Apple Pies and Alibis Read online

  Mom shook her head no and laughed. “No, I saw her after. I just wanted him to come and unblock us.”

  “Mom, what would you have said to the man if the parking lady didn’t come?”

  Mom shrugged her shoulders and put her hand over her face as she smiled. “I don’t know. I just start talking and keep talking until it all works out.”

  In that second, I decided not to worry about being late. If Mom can kick some entitled guy’s BMW and get him to do what she wanted, she could talk our way out of being late for an appointment.

  I needed to learn to trust Mom more and worry less.

  Mom and I made it to Turing Tech intact despite the deadly combination of Los Angeles freeways and my driving. Mom didn’t even ask why I opted for a parking space so far away from the building. We both knew why I wanted to steer clear of all the other parked cars.

  We hiked from our spot in the boonies to the seventeen-story office building that housed Turing Tech. Despite the fact that it was fall, the Southern California sun beat down on us. I worried I looked like a wilting weed desperate for water.

  Mom walked a little in front of me. She never seemed to sweat as much as me. I wondered if it was because she was petite and slender, or because she grew up in the Philippines.

  The office building had one of those fancy rotating doors that kept the air-conditioning in that I found fun as a kid, but didn’t like as much as an adult. Too claustrophobic. Mom jumped into the merry-go-round of a door, and I followed in the next slot. It wouldn’t be worth mentioning except there was a maniac in a suit behind us who decided the rate we all were walking ought to be faster. He pushed hard on the door and it caught the back of my shoe, making me trip and bang my considerably large behind on the glass. Thank goodness I wear flats, or I would’ve fallen and chipped a tooth or sprained an ankle.

  Of course my tripping slowed all of our progress, but instead of waiting for me to stand up, the jerk pushed even harder and forced us all forward more. I nearly fell into the lobby behind Mom, and Mr. Suit shoulder checked me as he passed.

  “Hey!” I yelled, but he didn’t stop or even turn. I’ve never glared harder at the back of someone’s neck in my life. His smug blond hair feathered back like a duck’s butt and squared off into an unnatural, straight square line on his pale neck. His neck was the kind of pale that screamed, “I’ve never done any yard work.” Truth be told it was an expensive, well-groomed haircut, but to me, it reeked of entitlement at this moment.

  “Are you okay, kid?” Mom asked.

  I nodded. “Yeah, he’s just rude. Let’s go,” I said, and we headed to the elevator. I looked for said jerk to give him a mean side-eye while waiting for the elevator, but didn’t spot him.

  Mom hit the button, and we waited. I did what I always do when I have an appointment: I double check that the address I have matches what’s on the directory. Turing Tech wasn’t listed. My brain spit out that we were in the wrong building, a mistake I’ve made many times. I glanced at my watch, it was two minutes until one. If we were in the wrong building, we’d definitely be late. I decided to play it cool and hope for the best.

  The elevator door arrived. Mom stepped inside, and I followed. Mom pressed the button for the seventeenth floor. My attempt at playing it cool unraveled in less than two floors.

  “Mom, we might be in the wrong building,” I said.

  Mom remained calm. “That directory is printed all on one plastic signboard. All the other floors have at least five companies listed and the seventeenth floor only has one. They probably moved in recently, and they haven’t updated the sign.”

  The door dinged open, and we stepped out. Sure enough, the one company listed was on the right, and there was a paper sign indicating that Turing Tech was to the left.

  We followed the sign. “This is exciting,” Mom whispered. “It’s our first official case.”

  “You mean catering gig.”

  “Right,” Mom said as we reached a set of double doors.

  I opened one of the doors expecting more hallway, but was greeted by an expansive reception area that was everything the casting director’s office wasn’t.

  We heard someone yelling as we approached. Mom smiled and sneaked beyond the reception area to catch the action.

  “Who took it?” a quivering feminine voice demanded.

  I scooted over next to Mom. The office, from what I could see, had a large open-plan area in the middle with a glass-encased conference room on the back wall, and two walled offices on each side of it. Several smaller offices lined the right wall. The place was stacked with equipment and desks. About two dozen employees, mostly male, were unpacking file boxes.

  She continued. “I put my name on the bag that you crumpled up and left next to my prune juice. Whoever you are you better stop!”

  No one responded. Most of the group continued to unpack their boxes without even looking up at the lunch-napping victim. A brawny, Hispanic man with a hipster beard and mustache sporting a “Beam Me Up Scotty” T-shirt was assembling a bookshelf, and paused from his work and pointed at us. “Tina, I think we have visitors.”

  Tina turned. She looked fifty years too young for prune juice and had brown eyes and light brown hair. A flash of embarrassment spread across her thin face, followed by a nervous smile.

  “Can I help you?” she asked.

  “Jo and Christy Murphy here for Barbara Turing,” I said. “She’s expecting us.”

  She motioned for us to follow her as she walked toward the back of the office. “Excuse the mess. We’re still moving in to this building.”

  Mom caught up to the young woman. “It sounds like someone has stolen your lunch before,” Mom said.

  No mystery is too small for Mom.

  “It happens at least twice a week,” the woman said. “I’d stop putting my food in the kitchen, but then it’s like I’m allowing myself to get bullied out of using the fridge.”

  “It’s the principle of the matter,” Mom said.

  “Exactly!” Tina said, stopping and turning to Mom. “But no one around here cares.”

  “I care,” Mom said.

  Tina looked like she might cry. “Are you two going to work here?”

  “Just for a few days to put together a lunch party,” Mom answered.

  Tina’s shoulders slumped, and she let out a sigh. “Oh.”

  “You must make a pretty great lunch if someone wants to steal it every day,” Mom said.

  “I have a chicken breast sandwich on potato bread with ranch chili mayo. It’s the mayo that makes a difference. Not too hot and a little sweet. I got the recipe from my neighbor.”

  Mom raised her eyebrows. “Sounds good.” I could see Mom’s brain shifting into sleuth mode.

  “But I think Barbara needs us first,” I said to Mom, to remind her what mystery we’d been hired to solve.

  Tina led us the rest of the way to Barbara’s corner office. The door was open. Before we entered, I overheard Mom say to Tina, “If I spot your lunch thief, I’ll let you know.”

  Barbara waved us into the office as she wrapped up a phone call. Tina left.

  I tried to remain calm and professional, but on the inside a nervous excitement ping-ponged in my gut. Barbara hung up the phone.

  Mom shook her hand and said hello as if she’d just met a neighbor on the street. Come to think of it, Barbara might be a neighbor Mom met on the street.

  “Nice to see you again, Jo,” Barbara said, “and nice to see you again.” She paused, not knowing my name.

  “I’m Jo’s daughter, Christy,” I said. Barbara and I only met once at the Lucky Dragon restaurant the night Mom solved the murder of Harold Sanders.

  “Oh yes,” she said. “I’m so sorry to hear about your husband.”

  “Uh, thanks,” I said, choosing not to tell her the truth. I’d found out last week that Mom had been telling people that my soon-to-be-ex-husband had died, as a quick explanation to neighbors and an inside joke. Mom smiled, and we all t
ook our seats.

  “About the party,” Mom said, changing the subject.

  “Yes, we need to have it right away. I need to close up this leak before it sinks our big contract,” Barbara said.

  “We can use the big contract as an excuse to have the party,” I said.

  “Great!” Barbara said, reaching into her desk. “I did some digital digging myself for background.” She whipped out a folder with a stack of papers. “I installed a program that monitors emails and cell phone behavior, but of course, I had to disclose to the employees they were being monitored.”

  “Of course,” Mom said, excited to take the paperwork.

  “It might or might not help. Whoever it was would know that I can see their emails and when they access the Wi-Fi. So they might have stepped off the property and used a non-company cell to communicate with Japha Tech and the folks at Core.”

  “So they’ve leaked to more than one competitor?” Mom asked.

  “It looks like it,” Barbara said.

  “Let me know the days you discovered the leaked information on social media,” Mom said.

  The two mumbled and strategized together, and Barbara printed out a list of all her employees. Barbara went on to let us know that the leaks predated the move last month, and that only five employees had access to all the info that had been leaked.

  “There’s the possibility that two employees colluded together, which would widen the suspect list,” Mom said to Barbara, “but we’ll start with these five and see what we come up with.”

  As Mom and Barbara spoke, the seriousness of the situation sank into my amateur sleuth mind. The nervous excitement I’d felt as we walked into the building morphed into flat-out fear. This woman needed professional private investigators, not caterers.

  Mom and I approached our first potential suspect, Madison Winters, interviewing her under the guise of surveying the employees for the party. I must admit it’s a clever ruse, but would we be able to find out anything useful?

  Mom knocked on the door of one of the few occupied offices. Most of the thirty-some-odd company employees worked in the cubicles in the middle of the office. I’d kind of hoped that we’d start with the underlings to get warmed up, but Mom had other ideas.

  “Come in!” a harsh female voice called out from inside the room.

  I wanted to run and hide, but Mom wasn’t at all affected. “Hello,” Mom said, as if Madison had indicated she was excited to see us.

  “Yes?” she said, her face stern. She had the kind of uber-polished good looks and harsh demeanor that would intimidate most people, and by “most people” I mean me.

  “The office is having a party,” Mom said.

  “For what?”

  “I’m so glad you asked,” Mom said, taking the seat in front of the woman’s large, glass desk. It looked like one of those desks you’d see in cable news designed to show off a female broadcaster’s legs. A desk that reveals my legs and the dust bunnies on my floor would never be one I own. “We need your input.”

  Madison’s face relaxed a little, but she folded her arms.

  I’d been charged with “taking notes,” so I took out my pen and paper and sat next to Mom. I spotted Madison’s nameplate on her desk—Madison Winters, VP Marketing. Next to it was a glass organizer tray. All her paper clips, thumbtacks, pens, and whatnot were lined up in their own little boxes.

  Mom explained that Barbara wanted to have a party to celebrate their partnership with a big client (whose name I can’t legally mention).

  “With the way things are going we could lose that partnership,” Madison said.

  “What makes you say that?” Mom asked. “Barbara made it sound like it’s a done deal.”

  Barbara stared at Mom, not answering her question. Was she hiding something, or did she just not like being contradicted? Mom’s expression remained happy and attentive as if the pause weren’t happening. That same expression, the one that made me doubt the passage of time, had made me confess to all kinds of things under the guise of an “innocent question.”

  But Madison Winters was not a cream puff like me.

  She refused to respond and retained her surly expression.

  The tension continued to build. Neither of them looked like they would crack. How long could two people just stare at each other mid-conversation like it was totally normal?

  I couldn’t handle the silent standoff any longer and blurted out, “Well, if it’s not a done deal it’s better to party while we can.” My attempt at adding levity fell as flat as my hair three days after a perm.

  “And you are?” Madison asked, looking down her nose at me, her arms still folded.

  My thoughts shut down at her intimidating demeanor.

  “She’s my daughter,” Mom said, jumping in to save me. “We’re catering the party. We wanted to get your thoughts on the menu.”

  “You’re the professionals. You tell me,” she said as she unfolded her arms and leaned back in her chair.

  I hated how nervous this woman made me feel. It’s like she was every mean girl from high school combined. I stared back at her clear glass tray and tried to disappear. My brain focused on minutiae to hide my embarrassment. What was that little spray thing? Air freshener? Those little things of air that you use to clean dust out of a keyboard? My brain fixated on this as if it were of grave importance.

  “Desserts are my specialty,” Mom said. “So I was thinking of baking mini apple pies from my award-winning recipe.”

  “In honor of the client we might lose,” Madison said.

  “Exactly,” Mom said, as if Madison hadn’t said anything negative. I took small consolation in the fact that I determined that the little container was breath spray. I hadn’t seen one of those things in ages.

  Through the clear table top, I watched Madison’s well manicured, opened-toed shoe-wearing foot wag. “It would be a nice photo opportunity for our social media accounts when we make the announcement next week. When is the party?”

  “We were thinking Friday,” Mom said. “Do you think that works?”

  “That works,” Madison said and smiled.

  Her smile freaked me out more than her scowl. It looked so out of place on her face.

  “Any thoughts on the main course?” Mom said.

  Madison paused in thought.

  A loud, buzzer-like sound pierced my eardrum followed by the foghorn-like bark of an alarm.

  “Not again!” Madison said as she stormed from her desk and yanked open her door. “I’m not, Tina!”

  “Please,” Tina begged. “You have to.”

  “It’s a false alarm, and you know it,” Madison yelled.

  The burly Hispanic man with the Star Trek T-shirt said, “Let’s go before the hallways get too hot. The air-conditioning is gonna click off if it hasn’t already. Seventeen flights of stairs is worse without air-conditioning.”

  “Fine,” Madison muttered as everyone in the main area of the office left their desks and headed to the stairs.

  “Thank you, Henry,” Tina said to Mr. Star Trek shirt. Mom shot me a quick glance. Henry, along with Tina and Madison, was one of the five.

  “He takes that stupid floor fire marshal title way too seriously,” Madison said under her breath as she grabbed her large, stiff designer purse out of a file cabinet. She took off her heels and fished a tiny, zipped bag out of her purse. “I’m not ruining these shoes on that dirty stairwell,” she said. She unzipped the bag, unfolded a pair of slippers, and slipped them onto her feet.

  “So clever!” Mom said as she eyed the tiny zippered bag the shoes came in. Mom loves all gadgets and devices.

  “I bought them off the television,” Madison confessed. “Kate Jensen’s Beauty Beat.”

  “I love her!” Mom said, laughing. “I have the Fantastic French Braider, the Blow Dry Brush and her complete bath set. Beauty Beat is my second favorite home-shopping show.”

  We followed the crowd to the stairwell as Madison morphed into a human. “Wha
t’s your favorite?”

  “Kurt the Kitchen King!” Mom said without hesitation.

  Madison laughed. “Of course. In your line of work, I should have guessed.”

  I couldn’t be sure that was a compliment, but Mom took it as one. Madison’s good mood faded as the crowd muddled along. “Just email me whatever you decide on for the menu,” she said to Mom. “If there’s a problem I’ll let you know.” She left, pushing her way to the front of the crowd.

  “She turned out to be nice,” Mom said, and I couldn’t tell if Mom was being sarcastic. We trudged down the stairs in silence. The alarm echoed through the stairwell. My knees ached after three flights, and my thighs burned after five. Good thing there were only a dozen more floors.

  The breathing in the group grew heavier as we traveled farther down, and the air grew hotter. When I spotted the exit sign glowing on the ground floor, I felt like I’d discovered water in the desert.

  “Thank goodness,” I said.

  Even Mom, who could walk for miles without being winded, nodded in agreement.

  Tina was next to us. “Does this happen a lot?” Mom asked.

  “About once a week. I’ve had building maintenance check the smoke detectors and everything.”

  We funneled out into the side parking lot. My text alert buzzed on my cell phone. I figured I might as well check it while we were waiting. Then, I saw the two of the most infuriating words an ex can text after ghosting me for over two months: What’s up?

  I told myself not to reply and give it no thought at all. The pain in my legs from the trudge down seventeen flights of stairs helped. Lucky me.

  3

  Menus and Melee

  The staff milled around the parking lot for the better part of an hour as we waited for the fire department to clear the building. Mom and I took the opportunity to interview the staff. Henry was busy doing his floor fire marshal duties with Tina, so we had to wait to talk to them. Rick Heller and Ivan Myers were the last of the five on our list, but we didn’t run into them in the parking lot. We spoke to a bunch of new hires who were in favor of our apple-themed menu idea and were excited about the company, but had little information.