Chapter 5 #3
“Nope. I sure couldn’t,” she confirmed, and then she gave him an evil grin. “However, anytime you want me to try it out, I could.”
“No, no, no, no,” he muttered, followed by a snort. “I’m already sure you could do the evil witch of the west just fine.”
“I think I do that fine right now,” she stated. “I don’t even have to practice.”
He burst out laughing. “You could be right.”
Joking back and forth, amiable once again, they continued the drive, pulling up to the address.
“Huh. This company’s name is nebulous as to what it actually does.
Didn’t Esther say Kurt was an insurance adjuster?
” She checked the online file. She froze when she realized John was one too, now sharing that with Rodney.
Rodney frowned. “That is a coincidence.”
“One too many,” she replied.
“You really think so?”
“Both in the same field, both with red ribbons tied around them, both with a Believe note left behind, both of them playboys?”
“I thought John’s ribbon was tied around a particular part of his anatomy.”
“Yes,” she agreed, “but I’m not sure that Kurt’s ribbon wasn’t some awkward attempt at that too.” He glanced at her, frowning. She shrugged. “I’m holding back on any and all judgments for the moment.”
He snorted. “Why? You’re usually so good at making snap judgments. We don’t want you to be wrong even once. That would be terrible.”
“Jesus, Rodney, you’re really sounding like a walking pity party.”
“Not trying to,” he grumbled. “Sometimes it feels that way.”
“Not because of me,” she declared. “That’s all on you.
” He glanced at her again. She shrugged.
“I’m not doing anything to make you feel that way.
So, if that’s how you feel, it’s coming from your own perspective of what’s happening.
I am not here to make you feel bad,” she repeated.
“And I’m not here to make you look as if you’re not doing anything.
We’re a team. If one of us succeeds, we all succeed.
And anytime you want to take over these cases and make a proud showing of how you can handle it all without anybody’s help, please do. ”
“God no, that’s not what I meant.” Then he groaned and added, “But you’re right. I mean, if one of us succeeds, we all succeed. So, I don’t know why … I’m just having a shitty day.”
“It doesn’t help that our original team of five is now down to just the two of us.
At least that’s temporary until Lilliana gets well.
Plus the damn budget cuts are affecting our work and the forensics guys and maybe even Smidge.
Plus everybody looks at me to get Simon on board, since we can’t possibly solve a case on our own. ”
“Can we?” He started to laugh and then added, “I can see how that would bite too.”
“It does bite,” she declared, “because, in the end, good detective work solves our cases.”
“I will admit that occasionally it’s really helpful to have Simon provide some information, but to not have his involvement sometimes would also be very helpful.” Still grinning, he parked at the office building where Kurt had worked.
As they entered the main lobby, they were passed by several people talking in loud voices. As they walked into the main office, the loud voices continued. She looked over at the receptionist, who was trying to muster up a smile of welcome.
Kate held out her badge, and immediately the receptionist froze and started bawling. Surprised at that reaction, and wondering what was behind it, Kate looked around to see what was going on.
Another gentleman walked over quickly. He excused the woman from the front desk, and she got up and hurried away. He stood here with a sad smile on his face, looked over at her, and introduced himself. “I’m Barry Quinn, the manager. Can we help you?”
When she held out her badge, he nodded. “Ah, I guess we should have expected you sooner or later.”
Surprised, she asked, “Do you want to clarify that?”
“I mean, he died this morning. So, of course you’re here.” He groaned. “We haven’t even had a chance to figure out what happened and whether it’ll affect any of us or not, other than emotionally.” He took a deep breath. “It’s just so sad.”
“Okay,” Kate began. “Maybe you could start at the beginning. Tell us who died, what you know about it, when it happened, what his position was here, how well he was known and loved, et cetera.”
He frowned at her. “I’m sure you’ve already got it in the files.” Then he corrected himself, “Maybe you haven’t got the files yet. Robert Blake was found dead …”
“This morning?” she asked, an edge in her tone.
“Yes, in his bed. He’d been working for the company for a good ten years.
He was well-loved, especially by many of the women, less so by many of the men.
He was a bit of a womanizer, if you ask me.
God help us. Even still, he is somebody who will be very much missed,” he shared.
“I don’t know what else to tell you. The detective that I saw at his apartment seemed to be of the opinion that it might’ve been some sort of, …
BDSM gone wrong, but what do I know? It just didn’t seem right to me. ”
“And why do you think that?”
He stared at her, then shrugged. “Because he was covered in festive Christmas paraphernalia,” he said, lowering his voice. “You know, wreaths and ribbons and things.”
She studied him, her Spidey senses on full alert. “I see,” she replied. “Do you have the name of the detective you saw this morning?”
“He gave me a card,” he muttered, rubbing his forehead, “but, honest to God, I don’t know where it is.”
“And how did you come to be at Robert’s apartment?”
He flushed and shared, “We live in the same complex.” He gave her his address and his contact number.
“Was he particularly close to any of the women here at work?”
He grimaced and nodded. “Yeah, a couple of them. He broke that rule about, you know, don’t fish in your own pond. So, a bunch of women will be quite upset, and some aren’t really aware that others will be very upset too.”
“Right,” Kate noted. “So, in other words, he played the field a lot.”
He nodded. “Yes, he did. And sometimes it was fine. But then other times, well, not everybody plays the game the same way. Take, for example, Lanny here, our receptionist, she was pretty sweet on him, but she’s the girl you take home to your mother.
She’s not somebody you play around with for a few weeks then drop because you found something that tastes better.
” He added, his tone apologetic, “I don’t mean to be crude, but you get my meaning. ”
“I got your meaning just fine,” Kate said. “And I gathered this Robert Blake was exactly that way.”
“He was. And, for that reason, the whole playboy thing earned him warnings about office romances. He would stop for a time. Then staff would change—where we hired somebody new, young, friendly, beautiful—and we had the same issues all over again. It got to be old. The hiring managers got pretty crafty in the sense that they knew to hire people who were not his … type, so to speak.”
“The trouble is, his type was anything younger than what … forty?” she asked sarcastically.
“Pretty much any woman who looked decent,” Barry clarified, with a groan. “It was just a headache. I’m so sorry about what happened to him, but, from my perspective, it saves me from having to fire him.”
“And were you that close to firing him?”
“Yeah, I was getting there,” he confirmed, his voice lowered. “We had another incident with a staff member. And, you know, when things go from bad to worse, the staff are the ones who get caught up in it. It was time to put a stop to it.”
“Of course,” Kate agreed. “I’m sorry for your loss, since obviously, despite his faults, he was a friend.”
“He was a friend, but he couldn’t keep his damn pants zipped,” he said, frowning. “Yet I loved him like a brother.”
“What will you do now?”
“I figured when the first detective mentioned a sex game gone wrong or something, I just assumed—maybe incorrectly—that a jealous boyfriend did this, or they just made it look that way.”
“Jealous boyfriend?” Rodney asked.
“Robert had more than a few. A couple of them came to the office when they were highly pissed off and upset because their girlfriends had broken up with them or when the boyfriends had caught their girlfriends cheating. Robert also left some women in less-than-delightful circumstances, shall we say.”
“Do you know if he has any children?”
Barry snorted. “I don’t know how he couldn’t at the rate he was playing the field, even if he was being careful,” he replied. “But then again, I seem to recall mention of … I think he told me something about a vasectomy, just for that reason alone. He didn’t want to get caught, as he put it.”
The manager frowned. “I remember a discussion with a group of us at dinner one night. He shared that, if he ever needed to, he could reverse it. Some people were telling him that it had to happen within a certain time frame, and he just didn’t care.
As far as he was concerned, it was worth the price to confirm he didn’t … get caught.”
“Understood.” Kate turned to Rodney.
Rodney began with his questions, “Do you know anything about his family? Where they live? I need his address. Was he currently having an ongoing relationship with anybody here?”
“It’s been hard to keep up,” the manager grumbled, clearly uncomfortable.
Rodney asked, “Do you know if he was currently dating anyone?”
“The cops got his phone, and it was connected to a lot of apps,” he shared, with a wince, “so anybody he was seeing, they would probably be listed in his Contacts or within those dating apps.”
“So, you don’t think Robert was dating at all?”
He shook his head. “I don’t want to say that, but my assumption would be that it would not be a date. It would be more of a hookup. He was handling things at that level these days.”