Alex Harris 00 - Armed

nice looking, intelligent, and a good person just not the person for me.
    After we placed our orders, I jumped right in lest Peter get any romantic ideas. “I told you over the phone I found Mrs. Scott’s body. Now Mr. Poupée wants me to poke around and see if something at the factory led to her murder.”
    Peter put a finger in his ear and twisted it around—an annoying habit that drove me crazy on more than one occasion. What was he looking for in there? I probably didn’t want to know. After he had sufficiently explored the orifice, he said, “I can’t imagine what you think I would know. I think he’s got a lot of nerve asking you to put yourself in the middle of it.”
    “Well, I am, so that’s that,” I said, wishing I had just asked the questions over the phone. “So tell me everything you can remember about the job, the people you worked with.”
    The waitress arrived with steaming plates—chicken enchiladas for Peter and cheese and onion ones for me.
    “I set up their program for tracking clients and the various orders each one made. They wanted to go back and enter as much data as they could for the last twenty years but when I told them how long it would take to get all the data entered they settled for going back five. They had a lot of paper, let me tell you.” Peter blew on a forkful of rice.
    “Right. I supplied several temps to input all the data but I wanted to know if you had a chance to talk with anyone. Really get to know them.”
    Peter picked up another chip and dipped it in some salsa chewing noisily before answering. “One of their new employees, Monica Ballister, was a great help. Seemed like a nice girl. She told me she lived in Redding.” Peter proceeded to cut his enchilada into bite-sized pieces exactly the same size. “Weren’t you thinking of setting up your offices there at the beginning?”
    “Redding. Yes, that’s right but we found the place we’re in now, and it’s so convenient we stayed here.” I wondered if anything else had gone on between Monica and Peter besides data entry—and realized with surprise I really didn’t care.
    Peter continued. “Getting back to Poupée, Monica entered a lot of the data herself. She worked on the order desk. She’s very bright and a natural with the database.”
    “You don’t recall meeting someone named Emmanuelle or Jerry do you?”
    “Emmanuelle, no. But Jerry is the factory foreman, I think. Is that who you mean?”
    “Yes. Someone mentioned neither of them liked Mrs. Scott. Did you ever notice anything like that?”
    “Not that I recall. Another guy there, Richard Sheridan, seemed sneaky. But that had nothing to do with Mrs. Scott. I never noticed any interaction between them at all.” Peter shrugged. “Anyway, we got the job done.”

    *****

    “Jeez. You take off for the police station I never hear from you again. It’s after nine-thirty. Where’ve you been?” my very agitated sister asked.
    I opened the door to my house and pushed the button to close the garage door.
    “I tried calling a few times,” Sam continued, “and when I didn’t get an answer I started to worry.”
    I looked at her and smiled. “You said that. As you can see, I’m fine.”
    “So where were you? At Poupée’s this whole time?”
    I took off my coat and walked into the kitchen. I put a doggy bag on the counter and filled the teakettle with water.
    “Los Tres Amigos?” Sam said incredulously looking at the bag. “I’m thinking all sorts of terrible things and you’re out eating dinner at Los Tres Amigos.” She shook her head and then peeked into the bag.
    “I had dinner with Peter.”
    Sam stopped and stared at me. “You did?”
    “Don’t give me that look. I needed to pick his brain about that job he did for Poupée a few months back.” I reached up into the cupboard and pulled out two mugs with a Christmas design. “Decaf or regular?”
    Sam sighed. “Oh, hell, give me the regular stuff. Can’t sleep over at my house with all the smoke smell anyway.”
    I smiled. “Do I want to hear this?”
    Sam waved her hand. “The kids and Michael thought they’d like to make a charcoal cake for dessert.”
    “A charcoal cake?” I grimaced.
    Sam leaned against the counter. “Yeah. It started out as chocolate cake, but things went one-hundred percent awry, to quote my son.” Samantha’s six-year old son, my nephew Henry, liked talking in percentages.
    The kettle whistled and I poured water into the two