Alex Harris 00 - Armed

Scott and I had words,” I said, and hoped I didn’t sound accusatory.
    Ruth’s round face reddened and she looked down. “Well, I didn’t volunteer it. They asked if she’d been arguing with anyone and as I heard her raise her voice to you on the same day of the murder, it stuck in my mind.” Ruth looked up. “Are you in trouble?”
    “No. Probably not,” I lied, wishing the woman had Mr. Poupée’s problem of a hearing loss.
    “Why would anyone hurt Elvira? Everyone loved her.” Ruth sniffled and then added, “Well, most everyone.”
    With that little tidbit lingering in the air, Mr. Poupée returned and walked into his office. Damn.
    Ruth dabbed at her eyes with a tissue she had taken from the pocket of her periwinkle blue blazer and stood up. “Tea, right? I’ll be right back.”
    “Hmmm. Perhaps there just might be some investigating to do after all,” I said softly, a cat-like grin spreading across my face. Then I remembered something Winston had said and repeated the man’s words out loud. “ This is no time for ease and comfort. It is the time to dare and endure .” I would have to seek Ruth out for another chat.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

    “It’s not too bad,” Mr. Poupée said without much conviction. “I’ll have to get someone in here to wash away all this powder. With all the people who come and go, I can’t imagine what the police thought they’d find from fingerprints,” he added looking around the office.
    I offered to find spray cleaner and paper towels in an effort to keep the fingerprint powder from getting all over my new teal sweater. I bought it at Banana Republic a week before with a price tag of seventy-five percent off. I’d hate to see it ruined by fingerprint powder. Then I remembered why fingerprint powder covered everything and felt bad thinking about my sweater at a time like this. Good old Catholic guilt.
    “You’ll find whatever you need across the hall. That’s where we keep coffee, tea, and soft drinks, so help yourself. Elvira left the key in her desk. Top drawer. Right where you would think,” Mr. Poupée said with sadness.
    After I wiped the desk clean we set about sorting out Mrs. Scott’s personal belongings. I handed Mr. Poupée a beautifully framed photo. “Who’s this?”
    “Irwin. A fine fellow. Elvira was very lonely after he died. She had friends…but it’s never the same, is it?”
    I nodded. Not that I knew anything about losing a partner to death. I looked at the picture again. Irwin had a kind, handsome face, with soft, caring eyes.
    “Mr. Poupée, the police showed me some papers earlier. Do you have a copy? I’d like to take another look.”
    “I’m glad you mentioned that. I wanted you to have a look. They’re not the originals, copies Detective Van der Burg left with me,” Mr. Poupée said. “He wanted me to see if I could make heads or tails out of them. Can’t imagine why Elvira had them in her purse.”
    “Isn’t this something she would handle?”
    “Oh no. We have an accounting department. And an order department, so there would be no reason Elvira would have these. Unless a client had a problem and asked to speak with her directly.”
    “Did that happen often?”
    “No. But after twenty years, Elvira knew everyone, and if someone had a specific problem with an order and with several of the staff out sick, well, it’s possible, I suppose. I would guess their presence in her purse might have had something to do with why she wanted to see me last night.” Mr. Poupée shook his head. “Though I can’t imagine why. Let’s have a look.”
    He moved a few things aside and spread out the four sheets. The old man’s hands were nicely kept but they were the hands of someone who got involved, not someone who just sat behind a desk all day. They were used hands and I knew for a fact that even though the Poupée family had money, Mr. Poupée would crawl under the sink to fix a leaky pipe or paint the shutters, or do the gardening. Or wield a mannequin arm over someone’s head. I quickly pushed that thought out of my mind, but I did nudge my chair just a tad bit further away.
    “This first one is a printout of our top twenty clients,” Mr. Poupée pointed to the first column on the sheet, “and this second column indicates the sales for the last two years for each of these clients. This second page shows the figures for the same clients for the same two years, but just for the sale of eyes. The third sheet is the same