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  “What?” I said.

  “Listen to yourself. You’ve got some mailroom kook with a handbook on facial expressions and a tube of Blistex who claims that a confirmed suicide is really a homicide committed by someone in her firm for some unknown reason. You know what that sounds like?”

  “Tell me.”

  “The start of the worst Nancy Drew mystery of all time.”

  I smiled. “I didn’t know you were a Nancy Drew fan.”

  “Not exactly a fan. My sister had an entire bookshelf of them. I read a few when I got bored.”

  “I loved Nancy Drew,” I said. “She was my hero in grade school.”

  “I dug her, too. Hot bod.”

  “Benny.”

  “Speaking of hot bods.”

  “Benny.”

  “Hey, I’m not the one at this table with the all-world tush. Not to say that mine isn’t cute, albeit in need of a little manscaping. So tell me: which was your favorite Nancy Drew story?”

  “Hmm.” I leaned back in my chair, trying to remember. “One I really liked was when she goes to Scotland and ends up in that creepy old castle.”

  “Ah, yes, The Clue of the Whistling Bagpipes. Not a bad tale.”

  I stared at him. “I can’t believe this, Benny.”

  “What?”

  “How long have we known each other? Fifteen years? I never knew you read Nancy Drew mysteries.”

  “Girl, my hidden talents have charmed women around the globe. You have no idea. I have mad skills. To quote the great Walter Sobchak: ‘You want a toe? I can get you a toe, believe me…Hell, I can get you a toe by three o’clock this afternoon—with nail polish.’”

  “What are you talking about?”

  He gave me a wink. “And trust me, when I say that this scenario of yours—you and that whacko and his tube of Blistex—when I say that sounds like the start of a bad Nancy Drew mystery, I know what I’m talking about.”

  I shrugged. “Don’t forget, Benny, those mysteries always ended happily.”

  “Don’t forget, Rachel, those mysteries were also works of fiction.”

  Chapter Eight

  At ten o’clock that evening, Jerry Klunger and I walked into the main lobby of the Chouteau Tower. Tommy Flynn was seated in his usual spot at the security station in the front lobby. He had just shuffled the cards and was dealing a new game of solitaire when he saw the huge figure of Jerry Klunger approaching.

  “Hello there, big guy.”

  “Evening, Mr. Flynn.”

  Tommy turned to me. “Ma’am.”

  I put my hand out. “Mr. Flynn, my name is Rachel Gold.”

  We shook.

  “Pleased to meet you, Miss Gold.”

  “Call me Rachel.”

  He grinned. “And you can call me Tommy.”

  He checked his wristwatch and leaned back to look up at Jerry. “Thought you boys got off at nine.”

  “We did, sir. I came back with Miss Gold. We were hoping to have a word with you.”

  “With me?” His eyes narrowed. “About what?”

  Jerry looked around the empty lobby. “It’s about Sari.”

  “She was a good gal.” He shook his head sadly. “What about her?”

  “Well.” Jerry paused. “Stanley’s got some doubts. I guess we all do. Miss Gold knew her, too.”

  “Doubts about what?”

  Jerry took another glance around the lobby and leaned in closer. In almost a whisper, he said, “About how she died.”

  Tommy studied Jerry, who towered over the security desk, and then glanced at me. He checked his watch.

  “Time for a smoke break. How ‘bout you two keep me company?”

  I followed Jerry and Tommy out of the building. Although our destination was a small plaza with a fountain just a block west of their building, to describe their walk as a stroll would mischaracterize both of their gaits. Tommy Flynn had the stiff, bowlegged stride of an arthritic man in need of two knee replacements. Jerry moved with the lumbering tread that had apparently earned him the nickname Sumo from the law firm’s mailroom manager, Tony Manghini.

  I was getting too old for these late-night rendezvous, I told myself. Fortunately, I’d been able to get home for dinner and had enough time to give my son Sam a bath, read him a book, and put him to bed before leaving the house to pick up Jerry. The babysitter tonight, as most nights, was my mother, who lives in the remodeled carriage house in back.

  When we reached the plaza, Tommy took a seat on a bench facing the Chouteau Tower. Jerry and I sat on the bench opposite Tommy.

  Tommy Flynn was the deliberate type, a man you don’t try to rush. And since I was here to ask him a favor, I let him take his time. I watched as he lit a Camel cigarette with a brass lighter, inhaled the smoke deeply, held it a moment, and then blew it out in a thin stream that whirled and vanished in the night breeze.

  “So,” he said, “tell me about these doubts.”

  I glanced at Jerry. I’d explained to Jerry that he should try to take the lead, at least early on, since he was the one who had the relationship with Tommy Flynn.

  Jerry said, “Stanley thinks Sari was murdered.”

  “What’s he base that on?”

  “He believes he found some evidence up in the garage, and he believes the police confirmed his evidence.”

  “Hold on, Jerry.” Tommy turned to me. “Has anyone talked to the police?”

  “Jerry and Stanley two nights ago,” I said. “I followed up yesterday.”

  “Who?”

  Jerry told him their names.

  Tommy frowned. “Don’t remember any Hendricks. Probably after my time. I know Harry Gibbs. You say he’s a detective now, eh?”

  Jerry said, “Yes, sir.”

  “Detective Harry Gibbs.” Tommy chuckled. “Harry’s a good man, but not exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer. So fill me in on your meeting, Jerry.”

  Jerry told him about the broken-off heel and the tube of Blistex and the information from the police report about Sari’s wallet and her underwear and body.

  Tommy flicked away the cigarette butt, pulled a new one out of the crumpled pack, and said, “Seems consistent with a suicide.”

  He lit the cigarette, exhaled the smoke through his nose in twin streams, and turned to me. “What’s Stanley say?”

  “He says it proves she was killed by someone who knew her.”

  “Who?”

  “Someone in the law firm.”

  “Who?”

  “He doesn’t know,” I said. “None of us do. That’s why I wanted to talk to you.”

  Tommy’s eyebrows rose. “You think I know?”

  I smiled. “No. But I think you have access to information that might help move this forward and maybe even put Stanley’s concerns to rest.”

  “Hold on. What else does Stanley have? Beside that heel and the Blistex?”

  “He says she wasn’t depressed.”

  “Really? Did they talk much?”

  “No,” I said.

  Tommy frowned and took another drag on his cigarette. “Then how does he know she wasn’t depressed?”

  I gave him the short version of the FACS system.

  When I finished, Jerry added, “Stanley has these pictures tacked up on the wall of his cubicle. They’re kind of gross. Drawings of people’s faces, but with the skin removed and all these arrows with the names of each muscle.”

  Tommy scratched his neck and nodded. “I remember those drawings. My last year on the force they had some FBI special agent give us a lecture on that FACS thing. Crazy stuff. Stanley’s into that, eh?”

  “Yes,” I said, “and it seems to work for him.”

  Tommy raised his eyebrows. “How so?”

  “You said you know Harry Gibbs?”

 
“Sure. We go way back.”

  “Jerry did all the talking during their meeting with the detectives, which lasted less than an hour. Stanley just observed. When it was over, he’d concluded that Gibbs was a recovering alcoholic who’d been recently divorced.”

  Tommy stared at me, lips pursed, and then he nodded. “Harry did have a drinking problem. That’s how we met. Department made us both attend AA meetings at headquarters. Heard he got divorced last year. Stanley figured all that out, eh? What did he see in Sari?”

  “That she wasn’t depressed. She was agitated but not depressed.”

  Tommy squinted. “Pretty thin.”

  He flicked the cigarette butt away and checked his watch. “Gotta head back.”

  Tommy winced as he got to his feet.

  As we started back down the sidewalk, he said, “So what’s Stanley think I can do for you, Rachel?”

  “I understand everyone in the firm parks in the garage. After seven at night, you have to use your keycard to access the walkway to the garage.”

  “That’s correct.”

  “I assume there’s a computer record for each night’s keycard users, correct?”

  “Yep.”

  “We’d like to see the records for whoever used their keycard the night she died. Especially between nine and eleven. That’s the medical examiner’s estimate for the time of death. She was wearing a wristwatch that shattered in the fall. The time on the watch was 10:03, which is probably the time she died.”

  “Between nine and eleven? It’s probably just going to be people in that law firm. Only lawyers work that late.”

  “Correct.”

  Tommy stopped and turned toward me with a frown. “You understand these computer records aren’t public documents.”

  “I do, and I could get a subpoena for them if I had to, but I’d prefer to keep this confidential.”

  “And why is that?”

  “I knew Sari. Her father asked me to ask some questions about her death. The cops have concluded it was a suicide. Stanley believes otherwise. The cops have closed the matter, and they’ve pretty much dismissed Stanley’s evidence. Was it a suicide? I don’t know. I’m just trying to wrap up loose ends. One of those loose ends is the computer records of the cardkey users that night.”

  He rubbed his chin.

  “You’re asking a lot, young lady.”

  “I realize I am. Here’s my card.

  He held my card out toward the streetlight and studied it for a moment. Then he put it in his pants pocket

  We started again toward his building, which was less than a block away. As we walked, I thought again about what Stanley had told me to say to Tommy. He hadn’t told me why—just what. When we reached the entrance, Tommy turned to me.

  “I’ll think about your request, Rachel. No promises.”

  “I understand, Tommy. One more thing. It’s what Stanley asked me to tell you. He told me to tell you that when you think about Sari Bashir you should also think about Mary Liz.”

  Tommy stared at me, his gaze growing distant. And then, without a word, he turned and entered the building.

  Chapter Nine

  We met the following afternoon at Kaldi’s Coffee in the DeMun area. Just Tommy Flynn and me. He’d called that morning and left a message with my secretary that he’d be there at four-thirty.

  He was at a small table in the back room when I arrived. I got an espresso and joined him. His shift started at six, and he was dressed for work—a nickel-gray long-sleeve shirt with epaulets, pleated-patch pockets with flaps, a security officer patch over the left pocket, black tie, black slacks, and thick-soled black shoes. With his shock of gray hair, bushy eyebrows, round face, and double chin, he reminded me of John Madden, the NFL color commentator and former football coach.

  “Here you go,” he said, handing me a two-page document. He had another copy on the table in front of him.

  There were three handwritten columns of information. The first column was a list of twenty-nine names in what appeared to be chronological order—sixteen on the first page, thirteen on the second. The second column was titled “Time of Entry.” The third column was labeled “Time of Exit.”

  “The walkway from the building to the garage locks at seven,” Tommy said. “You need your cardkey to open that door after seven. Every time you swipe that card, the computer records it. I printed out the card-swipes for that night and put together this document. It shows all the folks who entered the walkway to the garage between seven and midnight that night.”

  According to the list, fourteen people entered the walkway to the garage between seven and eight p.m. I recognized the names of some of the lawyers from Warner & Olsen.

  “These first fourteen, are they all lawyers, paralegals, and secretaries from Warner & Olsen?”

  Tommy looked down at his copy.

  “All but Melanie Farmer,” he answered. “She’s a young lawyer at Mead and London. Pretty gal with nice stems. Reminds me a little of Cyd Charisse.”

  Mead & London was a small personal-injury law firm in the building.

  Each of the fourteen who entered the walkway between seven and eight had exited the garage within ten minutes of the time they entered. Same with the two—both lawyers at Warner & Olsen—who entered between eight and nine.

  As for the last thirteen names, all listed on the second page of the document, there were entry times but no exit times.

  “Why is that?” I asked.

  Tommy said, “The gate at the garage exit slides down each night at nine. You don’t need your cardkey after that. Instead, the gate is triggered by an electric eye. When a car approaches the exit, it passes the electric eye and the gate slides up. So there’s no record for anyone who drives out of the garage after nine.”

  “But you still need your cardkey to drive into the garage after nine p.m.?”

  “That’s right. It’s the only way you can get in after nine.”

  I studied the list. “So no one entered the garage after nine that evening.”

  “No one drove into the garage after nine. Actually, no one drove into the garage after seven. I checked.”

  I looked at the first seven entries on the second page—all names of persons who’d entered the walkway from the office to the garage between nine and eleven that night:

  Name

  Time of Entry to Walkway

  Time of Exit

  Sharon Faraday

  9:12 pm

  ?

  Susan O’Malley (8)

  9:23 pm

  ?

  Rob Brenner (7)

  9:29 pm

  ?

  Donald Warner (6)

  9:35 pm

  ?

  Sari Bashir (8)

  9:48 pm

  Brian Teever (6)

  9:52 pm

  ?

  Bernetta Johnson

  10:18 pm

  ?

  “What are the numbers after some of the names?” I asked.

  “All lawyers at Warner & Olson have reserved parking spaces. So do some of their administrative staff. Those numbers are the garage floors where their reserved space is located.”

  Thus, five of the seven people on the list, including Sari Bashir, were lawyers who parked in reserved parking spaces.

  Tommy leaned across the table so that he was looking at the same page I was. “You can tell Stanley to eliminate Sharon
and Bernetta from this list. I escort both of those nice ladies to their cars each night, and I always wait there until I see them drive down the exit ramp. Did the same that night.”

  The last six names on the list all entered the walkway after eleven that night, the last two were between midnight and one in the morning. All six were associates at Warner & Olsen.

  He leaned back in his chair and gestured at the list. “There you have it, Miss Gold. Five lawyers entered the parking garage from the building between nine and ten that night. One of them died.”

  I stared at the names.

  “So,” he said, “what’s your next move?”

  I looked up. “I don’t know.”

  He took a sip of his coffee and set it down on the table.

  “I appreciate you meeting me here, ma’am.”

  “I appreciate you tracking down those names, Tommy.”

  “I’ve been doing some more thinking about Stanley’s theory. It does seem far-fetched, but you can’t dismiss it out of hand. He’s a strange boy, for sure. A strange and troubled boy, but he’s also one observant son of a bitch, pardon my French.”

  “He is.”

  “He told you to mention Mary Liz to me. Did he tell you who she was?”

  “No.”

  “I’ve never told him about Mary Liz. Far as I know, I haven’t talked about that poor girl for a long time.”

  “Tell me about her.”

  “She was the oldest of five McGuire daughters. Our next-door neighbors back then. Known her from the day her parents brought her home from the hospital. There’d been something special about Mary Liz from the get go. Maybe it was because she was the first. Or because she was so damn cute. Or because she’d been born just a month after Muriel’s final miscarriage.”

  “Muriel was your wife?”

  “A fine woman. She passed four years ago.”

  Mary Liz had been special, Tommy explained. He’d helped her father coach her soccer team in elementary school, Tommy had taken her fishing a few times over the years, and on Halloween nights when her parents had been too busy with younger sisters in diapers, he’d taken her trick-or-treating in the neighborhood.