Alex Harris 00 - Armed

front of Richard Sheridan’s office. I had him at the top of my suspect list but still didn’t have a motive.
    “Mr. Sheridan, can I interrupt you for a moment?” I said peeking around the door.
    “Ms.?”
    “Harris. Alex Harris.”
    “Yeah, right, look I thought we did this yesterday.” He picked up some papers on his desk and began to read.
    “Yes, we did. I thought we might be able to do it again and this time you can tell the truth.”
    Richard Sheridan slowly put the papers back on his desk and stared at me, his beady little eyes closing slightly until they were reduced to reptilian slits. “I don’t think I like your tone. I indulged you yesterday, but I don’t think William meant we had to put up with you on a daily basis.”
    “And I don’t like dealing with liars. Let me make a few things clear.” I leaned forward on the desk to the point he pushed away slightly. “If that’s the way you want it, fine. Perhaps Mr. Poupée and Detective Van der Burg would like to know that you lied about your whereabouts on Tuesday night.”
    “What do you mean? How dare you accuse me of lying?” Richard shouted, as I turned my back to him and headed for the door. “I don’t know who you think you are, but friend or not, I’m going to have a word with William.” Richard reached for the phone.
    “Don’t bother, he’s not in. But you can probably get hold of Detective Van der Burg. Shall I get his number for you?”
    I assessed Richard Sheridan with a critical eye. His eyes were definitely his most unattractive feature but the balding spot with the long piece of hair vainly trying to cover it ran a close second.
    He took a deep breath before sitting again. “Okay, maybe I overreacted. Would you like to tell me what this is all about?”
    “You told me you went shopping on Tuesday night. I say you came to the office.”
    “What gives you that idea?”
    I didn’t want to involve Kelly Sheridan, but didn’t see a way of avoiding it. “Your wife.”
    “How dare you question my wife!”
    “I didn’t. She came to see me yesterday afternoon. Your daughter is looking for summer work so your wife brought her into my agency.”
    Richard’s face reddened. “And you pumped her for information. Do the police know William is having you play amateur detective? I should report you for interfering in an investigation! ”
    “Go right ahead,” I retorted. “I’m sure the police would be more interested in knowing your whereabouts the time of the murder.”
    Richard frantically waved his arms around. “I wasn’t in the office! I went shopping like I said. If you were going out to buy something for your spouse, would you tell her?”
    “Probably not.” I had to admit it did make sense.
    “Exactly.”
    I ran out of steam. He was still lying but I didn’t know why. I excused myself and vowed to let Detective Van der Burg deal with it.
    Before heading back to Mrs. Scott’s office, I walked further down the hall to Emmanuelle’s. Finding her door open, I walked in and got straight to the point. “I saw you take your file out of Mrs. Scott’s desk. Why did she have it?”
    “Excuse me. You can’t just barge in here.”
    “You’re right. I’m being rude, but I still want to know why you took the file out of my desk drawer and why Mrs. Scott had it in the first place.” I closed the door and took a seat.
    Emmanuelle heaved a sigh and sat too. “I don’t know why she had it.”
    “Then why did you look in her file?”
    “I didn’t,” Emmanuelle answered after a few second’s hesitation.
    “Well, clearly you did. I saw you take it.”
    “Oh, yes, now I remember,” Emmanuelle said with a slight laugh. “I asked Joanne for it one day last week and when she checked she couldn’t find it.”
    I just stared at her while she visibly gulped. Today she wore a gray skirt and sweater accessorized with some chunky silver jewelry. Once again her appearance looked flawless. She had her beautiful hair pulled back into a severe knot and I wondered if she tried to lend an air of professionalism or if it was just easier to pull it back. Not possessing enough hair to accommodate a bobby pin, I gave a lot of though to other people’s hairstyles.
    “So what made you think Mrs. Scott had it?” I asked getting back to my questions.
    “I didn’t.”
    “Obviously you did, because as soon as you had the chance you went and got it out of her desk. Or did you just start looking in everyone’s desk and