Alex Harris 00 - Armed

manager at Poupée Mannequins.
    “Sandy, hi. Merry Christmas. I just saw this lovely red sweater in the window. If I can find it in the right size I think I’ll get it for my mother. She looks so nice in red.”
    “I’m so sorry, Alex, you had to be the one to find Elvira. What a horrid ordeal. It seems no place is safe anymore. I can’t believe there’s been a murder in our little town. Who could be next?” Sandy gave a small shudder. “I heard you were in the office today.”
    The two women at the counter now had their attention directed toward us. I turned away slightly and lowered my voice, sorry to deprive the women of gossip, but I didn’t want to betray Mr. Poupée or the factory in any way.
    “Mr. Poupée thought I might be of some help,” I shrugged, “but I don’t know.”
    Sandy put her hand on my arm. “You have a great way with people. Maybe you can find out something.”
    “What’s to find out?” I hinted, hoping Sandy might expound on what I began to fear—that Mrs. Scott had her enemies.
    “It could have been random violence. It seems to be happening everywhere. I’m not going out at night alone until this is over,” Sandy commented in a voice perfectly audible to prying ears at the counter. “As a matter of fact, my husband’s outside in the car waiting for me.”
    The two women at the counter nodded their agreement to everything Sandy said.
    I turned away from the counter, pulled three sweaters off the shelf, and checked the sizes. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe it had nothing to do with Mrs. Scott. It does seem like everyone liked her a lot,” I openly prodded.
    “Yes, but not by everyone.” Sandy noticed the women for the first time and took my arm and moved a bit further away from the counter. “Oh, some of the clerical staff liked her but she stepped on a lot of toes and could be a bit of a backstabber. Never to me,” Sandy added quickly, “but there are people who did not like her and truth be told they probably had good reason. Some, you might say, detested her.”
    I gave Sandy my best shocked look while the elderly woman, annoyed at not getting any more gossip, paid for her purchase and left.
    “There are some, like Emmanuelle, who really didn’t like her. I overheard them yelling the other day. Well, Emmanuelle did all the yelling,” Sandy said.
    “Really?”
    Sandy shook her full head of thick, red hair, a strand of it falling in her face. “Sorry, I didn’t hear much. Just Emmanuelle saying, ‘you better not.’ One of the designers didn’t care for her much—Mrs. Scott, not Emmanuelle. And Jerry Gagliano, the factory foreman, never said a kind word about her.”
    “Jerry Gagliano. I met him today.”
    “She could be a little high and mighty. After all, she did have the ear of Mr. Poupée. There are a lot of people who think they should share that privilege. You know how people can be.” Sandy folded a pair of wool slacks and put them back on the shelf. “This is a mannequin factory, for Christ sake, not NASA, but power is power no matter what shape or size it comes in.”
    Just then a car horn sounded.
    “My husband’s the impatient type. Gotta go. Have a Merry Christmas, Alex, if I don’t see you.”
    “Oh, you will,” I raised my voice as Sandy ran out the door. “I’ll be there tomorrow and I’d like to continue our discussion.”
    But Sandy had left. Another person I would have to seek out. My list of people to interrogate grew with every conversation. Was it also a list of suspects? Surprisingly, I wanted to find out—and not just to clear myself of an impending murder charge. Maybe I needed this to pull me out of my stupor: a nice little murder. I instantly felt guilty, years of being raised a Catholic ingrained in my being.
    I paid for the sweater after adding a lovely scarf to the purchase, and headed for my car. Floodlights illuminated the pond for night skating. All the skaters had left except for one hearty soul twirling and jumping in the cold night air.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

    “So how have you been?” I asked brightly, thinking calling Peter on impulse and asking him out to dinner had been a big mistake. Despite having dated for almost two years I felt very uncomfortable in his presence but wanted to ask him about a job he had done for Poupée Mannequins.
    We sat at a table at Los Tres Amigos, a Mexican restaurant that had opened about a year earlier. I took a sip of my margarita and eyed him over the rim of the glass. He was