Part 2 (2/2)

”I actually do need something,” I say, pointing to Zell's monitor, which is turned backward, facing the wall. ”What's the deal with the computers here?”

”We've been all-paper since November,” she says, shrugging. ”There's this whole network system where our files here were shared with corporate and the different regional offices, but the network got incredibly slow and annoying, so the whole company is operating offline.”

”Ah,” I say, ”okay.” Internet service, as a whole, has been increasingly unreliable in the Merrimack Valley since late January; a switching point in southern Vermont was attacked by some kind of anarchist collective, motive unclear, and the resources haven't been found to repair it.

The woman is just standing there, looking at me. ”So, I'm sorry-you're Mr. Gompers's executive a.s.sistant?”

”Please,” she says, rolling her eyes. ”Secretary.”

”And what's your name?”

She pauses, just long enough to let me know she feels that she could, if she chose, keep the information to herself, and then says, ”Eddes. Naomi Eddes.”

Naomi Eddes. She is not, I am noticing, completely bald, not quite. Her scalp is gently feathered with a translucent blonde fuzz, which looks soft and smooth and lovely, like elegant carpeting for a doll's house.

”Do you mind if I ask you a few questions, Ms. Eddes?”

She doesn't answer, but neither does she leave the room; she just stands there regarding me steadily as I launch in. She's worked here for four years. Yes, Mr. Zell was already employed when she started. No, she did not know him well. She confirms Gompers's general portrait of Peter Zell's personality: quiet, hardworking, socially uncomfortable, although she uses the word maladroit, which I like. She recalls the incident on Halloween, when Peter lashed out at Theresa from Accounting, though she doesn't recall any subsequent weeklong absence from the office.

”But to be totally honest,” she says, ”I'm not sure I would have noticed him not being here. Like I said, we weren't that close.” Her expression softens, and for a split second I would swear she's blinking back tears, but it's just a split second, and then her steady, impa.s.sive expression recomposes itself. ”He was very nice, though. A really nice guy.”

”Would you have characterized him as being depressed?”

”Depressed?” she says, smiling faintly, ironically. ”Aren't we all depressed, Detective? Under the weight of all this unbearable immanence? Aren't you depressed?”

I don't answer, but I'm liking her phrase, all this unbearable immanence. Better than Gompers's ”this craziness,” better than McGully's ”big meatball.”

”And did you happen to notice, Ms. Eddes, what time Mr. Zell left the office yesterday, or with whom?”

”No,” she says, her voice dipping down a half register, her chin pressing against her chest. ”I did not notice what time he left the office yesterday, nor with whom.”

I am thrown for a moment, and then by the time I realize that her sudden pseudoserious intonation is meant to tease me, she's continuing in her regular voice. ”I left early myself, actually, at about three. We've got kind of a relaxed schedule these days. But Peter was definitely still here when I took off. I remember waving good-bye.”

I have a sudden and vivid mental image of Peter Zell, three o'clock yesterday afternoon, watching his boss's beautiful and self-possessed secretary leave for the day. She gives him a friendly indifferent wave, and my man Zell nods nervously, hunched over his desk, pus.h.i.+ng his gla.s.ses up the bridge of his nose.

”And now, if you'll excuse me,” says Naomi Eddes abruptly, ”I have to go back to work.”

”Sure,” I say, nodding politely, thinking, I didn't ask you to come in. I didn't ask you to stay. ”Oh, Ms. Eddes? One more thing. What were you doing at the McDonald's this morning, when the body was discovered?”

In my inexperienced estimation, this question fl.u.s.ters Ms. Eddes-she looks away, and a trace of a blush dances across her cheeks-but then she gathers herself and smiles and says, ”What was I doing? I go there all the time.”

”To the McDonald's on Main Street?”

”Almost every morning. Sure. For coffee.”

”There's a lot of places closer to here, for coffee.”

”They have good coffee.”

”Then why didn't you come in?”

”Because-because I realized at the last minute that I had forgotten my wallet.”

I fold my arms and draw myself up to full height. ”Is that true, Ms. Eddes?”

She folds her own arms, mirrors my stance, looks up to meet my eyes. ”Is it true that this is a routine investigation?”

And then I'm watching her walk away.

”It's the short fella you're asking about, is that correct?”

”Pardon me?”

The old security officer is exactly where I left him, his chair still swiveled to face the elevator bank, as if he's been frozen in this position, waiting, the whole time I was working upstairs.

”The fella who died. You said you were on a murder, up at Merrimack Life.”

”I said I was investigating a suspicious death.”

”That's fine. But it's the short fella? Little squirrelly? Spectacles?”

”Yes. His name was Peter Zell. Did you know him?”

”Nope. Except I knew everybody who worked in the building, to say h.e.l.lo to. You're a cop, you said?”

”A detective.”

The old man's leathery face contorts itself for a split second into the distant sad cousin of a smile. ”I was in the Air Force. Vietnam. For a while, when I got home, I used to want to be a cop.”

”Hey,” I say, offering up by rote the meaningless thing my father always used to say, when confronted with any kind of pessimism or resignation. ”It's never too late.”

”Well.” The security officer coughs hoa.r.s.ely, adjusts his battered cap. ”It is, though.”

A moment pa.s.ses in the dreary lobby, and then the guard says, ”So last night, the skinny guy, he got picked up after work by someone in a big red pickup truck.”

”A pickup truck? Running gas?”

No one has gas, no one but cops and army. OPEC stopped exporting oil in early November, the Canadians followed suit a couple of weeks later, and that was it. The Department of Energy opened the Strategic Petroleum Reserve on January 15, along with strictly enforced price controls, and everybody had gas for about nine days, and then they didn't anymore.

”Not gas,” says the guard. ”Cooking oil, by the smell of it.”

I nod, excited, take a step forward, smooth my mustache with the heel of one hand. ”Did Mr. Zell get in the truck willingly or unwillingly?”

”Well, no one pushed him in there, if that's what you mean. And I didn't see any gun or anything.”

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