1 Assault with a Deadly Glue Gun (17 page)

"White chocolate and plum brownies."

I hesitated. "How many calories per bite?"

"What the hell are another thousand calories or so in the
greater scheme of life?"

Easy for her to say with her mach ten metabolism. I had a
sneaking suspicion that Cloris exhaled calories and fat grams instead of carbon dioxide. On me, the calories and fat moved directly from my mouth to my hips, bypassing the entire digestive
process.

But that didn't stop me from caving in and grabbing a brownie.
My willpower never stands a chance against my salivating taste buds.
Besides, chocolate releases endorphins, and right now I needed all
the endorphins my brain was capable of delivering into my blood
stream.

"I suppose if I spread those thousand calories out over the
course of seventy or eighty years, you've got a point. Besides, who's
going to notice the added poundage under one of those neon orange prison jumpsuit?" I took a bite and moaned around the
mouthful.

"Good?"

"Are you kidding? Let's just say, white chocolate and plum put
mango and macadamia to shame. If only I could catch a killer as
easily as you kill my willpower."

Cloris finished her muffin and helped herself to a brownie. "I'd
think you'd be excited over Emil's disappearance. Doesn't this
make him the prime suspect? You and Erica are off the hook."

"And I'm so relieved," said Erica, strolling into the test kitchen.
She pulled out a stool and sat down at the end of the counter that
also served as a table. "No more looking over my shoulder, worrying that those detectives are lurking in the shadows waiting for me
to slip up"

Both Cloris and I stared at her, Cloris's expression mirroring
the "uh-oh" feeling churning in my stomach.

"Slip up about what?" I asked.

Erica helped herself to a brownie and studied it, as if debating
whether or not it was worth the calories and fat grams now that
she had exchanged her shapeless jumpers for designer duds.
"Nothing," she said, speaking to the brownie instead of me.

She nibbled a corner and mumbled around the bite. "You know
what I mean. Just having them snooping around and thinking I
killed Marlys makes me feel guilty."

She glanced up at me, then at Cloris. "Not that I have anything
to feel guilty about but..."

"Don't try to explain," I said. "You're not the only one those
two detectives make nervous. But I don't see how Emil's disappearance gets either of us scratched off the suspects list."

"People don't vanish without a trace unless they have something to hide, do they?"

"And don't forget the diamonds," added Cloris. "All that ice
could buy a brand new identity in a country where the police don't
ask too many questions."

Anything was possible, but I couldn't buy into the theory. I
mulled over another possibility. What if someone wanted Emil out
of the way because he knew too much or had seen something? "I
don't think Emil took off because he killed Marlys. Maybe he's
hiding because he's scared. Or maybe the killer is actually someone
who was jealous of the publicity Marlys was going to give Emil."

"There's another possibility," said Cloris.

"What's that?" asked Erica.

"We could be going about this backwards. What if Emil Pachette was the intended victim and Marlys got in the killer's way?"

"So you're thinking that Marlys may have met Emil as
planned?"

"Who knows?"

"One flaw in that theory," I said. "Why would the killer bring
Marlys back here to kill her?"

"Right. Why wouldn't he have killed her where he killed Emil?"
asked Erica.

"Maybe he couldn't for some reason," said Cloris.

"Doesn't make sense," I said. "Marlys's car was parked in the lot
when I arrived back at Trimedia."

Cloris reached for the coffeepot and poured three cups. "Maybe
the killer followed her back here." She added a generous amount of
half-and-half to her cup before taking a sip. "If the killer set things
up to look like someone at Trimedia had killed her-"

I finished her thought. "He'd divert suspicion from himself."

"Why not? I'm just trying to look at this from all angles."

Only as far as I could see, this particular angle was pockmarked
with holes of flawed logic. "If Marlys saw someone kill Emil, why
would she come back to the office? Why wouldn't she call the police?"

Erica blew into her coffee. "With Vittorio eliminated as a suspect, my money's on Emil."

"Marlys was about to give Emil tons of free publicity that
would send his career soaring," I said. "Why would he kill her?"

Cloris exhaled a frustration-laced sigh. "We're going around in
circles, getting nowhere fast."

"What if we search Emil's office and apartment," said Erica.
"Maybe we could find some clues."

"Good one," said Cloris. "Ever hear of breaking and entering?"

Erica ignored the question as she pulled out her iPhone.

An hour and a half later the three of us were bucking the tide
of rush hour crowds as we fought our way up the steps from the
subway. Once on the street, I glanced at my watch.

"What time is it?" asked Cloris.

"Nearly five."

"We're probably too late. We should have waited until tomorrow morning."

"Gina promised to wait for us," said Erica. "She'll be there."

"Even if some stud with tight buns asks her out for drinks?"
asked Cloris.

Erica shook her head as the three of us jogged across the street,
skirting slower pedestrians and dodging cabs turning in front of
us. "Gina doesn't drink," she said.

"Everyone in New York drinks," said Cloris. "It's practically a
residency requirement. How else do you think they cope with all
this." With a sneer, she swept her arm in front of her.

Cloris despised the city. She was thrilled by our relocation to a
meadow in Morris County. I was surprised when she'd volunteered to accompany us on our late afternoon field trip, but curiosity and an innate love of snooping had won out over hordes of
humanity, bumper-to-bumper snarling SUVs, mind-numbing
noise, and sidewalks filled with putrefied piles of trash.

"Gina has very strong feelings about alcohol," said Erica. "Her
father's a drunk. Besides, all the guys who work for Emil are gay."

"Including Emil?" asked Cloris. "Maybe he killed Marlys because she called him a fag."

"Except Emil," she said.

Cloris and I stopped short and stared at her. "And you know
this because ...?" I asked.

Erica's cheeks, bright pink from the stinging cold wind whipping down the street, deepened to crimson. "Gina has a huge crush
on him."

"Another suspect," I said. "Gina could have killed Marlys."

"You think she saw Marlys coming on to Emil and decided to
eliminate her competition?" asked Cloris.

"Possibly."

"No," said Erica, her voice firm and defiant as she led us to a
dilapidated tenement sandwiched between two high-rises. "Gina
did not kill Emil."

"How do you know so much about Emil Pachette's secretary?"
I asked as we entered the miniscule lobby.

Erica pushed the button for the elevator. "She's not his secretary. She's his assistant."

"That still doesn't explain how you know so much about her,"
said Cloris.

"She's my cousin."

"The plot thickens," said Cloris.

After a groan and a creak, the elevator doors opened, and the
three of us stepped inside. "That doesn't mean she's not a killer," I
said.

Erica stabbed the button for the fifth floor. The elevator shuddered to life, jerking and rattling its way skyward. With mounting
trepidation, I eyed the tiny graffiti-covered confines of the compartment.

"Gina agreed to help us," said Erica, her voice now petulant.
"That proves she didn't have anything to do with Marlys's death."

"Maybe Emil was about to ditch Gina for Marlys," said Cloris.
"You know what they say about hell having no fury like a woman
scorned."

The elevator lurched to a halt. My stomach caught up with the
rest of me several seconds later, but it took an additional ten or
fifteen seconds before the doors stuttered open. I glanced down.
The elevator had come to a stop at least eight inches below the
cracked and dirt-caked vinyl flooring.

"We walk down," I said.

"No complaint here," said Cloris.

After we hoisted ourselves out of the elevator, Erica led us
down the grimy, dimly lit hall to a frosted glass door at the end of
the corridor. Half-hidden under a fine layer of soot, swirling
black-rimmed gold letters spelled out House of Pachette.

"I think we can rule Emil Pachette out as the murderer," I said.

"How so?" asked Cloris.

"If you worked in this dive, would you kill the goose offering
you a platinum egg?"

"Shh," said Erica, her hand poised on the doorknob. "Gina's
very upset about Emil's disappearance. She thinks we're here to
help her figure out what happened to him, not find evidence to
convict him of murder."

Cloris saluted her. "Lead on, Macduff."

We entered into a cramped workroom overflowing with industrial sewing machines, steamers, mannequins in various states of
dress and undress, dozens of bolts of fabric, and bins brimming
with notions. An enormous cutting table took up most of the center of the room. Squeezed into one corner was a battered metal
filing cabinet and an equally battered oak desk with a mismatched
chair.

A frazzled-looking, pudgy young woman with red-rimmed
eyes rose from behind the desk. She stared at us for a moment,
puzzlement settling across her face. Then with a gasp, she ran into
Erica's arms. "Omigod! Erica, I almost didn't recognize you.

Erica laughed. "You're not the only one. I look in the mirror
and see a stranger."

Gina stepped back. Holding Erica's hands in hers, she studied
her cousin from head to toe. "But a drop-dead gorgeous stranger."

She pulled one of her hands free and tucked a clump of straggly dishwater brown hair behind her ear. "I must look like something the cat wouldn't bother dragging in, but I'm so glad you're
here. I can't stop crying."

With that she collapsed sobbing into Erica's arms and wailed,
"I don't know what to do. It's like he's vanished off the face of
the earth. No one's seen or heard from him since late Monday
morning.

"WHERE WAS EMIL HEADED when he left?" I asked Gina after her
sobbing had subsided to an occasional hiccup.

She lifted her head from Erica's shoulder. Swiping at her cheek
with her shoulder, she sniffed back her tears and directed a wary,
watery brown gaze toward me. "Who are you?"

Erica stepped out of Gina's embrace but kept her arm wrapped
around her cousin's shoulders as she made introductions. "These
are the friends from work I told you about. Anastasia and Cloris.
They're here to help."

Gina's expression remained cautious as her gaze darted between Cloris and me. "Emil had a meeting downtown."

"With whom?"

She fiddled with a button on her work smock. "He didn't tell me."

"Nothing written in his appointment book?"

"He doesn't keep one."

Or keeps it from her. "So you don't know if he ever made it to
his meeting?"

She answered with a shake of her head, accompanied by a
mournful sigh.

"Do you know anything about his date with Marlys Vandenburg Monday night?"

Gina's features hardened. Her body stiffened under her billowy
cobalt blue work smock. "It was a business meeting, not a date."

"But you knew he was supposed to meet her?"

She tugged on both ends of the yellow tape measure slung
around her neck and scowled at a pair of scuffed black boots that
peaked out beneath a frayed pair of stonewashed denim jeans. "I
knew."

Cloris cleared her throat. "You don't sound very happy about it."

"Why would I? Marlys Vandenburg strutted around like she
was Queen of the Fashion District, even though she only worked
for some third-rate monthly."