‘That’s impossible!’ Clive flew to his feet. His raspberry napkin fluttered in the air like a young purple finch on its maiden voyage and his largely untouched plate shot my way like an out-of-control flying saucer.
I put out a hand to prevent all that alien-looking gomen besiga from ending up in my lap. ‘Whoa!’ I cried. ‘Are you sure, Detective? I mean, if Clive says the elevator was broken …’
Clive nodded rapidly. ‘There’s a sign and everything.’
Highsmith scooted back his chair. ‘You want to show me?’
‘Of course, Detective.’ Clive squeezed past Detective Highsmith and started for the exit. I swallowed the rest of my tea, wiped my lips and hurried after them. ‘Hey,’ I shouted as they walked quickly past the hostess station, ‘what about the bill?’
Clive turned and waved as he yelled over his shoulder, ‘Thanks, Maggie!’
My jaw sagged. I blinked.
The hostess held out her palm and I handed over my plastic. At least Detective Highsmith hadn’t ordered anything. He looked like he could shovel it away pretty good. What with all those muscles, he probably required a lot of protein. And protein’s expensive.
The hostess called to the waiter who stuck the bill under my nose. I nodded then waited impatiently for the hostess to run my credit card.
I caught up with Clive and the detective at the delivery slash employee entrance. The two men were standing inside the small vestibule just outside the freight elevator doors. The doors were open and Detective Highsmith was playing with the buttons.
‘I don’t understand,’ Clive said, turning to me. ‘I promise,’ he held up his right hand like he was going to say a pledge, ‘the elevator was broken when we arrived.’ He pointed as the stainless-steel doors closed together with a soft rumble. ‘There was a sign and everything,’ he said for the umpteenth time.
There was no sign now. I scratched my chin. ‘Could the sign have fallen?’
‘We looked inside the elevator. There’s nothing on the floor.’ That was the detective.
I peered at the crack between the floor and the elevator. ‘Down the shaft?’ It was a microscopic slit, barely a millimeter or two, but still …
Highsmith’s lips quirked up. ‘It seems pretty unlikely but we’ll put in a call to maintenance and have the shaft checked out.’
‘Maybe someone removed the sign?’ Clive suggested. The elevator doors slid shut once again. Clive tapped the steel door. ‘I’m telling you. It was taped right here.’
‘Did you try pushing the button?’ Highsmith asked, pointing to the elevator control panel.
‘No. I mean, why would I?’ Clive snapped. ‘I simply assumed it was out of order and went around to the stairs.’
‘Where you proceeded to climb four flights of steps without managing to see Lisa Willoughby lying at the bottom of the stairwell?’ Highsmith sounded a wee bit skeptical.
‘I’m telling you, Detective, she simply wasn’t there. Not until I came back down. I saw cake all over the steps and Lisa at the bottom of them.’
‘So, I’ll ask you again: how did your swatch of dress fabric end up underneath the victim’s body?’
Clive opened his mouth. ‘I don’t know. Maybe I—’
I cut my friend off. ‘Wait a minute,’ I said to the detective, ‘why are you calling her a victim all of a sudden? So far, all we know for sure is that Lisa Willoughby is dead. The only thing she may be a victim of is clumsiness.’
Officer Singh stuck his head in the door. ‘Detective, I think you’re going to want to see this.’
‘What is it?’ Highsmith asked.
‘I was upstairs canvassing the tenants to see if anyone saw or heard anything and I noticed something.’
‘Well?’
You really should see it for yourself, sir. Make up your own mind,’ Officer Singh replied rather sheepishly, dropping his gaze to the floor. ‘It may be nothing.’ He looked up at Clive and me. ‘Or it may be something.’
‘OK,’ Highsmith said. ‘Wait.’ He pulled back Officer Singh’s hand as the patrolman went to push the button for the freight elevator. ‘Let’s get this thing dusted for prints. Just in case.’
‘Of course, sir.’ Officer Singh’s cheeks reddened. He called for Officer Collins on his radio and asked her to secure the vestibule.
‘What about us?’ I asked.
‘Come with me,’ ordered Detective Highsmith.
We dutifully followed the detective back around the building to the main entrance. From there we rode the passenger elevator to the top floor. Stepping off, I spotted the sign for Markie’s Masterpieces at the opposite end of the hall. The logo matched the one on the vehicle I’d seen parked out back. The freight elevator was on our left further down.
‘Where to?’ Highsmith said.
‘This way.’ Officer Singh waved us forward.
‘Hang on!’ Clive stopped beside the freight elevator. His index finger lightly touched the steel door.
‘What is it?’ demanded Highsmith.
‘There was a sign here, too.’ He turned to the detective. ‘An out-of-order sign.’ He looked nonplussed. ‘It looked just like the one downstairs.’
‘Well, it’s not here now,’ Detective Highsmith said.
A clatter at the end of the hall caught our collective attention. A stooped Hispanic man in his fifties wearing a navy-blue jumper pushed a mop bucket out of a door marked Restroom.
Highsmith waved him over.
The little man looked back at us curiously. He leaned one hand against his mop and ran his free hand through the other mop of long gray hair on his head.
‘You work here?’ Highsmith asked.
The little man nodded. ‘Yes. I clean.’ I caught a whiff of lemon and ammonia. The white patch over his heart bore the name Aronez in red block letters.
Highsmith pointed to the freight elevator. ‘Was this thing out of order earlier? Broken?’ He mimed snapping something with his hands.
Before Highsmith could stop him, the little man thumbed the controls and the door rattled open. ‘No, is not broken. You see?’ He motioned with his hand that we were free to enter.
Highsmith nodded. ‘Yeah.’ He scratched the underside of his chiseled chin thoughtfully. ‘I see. Thanks. You can go now.’
The little man nodded and proceeded to enter the jeweler’s shop on the right.
I tapped Highsmith on the shoulder. ‘You forgot to ask him to look for the sign in the elevator shaft.’
The corner of the detective’s mouth quirked up. ‘You mean the out-of-order sign that wasn’t there?’
‘We don’t know—’
He held up his hand. ‘For the elevator that was never broken?’
I bit my lip. If Clive said there was a sign, there was a sign. ‘Are you sure you saw an out-of-order sign, Clive?’
‘Maggie!’ Clive scolded me with his eyes.
‘I mean,’ I recovered quickly and turned to Officer Singh, then the detective, ‘why would Clive lie about there being a sign?’ I planted my hands on my hips. ‘Maybe the janitor is lying about there not being a sign.’ I stabbed the air with my chin to put an accent to my point.
Highsmith’s eyes danced with amusement. ‘So now you fry pastry and solve crimes?’
I felt my ears grow hot. ‘We don’t know there’s been a crime, Detective.’
Officer Singh cleared his throat. ‘If I may?’ Detective Highsmith nodded and Officer Singh led our small group to a rather ordinary-looking brown door in the corner. Glancing at it, you’d never know the secret it concealed – a dead woman lying in a pile of cake. A fire-exit sign hung above the door.
The officer slipped a latex glove over his hand and held the door open for the detective.
Highsmith pointed to me and Clive. ‘You two stay here.’ I rolled my eyes. Detective Highsmith crept slowly down the stairs, careful to keep his feet near the inside edge. I guess he didn’t want to destroy any evidence. Of what, I couldn’t say.
He stopped just above the landing between the fourth floor and the third and stooped over. His right hand reached out and he nodded. He turned and looked back up the stairs. ‘Let’s make sure that no one uses these stairs.’ He pulled himself up to his full height. ‘And let’s get the photographer up here, Ravi. I want shots of everything. Top to bottom.’
Clive and I raised our eyebrows at one another. ‘You mind telling us what’s going on?’ I demanded as Detective Highsmith brushed past me.
His jaw tightened. ‘What’s going on is that it looks like Ms Willoughby had some help falling down those stairs.’
Clive gasped.
I frowned. ‘What makes you think that?’
He laid his hand on my shoulder and pointed. ‘Not that it’s any of your business, but do you see those marks near that far step? The one right before the landing?’
I nodded. The wood had been scarred and frosting and cake were scattered everywhere.
He turned to me. ‘If the young lady had slipped, why are all these first steps up here near the top clean?’
‘Because she only slipped when she got to that step?’ I suggested.
Highsmith shook his head. ‘If she’d slipped right there she’d only have ended up on the landing. A matter of inches. She might have dropped the cake she was carrying but she wouldn’t have tumbled down the entire stairwell.’
He mumbled something about momentum and inertia. Was he a detective or a quantum physicist? I was neither, so I had no idea what he was going on about.
‘No,’ Highsmith said, leading me back into the hall, ‘I’d say someone gave her a good solid push.’ His eyes fell on Clive, who had his back pressed against the wall.