Murder Most Graphic

By AnnieMae Robertson

When Georgie Anderson arrives at work at Halmeth Corporation she discovers her boss brutally murdered at his desk. Because of the friction that had built up between them during the prior year, Georgie realizes she could become a major suspect. When this is confirmed by the police lieutenant, the Halmenth Chief of Security, Michelangelo Deegan, comes to her rescue. They work together to learn the actual location and nature of the killing as well as the reasons behind it. Their collaboration begins with a frightening hunt through the darkened tunnels below the corporate compound in an unsuccessful effort to prevent a second murder. Georgie and Michelangelo are brought closer together as they dig for a solution to the puzzle before they too become victims of the ruthless killer.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Nov 29, 2001
• ISBN: 9781462067718

AnnieMae Robertson

AnnieMae Robertson is more a journey than a person. She has meandered like the universal string through this life and beyond, inside heads and hearts and dreams. She has twisted through social strata, crossing cultural boundaries to experience the persistence of poverty and the instability of affluence. She has listened to the stories of the birthgivers and the dying, and all manner of people in all manner of situations who taught her compassion first and foremost. Presently the journey has slowed to allow the retelling of all those stories, a task she manages at her computer in a miniscule apartment in Western Massachusetts.She has been a poet, a playwright, a painter, and most important, has raised four wonderful daughters and one wonderful son.

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Murder Most Graphic

All Rights Reserved © 2001 by AnnieMae Robertson

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the publisher.

Writers Club Press

an imprint of iUniverse, Inc.

For information address:

iUniverse,Inc.

5220 S. 16th St., Suite 200

Lincoln, NE 68512

www.iuniverse.com

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

ISBN: 0-595-20911-4

ISBN: 9-781-4620-6771-8 (ebk)

Printed in the United States of America

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For my children, Geri, Jackie, Metta, Sandy and Steven; and for my sister Diane, and friends Pat S. and Gail B. in gratitude for their support and encouragement.

Murder Most Graphic

AnnieMae Robertson

1.

His lanky body had slipped down in the chair, his long legs buckling, knees wide under the desk. His head had tilted back awkwardly, the patent slick hair no longer pasted neatly in place. And the silver strands on his temples and in the bristly ends of his mustache appeared gilded in the glow from the desk light. Long metallic threads also lined the arches of his eyebrows adding an element of arrogance even in death.

One dark eye had remained wide open, settled in a forever stare toward the door as if it were freezing the image of his assailant on his retina, while the other remained hooded behind a lid that drooped down in a final wink.

Nothing else in the room had been disturbed by that trauma of dying. The books that leaned against each other on the shelves of his credenza hadn't skittered further into the corner. The photos framed along the top shelf had not rotated face to the wall. No chairs or baskets of discarded paper were overturned. Even time had continued to move in a forward progression that was faithfully tracked in a cadence of ticks and tocks by the small Tiffany clock on the far edge of the desk. It registered 7:05 A.M. as I pulled out of my driveway on the way to work.

I wasn't always a man hater, or a boss hater for that matter. And Halmeth Corporation wasn't always a lousy place to earn a living. That was what I was reminding myself as I putzed through traffic, trying to get to work a bit earlier than my norm. I wasn't succeeding and even though it was a beautiful spring morning loaded down with the scent of lilacs and crystalline glimmerings of dew, and all the other things that should have made poking along a pleasure, the delays were bugging me. I got caught at every light on Riverdale and more than half on Main.

Slow going was the irony of my morning existence. The gods controlled me more than I controlled myself. I knew that was true to a certain degree for everyone but lately I felt particularly manipulated. If I was going to live to be a hundred, which was genetically possible considering my parentage, half my life was already gone and not one day of it went entirely the way I planned. Even if I didn't follow the dictates of my gene pool, that was consistent enough for me to anticipate that the rest of my existence, no matter how short, would be the same.

My mood was as gloomy as the day was sunny. Maybe it was hormonal or maybe it was a side effect from a premonition I had that the upcoming day was going to be lousy. Things hadn't been going well at work lately and I couldn't figure out how to turn it around.

I'd been making that drive every day for too many years, ever since fled a poisonous marriage and settled in the small town of West Endicott, New York with my three kids. I was grateful to get any job back then, considering I lacked experience or the educational coups that would enhance a resume or brighten up an interview. Only my ex-husband's surprise exceeded mine when Halmeth hired me. He survived on the assumption that my inadequacies would stifle any prospect I had of ever being self-sufficient let alone self-supporting. I knew he planned to spend his waning years warmed by the magnitude of my failures. So getting that job, even if there were bets no sane person would want it because it was obscenely dreadful, as I learned later, meant I was on the road to solvency.

I recalled my first day on that first job, the numbing reality of it. I felt like I had become an ant in the bowels of a gigantic corporate anthill. There were more people shuffling along those Halmeth halls than there were blades of grass on the front lawn. And they seemed robotisized, responding like automatons to the bells that were in effect back then, one to tell you it was time to be at your desk, another to let you know it was time to get to work—time to eat—time to sleep, perchance to dream. No, not that bad but almost. I felt like a single cell, no—an atom—a neutron—one of millions—billions—trillions. My children couldn't have found me. Santa Claus couldn't have found me. God couldn't have found me. I had an anxiety attack of the worst kind and spent an hour in the ladies room throwing up.

Things got better. I transferred to a smaller section of the company where I learned the basics of designing from a great boss, a nice guy who pushed all my 'I'm okay' buttons. He also taught me to tune out the rest of the massiveness until I was once again a viable singular human being with a face and ego all my own. He was the best of the best and I really missed him when he retired. But he made sure I moved into his management job when he left and that was amazing. And it was a long while back. Lots of things had happened since then, not all of them good as far as I was concerned.

Fred, who was my present boss, hadn't always been a clump of dirt. Sometimes I felt bad even thinking things like that. I was still running the department when I first met him. He was a tall shy young man in a position that would have been considered clerical if he had been a woman. But as a man he was called Assistant to the Assistant to whomever, and so it goes. He had a less formal education than I had which meant his prospective career, like mine, should have been in a position akin to scraping the wads of gum off the floors before the janitor scrubbed, if we had janitors. At Halmeth if they had been on the company payroll they would have been called 'corporate maintenance engineers' except for the women who would have simply been the 'cleaning crew.' But before anyone gets the idea that a name is a name is a name, let me clue you. An 'engineer' at Halmeth got a lot more money than a 'crew'.

But getting back to Fred, he was a nice guy once, until an alien plague named Arthur Lewis took over the Purchasing/Warehouse area of the company. Since titles and compensation depended not only on the number of people working for you but on the square feet of space over which you reigned Arthur Lewis felt the need to leach my department from another section of the company.

That by itself was not enough to embitter me forever. Every ambitious person in the building tried the same thing. It was the name of the corporate game. I could have taken that in stride if he hadn't shoved me sideward into a newly created job as a 'Corporate Graphic Designer,' and put Fred, who seemed very willing to be his lackey, in my management spot.

And even that move by itself hadn't made me totally dislike Fred. After all, he had his goals and I was a reasonable person. But he had doggedly made changes and demands that were so damned inexplicably irrelevant to corporate requirements they seemed intended only to frustrate the staff, one of which was me. He always refused any input and blamed everyone for the disasters that resulted. There were mornings when I wanted to look on the back of that stiff neck of his, under the hair line, and see if there were teeth marks, not that I thought of Arthur Lewis as being really from another planet, just possibly from the pits of this one.

I was frustrated by the persistence of my usual morning animosity as I drove along, its thickness a measure of the proximity of the Halmeth campus. By the time the clock tower dominated the immediate skyline, the building just beyond the next intersection, I was mumbling all the pertinent clichés and kept it up as I turned in through the gates. 'Another day, another dollar—This too shall pass—Offer it up to God—Keep your back against the wall—Give him enough rope...' They filled my head like a mantra by the time I parked and unbelted.

Joey wasn't around and that didn't happen often if ever. I was annoyed because that meant I needed to run the freight elevator myself so I could push a cartload of printed samples to my cubicle just outside Fred's office. I knew my fear of that damned elevator was beyond rational, but the doors that opened like jaws, one sliding up and the other down, made me feel like I was stepping into the gaping mouth of some ravenous deformed 'gate-r' monster. The wire gate that clattered down after the outer doors were open scared the hell out of me. Then the gap I had to push the cart across was worse. It seemed to spread just as I straddled it, becoming a chasm into which I imagined myself plunging like Alice down the rabbit hole. Even when I was safely inside the elevator, quite thoroughly devoured but amazingly still alive, there were all those buttons I had to push in just the correct sequence to have the gate slide up, the two jaws close and the grumbling of gears began.

I stood inside that vibrating box struggling to haul itself up the two flights and wondered why I put myself through that aggravation. Before I had time to make radical decisions that would effect my life style the thing shuddered to a stop and I had to reverse the process of opening the doors in order to exit, panicking only when one of the cart's wheels snagged in the gap.

Yanking the cart loose, I indulged in my usual early morning cursing and considered leaving the massive toothy doors open.

That would serve Joey right, I thought. He'd need to climb the two flights to retrieve the thing. But something like that would be too vindictive even for me. Joey was Joey after all and being mad at him was like killing that proverbial Mockingbird. He was not very bright but he was sweet and quite proud of his ability to command that elevator and, like Fred, it was unheard of for him to be late. Well, almost unheard of. I decided he had to be sick and guiltily poked the necessary buttons to send the box grinding back to the basement.

It was to my advantage to get to work early. The silence allowed me to disconnect from the outside world, which in my case was vital. I figured it was a bit like life. We think of this existence as reality because we can't remember what we experienced before we got here. That way we don't pine too much and toss ourselves off bridges. If we ever recalled the beauty of our personal Elysian Fields, the bridges would be bulging up from the mounds of carcasses stacked against the pilings. In the same vein, about ten o'clock any morning if I had remembered how nice it was any place but Halmeth I'd have bailed out so fast the friction would have burned a stripe down the center of the stairs.

The few minutes to myself also gave me a chance to get settled in. I actually liked my little cubicle of space though it only enclosed about forty square feet. I treasured my personal computer on the desk butting up to my drawing board. It was my confidant and friend as well as my personal secretary who accepted my dictation without criticism. Over the desk I had framed one of my old desk blotters on which I had doodled during an entire year of phone conversations. I'd never have been allowed to display it on the wall of that austere larger office I had before my position in the corporation had shifted. But it was ignored here in this less important space so I could continue to add figures and comments illustrating the good things in my life, only the good things. A sketch of my cat Gypsy languished in one corner, a drawing of my kids when they were young in another. Between the cat and the kids there were illustrations and comments about everything, holidays and dates, Christmas trees and angels and swooping Red tailed Hawks. A cityscape with a rainbow overhead dominated the center of the blotter, the current of colors flowing off the bottom edge.

Over my drawing board all of my drawing tools, triangle—straight edges—curves, and a variety of cutting tools, hung from pegs in the wallboard. An assortment of time line charts covered the balance of wall space to the right. And beyond that was my credenza and all my files and booklets. It was the accumulated pulp fiction of my life at that time.

Those were the pleasant things about my space. The unpleasant things were the fact that there wasn't a door to shut out the rest of the corporate world. And equally as annoying, acoustically those semi-enclosed areas acted like sound tunnels sucking in every bit of conversation in the department. I could sit there trying to concentrate and become involved in all manners of crisis, personnel and business. I would often even overhear comments on myself, good and bad, as if I needed to know.

It was apparent even to me that I needed to be out of there. I was growling all the time and the lines between my eyes were getting so deep I sometimes thought my head was just going to split open and dump all my brains onto my computer keyboard. It was a stress I didn't need. I knew I was feeling sorry for myself. Maybe it was an empty nest thing as much as a work thing. My children had long since grown and left for greener more opulent pastures. Maybe I just needed to get a life.

I took a deep breath and settled into my chair. I had time to catch up before the gaggle of kids arrived. God, I was glad they were no longer my responsibility. I'd have fired the lot of them by that time and gotten some work done, straightened out the disastrous files. Even while I was thinking it I knew I was being unfair. I had always been more laid back and disruptive than any of them were, except maybe Arnie and he was perpetually a problem. But none of it was worth fretting about. They wouldn't change and I wouldn't change, and frankly I needed them as a buffer between Fred and myself. And I had to admit that I'd miss them if I took early retirement which was an increasingly enticing option for me, one getting harder to ignore considering the unfortunate changes happening around the company. It was in fact the prospect of losing touch with some of the designers that accounted for most of my hesitation. That and eating. We had been together a long time.

It didn't surprise me to see Fred's jacket hanging on the coat rack though I couldn't see the usual reflected green light from his computer screen. I figured he arrived before six some mornings. Ellen probably threw him out. It was always a mystery to me how they ever got together in the first place. They seemed so ill suited. She was as casual as he was rigid though I had the feeling she was the one who ruled their roost.

As I emptied the cart I thought about how much I sincerely disliked Fred since he'd become such a 'yes' man. It frustrated me to even give him any space in my mind. Shaking it off I began sorting the things on my desk into neat little urgent—not urgent piles. I checked for any phone messages, made a few notes, than got up to put fresh coffee in the pot. Not for me, I didn't drink the stuff, but the others seemed to appreciate my efforts though I swore the coffee I brewed must have been just this side of sulfuric acid. Sometimes I watched them when they drank it and believe me their facial contortions said plenty. They heaped in the sugar and used cartons of cream, but they never poured the muddied sludge down the drain. The pot was always bone dry by ten o'clock, so I just continued to fix it.

It wasn't until I opened up the bag of donuts that I considered Fred again. The silence suddenly seemed all stretched out like a chain link fence. Something was different. I figured maybe he'd come and gone, left his coat hanging on the rack and slipped out. Or maybe he had fallen asleep and was in his office with his face cuddled against the computer keyboard. I tried to turn that thought off, to ignore it and let him sleep or not, or whatever else as long was it was out of my hair. I tried but I couldn't. So begrudgingly, I put one of the donuts on a napkin and crossed the room to look in his door.

It wasn't like in the movies. I didn't feel like screaming. I didn't even think I could scream. He was dead and even though I'd never seen a dead person before except all made up at a wake, there was no mistaking his condition. His jaw was sagging, his coloring a strange gray, and there was a streak of red that had spread around his collar and down his front, sticking his shirt to his chest.

My flesh actually tingled as if all my circulation was having a problem doing its thing, as if the donut had better hold me up instead of visa versa. Fred, I slurred, fascinated that his name still existed as part of my vocabulary, surprised that it could slip out like that, as if