask from within. “After all, I
own
half this joint.”