Whittaker 01 The Enemy We Know (31 page)

Is from the book of honour razed quite,

And all the rest forgot for which he toiled:

Then happy I, that love and am beloved,

Where I may not remove nor be removed.

They served the search warrants later that afternoon. After letting them in, my landlord called me at work. By the time I made it up to the front desk, an officer was standing there, holding an official looking document, asking for me. The warrant covered my apartment, my office and related common areas of the clinic, and my car. They were looking for “knives which may cause trauma or injury consistent with injuries observed on the victim(s).” Also included in the warrant were “firearms; magazines for firearms; DNA samples including but not limited to blood droplets, blood splatters, and blood smears; clothing which bears blood or bloodstains and other biological fluids.” There was more legal blah-blah-blah, but I skipped it. The black spots dancing in front of my eyes made reading difficult.

I handed over my keys and sat on a chair with my head between my knees, a recent affectation of mine. Lisa directed the officer to my office, which had just begun to get reassembled. At least I didn’t have to be embarrassed in front of my clients. Marshall sat next to me, a sign of respect and solidarity that would have meant much more if I could be sure he wasn’t Shakespeare.

Mary Kate showed up halfway through the exercise, looking haggard and disheveled from finals week. The unfolding drama sparked her up immensely, though, and she ran giddily from window to door to my office, giving verbal updates on everything the police did, touched, or looked at, as well as her interpretations of what they may or may not have been thinking. Most annoying.

Marshall continued to sit beside me, at one point reaching over and taking my hand. He generated warmth, the slight calluses of his palm giving tactile proof of masculine strength and comfort. I let it be, just for a moment, allowing the illusion of compassion to carry me through the next few minutes. What could it hurt?

However, Lisa and Mary Kate converging on us with her-and-her expressions of alertness for our joined hands gave me a good excuse for pulling away. I stood up as the two officers assigned to search my car entered the clinic. They were finished, looking every bit as frustrated as I felt, which pleased my inner brat.

After a brief conference with the officer searching my office, they split up—one to the miniature staff lunch room, the other to the file room. My stomach clenched. If the knife were found, it would happen now.

But it wasn’t. I finally accepted that the knife had indeed been the motive for the break-in, and worse, had been used to kill Robert. They didn’t find the sonnet, either and, of course, didn’t know enough to be looking for the
Harmon
file. So far, I was in the clear.

An hour and a half later, the cop who had originally served me the warrant approached. He had my car keys and a pile of forms to sign—receipts—which I did without bothering to read through them. This gave Lisa fits, but by now I had a migraine and decided jail would be kind of peaceful in comparison. Safer, too.

“
Are they still going through my place?” I gathered enough energy to ask.

“
They just finished up, ma’am. A receipt for all properties removed will be left with your landlord.”

“
Was Detective Blodgett there?” For some reason, I cared more about his presence than whether they were carting away my set of steak knives. Probably because I knew the only blood they’d find on the utensils would be bovine. But more importantly, and not just because he had the power to toss me in jail, I didn’t want Blodgett to think I was a murderer. Freud would say it was a father-figure thing, but my head hurt too much for self-analysis. Freud could kiss my butt, and I’m sure he’d have had something to say about that phrase, too.

Meanwhile, the cop either didn’t care or wasn’t listening, because he gathered up the forms and left.

It was only 2:30, but I turned to Marshall. “I’m going home. I need to see what they did.”

“
Do you want me to drive you?” His eyes, so darkly mysterious, hinted at nothing but compassion. I didn’t trust it. I couldn’t.

“
No. I can manage.” Marshall looked as though he wanted to argue. Not wanting to raise his suspicions, I added, truthfully, “I just need to be alone.”

He nodded in understanding. Just behind him, Mary Kate shifted from foot to foot like a toddler doing the pee-pee dance. I could tell she was dying to commiserate with me, eager for a blow-by-blow of the intrusion. I couldn’t deal with it.

“
Bye, Mary Kate. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“
Bye-bye. I’ll call you tonight!”

My phone would be off the hook. Rather than argue, I grimaced a smile, and left.

My car felt violated, my apartment more so. Siggy was hiding and not even an open can of tuna fish could cajole him out from under the bed. Wide, “this wasn’t what I signed up for” kitty eyes stared at me from the darkest, dust-woofiest corner. I eyed the dark, cozy space wistfully, but forced myself back into the living room. Evidence of government-sanctioned intruders was everywhere. Even objects not included in the search had been moved, disarranged, giving my home an unsettling sense of being slightly off-kilter. It felt like a stage set of my apartment, familiar but wrong and disorienting. I scanned the receipts that my landlord had left on the coffee table.

The bastards had taken Anna. And my stainless steel Ginsu knives.

Just before I’d gotten sober, I’d found myself at a point of despair so intense that I literally could not continue life as I was then living it. The pain of being me reached a pinnacle, a Mount Everest of misery, and I just didn’t have enough resources to get back from the precipice in one piece. Life was unendurable. My choice was to kill myself—and I took comfort in plotting various methods for that, considerately choosing those that would cause the least amount of clean up for whomever found me—or change. I didn’t know how that would work, but I knew of AA, of course. I figured “what the hell, I could always kill myself later.”

I was at that point again.

Back anything up into a corner and it’ll turn savage. Knowing it faces certain death, it turns to face it. It might die in the fight, but chunks of its attacker will go, too—a better than nothing proposition. Shakespeare blowing my head off and cutting me up into itty-bitty pieces was suddenly more tolerable than living like this. Therefore, I no longer had to be afraid of facing the stalker, of tracking him down. Not only that, but prison came in a distant third in the fear ranking.

So I needed a plan. Marshall recognized that I had pulled back from the emotional attraction tugging between us, but he hopefully assumed it was a reaction to recent events. If I was going to be in a position to investigate, I’d have to send out some wily, feminine signals that I was back in the game.

That was doable.

Casual dress and a warm, end-of-April break in the weather helped with my femme fatale mission. I let my hair hang free, pulling on a tight denim skirt with a light, equally tight, V-necked coral-colored sweater. Just to seal the deal, I splashed a little come-find-me Chanel down the V. Not exactly “office harlot,” but a far cry from my usual conservative attire.

Bob liked it.

Marshall had insisted on a doctor’s excuse, and Bob either ran out of bribe money or had a relatively honest doctor because he was back spreading sunshine Thursday morning. The rest of us had gotten our own offices back into shape and were concentrating on the mammoth task of sorting the alphabetized stacks of paperwork in the lobby and file room. I had staked a claim on the latter, although I no longer expected to find the knife.

Aside from my sweater, there was no reason for Bob to visit the file room every twenty minutes, but Lisa started timing his appearances, and that was the average. Odds were cast on his visit per minute ratio, bets laid, and Carol won a six-dollar pot at the end of the day. Helped make up for her Mall of America trip.

Thankfully, given my goal, Marshall’s reaction was just as potent, at least to my eyes. And Lisa’s. And Carol’s. Mary Kate just looked puzzled by the whole thing. Bob was too busy looking at my chest.

Marshall’s eyes, on the other hand, traveled. Equal opportunity orbs, were Marshall’s eyes. He came in later than usual, wearing snug, faded jeans and a Led Zeppelin T-shirt, smelling fresh and woodsy. He was even a little scruffy in that highly lickable kind of way. At the sight of him, efficient Lisa dropped an armful of files that she’d just sorted and didn’t even cuss. It was that worth it.

As I stood in the doorway laughing at the spectacle, his attention pinpointed on me like a heat-seeking missile. Eyebrows raised, he slowly did the head-toe-head scan, then swallowed and looked away. I felt a little drooly myself.

Trying to restore an appearance of nonchalance, Marshall asked Lisa if he had any messages. Unfortunately, he’d already asked that and stood holding four pink message slips in his hand. Lisa reached over and tapped them gently.

Without another word, he took off down the hall, manfully ignoring the chorus of giggles in his wake. He was made of sterner stuff than Bob, however. He lasted thirty minutes before he ventured back.

I needed to wear this sweater more often.

About 11:30, Lisa took off for the office supply store, leaving Mary Kate alone in the front office. The others were either puttering around in their individual offices or taking a break in the kitchenette. Bob had just brought a file to me (he seemed to be bringing them one at a time) and reluctantly departed from my chest. Marshall must have figured the coast was clear.

I jumped a little when I caught sight of him in the door. I hadn’t heard him come up, didn’t know how long he’d been standing there, watching. His slow, sexy smile crinkled his eyes attractively, though, and I couldn’t discern whether my nervousness was due to my suspicions or because I wanted to leap on him like a wild cat on spring meat. My plan threatened to overtake me in ways I hadn’t entirely foreseen.

“
Do you have plans for lunch?” he asked.

“
Um,” I said, ever the sophisticate.

The crinkles deepened. “How about The Old Mill at 12:30?”

“
I’ll meet you there.”

He retired to his office, leaving me shaking and Mary Kate wide-eyed. Plan A was now in motion.

And then it wasn’t.

When Lisa pried the details out of Mary Kate—which, upon Lisa’s return from the store, she accomplished by saying “Hi, what’s new?”—the word that lunch was at The Old Mill spread as quickly as Lisa could navigate the hallways. She made reservations for eight. Nonsmoking.

Mary Kate and Lisa made a game out of keeping Marshall and me apart. They each plunked down on either side of him, smiling gleefully, giving him no choice but to concede defeat and smile back. The party atmosphere continued, though, heightened by the opportunity to prank the boss. He couldn’t very well complain.

The intrusion suited my purposes, too. I needed time to collect my thoughts and remind myself that neither crinkly eyes nor round, firm buttocks were an adequate character reference in a murder investigation. After all, cute buttocks had gotten me in trouble before.

Motion, in the form of a frenetically waving arm, grabbed my attention. Across the restaurant, Paul sat all by himself, an open book propped at his elbow. Even though the last time I’d seen him had been an exercise in humiliation, he beamed at me like he’d just opened a Christmas present. Must be the sweater.

I waved—slightly—and he came bounding over like a puppy let off his leash. Next to me, Mary Kate gaped at the sight of yet another suitor. I couldn’t blame her. I felt like Scarlett O’Hara juggling beaus at the barbecue. Flushing, I made stilted introductions, hoping nobody noticed that I left off his last name or that I refrained from labeling him a friend. Or an acquaintance. Or anything else that might indicate any sort of connection whatsoever. Paul didn’t notice either.

Scared to death that he would say something about AA, I stood and tried to shoo him back to his own table. It almost worked until Paul zeroed in on Mary Kate, who was still staring.

“
Oh, hey! Don’t I know you? You’re in Schneider’s class, right? Did you get that paper turned in?”

Mary Kate flushed and nodded. For a second, I considered matchmaking. Then I remembered about procreation and was suddenly remotivated to get Paul back to his green salad and iced tea. I managed to get him resettled just as our order came.

I did make sure to say good-bye before leaving, trying to ignore his sad eyes. I’d have to make it up by sitting next to him at a meeting.

Back at the office, things settled into a routine. Bob gave up on my sweater, closing himself in his office, presumably to teleconference with some clients. Either the light on the console unit was broke or “teleconference” meant taking a nap in Bob-speak.

Marshall picked up some of the slack by joining the troops sorting records in the front office. Such a helpful guy. Lisa’s eyes twinkled, but she wasn’t foolish enough to refuse the help. We had a full roster of clients scheduled for next week and a mountain of files left to reorganize. Fun time was over.

Marshall worked steadily for an hour and a half before taking a break. He returned from the lunch room carrying two cups of coffee, bringing me one. Cream and two sugars, just the way I liked it.

The file room, about the size of a large walk-in closet, already felt cramped with the rows of shelving covering each wall and the stacks and stacks of files waiting to be replaced. Marshall’s presence made it even more confining. Made my heart thud erratically, too. Whether killer or lover, I was certainly getting an aerobic workout.

“
How are you holding up?” he asked. “Have you heard from the police since yesterday?”

“
Not really. I guess now that they checked me out, they know there isn’t anything to find.” Mary Kate walked in with an armful of recompiled records. “Now that everything is over, I feel like I can move on.”