Whittaker 01 The Enemy We Know (30 page)

“
What if the media gets hold of the story?”

“
We’ll cross that bridge if we get to it. Don’t lie to anyone, but don’t go into details either. I’m going to call corporate and fill them in. They might be able to spare some of the hospital staff so we don’t have to worry about bringing in anyone new. At the very least, they’ll have to approve the expenditure if we get some temps.

“
The rest of you,” he spoke to us all but looked directly at me, “I suggest you start gathering files. Try to set up a system. Maybe divide the rooms up amongst yourselves.” He waved a hand aimlessly over the mounds.

“
Office Poopsie told us to wait until they get someone over here to fingerprint,” Lisa informed her boss.

“
Okay, but we can at least work up a plan of action while we wait.”

“
I’ll take the file room,” I said. “If I get that cleared, we’ll have the space to re-organize the files in their proper place.” And I’d be able to hunt for the
Harmon
file and its lethal contents.
How had the stalker known?

As soon as Marshall disappeared into his office, Bob started bellyaching. “So, does he expect
us
to put all this together?” He glanced from me to Hannah, pointedly ignoring Lisa, whose natural province he assumed included filing already. A legend in his own mind, Bob felt above all this. He tried stomping around to illustrate his masculinity and ended up shooting his legs out from underneath himself, landing smack on his pompous and overly wide ass.

Cheered us girls right up.

Stingy, paranoid corporate decided that they “really preferred that the matter be handled in-house,” which meant no temps. Bob claimed he’d injured his back when he fell on his butt, spending the rest of Monday morning moaning and wincing whenever anybody looked in his direction. He skipped out just before lunch, claiming to have made a chiropractic appointment, leaving us even more shorthanded. The toad was probably sitting at Denny’s scarfing up lunch and admiring his own cleverness.

Most of the other counselors were part-timers, working at other jobs. Some were able to pitch in, but most could only spare a few hours here and there. Marshall finally resorted to calling each of the interns we’d just said good-bye to. Not surprisingly, Mary Kate was thrilled to drop everything and come in. Marshall made her promise to finish her finals, forbidding her from lending a hand until after her last test Wednesday afternoon. She vowed to show up as soon as she was done and indicated she could work through the night. Probably by candlelight.

Another officer showed up about twenty minutes later, took one look at the drifts of paper, and decided she’d limit the fingerprinting to the window where the intruder broke in.

“
And maybe the desk drawers,” she added, “but it’d make a god-awful mess if I try all these papers. It’ll ruin the documents, too.”

She got busy, and I scurried to the file room, heart thudding, suddenly imagining the knife magically materializing to implicate me. It hadn’t, but unfortunately, neither had the
Harmon
file or the Marshall-the-pirate porn magazine, for that matter.

The task of gathering and matching the appropriate records with their matching file jacket was incredibly daunting. The intruder had cleared the shelves entirely; stacks of files pitched to the floor, others presumably grabbed by the armful, hurled from one end of the clinic to the other. Our offices had received similar treatment, with the added bonus of personal items smashed or otherwise destroyed. Even the impoverished interns’ room had been ransacked, the spines of the old textbooks broken, pages ripped in chunks and cast about like educational confetti.

I set to work, although it was difficult to concentrate between cold sweats and bouts of shaking that verged on seizures whenever I thought about Shakespeare finding the
Harmon
file and using the knife on poor Robert, because that would effectively rule Paul out and rule
in
Marshall.

Very little progress was made until Lisa got over her shock, reasserted her inner office-dominatrix, and began slinging orders around like a whip. She arranged a simple system of alphabetized piles and decreed that we’d tackle sorting each pile later in the week.

Good enough. I was in no shape for complications anyway.

Blodgett showed up that afternoon, banging on the locked front door as if we should have been expecting him. Maybe I was. He looked fresher than usual, but a closer examination told me he was just on high alert, probably running on reserve energy. Drab brown eyes scanned the mess, picking their way across each section of the chaos, touching on each of my co-workers briefly, but with a frightening intensity, before landing on me. I waggled my fingers at him.

He didn’t return-waggle.

Repressing a sigh, I motioned him back, picking my way down the littered hallway while he shuffled behind. In my office, I picked my chair up from the floor and let him deal with his own seat, which he did by the expedient method of tilting the client chair, letting everything slide to the floor.

“
Why do you think this might be connected to the murders?” No greeting, no small talk, no lead up to the question. Just “wham-bam, answer the question, ma’am.”

“
It seems like too much of a coincidence. Nobody else has been having problems with clients, at least that I’ve heard. I guess you should check with Marshall.”

“
I will. Anything you’re leaving out?”

Like the Amazing Disappearing/Reappearing (and currently missing) Murder Weapon?
“My cat is missing.”

“
Uh-huh.” He didn’t seem ready to put out a kitty version of BOLO. His deceptively languid gaze roved over me, watching not only my face, but my hands and feet, too. While we can train ourselves to offer blank features, jittery feet and clenched hands often give us away. I deliberately relaxed, breathing deep and concentrating on thoughts of warm, yellow sunshine and happy laughter, soft, placid muscles and innocence. It was a nice rest.

He didn’t buy it but couldn’t prove anything. Yet.

Grunting, Blodgett heaved himself up. At the door, he went the opposite direction, walking down the hall, peering in each office. Without a word, he continued to the emergency exit, which Wayne had bolted through running from the police. Blodgett opened it, scrutinizing the back alley from the doorway. Shutting the door, he checked the lock, then walked back to Regina’s office, where the intruder had presumably broken in. Sooty, grimy-looking fingerprint powder covered the sill and desk top, the tech having finished long ago. Careful not to lean against it, Blodgett peered out the window.

“
You’ll want to have them vacuum real good first to clean that up,” he mentioned. “Then use ‘Scrubby Bubbles’ or whatever that stuff is called.”

“
I’ll tell them. What are you looking for?” I pointed at the window.

He shrugged, walking away. He paused at Marshall’s office. It, too, had been trashed. Marshall had tossed his jacket over the back of his chair and stood cradling a stack of books, searching for a flat surface on which to deposit them. He turned as if sensing the detective, a polite smile on his face. He nodded for Blodgett to enter, and for a moment, as his eyes brushed over me, his smile warmed. Blodgett’s hypervigilant gaze took in the tableau, eyes traveling back and forth between my boss and me, but made no comment.

I blushed, making matters worse.

As Blodgett shut the door behind him, I booked it for the front. Lisa was muttering to herself, trying to realign one of the desk drawers into the groove that would allow it to slide in and out.

“
Did you find your magazine yet?” I asked.

The drawer fell, nearly severing her toes, and she kicked it viciously. Coming eye to eye, she said, “No. But I will.”

I had no doubt.

Still wondering what Blodgett had been looking for, I walked out to the parking lot to look at the window the intruder had used. Most of the clinic windows were easily visible from the lot, except for Regina’s. A scraggily, overgrown bush obscured two-thirds of the window, making it the best choice if someone wanted access. I tried picturing Marshall crawling through the opening, but I got distracted by the image of his cute butt hanging half-in, half-out of the window. And why would he have bothered getting in that way when he had keys to the clinic.

On second thought, I realized that fact couldn’t exonerate Marshall since, besides Lisa, he was the
only
one who had keys. If it was either one of them—and I honestly couldn’t see Lisa wreaking the kind of havoc that had been inflicted on her precious filing system—he or she would have had to break in or risk pointing an accusatory finger directly at himself. Or herself, I supposed.

Ultimately, I had no one to blame, but myself. Somebody had to have noticed my compulsive trips to the file room. Somebody close by had been watching, aware of my distress and the reason for it, knowing my obsession was connected to Wayne’s murder. More specifically, to the horrific package sent to me.

He liked to show off, this Shakespeare-stalker did. And, like Siggy proudly dropping his dead mouse on my pillow, he liked to bequeath his trophies to
me.
If he’d just wanted attention, he could have sent his souvenirs to the media or even to the police.

So why me? Continuing to mull this over, I returned to the file room, no longer expecting to find the knife. Whoever the stalker was wouldn’t want to take the chance that I’d turn it in to the police, which was by far the smartest thing I could have done. And, conversely, the stupidest thing I hadn’t.

At the end of the day, I crawled in my car, slinging my purse on the passenger seat. I’d found two blank forms that may have been part of those I’d used as filler in the
Harmon
file. I could think of no other reason for them to have been part of the mound of paper. But so far no file folder, no sonnet, and, certainly, no bloody knife.

Too tired to be afraid, I leaned over and popped the glove box. Empty. I went home and walked the neighborhood.

Over the next couple of days, order—and Lisa—slowly prevailed. Dress was casual and, aside from my own, moods lifted into almost a holiday spirit. Lisa’s radio became a source of hilarity as a “poltergeist” kept turning her classic rock station to wailing country western.

Trying to rein in the compulsive behavior that had betrayed the knife’s hiding place, I only allowed myself to check the glove box twice a day—morning and night. Not that I had anything more to hide, but I’d be damned if I’d play puppet for him again. I varied my routine as much as possible, taking different routes to work, and carrying my pepper spray just
hoping
someone would give me an excuse. Even the thought that I was turning into Rhonda didn’t sway me.

None of which mattered, since Shakespeare was probably signing my paychecks every week. It was the principle of the thing, I guess.

As I made a pot of coffee early Wednesday morning, I heard a muffled thump against the front door. A sliding rustle followed.

“
Hello?” Grabbing my can of pepper spray, I put an eye to the peephole. Nothing. But the thump thumped again, then meowed.

I flung the door open and was greeted by the pungent odor of cat crap and my slinky kitty. Scooping him up, we serenaded each other with a mishmash of cooing and purring. I kicked the door shut and hurried to set out fresh food and water.

Siggy sniffed and deigned to take a few delicate nibbles, humoring me. Wherever he’d been for the last few days, he’d had food. I sat on the floor, grinning. With an unexpected tinkle, he jumped in my lap, rubbing his chin against mine. Kitty kisses. More strange tinkling sounds mixed with his rumbling purrs.

“
What is that, Sig? Whatcha got there?”

Somewhere on his travels, he’d acquired some bling. I scratched under his chin and he rolled to his side. In an orgy of feel-good, he wrapped his paws around my hand, biting my finger lightly. Meanwhile, I unhooked the collar with my free hand.

Except it wasn’t a collar. Silver links with dangling crescent moons and chunky stars, it looked more like a woman’s bracelet. My stomach rolled.

“
Where did you get this, big guy?”

I fingered the charms. All but one were silver; the exception—neither a moon nor a star—was some kind of gold flower.

Uneasiness brought me to my feet. I strode from window to window, checking the locks. I was going to be late for work, and I didn’t give a …

Which reminded me. Grabbing a paper towel and can of rug cleaning foam, I ventured into the hall to deal with the downside of cat ownership.

Finishing, I gathered the supplies in one hand, gingerly holding the icky wad of paper toweling in the other. My mind was busy trying to figure out how to manage the lock—teeth? feet?—while my eyes processed a different message.

There’s a paper stuck to the door.

Shit.

Back inside, I unfolded the paper to the now familiar fourteen lines of scrawl.

Let those who are in favour with their stars

Of public honour and proud titles boast,

Whilst I, whom fortune of such triumph bars

Unlook’d for joy in that I honour most.

Great princes’ favourites their fair leaves spread

But as the marigold at the sun’s eye,

And in themselves their pride lies buried,

For at a frown they in their glory did.

The painful warrior famoused for fight,

After a thousand victories once foiled,