CHAPTER twenty-six
Jackie was standing outside my office door wringing her hands when I got back. She looked worried.
"Kate, thank God you’re back," she said anxiously.
Great, another crisis. Well, they’ll just have to take a number and get in line. I opened the door and waved her in.
"What is it Jackie?"
"There’s a police officer in the reception waiting to see you. The receptionist has been calling every five minutes looking for you."
"A police officer? Why? Did anyone say what he wants?"
"No," Jackie said. "And it’s a she. Do you want me to go get her?"
"No. Thanks. I’ll go."
Thoughts of disaster ran through my mind as I walked quickly to the reception area. God. Please don’t let it be something awful. I’d never had a police person call on me before. I had no idea what to expect. My mouth was dry and my mind was racing.
She was sitting in one of the guest chairs in the reception thumbing through a magazine. As I came in, the receptionist said my name and the police officer stood up. She was very petite and almost as short as I was.
I held out my hand and said, "Hi. I’m Kathleen Monahan."
"Hi. I’m Constable Gina Lofaro." She shook my hand.
Gina had very short, very curly black hair. Her skin was almost see-through and she looked like a china doll. Beautiful dark eyes and a perfectly shaped nose. She could be a model, I thought. Being a police officer on the streets of Toronto must be one tough job and I quickly got past her delicate beauty. She obviously didn’t get the job because of her looks.
"Is there somewhere we can talk?" she asked me.
"Uh, sure." I turned around to the receptionist and asked her if the small meeting room was empty. She nodded.
I pointed Constable Lofaro to the closed door on the opposite side of the reception area. I opened the door and turned on the lights and sat down on one of the chairs at the small, circular meeting table. I looked up at her anxiously as she closed the door behind her.
"Is there something wrong? Has there been an accident?" I asked her. My voice was shaky and my knees felt weak. I put my hands in front of me on the table.
"No, no. Everything’s okay. Danny Morris asked me to talk to you."
My knees started to knock.
"Danny?" I croaked out. I cleared my throat. "Danny? Evelyn Morris’ son? Is he all right?"
"Yes, he’s fine. So to speak. Let me start at the beginning." She pulled out the chair opposite me and sat down. She pulled out a small notebook from her breast pocket and flipped it open.
"As you are no doubt aware, Evelyn Morris died on Thursday night. An autopsy was performed and the coroner has ruled her death accidental. The autopsy report noted that there were very high levels of peanut oil in her digestive system. The report also noted that Mrs. Morris was severely allergic to nuts." She looked up at me.
"We all knew Evelyn was allergic to nuts," I said.
Constable Lofaro wrote something in her notebook.
"Mr. Morris came to our station this morning after he received the results of the autopsy. He’s asked us to look into the matter. He was adamant that his mother wouldn’t knowingly eat anything with peanut oil in it. In fact, he said that it was a rule at the office that nothing was brought in by the staff or the caterers for social events with peanut oil in it. Is this your understanding as well?"
I nodded my head.
"What can you tell me about last Thursday night?" she asked me. Her pen was poised over her notebook.
I described to her what had happened.
"Did you see Mrs. Morris eat anything?"
I shook my head. "No. As I said, I was only in the room for a short time. She could have eaten before I got there. She certainly wasn’t looking good when I arrived but I remember her saying she was hot."
"Tell me about the food. Did you use the same caterers?"
"No. It was a potluck. I think Mr. Oakes, our chairman, asked the staff to bring the food. This wouldn’t have happened if it was catered. The firm we use has strict orders about the use of peanut oil and they knew about Ev’s allergy. I can’t imagine who would bring something to the office with peanut oil in it. I think someone told me the message that went out to the staff about the potluck reminded everyone about Ev’s allergy. She shouldn’t have eaten anything. She shouldn’t have taken the chance. How could she be so stupid?"
Constable Lofaro looked up from her notebook. "She probably trusted everyone. Listen, we’re looking into this because Mr. Morris has asked us to. He’s understandably very upset. Is there anything else you can tell me?"
My conversation with Jay the day before at the restaurant came to mind. Evelyn and stock options. Rick Cox and stock options. Jay and stock options. Fucking stock options.
"No," I said and shook my head. I wasn’t about to speculate with the police.
She closed her notebook and asked, "I don’t suppose any of the food from last Thursday night is still around?"
"Well, it was stinking up the kitchen on Saturday night. I’m sure it would have been cleaned away though by now. We can go and take a look if you want," I offered.
She put her notebook back in her breast pocket and stood up. "Sure, let’s take a look."
She followed me across the reception and down the hall to the large boardroom where the party had been held last Thursday night. I opened the door a crack to make sure the room was not being used. A few overhead pot lights were on and I noticed that the room had been restored to its status as a boardroom. Not a party room.
"Come on," I said over my shoulder to Constable Lofaro.
We walked through the room to the other side and I opened a door into the kitchenette that was well hidden in the dark cherry wood paneling.
"This is the room where the caterers normally work from if we have a function in the boardroom. The day after the party last week, the counters here and the fridge were full of the leftovers from the party," I told her. There was no food on the counters and when I opened the fridge, it was empty except for cream and milk.
"Well, they must have finally cleaned it out," I said.
"Do you know how often they pick up the garbage?" she asked me.
"Every day I think. They come every night to take away the garbage. But the cleaning staff aren’t allowed to touch anything on the counters and they certainly wouldn’t touch anything in the fridge," I said.
"Do they come on Friday’s or Sunday’s?" she asked me. "At the station," she explained, "the cleaning staff take Friday nights off and clean on Sunday’s. What happens around here?"
"Friday’s. I’ve never seen them here on a Sunday."
"Have they been around today?"
"Not that I know of. They come around six-thirty or seven at night. It’s far too early."
"So," she said. "If you said the food was stinking up the kitchen on Saturday night, the food would have still been here this morning. On the assumption that the cleaning staff don’t come around until Monday night. Right? Is there someone we can ask?"
"Sure." I picked up the phone on the wall beside the refrigerator and dialled the office manager’s extension. She answered right away.
"Linda. It’s Kate. Did the cleaning staff clean out the fridge in the kitchenette off the main boardroom over the weekend?" I asked her.
"No, Kate, I did. Someone complained this morning about the smell so I emptied everything into green garbage bags. It was disgusting. And I threw out everyone’s Tupperware containers."
"So where is it now?"
"I called the building maintenance people to come and haul it away. Why? Did I throw out something of yours? I’m sorry if I did Kate. I just couldn’t bring myself to empty each container and then wash them. Christine is away today so I had to do it. Usually, that’s her job."
Christine was the office clerk who got all the nice jobs like cleaning th
e sour milk out of the fridge and washing out coffee cups with science experiments in them.
"No, it’s all right Linda. I was just curious."
"Well," she said. "I had to lug the garbage bags out to the service elevator. The lazy pokes at building maintenance told me to leave the stuff there. It’s probably stinking up the service elevator bay now."
"Thanks Linda. I’ll have a look."
I went to hang up the phone and Linda said, "Kate, are you nuts? You’re going to go through the garbage? Did you lose something?"
"No, no. Never mind Linda. Thanks for your help." I hung up the phone and turned to Constable Lofaro.
"The officer manager said she emptied everything into green garbage bags this morning and put it out by the service elevator. Do you want to see if it’s still there?" She nodded.
The service elevator was at the opposite end of the hall from the back door where I usually entered the office. There were large double steel doors with small windows in them about three quarters of the way up the door. It was hopeless trying to see through the windows so I opened one of the double doors and the smell, or rather the stench, wafted out of three garbage bags piled in the corner.
"There’s the stuff," I pointed out.
She glanced at the bags and looked at me. I knew what was coming.
"No. Please," I begged. "Take my word for it. I know that smell. Don’t make me do it."
She laughed. "Come on. Plug your nose. Help me out here. I’ll open one bag and you can confirm it’s garbage from your office."
"Why can’t Linda do it?" I whined. I had a weak stomach at the best of times and this certainly wasn’t going to help. The only saving grace was the fact that I hadn’t eaten lunch and my stomach was empty.
I plugged my nose. "Okay. Let’s do it. Hurry up." I breathed through my mouth.
She untied the top bag and I glanced in. I could see a jumble of Tupperware containers and serving platters. There was loose food around the sides of the bag and I eyed one of the brownies I had been so eager to stuff into my mouth last Friday. I was going to puke. Right here. Right now. I made a mental note to never eat brownies again.
I nodded at Constable Lofaro and hurried out the door. I left her there to tie the bag back up. I was breathing deeply when she came back out.
"Hey, that was nothing," she said. "The food’s only a couple of days old. No maggots, yet. Buck up," she laughed.
"You sound like my mother," I said. "How can you do that?" I asked her.
"Do what? Look in a garbage bag? Big deal. At least I didn’t find a dead baby."
I held up my hand. "Stop right there. Stop it. I appreciate you have a pretty disgusting job at times. But I’ve got a weak stomach."
"You’re over-reacting," she said.
"I know," I agreed. "Kate Monahan’s school of over-reaction. My parents said I should have been an actor. So you’ve found out one of my deep dark secrets. Keep it to yourself, okay?"
"No problem. Look, because the food is still around, I’m going to take it in. We’ll have the lab do some analysis on it."
"What will they look for?" I asked.
"Peanut oil, obviously. That and other things. I’ll hand it over to one of the detectives. Thanks for your help Ms. Monahan," she said and held out her hand.
"Kate. Call me Kate. Listen, do you know if they’ve released Evelyn’s body to the family?"
"No, I don’t know. They probably have though if the autopsy’s been done and the report released. You’d have to ask Mr. Morris."
"You’re right. I’ll call Danny right away. We’re all anxious to know about funeral arrangements. We miss her so much, you know." I was blathering again and I stopped myself. "Do you want some help lugging those bags?" I offered.
"No, I’ll be fine. Do you know if this elevator goes to the underground parking garage?"
I nodded. "Great," she continued. "I’m parked inside so I can just take this elevator. Thanks again." She opened the door to the service elevator bay and disappeared behind it.
I stood there and thought about how strange it was that the police were now involved in Evelyn’s death. I remembered my conversation with Jay yesterday and how we both agreed that no one suspected foul play in Evelyn’s death. Well, Danny thought enough about it to go to the police.
I opened the door to the elevator bay and saw that Constable Lofaro was still waiting for the elevator. With my nose plugged, I told her, "This elevator could take days. Someone might be using it to move in or out of the building you know."
"I’ll wait a little longer," she said. "Was there something else?"
"Yeah," I said. I paused for a moment. "Do you have a card? With your phone number on it? Just in case I think of something else."
She dug in her pants pocket and handed me one.
"And how can we get in touch with you after office hours?" she asked me.
"I’m in the book."