Murder in Death's Door County (3 page)

“Hey Sally, what’s going on?”

“It’s Stan. He had a minor heart attack
while he and Karen were going at it on a conference table early this morning.”

“Going at what?”

“You know—'it’.”

“WHAT? They were doing ‘it’?”

“You mean, you didn’t know? Oh yeah, he
and Karen have been at it for years. Stan’s wife doesn’t know a thing. Or at
least she didn’t. I’m not sure what will happen now.” Sally shrugged.

I started to look around, but didn’t see
my boss. “Have you seen Karen?”

Pulling her cardigan tighter, Sally
pointed to one of the squad cars with her chin. “She’s over there. She went
into shock. The cops told her to just take easy. I think she’s going to take a
couple of days off.”

Crap. There went my two weeks’ notice
today. For obvious reasons, I couldn’t give Karen notice and Stan was out of
commission until next week, at the earliest. Of course, this did mean a
reprieve for my presentation, regardless.

“See ya inside, Sally.”

“Yeah, see ya.” Sally waved
absentmindedly as I went into the building.

I turned on my company-issued laptop.
Beep. Buzz. Gurgle. It snapped to life. I opened my work email and saw an
All-Hands meeting notice to explain what had happened to the esteemed (cough,
cough) director of CritiCentric, Stan Nickels.

“Annie, did you hear the news?” My
friend and coworker, Michael, poked his head in my cubicle.

“Yeah, I saw the ambulance. Did you know
about this?” I narrowed my eyes suspiciously, in a jokey way. Michael normally
shared all the good gossip he heard. Michael had the same job as me, only
Michael liked it. He had been encouraging me to quit for a few months.

“No. Honest. I had no idea.” But his red
ears gave him away.

“Hmmm?” I quirked my brow, wondering how
much Michael wasn’t sharing. “Oh well, it doesn’t really matter if you knew or
not.” I waved my hand to give the universal sign that said, “it’s off no
consequence,” and added, “Poor Stan. I hope he gets well, regardless of what
caused the heart attack. Think he’ll have us do a root cause analysis of the
reason for it? I’m sorry, I shouldn’t joke about it. When’s Karen coming back?”

“You’re chipper today. I think I heard-,”
Michael started. A shrill voice cut him off.

“Hey guys!” Tessa yelled to us. “Yoo-hoo!
Whatcha talking about? Me?” Then she proceeded to laugh uproariously as she
approached my cubicle.

Michael and I shared a look, and I just
barely restrained my eyes from rolling back into my head. Tessa tormented him
only slightly less than she bugged me.

“See you guys later. I have to go to a
meeting.” With that, Michael scurried off.

I smirked - I knew he didn’t have a
meeting scheduled. I snorted as I stifled a laugh.

After he had left, Tessa shooed me further
into my cubicle.

“So, guess what?” she said in a stage-whisper.

“What?” I mimicked her stage-whisper.

“Karen put me in charge until she gets
back!” Her stage whisper became a shout.

Oh no! my mind screamed. That cannot be
good, on any level.

Gulping, I played the corporate game and
pasted on a big smile, “That’s great, Tess. Are we still going to have our
staff meeting this afternoon?”

“Yes indeedie! It’s right after the All-Hands
meeting.” Tess’ voice returned to her creepy stage whisper and she hissed, “Oh,
and your presentation is still on for Friday. Don’t even think about not doing
it.”

My face went completely red. I could not
find the words I needed. I sputtered a lame, “Wh-what are you talking about?”

Having gotten the desired reaction, Tess
left, “Ta-ta, I’m off for now. Have to let the rest of the team know the good
news. Hey, could you tell Michael? That’s a good girl. Thanks!” She waved her
Jungle Red polished nails at me.

I realized Karen had told Tessa about her
punishment for me. How humiliating! If Karen hadn’t been so much more
humiliated by her own actions, I would be really mad. However, I did find it
hard to believe that Karen told Tessa this morning. Karen must have told Tessa yesterday
afternoon. How could Karen share confidences with Tessa, a subordinate?! Well,
for that matter, how could Karen have an affair with her married boss? At work?
Giving notice tasted so much sweeter now. Oh, how I wished I knew more about
office politics! I knew nothing of alliances and how to fit in correctly. I had
always bought into the idea that a good job spoke for itself. Well, not this
job. But this job represented the end of the line for my burnt-out nine-to-five
existence.

Humpf. The rest of the morning, I stayed
in my cubicle and read those ridiculous books Karen gave me. I decided to work
through lunch, in an effort to make a little headway.

Throughout the day, like nails on a
chalkboard, I could hear Tessa’s voice asking for “Congratulations” from
everyone she spoke to. Her cackling laugh echoed off the walls, filling every
corner of the office floor.

—
–

At the designated time, I headed over to
the All-Hands meeting. Just as I suspected, they didn’t share the root cause of
why Stan was out. They only shared that he was out indefinitely.

Before we left the All-Hands meeting, the
higher-ups wrapped up the meeting by communicating the subliminal message, “Don’t
talk about what really happened. Any questions will be met with a stone wall of
silence.”

Karen’s team, including me, went
straight to the regularly scheduled staff meeting. I sat in my usual spot, next
to Michael. Eleven people made up the Informatic Systems department, with Karen
being the twelfth person. Everyone looked at each other and realized Tessa was
missing. Awkward silence ensued. No one wanted to talk about the elephant in
the room, a.k.a. “Karen’s Misadventure,” on company property.

Tick tock. Tick tock. The overhead clock
marked time. Fifteen minutes went by as we all stared rather stupidly at each
other. I wondered how long Tessa would inconvenience all of us. We all began to
fidget.

Finally, Susan King spoke up, “So, has
anyone seen Tessa?”

“I saw her talking to Harvey after that
meeting,” said George Jurowski. “Wow, how about that meeting?” Better suited as
a salesman than an analyst, George tried to play to the audience. No one would
even look at him.

“She said she might be a few minutes
late,” said Tessa’s one buddy at the company, Mandy Schuler.

Peeved at being ignored, George said, “If
she doesn’t get here in five minutes, I’m leaving. I don’t care whe-…”

“Gimme a T.” Tessa’s voice boomed from the
doorway. Every head snapped to the direction of the sound and mouths dropped in
synchronicity. She wore a red-and-white cheerleader’s outfit and
had pom-poms. Real pom-poms, not the kind they give to little kids
at football games. She had on a real, adult cheerleader’s outfit with real
pom-poms. What the what?

She continued to strut on in, doing high
kicks, completely oblivious to the pain and confusion on our faces. Even Mandy looked
down at her hands. I didn’t know where to look. I focused on a tiny dent in the
conference room table, willing it would open up and swallow up me and everyone
else. Being spared the pain of watching this debacle would be lovely. Was that
asking too much?

Tessa shouted, “Gimme an E.” I glanced
up, no such luck. We were all still here. Tessa was making the letter shapes as
she shimmied and continued to high kick her way into the conference room.

“Gimme an A. Gimme an M. What are we?
TEAM. I can’t hear you.” She continued to shout. Through the glass walls of the
conference rooms, I saw people’s heads popping up from their cubicles to see
what the ruckus was about. I sank down in my seat a little.

“Team,” we all mumbled sheepishly. Michael
subconsciously pulled at his collar and studied his hands with far greater
interest than they deserved. I saw Susan trying to catch my eye; I avoided her,
knowing any kind of smirk or shared laugh would be fatal at this point.

“What?” Tessa shook those pom-poms
all around. She strode over to me and yelled, “Annie, I can’t hear you!” She
shook them in my face.

“Team,” I said, slightly louder. I felt my
face get as red as a tomato. I slunk down in my seat a little more.

“I still can’t HEAR you, Annie! C’mon,
Annie. We’re all waiting. If you don’t yell ‘Team’, I’ll tell everyone about
your little presentation and its true purpose on Friday. Do you even know how
to do your job anyway?”

My vision started going dim. Everyone’s
face grew blurry. The harder I tried to focus, the fuzzier everything got.

In my fog, I heard someone say, as if
from a distance, “Forget it! I’m not going to say I’m on your stupid team.
TEAM! Who the hell wears a cheerleading outfit to work anyway? You are my age!
And pom-poms! Why? Why would you have pom-poms? You look like an
idiot! I can’t take it anymore! I can’t take your phoniness anymore, Tessa!” The
voice grew closer, “And I can’t take being in a job that I hate! It is too much
to ask of anyone! I would rather flip burgers than stay here one minute more! I
QUIT!”

As the fog cleared, I realized I had
shouted all of this while standing on my chair. And a huge crowd had gathered
outside of the conference room. And everyone was clapping?

“Annie, are you okay?” Michael gently
touched my arm. I looked down at him and blinked a few times. “You look really
pale.”

I shook my head to clear it more. I
realized I’d never felt better. I jumped down from the chair and smiled at
everyone in the room.

Tessa appeared to be shocked into
silence. Her mouth formed a perfect “O” and steam seemed to be coming from her
ears. She narrowed her eyes, and looked like she could spit nails.

“I’m A-OK.” I strode to the doorway. “Tessa,
you treat everyone badly! Eventually, this will come back on you! Don’t be
surprised when it does! Ta-ta!” I waved to her and almost skipped down the
hallway. The applause of my co-workers, er, former co-workers, followed me down
the aisle to the door marked “Exit.”

I
LEFT ALL
OF MY JUNK IN THE CUBICLE
and
vowed to never to work in one of those mini-prisons again. For that
matter, I never wanted to step foot in that building. I knew that CritiCentric
wasn’t a bad company, it really wasn’t. And I did appreciate that they had
given me a job and an opportunity for advancement; however, I learned a lot
about myself while I was there. I learned that my temperament and personality
were not really suited for having a traditional, nine-to-five job. The more I
thought about it, the more I realized I had an advanced case of burn-out.
I liked to work and be useful; so, I wasn’t lazy. I identified strongly with
Peter from “Office Space” and just preferred to do a different kind of work.

I had very high hopes for this
ghostwriting gig, because my Plan B consisted of flipping burgers. In the
meantime, I figured CritiCentric could keep my calendar, mug, and anything else
I had left behind, for posterity. The laptop and bag stayed with them anyway.

Once I got home, I changed into sweats
and threw my unruly dark curls into a ponytail. To celebrate my little victory
(and to avoid dwelling on reality), I put on some U2 and danced around to “Sunday
Bloody Sunday.”

For dinner, I ordered a cheese and
pepperoni pizza from Giovanni’s. Giovanni’s had the best pizza in town,
especially if you got extra sauce. I added an order of garlic bread for good
measure.

I finished a couple of slices and a
third of the garlic bread hunk.

I poured myself some diet soda and
called Marcos.

“Hello?” answered a soft, female voice.

“Hi, um, is Marcos available, please?” I
pushed down my shyness—I had to make this call. Establishing first contact with
clients made me a bit wobbly. I had done it a million times. Every time I told myself,
I had nothing to fear. What’s the worst the client could do to me anyway?

“No, I’m sorry. He will have to call you
back,” the voice said rather curtly and with a faint accent. I tried to place
the accent. Greek maybe?

“Do you know wh-?”

Click.

I rubbed my temples. Okay. That was
weirder than usual. I sat and stared at my phone, willing it to ring.

Imagine my when it did two seconds
later. I almost jumped out of skin. Grabbing my phone with shaking hands, I saw
that caller ID said “Publisher.”

“Doll.” Harry?

“Harry?”

“Yeah. Doll. I forgot to tell you
something important about this project. Have you called Marcos yet?”

Sigh. My stomach sank a little. I
started pacing around my living room.

“Yep. I just tried to call him a few
minutes ago. A woman answered the phone. I tried to leave a message, but she
hung up on me.”

“A woman answered? Hmmm… it must have
been his wife, Diana. Well, he's difficult to reach, that’s part of what I need
to tell you, Sweetheart.”