Read Online Armed by Elaine Macko - Free Book Online Page A

a bit further away from the counter. “Oh, some of the clerical staff liked her but she stepped on a lot of toes and could be a bit of a backstabber. Never to me,” Sandy added quickly, “but there are people who did not like her and truth be told they probably had good reason. Some, you might say, detested her.”
    I gave Sandy my best shocked look while the elderly woman, annoyed at not getting any more gossip, paid for her purchase and left.
    “There are some, like Emmanuelle, who really didn’t like her. I overheard them yelling the other day. Well, Emmanuelle did all the yelling,” Sandy said.
    “Really?”
    Sandy shook her full head of thick, red hair, a strand of it falling in her face. “Sorry, I didn’t hear much. Just Emmanuelle saying, ‘you better not.’ One of the designers didn’t care for her much—Mrs. Scott, not Emmanuelle. And Jerry Gagliano, the factory foreman, never said a kind word about her.”
    “Jerry Gagliano. I met him today.”
    “She could be a little high and mighty. After all, she did have the ear of Mr. Poupée. There are a lot of people who think they should share that privilege. You know how people can be.” Sandy folded a pair of wool slacks and put them back on the shelf. “This is a mannequin factory, for Christ sake, not NASA, but power is power no matter what shape or size it comes in.”
    Just then a car horn sounded.
    “My husband’s the impatient type. Gotta go. Have a Merry Christmas, Alex, if I don’t see you.”
    “Oh, you will,” I raised my voice as Sandy ran out the door. “I’ll be there tomorrow and I’d like to continue our discussion.”
    But Sandy had left. Another person I would have to seek out. My list of people to interrogate grew with every conversation. Was it also a list of suspects? Surprisingly, I wanted to find out—and not just to clear myself of an impending murder charge. Maybe I needed this to pull me out of my stupor: a nice little murder. I instantly felt guilty, years of being raised a Catholic ingrained in my being.
    I paid for the sweater after adding a lovely scarf to the purchase, and headed for my car. Floodlights illuminated the pond for night skating. All the skaters had left except for one hearty soul twirling and jumping in the cold night air.

 
     
     

CHAPTER THIRTEEN
     
     
    “So how have you been?” I asked brightly, thinking calling Peter on impulse and asking him out to dinner had been a big mistake. Despite having dated for almost two years I felt very uncomfortable in his presence but wanted to ask him about a job he had done for Poupée Mannequins.
    We sat at a table at Los Tres Amigos, a Mexican restaurant that had opened about a year earlier. I took a sip of my margarita and eyed him over the rim of the glass. He was nice looking, intelligent, and a good person just not the person for me.
    After we placed our orders, I jumped right in lest Peter get any romantic ideas. “I told you over the phone I found Mrs. Scott’s body. Now Mr. Poupée wants me to poke around and see if something at the factory led to her murder.”
    Peter put a finger in his ear and twisted it around—an annoying habit that drove me crazy on more than one occasion. What was he looking for in there? I probably didn’t want to know. After he had sufficiently explored the orifice, he said, “I can’t imagine what you think I would know. I think he’s got a lot of nerve asking you to put yourself in the middle of it.”
    “Well, I am, so that’s that,” I said, wishing I had just asked the questions over the phone. “So tell me everything you can remember about the job, the people you worked with.”
    The waitress arrived with steaming plates—chicken enchiladas for Peter and cheese and onion ones for me.
    “I set up their program for tracking clients and the various orders each one made. They wanted to go back and enter as much data as they could for the last twenty years but when I told them how long it would take to get all