Candy Cane Murder (Hannah Swensen #9.5)(64)

Damn that Libby.

“The only Jaine Austen we have on our records is you, and you’re a customer.”

“A loyal customer, too,” I hastened to assure her.

“Be that as it may, I must insist that you cease posing as a Century National representative or we shall be forced to terminate your policy.”

After much groveling and promising to behave myself, I finally got off the phone.

Oh, well. It served me right for trying to pawn off my insurance card on Libby. I should’ve known that a woman who spent her days Windexing reindeer noses would turn out to be a sniveling tattletale.

Somewhat shaken from my brush with the formidable Ms.

Drake, I settled down on my sofa to work on my Christmas cards while I waited for Peter Roberts to return my call.

By the time I’d XOXOXO’d my way through my address book at five P.M., I still hadn’t heard from him.

It wasn’t until later that night when Prozac and I were in 220

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bed watching Roman Holiday (Prozac has a thing for Gregory Peck), that he finally called.

I launched into my theory about Garth’s roof being sabotaged and asked him if he had any idea who might have done it. I wasn’t the least bit surprised to learn he had no idea, none whatsoever.

But then I got down to why I was really calling.

“By the way,” I said, trying to sound casual, “I hear that you and Mr. Janken were on the verge of dissolving your partnership.”

“As a matter of fact, we were. We’d been together fifteen years, and we decided it was time to call it a day. It was an amicable parting of the ways.” Accent on the amicable.

“Garth and I were very good friends.”

He sounded about as believable as a congressman running for office.

“That’s not what I heard. I heard your break-up was pretty ugly.”

“Whoever told you that was wrong,” he said, daggers in his voice. “Dead wrong.”

And then he did a little casual questioning of his own.

“My secretary tells me you’re an insurance investigator.

Exactly who do you work for?”

“Oh, no,” I said, eager to stay out of the clutches of the Century National Fraud Unit. “Your secretary must’ve misunderstood. I’m a private investigator.”

“Is that so? Got a license?”

“Of course,” I lied, and got off the phone before he could grill me any further.

That was no help at all. Peter Roberts would go to his grave, or possibly mine, insisting that he and Garth Janken were best buds. How the heck was I going to find out the truth behind their split up?

And then I remembered his perky secretary, and thought of an idea.





Chapter


! Nine #

The next afternoon I got gussied up in a bizgal pantsuit I keep around for job interviews and IRS audits, and headed downtown to pay a little visit to Peter Roberts’s secretary.

Peter’s office was in a glass-and-steel high rise right off the freeway. A glance at the directory in the lobby told me the place was a veritable beehive of attorneys.

I took the elevator up to the twelfth floor and made my way down the hallway to The Law Offices of Janken and Roberts. I was happy to see that Peter hadn’t gotten around to taking Garth’s name down from the door. It would make it that much easier to bring it up in conversation.

I checked my watch. Ten of five. Right on schedule.

Launching Phase One of my plan, I took a deep breath and poked my head in the door. Peter’s secretary, a pert Latina in her early twenties, sat at her computer, biting her lower lip in concentration as her fingers flew over the keyboard.

“Oh, hi!” she grinned, when she noticed me. I was relieved to see that she was as friendly in person as she had been over the phone. “I’m afraid Mr. Roberts isn’t in right now. He’s away in court all week.”

Just what I’d been counting on.

“Actually, I wanted to talk to you.”

“Me?”

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“Yes, I just had a job interview down the hall and I’m wondering if you can tell me what it’s like working here in the building. I’m trying to scope the place out before I make a decision.”

“No problem,” she said, waving me in. “Give me a sec and I’ll be right with you. I was just finishing up for the day.”

Exactly why I’d waited till late afternoon to drop by.

I sat down across from her, gazing enviously at her creamy olive skin and eyelashes thick as velvet. I really had to start moisturizing more often.

“Finito!” She closed out her program with a flourish and swiveled to face me.

“So which attorney did you interview with?”

“Allison Whittaker,” I said, reeling off a name I’d seen on one of the offices down the hall. “Of Whitttaker and Wertz.”

Her lush lashes blinked in surprise.

“Allison’s secretary is leaving? Betty?”

“Yes, Betty,” I nodded.

“I wonder why she didn’t tell me. I guess her husband must’ve landed that job in Bakersfield.

“Hold on a sec,” she said, reaching for the phone. “I’m gonna call Betty and congratulate her.”