“You do not have to help Kitty yet another time,” Marla told Rex ten minutes later, after joining him at his condo and briefing him on Kitty’s latest request.
“I’ve never known your sister to be quite so pushy. Are you a bad influence on her?” he joked.
“It’s not me. It’s this Hub Sherman. She’s so taken with him, she’ll do about anything, within reason I hope, to keep him interested in her.”
“How long do we have to examine all the information we’ve obtained today before we have to break for this lesson?”
“It’s about twelve forty now. If we break at six, we’ll have at least five hours to determine if we’ve found a new lead,” she replied.
Rex stared at her, one brow raised. “How did you do that?”
“What?”
“You didn’t look at your watch or the clock in the room,” he said.
“Oh, that. It’s just something I can do, know what time it is, or at least something reasonably close.”
“Is it a trait you inherited?”
“Not that I’m aware. But then, I don’t have Kitty’s perfect pitch, either.”
“The woman who doesn’t know how to bake a pie has perfect pitch?” he said.
“Ask her to start a song sometime.”
Rex chuckled. “This talent for knowing the time? Did it come in handy when you were acting?”
“Just the opposite. I knew exactly how late shooting was going whenever the director took us into overtime. I would’ve preferred being kept in the dark then. Just believing we were running a little late rather than exactly how late.”
“I’ll look to you from now on to keep us on schedule,” he said. “I just wish I possessed some special quality I could contribute to our efforts.”
“Are you fishing for a compliment?”
“No, not at all. I’d like to contribute my own special talent to this partnership.”
“Excuse me? Rex Alcorn finds himself lacking in one tiny area?”
“Don’t kid me, Marla. I was being sincere.”
“Oh. It’s just that you’re always so sure of yourself. It’s difficult to picture you as anything else.”
“Boy, have I put one over on you,” he said, wonderingly.
“C’mon, Rex. Ever since the day you helped me bring my baggage in out of the rain, you’ve made it your purpose to let me know the awe I should show to be in your presence.”
“Are you deliberately trying to start a fight?”
“No! Of course not. Maybe we should get on to the matter at hand?”
“You don’t want to get into whatever it is I’ve done that has put you off? I was under the impression the two of us had resolved our initial differences and were now getting on quite well? But if you’d prefer to spar …?”
“No, I’d rather not. Never mind what I’ve been saying. You’re right. We have been getting along ever since somewhere in the middle of the Elliot case. Far be it from me to mess that up now.”
“I did a quick review of the personal profiles Goodhue sent us while Kitty was playing on your sisterly concern. Too bad we didn’t have the profile on Eloise available before we began our interviews. We might’ve structured our questions differently.”
“Give me a minute to do my own quick read-through,” she said.
Eloise grew up in Blue Earth, Minnesota. There were few notes on her early years other than her dad was an occasional farm worker who supplemented his income driving trucks cross-country. Her mother was a secretary at the local high school. She was a C+ student in high school but managed to get into the University of Minnesota with a high ACT score. In high school she was involved in one school activity, the flag corps ladies who performed at school athletic activities.
She dropped out of college the middle of her junior year because her grades were suffering. That same year she took a business course. After that, she temped as an office worker/clerk for the next year until she was hired by a hardware store on a full-time basis. She worked there for seven years until the owner retired. Her next employer was DeGrassi Manufacturing, where she met Brecken Wallace and worked her way up through the clerical support ranks. After a short honeymoon in Chicago, they moved into an apartment in the older part of St. Paul and lived there a year and a half before buying an older bungalow in West St. Paul. Eighteen months later, they were out of jobs. After her fifteen years at DeGrassi, Eloise went back to temping while she apparently looked for other full-time work.
They were more familiar with the rest. Grace Adamson hired her as an executive assistant three months after their layoff, and five years later, Eloise became her partner. A year later—four years ago—she bought out Grace and ran the business alone from there on.
The only information listed after that was a series of photos showing her with various clients.
“Not much new stuff here, other than more on her early years,” Rex said after she finished reading the profile. “Our suspects have been on track there. Anything strike you as unusual?”
“Although there are a lot of stories of business leaders who succeeded despite their poor educational beginnings, it still seems odd to me that someone who barely got into college except for her ACT score and then dropped out of college could go on to run her own PR firm.”
“I suppose,” Rex replied, “but don’t forget that ACT score you mentioned. The woman possessed native intelligence. That, coupled with ambition and ruthlessness, can take someone far.”
“Her ex said her personality changed after her miscarriages, but there’s nothing about them in the profile.”
“Medical records are private,” he reminded her. “We can probably find hospital and doctor bills once we get her financials.”
Rex poured them glasses of water. “Drinking this stuff always seems to clear my head when there’s a lot of details to absorb.”
Funny. It didn’t strike him odd that they’d be clearing their heads with purportedly the same liquid that had killed the woman whose case they were investigating. She left that thought unsaid. “Are we ready to move on to the other profiles?”
“Yeah, I’ve got enough Eloise Wallace in my head for now,” he said.
“Should we debrief on our interviews this morning or move right into the other profiles?” she asked. “Or are you content with what we told Goodhue?”
“I only gave Goodhue enough information to satisfy him for the moment. I picked up a lot more from our meeting with Nell,” he said.
“Okay. Tell me.”
“From the hints she dropped about Eloise’s financial dealings, an immediate audit would seem to be in order.”
“I’m not all that familiar with business matters. Until recently, I left most of my money dealings to my financial managers. But won’t that be a matter of course before anyone is allowed to assume leadership of Essy?” she asked.
“You’d think. But with no succession plan in place, it’s hard to say what will happen next as far as Essy is concerned. That was my overriding takeaway from the interview. How about you?”
“I was more impressed with the woman’s emotional state. She is still grieving the loss of her wife. She doesn’t look well, and her thrown-together state of dress suggests she’s paying no attention to her grooming. She never should’ve gone back to work so soon. She said something about her head not being in it, which would explain the work problems we heard about. And Eloise was unsympathetic enough to Nell’s situation to fire her for performance issues. That could be a very strong motive for murder, except that the woman we saw didn’t seem emotionally up to it.”
“She said she was let go because she challenged the purchase of the apartment,” Rex said.
“Which may or may not have been reason enough to let her go, or Eloise could’ve been planning to do so for some time. Nell hadn’t been afraid to confront her like Tanner and Chloe were.”
“Do you want to go over her background report now that we’ve set the stage?” he asked.
“Let’s try that approach.”
They pulled the report on Nell up on their respective phones. It covered what they already knew about the woman. That her background was in accounting, that she’d been with Essy for ten years and that she’d been married to Katharine Miles until her recent death. It also said she’d grown up in the area, gave her age as thirty-seven, and said she had one sister who lived in Hastings, Minnesota, and a brother who lived in Chicago. What was a bit of a shock was that her minor in college was chemistry. She might know something about arsenic.
Marla finished reading. “We got most of what we needed to know about her from her directly,” she said, “other than her personal background and financial situation.”
“And don’t forget the minor in chemistry,” Rex added.
“There was that. She’s got enough of a nest egg that she’ll be able to survive without having to get a new job for a while, so payback for the loss of her job wouldn’t have been a strong motive, except for her emotional state. Couple that with her knowledge of chemistry, which could include poisons, and she’s right back at the top of our list.”
“That was my take as well,” Rex said. “Although it’s been well over a decade since she finished college. Even if she did learn about poisons then, she could’ve forgotten all that unless she’s taken a course or done some research recently.”
“Can Goodhue or his sources get hold of her recent Internet searches or checkouts from the library?”
“I get what you’re thinking and yes, it’s possible, although he’d probably have to get a warrant to check out either. Most likely he’d want to be assured we’re closer to naming her Suspect Number One before taking that step.”
“Okay, I get it. Maybe we’ll be closer to that point once we’ve gone through the rest of these reports,” she said. “Let’s move on to Grace. Like Nell, she was also harmed by Eloise Wallace.”
“Harmed is a mild way of describing being knifed in the back by someone she brought on board to help her.”
His statement caught her off guard. Her mind returned to her own situation in LA.
“Marla? You look miles away. What are you thinking about?”
“You said ‘knifed in the back,’ and that took me back to being replaced on Carruthers. The network, ever conscious of the changing demographics of our audience, pushed our showrunner to bring in younger talent. Personally, I think he could’ve stood his ground with them and resisted their so-called ultimatum, but he’s ambitious and wants to climb even higher in the Hollywood hierarchy, so he caved. He didn’t exactly knife me in the back, but it felt like that at the time. I wasn’t expecting it.”
“Do you think Grace was on to Eloise’s plans to take over Essy?” Rex asked, returning to the subject at hand. “Or do you think she actually was knifed in the back?”
“She told us she couldn’t believe she hadn’t seen it coming.”
“But she also said Eloise was a force like she’d never known. To me, that says the victim was a master of pulling the wool over Grace’s eyes.”
“One can feel mighty foolish when they remove the wool. Enough to want revenge?” she asked.
“Have you ever felt like that given what happened to you?”
Interesting question. Until she’d put her life as an actress on hold and come to Minnesota, did she ever want to retaliate against the powers that be?
“Marla? Did I go too far bringing up your situation? I thought we’d gotten to a point where it was safe for me to mention your former life.”
“You’re fine, Rex. I only paused because I was trying to think back to my feelings since it all happened. Truthfully, yes, there’ve been times when I wanted retribution against those who dismissed me or didn’t fight for me or support me. But I never followed through. And the thought of killing anyone never occurred to me.”
He reached across the table where they sat and took her hand. “Thanks. Good to know I haven’t read our relationship wrong.”
“I’ve told you things I haven’t shared with anyone else. Even Kitty. You seemed to know I couldn’t bottle up my feelings forever. I needed to vent.”
“Thanks. Good to know I didn’t misjudge things.”
Regretfully, she released his hand. She wasn’t ready to think about what might be happening between them. Not yet. “But we’ve only started to explore my feelings. And to go further would mean you sharing more of yourself, too. I don’t think you’re ready for that. Or ever will be,” she told him.
Even though he was no longer holding her hand, he didn’t back away. “You’re a wise woman, Marla Dane. I’m not ready.” He paused as if debating whether to say more. “But never say never.”