Armed by Elaine Macko

Author:Elaine Macko [Macko, Elaine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Cozy Mystery
Amazon: B00EIYIA1U
Goodreads: 12968180
Publisher: Author
Published: 2011-09-29T14:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

The order center was empty except for Monica who sat at her desk amid a mound of candy wrappers. Judging by the assortment of wrappers she showed no discrimination in her choice of junk food. A half-eaten bag of potato chips propped up against the side of the computer monitor tempted me. I love potato chips. Sometimes more than M&M’s. Sometimes more than life, so it took all the strength I could muster to keep from reaching across her and grabbing the bag.

“I wanted to ask a few more questions.”

“If it’s about the fingerprints, I already spoke with Detective Van der Burg yesterday afternoon,” Monica volunteered.

“Fingerprints?” I froze as a chill began to spread over my body. “Your fingerprints were found on the murder weapon?” I pushed the chair a few feet back from Monica while I quickly looked around to see if she had another mannequin arm hidden somewhere.

Monica stared at me. “No. Of course not. They found my prints on some papers Elvira had.”

I gave an audible sigh. “That must be the computer printout. But no. I want to know why you lied to me.”

Monica’s face flushed and she turned back to her terminal “What are you talking about?” Her fingers pounded the keys while white data flashed across the blue screen.

“You told me you didn’t know Mrs. Scott well, but you had coffee with her several times at the restaurant down the road. And now your prints show up on something she had in her purse.” I waited for Monica to answer but she didn’t say anything. “Well?”

Monica stopped typing. “She wanted me to print some stuff. Those papers. So she asked me to meet her at the coffee shop after work.”

“Why couldn’t she ask you here?”

Monica shrugged and pushed an errant piece of hair out of her face. “I don’t know. She called one afternoon and said she had something to discuss in private.”

“When was this?”

“About six, seven weeks ago.”

“Didn’t you think it a bit odd?”

“Yeah. I did, but I thought maybe it might have to do with a performance review or something.”

“Surely Sandy would have been in on something like that.”

“Probably, but Elvira said she wanted to see me so I went.”

“And?”

Monica sounded exasperated. “We met in the restaurant and she started asking me about the new system and what it can do and what kind of reports it can produce. She asked if I could print out certain data for the past two years but not to let anyone else know.” Monica again pushed a strand of the copper hair over her ear and scratched the tip of her nose. “So I printed what she wanted and a few days later we met and I gave it to her.”

“You didn’t ask any questions?”

Monica shook her head. “No. Look, she asked. She never said what she needed it for. Maybe Mr. Poupée wanted it.”

“Did you tell anyone else? Did you mention it to Sandy?”

“No. She said not to so I didn’t.”

“Why did you lie?”

I

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