Read Online Murder Is Uncooperative by Merrilee Robson - Free Book Online

someone broke in. He just wants to talk to us about what we saw.”
    I got dressed and went down to the main floor again. I gulped when I saw the boxes, Les's blood staining some of them.
    The officer with Gwen looked young to me. He took statements from both of us.
    â€œSo you found him?” he asked me. “You were the one who made the call for the ambulance. I believe you said it was an accident?”
    â€œThat's what I thought. The office has boxes piled all over it. I thought they'd fallen on him.”
    â€œBut you thought someone might have broken in?” he said, turning to Gwen. “Is anything missing?”
    â€œWho could tell?” she said, gesturing to the mess. “It's always complete chaos. We keep some petty cash in here but not a lot. I could check the files to see if it's still there. But Ruthie wouldprobably know more than I do. She's the one who handles the bookkeeping. That's Ruth Jacobs, the office assistant.”
    He checked his notes. “Ah, yes. We talked to her at the hospital. I have her contact information.”
    â€œShe would normally be here tomorrow at nine o'clock,” Gwen continued. “But when she phoned about Les she asked for a couple of days off. I think she's some sort of relation, but I don't know what.”
    â€œThat's okay,” the officer said. “We won't want anyone going into the office until we've finished our investigation. I'll seal it up after I leave.”
    â€œSo you do think someone broke in?” Gwen was saying. “This is a nice neighborhood, but I know there have been break-ins in the area. And sometimes homeless people get in, looking for a place to sleep.”
    I thought of the woman who had warned me about the co-op the first day I came here. She had been right that bad things happened here.
    â€œWas the lock damaged?” I asked. “Here or the front door? How would someone get in?”
    â€œWell, Les wouldn't have locked the office door if he was working. And the front door, well, we were having trouble with the intercom, so sometimes people just buzz people in if they're expecting someone. I think Les had it fixed, but maybe it's broken again. Or people will prop it open if they're just going out for a minute. They're not supposed to, but it happens.”
    â€œWe'll look into that,” the officer was saying. “So you two were both in here tonight?”
    We answered a few more questions before he left. He seemed to be asking a lot of questions for something I still hoped was an accident.

CHAPTER
Nine
    I don't think Les's death really hit me until the next morning. I had barely known him, but he had been considerate and helpful to me. And he seemed such a dedicated employee. It would be a real loss to the co-op.
    I'd taken Ben to pre-school and had come back to do some work in my home office. I had a couple of assignments to complete for two of my corporate clients. One had asked me to draft their annual report from material they had given me. The reports they had asked me to use were full of jargon and odd bureaucratic phrases that might have meant something to the staff members who wrote them, but not to anyone else. They were hard to read, but I enjoyed the challenge of trying to keep the meaning, while turning the language into something a layperson would understand. The other assignment was a bit more fun—a couple of articles for an employee newsletter.
    Not exactly the investigative stories I had wanted to do when I started journalism school. But the work paid the bills and I still took satisfaction from turning a bit of jargony nonsense into prose that anyone could understand.
    I hadn't completed as much as I had planned, thanks to all the disruption of moving. So I settled down to finish as much as possible before it was time to pick up Ben from pre-school.
    I was so deeply into my editing work on the annual report that it took me a moment to realize someone was knocking on the