Donna Andrews: Chesapeake Crimes: This Job Is Murder!

I stepped over Amanda and looked to see what the problem was.

“Damn,” I said.

Dr. Grace was slumped over her desk, arms outstretched as if she had attempted a swan dive onto its polished mahogany surface. An uncomfortable-looking position, but one that gave me a good view of the knife stuck in her back.

I pulled out my cell phone and punched 911.

The first uniformed officer showed up in less than five minutes. He was followed by more uniformed officers. Then a couple of EMTs who seemed a bit annoyed at being called out for someone so clearly past saving. A pair of detectives flashing gold badges. And then a small swarm of crime-scene technicians.

The mean girls and I got to watch all this from the glass-walled conference room off the reception area, under the watchful eyes of a uniformed officer who made sure we didn’t talk to one another. The mean girls sniffled and looked shell-shocked. I had to remind myself that humming “Ding, Dong, the Witch Is Dead!” would probably not be a wise move.

The room was already set up for the usual Monday morning staff meeting. The mean girls all stayed at the far end of the room, away from the chair where, if she hadn’t been murdered, Dr. Grace would have been presiding. I wasn’t ever invited to their meetings, of course, but I would watch the whole show through the glass walls.

I wouldn’t have hesitated to sit in Dr. Grace’s chair-in fact, I’d have enjoyed annoying them by doing so-but I could get a better view of what the police were doing from the middle of the table.

After a great long while, one of the detectives stepped into the room.

“Which one of you is Ms. Malone?” he asked.

“Me.” I raised my hand as if in class. The mean girls all flashed triumphant, malicious little smiles at each other.

“You’re the one who called 911?” he asked.

I nodded.

“Great,” he said. “I’d like to start with you.”

Three pairs of hostile eyes followed me out.

The detective led me into the one empty office and sat behind the desk. As I sat down, I glanced through the glass walls of the office. In the conference room, the mean girls were sitting in a cluster, watching me. My stomach tightened. After all, everyone knew how I felt about Dr. Grace. What if the whole key fiasco hadn’t been an accident-what if it was part of some convoluted plot by one of the mean girls to knock off Dr. Grace and frame me?

Of course, that would take brains. Not something the mean girls had a surplus of.

I’d expected the detective to demand where I was on the day after Thanksgiving, but he started out in a more casual tone.

“So,” he began. “Just what is Edith Grace Personnel Services?”

“Sort of a specialized human resources company,” I said. “If a company’s downsizing and doesn’t want their own HR people to go through the trauma of breaking the news to the victims, they hire EGPS.”

“So you fire people for a living?”

“Me? No, I just type and answer the phone and mind the reception desk. Dr. Grace and the mean girls do the firing.”

“Mean girls?” He raised one eyebrow.

Oops. “That’s what I call them. Jessica, Amanda, and Tiffany. Mean girls. Because that’s how they behave.”

The corner of his mouth twitched slightly, as if he were trying not to smile. Then he gave in and chuckled.

“My sister used to come home from high school complaining about what the mean girls had done to her that day,” he said. “Been a while since I’ve heard the phrase.”

“Maybe some of those high-school mean girls grow up to be pleasant women,” I said. “Not these three. They’re perfect for the job.”

“For firing people?”

I nodded.

“Don’t they also help people find new jobs?”

“Not exactly,” I said. “They do outplacement services. Classes on resume writing and how to find job leads and present yourself well in an interview. Actually getting a job’s your own problem.”

“You sound a little cynical about what your company does.”

“Not my company,” I said. “I’m just working here until I find a job in my field.”

“And that is?”

“I was a reporter.” I wondered if he knew how moribund the newspaper industry was, how many dozens of applicants there were for every job that came open, and how very likely I was to spend the next couple of decades working thankless jobs like this one.

But not with Dr. Grace. Or the mean girls. The thought cheered me up.

“You don’t look as upset as the others,” he said.

“I’ve only been here eight months,” I said. “It hasn’t been a ball of fun.”

“You disliked Dr. Grace, then?”

“Yes.” I didn’t see any reason to lie. “Not enough to kill her, of course. And I suppose at the very least I should be upset that I’ll be losing my job.”

“You don’t think they’ll keep you on?” he asked. “Surely without Dr. Grace the company will need all the help they can get.”

“I doubt if the company will survive without Dr. Grace,” I said. “She’s the one who has the credentials and the contacts. Had, that is. All they know how to do is fire people.”

“Tough job,” he said.

Tougher on the ones getting fired if you asked me. Should I tell him how much the mean girls seemed to enjoy it? How they put on their sad, sympathetic faces as easily as pulling on a sweater, and then at the end of the day gathered in the coffee room to make fun of their poor clients.

“I wouldn’t want to do it,” I said aloud.

“So if you or any of her employees murdered Dr. Grace, you’d be killing the goose that lays the golden eggs,” he said.

“Only copper eggs in my case. But yes.”

“You must have a lot of disgruntled people coming through this office.”

“Yeah,” I said. “But wouldn’t most of them be more disgruntled at the companies who fired them?” I was happier when I thought he was suspicious of the mean girls. Was it my long-dormant reporter’s instincts that told me one of the mean girls had to have done it? Or was it just that I hoped he’d find one of them guilty?

“Still,” he went on. “Maybe one of those disgruntled unemployed people focused his anger at Dr. Grace. Can you remember anyone in particular?”

So for the next hour, he picked my brains about disgruntled clients. Were any of them more disgruntled than usual? Had we received threats? Did Dr. Grace have enemies? Did all the mean girls like her? And what had I been doing over the last four days? I was relieved that I did have an alibi of sorts for the time I was at the office on Friday, even if it was only the homeless man who slept on the steps of the church across the street. Good thing I’d turned down his offer to get me into the building by breaking a window.

“So who do you think did it?” the detective finally asked.

“One of the mean girls,” I said. “No idea which.”

He nodded. His face didn’t give away much. I had no idea if he thought I was a reliable witness or a suspiciously disgruntled employee.

Then one of the uniformed officers escorted me back to the conference room, and I waited while the detective interviewed the mean girls, one by one. For a while I watched the activity outside as police officers and technicians came and went. But eventually that died down, so I pulled a paperback out of my purse and read, ignoring the glares of the others.

Finally Amanda came back into the room, still leaking tears, followed by the detective.

“I want to thank all of you for your time,” he said.

He looked irritated. I would, too, after spending a couple of hours with my co-workers.

Or maybe he was just hungry. My stomach picked that moment to growl loudly. The mean girls all glared at me, as if I’d done it deliberately to mar this solemn occasion.