Alex Harris 00 - Armed

volunteered.
    “Fingerprints?” I froze as a chill began to spread over my body. “Your fingerprints were found on the murder weapon?” I pushed the chair a few feet back from Monica while I quickly looked around to see if she had another mannequin arm hidden somewhere.
    Monica stared at me. “No. Of course not. They found my prints on some papers Elvira had.”
    I gave an audible sigh. “That must be the computer printout. But no. I want to know why you lied to me.”
    Monica’s face flushed and she turned back to her terminal “What are you talking about?” Her fingers pounded the keys while white data flashed across the blue screen.
    “You told me you didn’t know Mrs. Scott well, but you had coffee with her several times at the restaurant down the road. And now your prints show up on something she had in her purse.” I waited for Monica to answer but she didn’t say anything. “Well?”
    Monica stopped typing. “She wanted me to print some stuff. Those papers. So she asked me to meet her at the coffee shop after work.”
    “Why couldn’t she ask you here?”
    Monica shrugged and pushed an errant piece of hair out of her face. “I don’t know. She called one afternoon and said she had something to discuss in private.”
    “When was this?”
    “About six, seven weeks ago.”
    “Didn’t you think it a bit odd?”
    “Yeah. I did, but I thought maybe it might have to do with a performance review or something.”
    “Surely Sandy would have been in on something like that.”
    “Probably, but Elvira said she wanted to see me so I went.”
    “And?”
    Monica sounded exasperated. “We met in the restaurant and she started asking me about the new system and what it can do and what kind of reports it can produce. She asked if I could print out certain data for the past two years but not to let anyone else know.” Monica again pushed a strand of the copper hair over her ear and scratched the tip of her nose. “So I printed what she wanted and a few days later we met and I gave it to her.”
    “You didn’t ask any questions?”
    Monica shook her head. “No. Look, she asked. She never said what she needed it for. Maybe Mr. Poupée wanted it.”
    “Did you tell anyone else? Did you mention it to Sandy?”
    “No. She said not to so I didn’t.”
    “Why did you lie?”
    I had no authority whatsoever and Monica had no reason to tell me anything she didn’t want to tell me, especially when I barged in accusing her of being a liar. But then the young woman shrugged, the shoulders of her baggy sweater drooping down her arms.
    “I don’t know. I didn’t want to get involved. It happened over a month ago. I never put the two things together—Elvira’s murder and the printout. Now the police are asking about it” Monica leaned forward in her seat and looked me straight in the eye. “They found it in her purse, which I guess is kind of strange, don’t you think?”
    “Yes, I guess. Of course, it’s odd how she asked you to print them up in the first place.” I shook my head and leaned back in my seat.
    “They were just figures. Maybe Elvira did a lot of work at home,” Monica speculated.
    “I think Mrs. Scott planned on getting some training on the new system. Do you think she wanted to check it out so she’d have a feel for it when her training started?”
    Monica scrunched up her face. “Makes sense. She always struck me as someone on top of things.”
    I thought a second and shook my head. “Probably not. It’s all too clandestine if she just wanted to check things out. She’d have no reason to be so secretive. So why ask for a printout of a specific time frame? No, she wanted something specific.” I groaned. “Unfortunately I have no idea as to what it could have been.”
    Things were getting complicated. Instead of solving anything, I managed to add a few more questions to my list. And from what Monica told me, despite the fact Mrs. Scott may have been sick, it still seemed something at work caused her trouble. I headed back to my temporary office. I needed to pull out my notebook and take a serious look at all the stuff I had found out so far and put it into some sort of order.
    “Well, if it isn’t Nancy Drew. Ron, have you met our company spy?” Mitch Monahan said as I approached the office.
    “I’m not a spy.” Somehow I managed to keep the annoyance out of my voice—but just barely.
    “Ron’s the other designer,” Mitch explained.
    I extended my hand to Ron.