Page 63 of A Week Away
“Wait, did he always leaveafterJoanne?”
“He usually left at four, sometimes three-thirty.”
“Did he say why he was leaving late?”
“He didn’t have to. He dumped a stack of filings on my desk. Said he wanted them in the mail first thing.”
“Was that unusual?”
“No. He’s like that. Most of the time he’s not that interested in what we’re doing, then he runs around like chicken with its head cut off… fits and starts, fits and starts.”
“Do you know who found the body?”
“Some lady down the hall. Re-insurance, I think. What do you think of that? An insurance company has to have insurance. What’s the world coming to? Pretty soon we’ll all be doing nothing but insuring each other.”
“Did you talk to her?”
“No. Everybody was treating her like she was some kind of movie star. Huddled all around her. They put a blanket over her. All these White folk never seen a dead body before.”
“Did you see where Joanne was shot?”
“In the chest. Maybe in the heart. Hard to tell. She’d be happy it wasn’t in the face. She’s the kind of girl who’d want an open casket. Three inches of makeup, a new do and a goddamn purple dress.”
“Does Mr. Cray know all the things Joanne was up to?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I raised an eyebrow, until she said, “She’s careful. Was careful. She kept all of that out of here. The walls are thin.”
That made me wonder if Claudia had heard any of the conversation I’d had with Joanne twenty-four hours ago. Then I wondered if Mr. Cray had heard it.
“How thin? Every single word or just the highlights?”
“Highlights.”
I remembered Joanne turning on the radio while we were talking. What had I said that made her do that? I remembered using the words ‘kill’ and ‘murder’ a lot more than you would in a typical conversation. I might have mentioned she was embezzling at some point. And then I recalled she’d mentioned explaining me to Mr. Cray when he stuck his head in. How much had she explained? Could it have had something to do with what happened?
“How long did Mr. Cray and Joanne know each other?”
“Forever.”
“They were in Sault Sainte Marie for the weekend? They went gambling together?”
That earned another snort. “Yeah. They called it business trips. They’d charge everything to the company and it’d get deducted from his taxes. But yeah, they’re just gambling and whatever... Mrs. Cray calls over every time they go someplace, wanting to know the hotel and all that. I have to put on my dumb Black girl act. She buys it every time.”
I thanked her and left. I considered asking if I could look around Mr. Cray’s office. She didn’t seem to like him much so maybe she would have let me. But honestly, I doubted it. She might not mind a little gossip, but actually risking her job—with its obvious benefits—was not a possibility.
I walked to the stairs, went back down to the first floor, and out to the front parking lot. The janitor was still there. He was a White guy just under thirty, tall and slender with crisp blue eyes. When he saw me coming he stopped and leaned on the mop.
“Hey, man,” I said, adopting a ‘straight’ persona. “I knew the woman who was killed. I wonder if you’d answer a few questions.” I tried not to look down at the pail full of bloody water.
“You’re not a cop?”
“No. I’m not.” I’d been smart enough to take a small of wad of the cash Joanne had been collecting. I took it out and peeled off a couple of hundreds, saying as I did, “I’m just a friend of the dead woman’s family.”
He considered me a moment, and then asked, “What do you wanna know?
“I see there are security cameras,” I turned and pointed back at the building, though obviously he knew they were there. “Do you know how I can get copies of the videotape from yesterday?”
He was staring at the money, practically licking his lips. “They don’t use tapes anymore. It’s all on computer. All that stuff’s in a closet on the first floor.”
