Cube Sleuth (16 page)

To deal with my guilt, I send Nancy a dozen red roses with a note: I’M SORRY FOR CHEATING AND ALL THE OTHER THINGS I DID WRONG. YOU TREATED ME BETTER THAN ANYONE EVER HAS. YOU DESERVED ROSES FROM ME ALL THE TIME AND NEVER GOT ANY. I LOVE YOU. I HOPE YOU’RE HAPPY AND HAVE SOMEONE WHO TREATS YOU HOW YOU TREATED ME. LOVE, BOBBY.

I send the flowers to her townhouse at St. Joe’s, remembering that she’s only days from graduation. I feel bad about not being there to see her walk.

* * *

I sit in my cube with my little green notebook filled with facts and theories about Ron, and various loose papers with notes, questions, crude drawings of the crime scene, etc.

I have a new theory about the killer being able to fire a second shot from Ron’s hand and not worrying about the bullet leaving a hole: maybe he aimed the gun at a block of ballistics gel. I find a website that explains how to make the gel at home. I believe the killer wasn’t parked in the lot when he walked up to Ron, so sneaking around with a big block of ballistics gel in a container is a bit of stretch, but still possible.

Reviewing the notes from my discussion with Capillo, I keep rereading what he said about the suicide note: RON TYPED NOTE FROM HIS COMPUTER, PRINTED FROM HIS DESK, SIGNED IT. HANDWRITING ANALYSIS CONCLUSIVE. I know this is the clue I need to focus on.

I’m dying to know how the note was worded. I doubt the killer could replicate Ron’s comically stilted and bizarre writing rhythms unless he’d read Ron’s blog. Regardless, the fact that the note was typed from Ron’s computer proves the killer works for Paine-Skidder.

Only Paine-Skidder employees can get through the lobby without a visitor pass—but since the receptionist and security guard almost never look up, an outsider sneaking in isn’t out of the question. As far as I know, Ron didn’t have any visitors. The killer breaking into the building the night before to print the note doesn’t work because the time it was printed would be saved in the system.

Ron was an artist; his suicide note would be a personal expression. It would be handwritten. The killer must’ve gotten Ron to sign some bogus work form, and Ron didn’t realize that the paper he was signing was actually a blank piece of printer paper taped behind the form. Then the killer just had to login to Ron’s computer (did he have Ron’s password? System administrator privileges?), type the note, and slip the signed paper into Ron’s printer to print it.

The IT department probably has a record of all of the logins on every computer in the building, as well as what usernames and passwords are used. But I have no way of accessing that information.

Who would Ron sign something for? Maybe an HR form, a package from the mailroom, an attendance sheet for Suzanne? Maybe the attendance sheet from a Toastmaster’s meeting—but it would be unlikely to get Ron to sign that in one specific corner.

* * *

I ask our receptionist Nina if she remembers Ron ever having a visitor. She eyes me suspiciously, glances around the lobby. “Why are you asking me this?”

“I’m writing a story about Ron.”

Nina’s tiny, round, brown glasses and the two tips in the front of her coif make her look like The Wise Owl. “What good would knowing whether or not he had visitors do for your story?”

I stare at her for a few seconds before settling on the vague “It’s personal.”

She cocks an eyebrow.

“So. Did he have any visitors?” I try a stern tone because I fear I’m losing her.

“Uhhhhh…” Her eyes drift up as she thinks back. “Once. A pretty girl with dirty blonde hair. She went up to see his cube.”

I wonder why Ron would have Helen up to his cube and not introduce me to her. I guess I was out sick that day. “When was that?”

“Shit, I don’t know. Probably a year ago.” Only Paine-Skidder would hire a woman as their receptionist who starts sentences with “shit.”

“She was the only one? You sure?”

“I think.”

“You remember her name?”

“Nope.”

“Helen sound familiar?”

“Nope. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t it. It was a long time ago.”

I leave Nina the Owl to her game of Free Cell, resisting the urge to ask her how many licks it takes to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop.

* * *

I email Helen to see if and when she came to visit Ron. She tells me it was when Ron had been at Paine-Skidder less than a month, so the receptionist’s time frame was accurate. Even if Helen visited Ron right before his death, she isn’t a suspect, so it doesn’t matter.

But why isn’t she a suspect? I locked myself into thinking the killer is a man for no reason. Why can’t it be a woman? Why can’t it be Helen? She loved Ron and he loved her, but she claimed to love me, too, and look how well that ended. Years of Theo’s abuse clearly warped her idea of “love.”

Maybe Helen thought she didn’t deserve Ron’s love and would rather see him dead than accept her own worth.

Maybe she went back to Theo in the weeks after they broke up and Ron found out. That’s only possible if Ron found out the day he died, because I’m sure he would’ve told me if it happened any day before that. Ron told Helen to drop dead, Helen couldn’t handle the rejection, went into a rage, killed Ron, and then tried to replace him with me.

If Helen is the killer, then by asking her to search Ron’s bedroom for clues, I gave her the perfect excuse to get rid of any that might have been there. Well done, Bobby.

The logistics of Helen as the killer don’t really work, but I need to examine them nonetheless. If she did sneak into the building—or if Ron brought her up himself—without anyone seeing her, could she have gotten out without Mumbles or the security guard or Keith noticing her in Ron’s cube? Unlikely.

I need to talk to the security guard, but I need to talk to Keith even more. I quickly drum up a few questions to ask him and walk to his office before I lose my nerve.

The walk to Keith’s office gives me the sensation of marching solemnly in front of a firing squad. Especially on the occasions when he asks me to close the door behind him, because then I’m sure I’m about to get fired, or at least scolded for some harmless misdemeanor.

My favorite closed-door discussion with Keith happened three years earlier on a Tuesday morning. Paine-Skidder had been closed Monday for President’s Day. The previous Friday, I’d left fifteen minutes early to get a jump on the holiday weekend traffic. Keith told me in a grave tone that I worked until 5:30 and that I was not to leave early unless I had permission. Seriously, my boss kills me; fifteen minutes on a Friday before a holiday weekend? From then on, I made sure not to leave early unless Keith had already left for the day—a rare occasion indeed.

Anyways, despite knowing I had asked for this meeting, I still feel a twinge of firing-squad anxiety when I knock on Keith’s door. “Do you have a minute?”

“Sure. Have a seat.”

“Is it OK if I close the door?”

“Yes. Fine.”

I close the door and turn back to my boss. Keith’s fastidious nature requires my subtlety. He loves to spy on his employees, and if he figures out that I spend half my work day investigating Ron’s death he’ll find a way to keep me so busy I won’t have time to do it. I need to play on his sympathy (if it’s genuine or just professional courtesy, I still can’t tell) for me as I grieve my friend, but I can’t overdo it. “I wanted to talk to you about Ron. About the day he died. I think you were the last person to really talk to him.”

Keith presses his left thumb against his lip and gently bounces it there, an awkward smirk/frown on his face. The wrinkles in his brow are the only wrinkles on his person. His shirt looks like it was pressed five minutes ago. His clean-shaven head is powdered and lotioned. His face and neck match his head except for a dappled pattern of razor burn. His glasses are so clean I can see myself in them.

I take off my own spotty glasses and clean them on my shirtsleeve.

“You’re having a hard time dealing with Ron’s passing, huh?” Keith realizes his thumb is covering his mouth and drops his hand onto the desk. “That’s OK. I think about him every day, and I didn’t know him as well as you did. Actually, knowing I probably
was
the last person he spoke to haunts me a little. If I had noticed how despondent he was. If I’d asked how he was doing…” He straightens the papers and pens on his blotter.

“So he
was
despondent that afternoon? You noticed it?”

“No, I didn’t notice. That’s the thing. I wasn’t paying attention. We had this important project to get done and I had the blinders on until we finished. He seemed maybe a little annoyed to have to stay so late, but…he didn’t look unhappy. If I knew he wasn’t going to see another day, I’d have sent him home, told him to see his family and friends and tell them he loved them. Or to do something he’d always wanted to do. Anything but the tedious paperwork I gave him.”

I couldn’t agree more, an unsettling feeling for sure since this sentiment is coming from Keith, of all people. These glimpses into his humanity, sensing that he actually gets that our jobs are not the sole purpose of our existence, make his daily attitude all the more unbearable. If he’s ignorant, that’s one thing. But if he sees the truth and ignores it— vehemently defies it, in fact—that’s sinful. “Do you remember anything specific that he said to you, even if it seemed unimportant?”

“Nothing personal, no. I remember asking him if he could stay late that day. He said something like, ‘I’m not crazy about the idea, but if we have to get it done today, we have to get it done today.’ I’m sorry. I wish there were more I could remember. I wish there were more
to
remember. It seemed like an ordinary day. Whatever demons he was dealing with…” He rubs the back of his bald head thoughtfully. “Did he say anything to you? That day or the day before?”

I tell him how happy Ron seemed. About our sketch show. About Helen and their first date, how long Ron had been in love with her.

A look of confusion flashes across Keith’s smooth face. “Helen. Who is Helen?”

I tell him Ron and Helen’s history, leaving out the latest chapter about Helen and I using each other to keep Ron’s memory alive.

Keith listens intently. Then he stares out the window until his eyes seem to glaze over. “Sad that he was in love and never got to be with her. Sad. Life likes to teach us to live for today in very cruel ways.”

“Life is funny in a very unfunny way. Unfunny, and unfair. Life can be a bully sometimes.” I wonder for a moment about Keith’s own love life. I know nothing about his personal life other than that he’s married with kids.

Keith giggles a little louder and a little longer than my comment warrants. His goofy giraffe laugh. He rubs his hands together like he’s warming them. “Is there anything else you wanted to ask me, Bobby?”

The way my name sounds in his voice makes me hate it. Hate my own name. I think for a second, draw a blank on other questions. “That’s all I can think of right now. Thanks for taking time out of your day for me.”

He stands and extends his hand. I haven’t shaken Keith’s hand since the day I met him, and I wonder if it was this clammy the first time. “If you need to talk more, my door’s always open. I mean it.”

I smile, trying to stealthily wipe his palm grease on my pant leg. “Thanks, Keith. I think you told me everything I wanted to know.” A polite lie, since he told me nothing.

* * *

I want Keith to be a suspect. I want him to be the killer. I would love to put him in prison forever, since he’s kept me under lock and key for five years. But in my gut I know better. Keith’s nature—the reason we don’t get along, the reason I hate him—is to follow all rules without question. I was raised Catholic, and the thing I always loved about Jesus when I read about Him was that He taught the difference between following the letter of the law and spirit of the law. The spirit is what’s important. Jesus understood that. Keith doesn’t.

If someone killed Keith’s wife in cold blood, he would never retaliate with vigilante justice, not even if he was sure he could get away with it. He’d follow the proper legal channels and accept whatever the cops and the courts did with a shrug and a
que será, será
.

Theo had the motive to kill Ron, but not the intelligence. Cody has the intelligence and the nerve, but not the motive. Keith has the intelligence, but neither the nerve nor the motive.

And Helen? She has the nerve. She has the intelligence. And she can be pretty clever about hiding her motives in general, I’ve discovered.

* * *

At the end of the day, I stop at the front desk to talk to the security guard. I approach him with a smile. “Can I ask a weird question?”

The security guard, a middle-aged man who seems interested in little beyond his crossword puzzle, shrugs and raises his eyebrows at the same time.

“You were here the night Ron Tipken died, right?”

The guard nods gravely, crossing his arms in front of his chest and looking at me with confusion and maybe some amusement.

“Did Ron have any visitors while you were here?” I hope he’ll remember this, since he was surely questioned by the police the day Ron’s body was found.

“Nope.” He rolls his tongue around the inside of his lower lip. “No one came through here with him. I only saw him as he was leaving. He waved. I waved back. But he could’ve met up with someone in the parking lot. Any old schmo can walk in and out of the parking lot and I wouldn’t know it.”

I start to laugh at “any old schmo” and quickly turn it into a cough. “That’s true. Did he have any visitors before that day, any—”

“I actually never saw the guy before that day. Police said he was working late that night.”

I should’ve thought of that. Ron was never around late enough to see the security guard or Mumbles the janitor. “OK, thanks for your help.”

“My help with what?” The guard uncrosses his arms and leans forward in his seat.

“With… answering my questions. I appreciate it.”

“Why you askin’ them?”

“Just curious. OK, good—”

“You think someone killed the guy.”

My eyes light up. Maybe he thinks so, too. “I wonder about it, yeah.”