1 Assault with a Deadly Glue Gun (7 page)

I couldn't stop laughing.

The officers exchanged glances. Garfinkle sighed. "Mrs. Pollack, have you been drinking?"

I waved the question away with a flick of one hand while my
other arm clutched my torso. "I'm sorry," I said, fighting to regain
control.

I knew I'd pass a Breathalyzer test hands-down. A sanity test
might be another story. Brushing the stream from my cheeks, I
took a deep breath and tried to explain. "I ... it's been ... I didn't
mean ... first a dead body and now Simmons and Garfinkle." I
slapped my hand over my mouth and fought back another gush of
hysterics. "And me standing in a Hazy Shade of Winter on my very
own Bridge Over Troubled Water."

Simmons cocked his mouth into a wry grimace. "We're used
to it."

I gasped, the laughter dying on my lips mid-chortle. "To murders?"

"The reaction to our names," said Garfinkle.

"What makes you so sure the victim was murdered?" asked
Simmons.

Odd as it seemed to me, I suppose from the officer's viewpoint
the question was legitimate. We weren't in Newark or Camden. We
were out in the middle of nowhere. Surrounded by cornfields. Or
what would become cornfields after spring planting.

"We don't get many murders around here," said Garfinkle.
"This would be the first in over three years. If it is a murder."

I exhaled, my breath forming a cloud in the icy night air.
"That's a relief, but you've got one now, and it's certainly not your
run-of-the-mill murder."

Garfinkle raised his eyebrows. "Meaning?"

"Meaning, Officer, I doubt you've ever seen anything as bizarre
as what I found in my office."

Simmons took a step closer to me and placed his hand on my
upper arm. "We'd like you to accompany us back to your office,
Mrs. Pollack. We have a forensics team on the way that will meet
us there."

I rubbed at my quickly numbing arms. I was afraid they'd ask
that, but someone needed to let them into the building, and I was
the nearest someone-besides being the person who had discovered the body. They probably had a gazillion and ten questions to
ask me. I turned to step back into my car, stumbling as I reached
for the door.

Garfinkle grabbed for my other arm, nearly lifting me off the
blacktop. "Would you like one of us to drive, ma'am? You look a
little rattled."

A little? Any more rattled and I could pose as a baby's toy.

Less than fifteen minutes later a forensics team descended on
my office. From the hall, flanked by Simmons and Garfinkle, I
watched the technicians do their CSI thing-which bore little
resemblance to the Hollywood version. Not surprising. I've seen
plenty of television sitcoms set in magazine publishing houses. All
of them were as realistic as SpongeBob SquarePants.

"So how do you think she died?" I heard one of the homicide
detectives ask one of the evidence collectors. "I don't see any outward trauma."

"You're not gonna believe this one." Wearing a rubber glove,
the technician unplugged my heavy-duty-emphasis on the
heavy-hot glue gun and started to drop it into a plastic evidence
collection bag.

"No, don't!" Everyone in the room spun around to face me. I
pointed to the glue gun. "That nozzle is extremely hot. It'll melt a
hole in the bottom of your bag."

Rather than appreciating the fact that I stopped him from contaminating evidence, the forensics investigator took offense. He
dropped the gun into the bag and sealed it. "You telling me how to
do my job, lady?"

I waved a hand at the bag. "Heaven forbid. You obviously don't
need me, so I'm out of here. The front door will lock behind you
when you leave."

I turned on my heels. One of the detectives placed his hand on
my shoulder to stop me. "Garfinkle, why don't you take Mrs. Pollack down to the lobby so she can sit down?" he said. "We'll be
with you shortly."

As we headed down the hall, Simmons to my left, Garfinkle to
my right, I heard the unmistakable sound of plastic shattering
against the Terrazzo floor. An extremely annoyed "Shit!" followed.

Simmons and Garfinkle exchanged glances, then stared at me. I
offered them an I-told-him-so smile.

A few minutes later, two detectives joined us. "I'm Detective
Batswin," said the woman who had asked about the cause of death.

She stood nearly six feet tall, dressed in a conservative darkgray suit with a powder-blue-and-white pinstripe oxford shirt. She
wore her silver-streaked sable hair tied back off a face devoid of
make-up except for a slash of peach gloss across her lips. A long
loop of liquid silver earrings that swayed as she spoke were her
only adornment.

With a tilt of her head she indicated the man who had stopped
me from leaving. "This is my partner, Detective Robbins."

I nodded to both of them, keeping my lips pursed tight for fear
of letting loose another eruption of laughter. This was getting too
weird. Simmons and Garfinkle as uniformed officers. The dynamic duo of Detectives Batswin and Robbins. Holy Spoonerisms,
Gotham City! What was next? Woodstein and Bernward waving
press passes?

"Can you tell us your connection to the deceased and how you
happened to discover the body, Mrs. Pollack?" asked Robbins.

A compact middle-aged man who looked like he'd be more
comfortable in sweats or jeans than his navy blue serge suit, he
stood nearly a head shorter than his partner. The fluorescent lights
of the lobby sparkled off his polished head. His Scooby-Doo tie
suggested a sense of humor hidden behind steely gray eyes and a
grim expression.

I explained why I had come back to the office. "I didn't expect
anyone else to be here this late. Especially Marlys. I was surprised
to see her car in the parking lot."

"Why is that?" asked Batswin.

"This morning she mentioned she had a dinner date in Manhattan."

"Was she meeting her date here?" asked Robbins, taking notes
on a small pad with a stub of a pencil. Just like in every cop show
I'd ever seen. Were all police budgets so tight that cops couldn't afford regulation size pencils, let alone PDAs?

"I was under the impression she was meeting him in the city."

"Do you know his name?"

"Some new designer. I can't remember. One of the other staff
members might. Or Marlys's assistant. I wasn't paying much attention at the time."

"Why is that?" asked Batswin.

"Because Marlys is always bragging about her celebrity connections. I tune it out."

"You don't sound like you cared for her very much," said Robbins.

I laughed. "No one liked Marlys. Except Marlys. She collected
enemies the way my kids collect video games and baseball cards."

When both detectives raised their eyebrows and glanced sideways at each other, I realized my mistake. "Look, in the past week
I've lost my husband and discovered I'm in debt up the wazoo.
Marlys and I didn't get along. That's no secret. She didn't get along
with any of her co-workers. But she's way down on my pain-inthe-butt list. I didn't kill her."

Robbins paused taking notes and trapped me with that steelyeyed stare of his. "We didn't suggest you did, Mrs. Pollack."

Refusing to blink, I eyed him back. "I'm glad we have that
cleared up, Detective."

"Can you think of anyone who hated Marlys enough to kill
her?" asked Batswin.

I could think of a long list of people who probably dreamed of
boiling Marlys in oil every night, but I also knew them well enough
to know they weren't killers. Hugo had neither the strength nor
the temperament. Naomi wouldn't stoop to something as low class
as murder. And Erica was too much of a wuss to say boo to her
boss, let alone whack her.

That left Vittorio Versailles. And he had threatened Marlys in
front of an office full of witnesses. I mentioned to the detectives
how he and his entourage had stormed into our offices earlier in
the day.

"Anyone else?" asked Batswin.

"I suppose whoever wanted the diamonds."

"What diamonds?" both detectives asked in unison.

"They were on loan from Cartier. Marlys was wearing them
this morning. A necklace, earrings, and hair clip."

"You mentioned your debt," said Batswin.

"For godsake, Detective, do you think if I took the diamonds,
I'd be telling you about them?"

"Stranger things have happened, ma'am."

I rolled my eyes.

"You aren't planning any trips, are you, Mrs. Pollack?" asked
Batswin.

"Does a trip to the supermarket count?"

"Cute. Don't leave town," said Robbins. "We'll be in touch."

A snappy rejoinder about how I didn't live in this town, let
alone this county, probably wouldn't be an appropriate response at
the moment. Not when I suspected that Detectives Batswin and
Robbins had already mentally placed me on their Who Killed
Marlys Vandenburg List. So I kept the comment firmly sealed behind my closed lips.

I wondered if the Dynamic Duo would even bother questioning Vittorio Versailles. Why should they? My big mouth had already handed them both motive and opportunity. As for method,
it didn't take a Ph.D. in Forensics to figure out my glue gun had
played some part in Marlys's murder.

Detective Batswin reached into her pocket, pulled out a business card, and handed it to me. "If you think of anything else,
here's where you can reach me."

By the time I arrived home, it was nearly two in the morning. In
less than five hours I had to turn around and head back to the office-if I'd even be allowed in my office. None of the cops had said
anything one way or the other, but I suspected I'd find lots of yellow crime scene tape blocking the entrance to my cubicle tomorrow morning.

And I still had work to finish up before tomorrow's scheduled
photo shoot. If there'd even be a photo shoot. At the moment, I
was too tired to care.

I pulled into my driveway, expecting to find a darkened house.
Instead every window was lit up like Rockefeller Plaza at Christmas.

A not-very-welcoming committee greeted me when I opened
the front door.