Exposed (Rosato & DiNunzio #5)(60)
“Okay.” Simon raised his hands and flipped the palms up, and there were no wounds or cuts.
Mary asked, “See what I mean?”
“I didn’t kill anybody, I didn’t kill him!” Simon blurted out, and Mary shot him a warning glance, though it was so spontaneous that it rang true. She could only hope that Detective Lindenhurst remembered it when incriminating physical evidence began to roll in.
“Detective, if you don’t have enough to arrest my client, and I don’t believe you do, then we will give the required samples and leave.” Mary stood up, cueing Simon to rise by touching his arm.
Detective Lindenhurst rose, with a frown. “So you’re ending the interview.”
“Yes.”
“Well, then, I hope we’ll be talking again, very soon.” Detective Lindenhurst turned to Simon. “And of course, I’m asking you not to leave the jurisdiction for the near future.”
Simon nodded, his expression shaken, but he didn’t say anything.
Detective Lindenhurst looked down at Mary. “We’ll go down the hallway to the nurse for the samples.”
“I’ll go with you,” Mary said, then she and Simon left the room with the detectives, who opened a door and led them down a back hallway to the police lab.
Mary’s thoughts raced, all the while. She worried it wouldn’t be long before Simon was arrested, and if that happened, she didn’t want to think about what would happen to Rachel. Murder wasn’t a bailable offense, so Simon would go directly to jail, leaving Rachel without her one and only parent. Mary could only imagine the heartbreak it would cause Feet, Simon’s cousins, and her own family.
Mary realized she had her work cut out for her. She had to find out who killed Todd, and the clock was ticking. While Simon was in the lab, she heard a text alert from her phone, so she reached into her purse and checked the screen. It was from Bennie:
at the office if you need me
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Bennie got off the elevator, brushing raindrops off her suit as she made a beeline for the two cardboard boxes stacked on the floor, expecting them to contain the files that were in hard copy. She had already checked her email in the car to find that OpenSpace had emailed her Simon’s emails for the past three years. She hadn’t had the chance to read through them on the drive, but she had saved the entire file to Dropbox. It had been surprisingly large, but she remembered that Todd and Ray had called Simon the Mad Emailer.
Bennie went to the first box, checking that the mailing label read OpenSpace, then cut the masking tape with her car key, opened the top box, and looked inside. It contained a stack of purchase orders from earlier in the year, which had evidently been photocopied from the originals. She rifled through the rest of the papers in the box, and determined that they were all POs. She went to the second box, opened it, and they were full of POs too. She went to the third and the fourth, which contained call logs, then closed the box.
Bennie straightened up, reassessing the situation. She had hoped to be able to read the documents and copy them herself, but that wasn’t going to work. She eyed the full boxes, es timating that it had taken the secretaries at OpenSpace a few hours to photocopy. Nate had said that he would send a courier to her office first thing tomorrow morning, and so there was only one thing to do: Call in reinforcements.
Fifteen minutes later, Bennie was standing at the Xerox machine outside her office, copying a purchase order, when Judy Carrier bopped down the hall, looking oddly energized for so late at night. Bennie turned slightly, but kept at her task. “Thanks for coming in.”
“Not a problem.” Judy smiled, reaching her, and the light from the Xerox machine flashed on her face like a corporate strobe. “Hey, you should close the cover when you photocopy things.”
“I don’t have time.” Bennie took the PO off the glass, set it aside, and reached for the next email, pressing the button. The photocopier light went off again.
“It’s bad for your eyes. Your skin, too. You could get photo-allergic dermatitis, I read that somewhere.”
“I’ll live.”
“It also uses up the toner.” Judy slid the photocopy out of the tray and placed it facedown on the pile, and Bennie placed the next PO on the glass, hitting the button.
“I’ll buy more.”
“It’s bad for the environment.”
Bennie looked over. “Why are you so wide-awake? Please tell me it’s not cocaine.”
“I’ve been weaving. It makes me happy. It’s a natural high.” Judy’s eyes flared slightly. “I saw Mary on TV. I assume she’s still at the Roundhouse. I texted her offering to help but she didn’t text back.”
“So did I.”
“You did? That was nice of you.” Judy slid the copy from the tray and placed it on the pile.
“I’m a nice person. I just get bad press.” Bennie put another PO on the machine and hit the button. “I’m copying the first box of documents, and there’s four more in the reception area. If you could get started on a box, that would be great. They’re going back to Dumbarton first thing in the morning.”
“Because Nate fired you?” Judy slid the copy from the tray.
“Yes.”
“Does he know you’re copying them?”