Praise for Sue Ann Jaffarian’s Odelia Grey Mystery Series “Jaffarian keeps getting better and better at blending humor, suspense, and romance.”—Publishers Weekly “Jaffarian plays the formula with finesse, keeping love problems firmly in the background while giving her heroine room to use her ample wit and grit.”—Kirkus Reviews “Odelia Grey is the perfect take-no-prisoners heroine for today’s woman.”—Camryn Manheim, Emmy awardwinning actress and author of Wake Up, I’m Fat! “[Odelia] is an intriguing character, a true counter against stereotype, who demonstrates that life can be good, even in a world where thin is always in.”—Booklist “Plus-size reading pleasure—try this one on!” —Lee Child, New York Times best-selling author “Balancing her professional skills as a paralegal with her self-doubt as a sleuth, Odelia is one of the most believable amateur detectives in recent fiction. Strongly recommended.”—Library Journal
“I’d like to spend more time with Sue Ann Jaffarian’s Odelia.”—New York Times “Jaffarian offers the perfectly flawed alternative for readers sick and tired of picture-perfect characters.”—Booklist “Jaffarian’s writing is sharp and sassy—like her protagonist—and she knows how to keep the suspense high.”—Mystery Scene “Odelia Grey is a wonderful addition to the mystery genre, a smart, funny, engaging plus-size heroine who takes readers on a plus-size ride. You root for her, laugh with her, and cheer at her ultimate triumph. If I were in trouble, I’d want Odelia on my side.”—Denise Hamilton, Edgar Allen Poe and Willa Cather awards finalist and national best-selling author of Prisoner of Memory
An Odelia Grey Mystery
Innis Casey Photography
about the author Like the character Odelia Grey, Sue Ann Jaffarian is a middle-aged, plus-size paralegal. In addition to the Odelia Grey mystery series, she is the author of the paranormal Ghost of Granny Apples mystery series and the Madison Rose Vampire mystery series. Sue Ann is also nationally sought after as a motivational and humorous speaker. She lives and works in Los Angeles, California. Other titles in the Odelia Grey series include Too Big to Miss (2006), The Curse of the Holy Pail (2007), Thugs and Kisses (2008), Booby Trap (2009), Corpse on the Cob (2010), and Twice As Dead (2011). Visit Sue Ann on the Internet at
www.sueannjaffarian.com and
www.sueannjaffarian.blogspot.com
Sue Ann Jaffarian
An Odelia Grey Mystery
Midnight Ink
woodbury, minnesota
Hide and Snoop: An Odelia Grey Mystery © 2012 by Sue Ann Jaffarian. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from Midnight Ink, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. First Edition First Printing, 2012 Cover design by Ellen Lawson Midnight Ink, an imprint of Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Jaffarian, Sue Ann, 1952– Hide & snoop / Sue Ann Jaffarian.—1st ed. p. cm.—(An Odelia Grey mystery; 7) ISBN 978-0-7387-1889-7 1. Grey, Odelia (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Overweight women— Fiction. 3. Legal assistants—Fiction. I. Title. II. Title: Hide and snoop. PS3610.A359H53 2012 813´.6—dc23 2012011774 Midnight Ink Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd. 2143 Wooddale Drive Woodbury, MN 55125-2989 www.midnightinkbooks.com Printed in the United States of America
For Diana James. Thank you for everything. You are sorely missed.
acknowledgments To the usual suspects: my agent, Whitney Lee; my acquisitions editor at Midnight Ink, Terri Bischoff; and everyone else at Midnight Ink/Llewellyn Worldwide who had a hand in making this book a reality. And to those people who have become very special to me in the past few years: the members of the Sue Ann Jaffarian Fan Club on Facebook. You folks may not realize it, but your daily support and cheering from the sidelines kept me and this manuscript afloat when I felt I just couldn’t write another word. You rock! A special acknowledgment goes to Cyn Rielley, who started the fan club as a reader and today is a dear friend, and to my niece, Lindsay Jaffarian Holm, who helps Cyn administer the club.
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The joint. The slammer. The clink. The words trekked through my brain like muddy feet across a clean floor. The bright light above assaulted my tired, gritty eyes. All I wanted to do was go home and go to bed. I tried to think of synonyms for bed but failed. Instead, my mind kept to its single track like a wheel in a rut. Hoosegow. Big house. Pokey. I didn’t know how long I’d been in this room. It was small and windowless, containing a sturdy metal table and a few chairs. Was it morning yet? It had to be. Resting my arms on the table, I cradled my head on them, face down, to escape the annoying artificial light. “Really, Dev, that’s all I can tell you.” I spoke without lifting my head, the words coming slow, barely above a whisper, as if we were in church instead of jail. Devin Frye, Newport Beach homicide detective and friend, parked half his butt near me on the edge of the long table. His close presence caused me to lift my head. Dev looked down with 1
a mixture of disbelief and barely reined-in anger. He’d looked that way for hours. “Do you want to call an attorney, Odelia?” It wasn’t the first time he’d asked me that question, but this was the first time I’d seriously considered it as an option. “Do I need an attorney?” The question seeped out of me, small and fuzzy, like a gummy bear rolled in cat hair. I raised my head until I was upright again and looked from Dev to the other detective in the room. She’d been introduced to me as Detective Andrea Fehring. “I thought I was just pulled in for questioning. I mean, I wasn’t Mirandized or anything. That’s what they do on TV when they arrest people, isn’t it?” Detective Fehring, a trim woman with bobbed black hair and dark eyes, remained silent and studied me like a specimen trapped between two glass slides. Even though there were several other chairs in the room, she stood, leaning against the beige-painted wall. Dev let out a uneven grumble that started deep in his gut. When he spoke, his usually deep, gravelly voice went up an octave, sounding like a Yahtzee cup shaken with too many dice. “No, Odelia, you’re not under arrest. Yet.” He emphasized the last word with the sharpness of an awl puncture. “But you were found at the scene of a murder, alone, in the middle of the night, wearing a bloody nightgown.” “I wasn’t found at the scene like a lost wallet, Dev.” I was dangling over hot water, and I knew it. Mustering what strength I had left, I dropped the whisper, snapping at the detectives like a lobster about to be thrown into a hard boil. “I’m the one who discovered the body and called you. Remember? I’ve only told you that a hundred times.” 2
Dev had been the first and only call I’d made upon finding the body. I’d called him at home. Soon after, Dev arrived in his car, with several police cruisers as backup. “But why were you there in the first place?” he asked, his face hard and crusty. A knock sounded on the door. A uniformed officer stepped in and motioned to Dev, who left after giving Fehring a meaningful look. I was no longer in my nightie. As soon as I’d arrived at the Newport Beach police station, they’d taken it and the hoodie and jeans I’d also been wearing for evidence and gave me an extra-large tee shirt and some sweatpants to wear. Since I’d left the house in my nightgown, I hadn’t been wearing a bra, and now I felt naked without one. I crossed my arms in front of my big boobs more out of modesty than defense. “May I call my husband?” I asked Fehring. “Detective Frye already did.” “Good.” In spite of the word, it didn’t feel good. I would have preferred to call Greg myself, after I’d had a chance to rehearse and soften the facts. I’d thought about calling Greg while I waited with the body for Dev but dismissed the idea, hoping I could simply answer a few questions and be on my way. The plan was to tell Greg about my nocturnal activities over a nice breakfast. I would have made him blueberry pancakes with bacon. One of his favorites. Who knows, I might even have woken him up with a booty call before easing into my confession. Upon receiving Dev’s call, I had no doubt Greg sped out of our house in Seal Beach, the tires on his van squealing on the pavement. And I’m sure he was also glued to his cell phone, calling either Seth 3
Washington or Mike Steele, both attorneys, and begging one of them to meet him at the police station. Greg was going to be madder than hell over this, but at least he’d be on my side. The heated lecture would come once we got home. Fehring stepped closer to the table, her face deadpan. “So you’re the infamous Odelia Grey. I’ve heard a lot of stories about you.” “You shouldn’t believe everything you hear.” I squirmed in my chair, which was plastic and not made for someone with a bulky butt. “Frye has a soft spot for you, but I don’t. Remember that.” Her dark eyes narrowed into two small ink pools. I noticed for the first time that her dark hair was laced with silver strands, reminding me of a sweater I wear around the holidays. If she was trying to scare me, it was working. I looked into her face and saw not a hint of warmth, only tired lines and a thin, hard mouth on a face wearing very little makeup. She could have been anywhere between thirty-five and forty-five years of age. “They call you Corpse Magnet, don’t they?” she asked without a smidgen of amusement. “Who’s they ?” My words had the attitude of a combatant in a playground tussle. My common sense tried to get the upper hand but failed. “It’s not like it’s on my birth certificate.” Corpse Magnet was an ugly nickname given to me by Seth Washington in a fit of exasperation, and it was only used sparingly by my closest friends whenever I stumbled across a dead body, which was more often than one would think. I didn’t know the handle had become public knowledge. Dev must have told her. “Don’t get cute,” Fehring warned. “And it’s not cute when private citizens get mixed up in serious crimes. You put yourself and others 4
in danger.” She pitched forward, slapping both of her hands flat on the table across from me. In my seat I gave a startled little hop and looked down, noticing her square-shaped nails were clean and trim and shined with a coating or two of clear polish. “You can put officers in danger nosing around, and that I take personally.” “Trust me, it’s not my idea of a good time. It just seems to happen.” “Are you saying you just happened to be standing in someone else’s house in the middle of the night when that woman was killed?” “She was dead when I got there. I told you that.” Fehring stepped back and leaned against the wall again. She stuck her hands in her pants pockets and returned to studying me with laser eyes. “Personally, I think this time you did the killing yourself.” “No!” I cried out in urgency. “I swear I didn’t. I—” but my words were cut off by Dev’s return. With him was my husband, Greg Stevens, and Seth Washington. Seth isn’t only an attorney, he’s a close personal friend. His wife, Zenobia, better known as Zee, is my best friend. I was so happy to see them, I nearly cried. But my joy was cut short by the look on Greg’s face. If Dev’s face looked as hard as day-old bread, Greg’s was the truck that ran over the bread. I almost peed in my borrowed sweatpants. Seth turned to Dev. “I’d like a word with my client.” As soon as Dev and Andrea Fehring filed out, I said to Seth, “I didn’t know you were a criminal attorney.” Seth fixed me with his espresso eyes. “I didn’t realize you needed a criminal attorney. At least not yet.”
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Yet. There was that annoying word again. It hung in the air alongside the one Dev had thrown out—a pair of verbal vultures just waiting to pounce and make accusations about my evening. Greg, in a wheelchair since an accident in his early teens, rolled up to where I was sitting. No hug. No kiss. The pressurized steam coming from his ears could have cleaned a greasy car engine. “What in the hell is going on, Odelia?” “Calm down, Greg,” Seth told him. “We need to get to the bottom of this, and quickly.” Greg looked raggedy, with his light brown hair uncombed and the nighttime stubble sprouting around his usually groomed Vandyke beard. “Seth, was it your wife who sneaked out of the house in the middle of the night to have a slumber party with a dead woman?” “Of course not,” Seth admitted. “Zee has more sense.” I snapped my head around to look at my so-called lawyer. “I beg your pardon? Are you on my side here or not?” When neither Seth nor Greg said anything, I tacked on, “Don’t make me call Mike Steele. Please.” It was more of a supplication than a threat. After taking a second or two and several deep breaths, Greg asked, “So who’s the stiff this time?” “Please let me ask the questions, Greg,” said Seth, using his lawyer voice. “I think it will go smoother if I handle this.” It was in Greg’s nature to take charge, but what Seth said made sense. He was, after all, the only law degree in the room. As soon as Greg nodded his assent, Seth turn to me. “So who’s the stiff?” Greg did a double take but remained silent. “Her name is Connie Holt,” I told the two of them. “She’s Lily’s mother.” 6
Seth’s mouth fell open. So much for his legal composure. “Lily? You mean the sweet little girl sleeping under my roof right now?” “Yes. Connie is Lily’s mother and the sister of my boss, Erica Mayfield. Like I’ve told the police, I found her—Connie, that is— already dead when I got to Erica’s house. I didn’t know who she was until the police told me.” Greg groaned. “Please tell me you did not go over to Erica’s to beg for your job.” Seth held a hand out towards us, indicating for us to be still. “Back up the bus, folks.” He turned to me. “This woman fired you, and you went to her house in the middle of the night?” He took a deep breath. “Why do you do such dumb things, Odelia?” “I am not dumb.” My nose twitched in annoyance while I fought to defend my actions. “I’m impulsive.” I turned to my husband for support but could see he was clearly in Seth’s camp on this issue. “And I wasn’t fired,” I insisted. “At least not yet.” “I didn’t say you were dumb, Odelia,” Seth clarified. “But your actions are often those of an insane person.” Greg was nodding in agreement. I was on my own. “Maybe I should call Steele,” I suggested. Greg let out a short, dark snort. “If you think he’s going to be any easier on you, you’ve been away from him for far too long.” My hubs was right. If Steele, my former boss, were here instead of Seth, he’d be crucifying me. I just wasn’t sure if it would be because of my nocturnal actions or because I didn’t invite him along. Steele had grown disturbingly fond of sticking his nose into my amateur murder investigations. Come to think of it, so had Greg, making me believe his anger was more focused on my safety and possible future criminal record than on my actions specifically. 7
“We’re wasting time,” Seth told us. “According to Dev, they don’t believe Odelia is the killer. The woman was shot twice in the chest and may have been dead several hours before Odelia called him.” “I can vouch for her whereabouts,” Greg offered. “We went to a dinner party last night given by one of my basketball buddies and his wife. We got home around eleven and went straight to bed. I’d had a few drinks and fell asleep before the Channel Four news ended. Odelia was in bed with me.” Seth knitted his brows as he wrote down the information. “That will help in the event they start looking at her as a suspect.” Suspect ? My stomach did a flip. When Detective Fehring suggested earlier that she thought I might be the killer, I thought it might have been more of a scare tactic than something she truly believed, and it had scared the snot out of me. But hearing my lawyer say the word had even more impact. I took a sip of water from the paper cup Dev had brought me earlier. My hands shook, threatening to cave in the thin vessel. “I think I got to Erica’s around one thirty,” I added. Seeing no napkin or tissue, I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. Remembering how Connie had looked when I stumbled across her, I shuddered. “When I arrived, Connie was staring up at the ceiling, pale and still, the front of her long-sleeved tee shirt drenched in blood. I tried to give her CPR, just in case she wasn’t dead. That’s how I got so much blood on me.” I took another deep breath. “I told the police all this several times.” “I’m positive they’re checking your clothing for gunshot residue.” Seth stopped writing and looked at me. “Did they test your hands yet?”
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“They applied some sort of adhesive strip to them, like they were waxing for hair removal. They also took a swab for DNA. I thought it would help if I were cooperative.” Seth nodded as he made more notes. When he was finished, he put his pen down, folded his hands, and leaned his large body back in his chair. “Okay, Odelia, tell me how you got to Ms. Mayfield’s house in the first place.” “I drove.” Greg placed a hand on my arm. It was his first act of affection since entering the room, and it meant the world to me. “He means what caused you to go there.” “Oh.” Of course that’s what Seth meant, but the night’s events and lack of sleep were taking its toll on my middle-aged brain cells. I dug through my tired mind for the root of my actions. When had all this craziness started to take shape? What exactly was its genesis? It had started small, of that I was sure. Like a palm-sized snowball, over the past couple of days it had gathered in size with every discussion and situation until it had become a large, heavy orb too big to ignore. I took a deep breath, ready to start at the beginning. “It all started with Lily,” I told Greg and Seth. This was not something I had told the police, because it really had just come to me. “The little girl?” Seth asked again with surprise.
9
two
I was mesmerized by the snot bubble. It ballooned in and out of one tiny nostril, playing peek-a-boo each time the little girl exhaled. Normally I don’t mind kids, especially since they always belong to someone else and aren’t my responsibility. Once, at a summer picnic Greg held for his employees, a woman clutching the hand of a wee tot asked me if I liked kids. I answered, “Absolutely, especially with a little salt and pepper.” With a gaping mouth she had shuttled the child away, lest I slather the tike with barbeque sauce and throw him on the grill, giving new meaning to the phrase shrimp on the barbie. Greg, being used to my sense of humor, found it hilarious, but for the rest of the party I noticed people keeping a closer eye on their offspring, especially when I was handing out the ice cream bars and popsicles. I was sorely tempted to climb up on a picnic table with a bullhorn and shout, “It was a joke, people! Get over it!” The festering petri dish happily coloring on the other side of my desk was named Lily Marie Holt. She was three years old, with
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an angelic face, fine curly blond hair, upturned nose, blue eyes, and rosy cheeks. The problem was that for the time being she was my responsibility. There’s never any salt and pepper handy when you need it. What had started out this week as simply keeping an eye on Lily one day at the office as a favor to my boss was now turning into fullblown daycare. When I had arrived at the office this morning, Lily was there, as she had been for the past couple of days. But today—in addition to the coloring books, crayons, story books, stuffed toys, blanket, and snacks that usually accompanied her—a car seat, a stroller, and a pink suitcase festooned with various Disney princesses had been added. Either Lily was moving in or preparing for a yard sale. I was not a happy camper. As I studied the little bundle of joy with the runny nose, trying to decide what to do about this latest turn of events, I pulled a tissue from the box next to my computer monitor and held it out towards the kid. “Here, Lily.” Instead of taking the tissue, Lily started to drag her left hand across her snot-laden nose while her right hand continued to push the crayon with industry. “No.” The beginning of the short word came out of my mouth sharper than I intended, then spiraled down into a half hush. She looked up from her coloring book, clearly perplexed by my shortlived outburst. I shook the tissue in Lily’s direction and was heartened to see her eyes brighten with understanding. Since law firms don’t come equipped with booster seats, I’d pulled a chair up close to my desk. Lily seemed happy to kneel on the seat and color away. If I’d knelt that long, I wouldn’t be able to 11
walk for a week. Sometimes she sprawled belly down on the blanket on the floor of my office. She’d proved herself to be a good-natured child, in spite of being cooped up all day in an office. There were a lot of adults in the firm, me included, who could take a few lessons from the kid. Instead of taking the offered tissue, Lily crawled down off her chair and circled the desk until she stood beside me. Tilting her head back, she presented her wet nose to me as if offering up a precious gift. With a sigh, I held the tissue to her snout. She gave a small toot. I wiped the nostril and the immediate area clean and tossed the tissue into my wastepaper basket. I followed it up with a squirt of waterless cleaner to my hands. As I rubbed my hands together, the scent of the crisp aloe gel wafted through the air. “Priddy,” Lily said, meaning she liked the smell of the antiseptic cleaner. In three days, she was no closer to speaking my language, but I was much closer to understanding toddler gibberish, which appeared to be a combination of babble and real words, or reasonable facsimiles of real words. I smiled and nodded. It was a ritual—the nose, the wiping, the gel—that Lily and I had shared since she’d been assigned to my care. My smile faded and my blood pressure started to rise as my eyes once again scanned the pile of Lily’s belongings in the corner of my office. Asking me to keep an eye on Lily a day or two was okay, even if it did interfere with my work, but if she were moving in with Greg and me, someone needed to man up and tell me. I’d waited in my office for some explanation, but it had been two hours since my arrival and no one had said a peep about the added baggage. Getting up from my chair, I held out my hand to Lily. She latched onto it with her own tiny hand as naturally as an infant tak12
ing a breast. Together we walked out to the secretarial bay just outside my door. “Would you watch Lily a moment?” I asked Alyce Allen, who now sat at Jill Bernelli’s desk. “The boss and I need to have a ‘come to Jesus’ meeting, and it may not be something for Lily’s delicate ears.” Being a religious woman, Alyce winced at my smart-ass phrase involving her savior, but her disapproval quickly melted into curiosity. She clearly wanted me to expand on my huffiness, but I gave up nothing. Alyce wasn’t Jill. I had trusted Jill. The jury was still out on Alyce, though she seemed nice enough. “Will it take long?” she asked. “I have to get the changes to this agreement done before lunch.” “Depends,” I answered truthfully. “What I have to say won’t take long.” I deposited Lily on an empty chair at the desk across from Alyce and started to walk away. A few steps later, I turned back to Alyce. “If I get fired, Lily may end up in your care. Her stuff ’s in my office.” Alyce looked from me to Lily and back again with the sort of closed-mouth assurance you offer when you tell someone everything’s going to be fine even though you know they’re probably toast. “I hope it doesn’t come to that. The firing, I mean.” Steeling my shoulders for confrontation, I walked the few steps to my supervisor’s closed door and knocked. First softly, then again, with more conviction. I never received a call to enter but pretended I did and barged in. “We need to talk,” I announced to the attorney behind the desk. I shut the door behind me. “I can’t right now, Odelia,” came the sharp response. “I have something important to do out of the office.” 13
The boss in question wasn’t Michael Steele, the attorney who’d been a royal pain in my ass for the past several years. Nor was it any of the other attorneys at Wallace, Boer, Brown, and Yates, the law firm where I’d been happily employed for two decades. Woobie, as its employees affectionately referred to the firm, was no more. Shortly after the new year it had entered into a merger with another firm. Woobie was supposedly the surviving entity, but you’d never know it from the way things turned out. Last June Steele had received an offer from Templin and Tobin to open and manage their new Orange County office, and he’d taken it, leaving at the end of the summer. He’d asked me to go with him. He’d also asked Jill Bernelli, his assistant, to jump the good ship Woobie and sail off to T and T. Jill and I had discussed the offer with our significant others—Greg and her partner, Sally Kipman—and after many separate and joint discussions around our kitchen table and theirs, she decided to go with Steele, and I decided to remain at Woobie. I wasn’t sure either of our spouses were happy with our individual decisions. Greg was nudging me to follow Steele, while Sally point-blank told Jill she was nuts to do so without me on board to run interference. Jill and Steele had departed Woobie nearly seven months ago. A few months later, after the merger was announced, Jolene McHugh, a senior associate, joined them. That move surprised the tar out of me. Jolene never got along with Steele, but she must have sensed the change at Woobie coming like the smell of burning flesh carried on an ill wind. Shortly after the merger took place, Joan Nuñez, another paralegal at Woobie and a good friend, left for a different firm. Sometimes when I walk down the familiar halls and see all the new faces I feel like an alien trying to adjust to a new planet. 14
We’d merged with a firm that had been downsized over the past few years. With the economy hitting law firms hard, including Woobie, the idea was to join together to form one large, strong unit of legal muscle. The problem was, Woobie joined forces with a firm that had a totally different management and practice style. Along with their client roster, the other firm had brought with them unhappy, caustic employees and foul-mouthed, ill-tempered attorneys. The firm was now called Hamlin, Hawke, Boer, and Yates. I dare you to make a touchy-feely acronym out of that. Undeterred by the haughty attitude oozing from my new boss, I stood my ground. “I noticed a lot of kid stuff in my office this morning. Is Lily moving in with me or are you using my office for storage?” Erica Mayfield looked up from the file she was rummaging through and gave me the stink eye. “Michael Steele might have put up with your insubordinate attitude, Odelia, but I will not.” She put down the file and latched her eyes onto mine with all the warmth of a hired gun. “In fact, I’m quite tired of your old firm treating you like you’re something special. You’re not. Get that through your thick skull.” Inside I wobbled for a moment, but outside I held firm. “What’s the deal with Lily?” I asked again, trying to infuse my voice with respect, even if it was just for show. With a deep, exaggerated sigh, Erica stopped what she was doing. “The deal is I need you to take her for a few days.” I stepped closer to her desk, a beautiful and feminine piece that I liked much better than Steele’s cold, ultra-modern one. Too bad I didn’t like the boss behind it better. “You mean you want me to take her home with me tonight?” 15
“Yes, and keep her through the weekend. I’ll inform you if I need you to care for her any longer than that.” In all my years working as both a legal secretary and a paralegal, I’d been called upon to do a lot of odd and annoying things, especially for Mike Steele, but this took the cake. Before I could answer, Erica located a piece of paper on her desk and held it out to me. “This is a medical release giving you authority to seek medical care for Lily in the event she requires it.” I took the paper and eyed it. It was signed by a Connie Holt almost a week ago and notarized. “Is this Connie Holt Lily’s mother?” “Yes, that’s my sister.” “She doesn’t even know me. Why would she turn her kid over to me? Lily’s a child, not an unwanted puppy.” I shook the paper in my hand at her. “And this was signed a week ago. Clearly this was not a last-minute decision on your part. The least you could have done was given me a heads-up or asked if I could do it. This involves my husband, not just me.” “I had Connie sign two releases, one for me and one for you, just in case I had to leave Lily in your care. I should have given you yours on Monday but forgot. As for advance notice—my bad.” Her voice dripped with entitled sarcasm. Erica stuffed a couple of files into a large designer briefcase and stood. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have something very important to take care of.” When Erica Mayfield first darkened the doors of our office suite, I had had high hopes of getting along with her. She’s in her early forties, smart and organized, with an impressive background. Standing close to five foot ten, with a thick torso and chunky limbs that she dressed to the nines, I thought we might also be able to 16
bond a bit on the big-gal level, as well as over the legal work. But it was not to be. From the moment we met, Erica made it clear I was expendable. She gave all the plum assignments to Mark Baker, the paralegal brought over from her old firm, and went days without acknowledging my presence. It was quite a change from my days with Steele, when he was in my office as much as his own. I slapped the medical release down on her desk with a heavy hand. “Demanding this of me, especially without warning, is highly unprofessional and inappropriate, Erica, and you know it.” Ignoring me, Erica flipped her dark blond hair over her right shoulder and headed for the door with her purse and briefcase. I followed on her heels, which were expensive and pointy. “Just a cotton-picking minute,” I demanded, but it fell on deaf ears. She stopped in front of Alyce’s desk. “As soon as you have those changes,” she said to her secretary in a tone as crisp as a fresh apple, “e-mail them to me.” Alyce nodded. A few feet away, Lily sat frozen in her chair, watching the adults with wide eyes. She made no movement towards her aunt. “You can’t do this,” I said to Erica. I wanted to say more, but not in front of Lily. I may not have had children of my own, but I did know they picked things up like sensitive satellite dishes. Erica didn’t seem to care if her niece felt the negative vibes. She turned to face me, standing only a foot way. She was attractive, with large brown eyes, full lips, and a nose just irregular enough to be interesting instead of a negative. “If you value your job here, Odelia, you’ll do what I ask. If not, you know where the door is.”
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The words I quit were on my tongue, ready to make the leap into the abyss of unemployment. Instead, I said nothing, knowing I should discuss the matter with Greg first. While his business was doing fine, the economy was not, and a good job wasn’t something a person tossed away without serious consideration and a plan. Erica handed me a smug, confident smile. “I thought not.” She turned and marched down the hall towards the front door of the suite, leaving me to steam and boil quietly in front of Alyce and the kid. It took me a few seconds and several deep breaths before I held my hand out to Lily. “Come on,” I told her with a forced smile, “let’s leave Alyce to do her work.” Lily and I were barely back in my office when I was called to do snot duty again. I had just wiped Lily’s tiny nose when Mark Baker appeared silently at my door. “Doing Sesame Street duty again, I see.” Mark sneered with glee as he watched me with the kid. “Better you than me.” The words were pregnant with gloat. Lily moved closer to me. Like me, Mark is a corporate paralegal. He’d been working with Erica for just over a year before the merger. He’s in his mid-thirties, of average height, with a wiry build. He wore his dark hair cropped close to his head, and one brown eye was smaller than the other, like a perpetual half-wink. A small scar ran from the center of his lower lip down across his chin, as if cleaving it in two. It was probably left over from a childhood injury, or maybe from the last paralegal with whom he crossed swords. I could see his smug attitude angering a coworker to the point of wielding a sharp letter opener. Yeah, I could see it easily.
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“I have work to do,” I told Mark, eyeing my own letter opener with wishful thinking. “Why don’t we trade off watching Lily so we can both get some work done?” Mark laughed. It had a nasty underside to it, like Halloween candy laced with razor blades. “No way.” Next to me, Lily buried her head in my soft side. He looked around my office, his eyes measuring every inch, especially noting my window. Mark had been assigned my old office when Hamlin-Hawke moved in. It was a windowless cell down the hall. He’d made it clear he coveted my larger office with a view. My office was also much closer to Erica’s office—Steele’s old one. Even Erica had campaigned for a switch between Mark and me, but she had been overruled by management, who cited my seniority with the firm. I have no doubt that if I died today at my desk, Mark would move in before my body was cold and traveling down the elevator on a gurney. “I hear the firm’s thinking of downsizing.” Mark tossed the remark out like a live grenade with a pulled pin. My head snapped up with a quick pop. Lily started to quietly babble something, but I placed a hand gently on her head. Like magic, she stilled. “I haven’t heard anything about that,” I told Mark as casually as possible. “Erica told me.” He spoke the words with undisguised confidence. “Management’s reviewing all duplicate positions. Any unnecessary staff will be laid off.” Duplicate positions—as in two corporate paralegals. A shudder of fear ran through me. Never, in all my years with the firm, had I feared for my job until this very day. Not even when Steele and I were at each other’s throats did I feel this unsettled. 19
It was becoming clear why Erica was not giving me much work and why she’d saddled me with daycare. It was a setup. With my billable hours slowly sliding into a deep hole, Erica was making it easier for management to decide between their two corporate paralegals. She was stacking the deck in Mark’s favor, using the firm’s decision to tighten its belt to get rid of me. Another realization hit me between the eyes. Even the challenge for me to quit a few moments ago might very well have been calculated. Erica knew I would balk at taking care of Lily 24/7 and had laid her trap. Had I quit, I would have walked away with nothing. If they laid me off, I might get a nice severance. Beneath my desk, my right knee knocked with anxiety. But while it was out of view, I couldn’t hide my concern from Mark’s eagle eyes. A slow, sardonic smile spread across his face like a smear of dull paint. He raised his mug in my direction in a final salute and left—a competitor assured of a victory. “Odie,” a squeaky voice beside me chimed. I turned to find Lily’s nose needing attention again. Not only did I get trapped with a kid, she was a sick kid. Plucking another tissue from the box, I held it to her tiny nostril and was rewarded with a small, wet honk. With Mark gone, Lily returned to her side of the desk, but instead of climbing up on her chair and getting down to the business of coloring, she picked up her latest masterpiece and returned to me, offering it up like a gift. “For me?” I took it from her. She put both hands behind her back, screwed up her face in a chubby giggle, and nodded with vigor. “Thank you, Lily. It’s lovely.” My eyes fixed on the bulletin board fastened to the wall on the right side of my desk. “Tell you what, 20
how about we pin this up here so I can always see it?” I removed a couple of pushpins from the cork surface, positioned the crayon drawing in a prominent place, and secured it. The child was overjoyed with my art appreciation. “Don’t let it get to you.” I looked up to find my doorway again occupied. This time it was Alyce. She pushed a strand of light brown hair away from her eyes and gave me an encouraging, shy smile. She was petite but sturdy and favored casual business attire with flat shoes. When I’d showed Alyce the ropes around Woobie—it’ll always be Woobie to me, dammit—I’d found her quiet and attentive, and she’d proven herself to be an excellent secretary. She was also supposed to provide me with secretarial support, but Mark and Erica made sure I seldom saw the fruits of her labor. I knew little about her beyond the fact that her husband’s name was Gary. He was the pastor of a small independent church, and they had two children. Although pleasant enough, she hadn’t reached out to make friends with any of the Woobie staff. Alyce was a quiet, private person, which was probably how she survived working with Erica and Mark. I wiped Lily’s nose again as I answered, “It’s just a little cold. She doesn’t seem to be too bad.” I felt her forehead. “No fever.” “I meant Mark.” With one finger, Alyce pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose. They were too large for her face and made her look owlish. “Oh, that.” I threw the tissue into the trash and squirted some antiseptic gel in my hand. Lily made some indecipherable kiddie sound and held out her hands, making it clear she wanted some. I took her two little paws within my two large ones and rubbed the germ killer on them. 21
“What do you know about the downsizing, Alyce?” “About the same as you just learned.” Her comment left no doubt she’d heard the entire conversation. “So it’s between Mark and me?” “I haven’t heard that exactly. Is there enough work for the two of you?” I stroked Lily’s head. Her hair needed washing. She started to babble something. She either wanted juice or a jackhammer. I answered Alyce with blunt honesty. “If you take away my childcare duties, no, there’s not. At least not right now. And I’m not too sure I’m doing that good of a job with Lily.” Alyce gave me an almost-warm smile. “You’re doing great with her, Odelia. She’s in much better hands than if she’d been parked with Mark.” “I’m totally in the weeds here, Alyce. I’m almost never around little kids.” Her nose clean again, Lily leaned up against me. She’d stopped yammering and was rubbing her head, with its fine yellow albeit dirty hair, against my elbow. It felt like one of my cats when they’re looking for a scratch behind an ear. Alyce jerked her chin in Lily’s direction. “She really likes you.” “Don’t bet on it. More like a case of Stockholm syndrome. That and I’m the keeper of the cookies and juice boxes.” “You’re a kick, Odelia.” Alyce gave off a small, self-conscious laugh. “It’s clear Lily likes and trusts you, that’s why she’s sticking to you like glue. I haven’t even seen her do that with Erica, and she’s Lily’s aunt.” Lily rubbed against me a couple more times until I was tempted to toss her a kitty treat. Instead, I lifted my arm. Immediately the 22
little girl slid under it and nestled against me like a perfectly joined puzzle piece. It felt kind of nice. “What’s the story, Alyce? Why is Lily with Erica and not her own mother?” Even though Erica was currently out of the office, Alyce looked up and down the hallway with caution before stepping farther into my office. Maybe she didn’t want Mark to hear and tattle to Erica that she’d been talking to me. “I don’t know exactly what’s going on, Odelia, but it seems Connie, Lily’s mom, brought Lily to Erica and took off. Erica can’t reach her anywhere and has no idea when she’s coming back.” Under the pretense of fixing her hair, I gently covered Lily’s ears with my hands. I didn’t know how much she’d understand, but we were talking about her mother deserting her, even if only for a few days. My own mother had done the same to me when I was sixteen, and it had been over thirty years before I found her. You might say I was a bit of an expert on feeling like an abandoned puppy heading for the pound. “What about her father?” Alyce shrugged. “That would be Hank Holt. I think they divorced recently, or at least separated. Erica can’t reach him either. I’m not even sure she knows how.” After more babble, Lily started dancing around with a pained look. “Priddy,” she said to me with urgency. This time I knew she didn’t mean the smell of the aloe gel. The kid had to pee. After all, pretty and potty do sound a lot alike. Lily was potty trained but didn’t have great bladder control. She hadn’t yet mastered the art of giving a heads-up with much lead time—something I’d learned the hard way on my first day with 23
her. Without wasting time, I stood up and grabbed her hand. We scooted out the door past Alyce. “Sorry, Alyce. With Lily, nature doesn’t call—it yells ASAP!”
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