I hadn't realized that Sunny and Stefan had returned to the boardroom while I'd had my back to the doors, but Sunny was kneeling beside the unconscious Carl before I recovered enough from my surprise to be able to move. She sent Stefan off to see if anyone had a hard candy in her purse and snapped at Faria to call 9-1-1 for an ambulance, with instructions to tell the dispatcher that the victim appeared to be having some kind of diabetic event.
She had the situation under control, so I stayed out of the way, returning to the desk to stand beside Trudy. I'd been on the receiving end of well-intentioned but clueless attention after a few of my syncope events, so I knew better than to try to help.
One good thing came out of Carl's passing out: Richie Faria was too busy dealing with the crisis to interrogate Trudy. On the other hand, Trudy was so pale, I thought she might be the next one to pass out.
"Is he going to be okay?" Trudy asked me. "He was so kind to me."
"Help is on the way, and until then, Sunny is a nurse, so she knows what to do." Even as I spoke, the paramedics came trotting through the door. I went around the desk to where Faria had left his notepad, and sat across from Trudy. The dog had dropped the blue nylon tube and was hunkered down next to his master's head, but I thought he seemed less frantic than before. "Drag your chair over here with me, and you can keep an eye on things without being in the way."
Trudy plopped down next to me, and we watched as Carl regained consciousness and the paramedics wrapped a blood pressure cuff on his arm and asked him a bunch of questions. His responses were groggy but coherent. I recognized from my own experiences the moment when he became fully aware that he was the center of all sorts of unwanted attention. He struggled to sit up, while the paramedics insisted that he remain lying still until they'd finished their tests. I recognized that little pas de deux too. The lawyer in me understood that the paramedics needed to be sure there wouldn't be a relapse, but the patient in me cringed at the self-conscious helplessness Carl had to feel. It had to be even worse for him than for me, because of his masculine ego and a lifetime of relying on his physical strength. I wasn't a weakling, but my self-image had always been more connected to the strength of my brain than to the strength of my body.
Carl insisted he was fine and claimed that Rusty's having dropped the bringsel—so that was what that blue nylon tube hanging from the dog's collar was called—indicated that there was nothing seriously wrong with him now. He'd just become dehydrated, or possibly his blood sugar had dropped too far, and the candy that Sunny had given him had taken care of the problem.
"Better safe than sorry," the overly perky blonde paramedic, who looked to be about twelve years old, said. That sort of cheerful but implacable insistence might have worked on some patients, but I had a feeling that Carl saw her as I would have: an annoying housefly buzzing around his head. Only his lifelong commitment to law and order was keeping him from swatting her away.
Trudy stood. "It's all right, Carl. You should go get checked out. I'll be fine without you here. I'll be strong for you."
Trudy still looked pale, and I thought worrying about Carl was upsetting her more than the possibility of being interrogated by the police. Apparently Carl thought so too, because he nodded begrudgingly. "All right. But only if Rusty here can ride in the ambulance with me."
* * *
I still needed to talk to Detective Ohlsen, but I couldn't leave to find him until I was confident Faria wouldn't traumatize Trudy. The last thing we needed right now was another person passing out.
I decided to stick around and keep an eye on Trudy until Faria was done with her. I gave up my seat behind the desk to take Carl's spot leaning against the wall at the front of the line, where I could listen to the interrogation. Trudy took her chair back to the other side just in time for Faria to return and resume his duties. Carl's incident appeared to have dimmed Faria's enthusiasm for his work though, since he limited his questions to the basic ones he'd been assigned to do, instead of trying to do real detective work. I couldn't be sure whether it was just because he assumed Trudy was an airhead, or if he had truly reformed. I still needed to have a chat with Ohlsen about reining Faria in.
Once Faria let Trudy leave the hot seat, I turned to observe the rest of the room. The mood was even more somber now than it had been immediately after Alan's death. Gil was holding nervous hands, patting shoulders, and occasionally providing the vocals for the music in the background. I wasn't sure when she'd left to take care of it, but at some point, she'd replaced this morning's upbeat music with more somber instrumental music, like the classic orchestral version of "Silent Night," which was playing now.
Gil must have felt me looking at her. She gestured for me to follow her over to the door, where we could talk somewhat privately.
That was where I was headed anyway, since I was hoping I could catch sight of Fred from there. I crossed the room and managed a quick peek out into the deserted hallway before Gil bent down to whisper, "I'm so sorry you got dragged into this. But I'm also glad you're here. I can count on you to help me keep everyone from panicking."
"It's probably too late for that." I glanced at where Trudy was huddled behind the sewing machine Carl had been using earlier. She was patting the top of the sewing machine, as if reassuring it that Carl would return to operate it again.
The anxious edge to Gil's voice reclaimed my full attention. "They're all looking to me for answers, and I don't know what to tell them. My business school instructors didn't teach us anything about police investigations. The legal classes I took were all focused on things like contracts and intellectual property, not murder."
I wished I could offer some reassurance, but I was outside my comfort zone too. "The only thing I know about dealing with detectives is that if you're going to talk to them, it's best to tell the truth, and if you can't do that without incriminating yourself, you should refuse to say anything at all until your lawyer is seated next to you. I imagine everyone knows that much these days, just from watching television."
"I wonder if I should get a lawyer before I talk to the detective," Gil said.
"I'd never tell anyone not to get a lawyer, but I can't see why anyone would think you might have killed Alan."
"I'm not worried about that." Gil pulled me just outside the room into the hallway, where we were less likely to be overheard. "For at least half an hour before Sunny screamed, I was down in the museum's lobby, dealing with a visitor who had some questions the staff couldn't answer. One of the museum's security guards was with me the whole time, and the interior cameras are working, so it will be easy to prove that I wasn't anywhere near the parking lot at the time of the murder."
"Then why are you worried?"
"This is privileged, right?" She peered back into the boardroom until she was apparently reassured that no one was within earshot and then turned to me again. "I'm saying this to you as a lawyer."
"Of course." I was still licensed, even if I didn't have an active practice. And I wanted to know what Gil was so worried about. "Is it about the cameras? Are you thinking about the museum's potential civil liability for not having the cameras working out back?"
"Exactly," Gil said. "The detectives have probably already gone to the control room and found that the exterior cameras aren't working, but I'd rather not discuss it with them until I've gotten legal advice."
"That's understandable. Detective Ohlsen knows better than to keep asking questions after someone's requested legal representation, and I'm pretty sure Faria doesn't have the authority to collect anything except names and addresses, so you can be even more emphatic with him."
"I just hope it will turn out that the murder didn't have anything to do with the museum or the lack of video surveillance. People should feel safe when they come here, and I've been trying to convince the board to take security more seriously."
"I'm not sure what else you can do," I said. "You do have video surveillance usually, there's security staff inside the building, and patrol cops like Fred Fields maintain a solid presence all along Main Street."
"Still, there must be something more we could do. You'd be amazed how much petty crime goes on, even in a little town like this. Not committed by the local residents usually, and not even by most of the visitors, but wherever there are tourists, there are pickpockets and people trying to steal identities. We've had a few visitors report that their wallet was stolen while they were here, but we couldn't find any evidence of it on our cameras. It might have happened before the visitors came in here, and they just didn't realize it until they went to buy something in the museum shop, especially if they'd prepaid their admission tickets online."
That definitely changed the cheerful, positive image I'd had of the holiday-shopping tourists I'd passed on the way to the museum. Now it felt like the dangers that had given rise to the town's name had moved inland. Unwary shoppers could fall victim not to eddies, rocks, and sharks but to pickpockets, thugs, and killers.
Was it possible that criminals were specifically stalking the museum's patrons? The stolen wallets could have been due to criminals lurking outside the building, possibly even in the parking lot. In that case, then maybe the police theory of what had happened today was right. Alan could have bumped into a less-than-savory friend outside, someone other than the person giving him a ride, only to have a falling-out that had ended in murder. That would explain why Alan had been way over in the corner of the parking lot instead of out front on the sidewalk. If he'd been conspiring with a criminal, they wouldn't have wanted to be in plain sight of anyone who might be walking or driving past the museum.
It was just a theory though, and I didn't want to worry Gil any more than necessary. "You can't blame yourself for everything that criminals do. There's no way to prevent crime completely."
"I'm still going to look into increasing our security," Gil said. "Maybe some sort of fail-safe option for situations when the main cameras are out, like now."
I was distracted by footsteps coming up the stairs, and a moment later Fred arrived, shadowed by a young uniformed officer I didn't recognize. Both men were laden down with the black-and-silver take-out bags from the Teriyaki House. The corner of one more bag, this one the distinctive pink and brown of the Cinnamon Sugar Bakery, stuck out from Fred's jacket pocket.
Gil and I scurried back inside the room before Fred could say anything about our being in the hallway. The two men carried the bags over to the conference table, and then the younger officer left without a word. Fred stayed beside the table, wearing the worried expression that I knew was typical of him in the aftermath of a crime he hadn't been able to prevent. I was sure he didn't mean to scare people away from claiming their lunches, but that was the effect he was having.
I told Gil, "Everyone will feel better after they've had something to eat," and I headed over to see if I could get Fred to relax a little.
Gil came with me. "I hope so. Did you know I paid for a good chunk of my education by working in food service? I never thought I'd use those skills again, but at least it will keep me busy while the police do their work."
As soon as we arrived at the table, Fred patted his bulging pocket again and then pulled out my credit card to return it. "I'll be at the door if you need me."
Each of the boxes from the Teriyaki House had a neat label describing its contents, making them easy to identify. I found the ones for myself, Matt, Stefan, and Sunny and then borrowed a pencil from Gil to mark them with our names.
Trudy was the first to join us at the refreshments table. She reached for one of the bags to peer inside, setting her charm bracelet to jangling. "Do you need some help?"
"I never turn away volunteers." Gil placed a stack of the black-and-silver containers in Trudy's startled hands. "You can deliver the lunches. There's a description on each lid. Just call it out and take it to whoever claims it."
The first order turned out to be Jayne's, and I was impressed by the way Trudy straightened her shoulders and trotted over to deliver the food to the woman who'd been so mean to her earlier. Carl would have been proud of her.
I turned to Gil. "Where did you learn to manage people by keeping them busy? In business school or in food service?"
"Neither one," Gil said. "I'm the oldest of six kids, and that automatically made me the designated babysitter. I quickly figured out that as long as my siblings were busy, they didn't have time to get into trouble. It works with employees, volunteers, and board members too."
"I wish it worked on cops," I said. "I need to have a chat with Detective Ohlsen."