the building, tugging off his backpack, out of breath but only one minute late.
“Sorry, Heather,” he pants. “I just got your text. I was in Bio. I’ll take the ten to two shift. Are you really paying ten bucks an hour? Can I have the six to ten shift tonight, too? And the ten to two tomorrow?”
I nod as I rise gracefully from Pete’s chair.
“The six to ten tonight’s already taken,” I say. “But the ten to two tomorrow’s all yours. If of course,” I add, “this whole thing isn’t settled by then.”
“Sweet.” Jeremy slides into the seat I’ve vacated, then barks at a student who’s just entered the building, flashed his ID, then strolled by without waiting to be acknowledged, “Stop! Come back here! Let me see that photo!” The student, rolling his eyes, does what he’s told.
Brian, on the other hand, looks more confused than ever. “Wait,” he says, as I stroll to the reception desk to mark Jeremy’s name onto the schedule I’ve made up. “You’re having students run the security desk?”
“Work-study students, yeah,” I explain. “It only costs the college a few cents for every dollar an hour we pay them. I imagine that’s a fraction of what you’re paying, um, Mr. Rosetti’s firm, and my student workers know the building and the residents. And I have something like ten thousand dollars left in my student worker budget for the year. That’s more than enough to see me through the strike. We’ve been pretty thrifty this year.”
I don’t mention that this is partly due to my tendency to steal paper from other offices.
“I, uh, don’t know about this,” Brian says, whipping a Treo from his suit pocket and banging away at it. “I need to check with my supervisor. None of the other buildings is doing this. It’s really not necessary. The president’s office has already budgeted for Mr. Rosetti’s firm to fill in for the course of the strike.”
Mr. Rosetti spreads his bejeweled—and quite hairy—fingers and says, philosophically, “If the young lady does not need our services, the young lady does not need our services. Perhaps we can be of use elsewhere.”
“You know where I bet you can be of use,” I say to Mr. Rosetti. “Wasser Hall.”
“Excuse me.” A middle-aged woman with a mom haircut has come up to the desk. She is wearing a dark green sweatshirt with a quilted-on picture of two rag dolls, one black, and one white, holding hands, on the front. “Could you tell me—”
“If you want to call up to a resident”—Felicia, the student worker behind the reception desk, doesn’t even look up from the copy of Cosmo she has snagged from someone’s mailbox—“use the phone on the wall. Dial zero for information to find out the number.”
“Wasser Hall,” Mr. Rosetti says. “That sounds good. Hey, kid.” He pokes Brian, who is calling someone on his cell phone. “Whatever your name is. Let’s go over to this Wasser Hall.”
“Just one minute, please,” Brian says, in an agitated manner. “I’d really like to get through to someone about this. Because I really don’t think this is an approved allocation of work-study student funds. Heather, did your boss approve this allocation of work-study student funds?”
“No,” I say.
“I didn’t think so,” Brian says, with a smug look on his face. Evidently having been able to reach no one on his cell phone, he snaps it closed. “Is your boss in? Because I think we’d better speak to him.”
“Well,” I say. “That’s going to be hard.”
“Why, for heaven’s sake?” Brain wants to know.
“Because he got shot in the head yesterday,” I reply.
Brian flinches. But Mr. Rosetti just nods.
“It happens,” he says, with a shrug.
“Heather.” Brian has visibly paled. “I am so, so sorry. I… I forgot. I… I knew this was Fischer Hall, but in all the confusion, I… ”
“Excuse me.” The woman with the mom haircut leans across the reception desk again. “I think there’s been a mistake.”
“No, there hasn’t,” Felicia finally looks up from her magazine to inform her. “Due to the college’s privacy policy, we are not allowed to give out any student information, even to parents. Or people who say they’re parents. Even if they show ID.”
“Brian, let’s leave this little lady alone,” Mr. Rosetti says. “She seems to have things well in hand.”
I smile at him sweetly. Really, he doesn’t seem that bad. Except for the hundreds of thousands I know he’s going to be charging the college for a job I can get done for mere pennies…
“I can’t apologize enough,” Brian is saying. “We’ll just go now… ”
“I really do think that would be best,” I say, still smiling sweetly.
The front desk phone rings. Felicia picks it up with a courteous “Fischer Hall, this is Felicia, how may I direct your call?”
“It was very nice to meet you, ma’am,” Mr. Rosetti says, with a courtly nod in my direction.
“Nice to meet you, too, sir,” I say to him. Really, he’s so nice. So old school. How could Cooper have thought the mob was responsible for Owen’s murder? I mean, maybe they did it. But even if they did, Mr. Rosetti couldn’t have been the shooter. For one thing, all that jewelry would have made him way too conspicuous. Someone surely would have remembered seeing him outside the building.
And for another, he’s just sonice.
Maybe it’s wrong of me to assume, just because he’s Italian American, and in the private security business, and wears a loud suit and a lot of jewelry, that he’s even in the Mafia in the first place. Maybe he’s not. Maybe he’s just—
“Excuse me.” Mom Haircut is looking at me now. “Aren’t you Heather Wells?”
Great. Like I haven’t been through enough this morning.
“Yes,” I say, trying to maintain my pleasant smile. “I am. Can I help you with something?”
Please don’t ask for an autograph. It’s not worth anything anymore. You know how much an autograph from me gets on eBay these days, lady? A buck. If you’re lucky. I’m so washed up, I’ll be singing about sippy cups soon. If I’m lucky.
“I’m sorry to bother you,” Mom Haircut goes on. “But I think you worked with my husband. Well, ex- husband, I should say. Owen Veatch?”
I blink at her. Oh my God. Rag Doll Sweatshirt Mom Haircut is the former Mrs. Veatch!
“Please hold.” Felicia puts down the phone and says, “Heather, sorry to interrupt, but Gavin McGoren is on the phone for you.”
“Tell Gavin I’ll call him back,” I say. I reach out and take Mrs. Veatch’s right hand. It’s rough and scratchy in mine, and I remember Owen mentioning once that his ex-wife was a potter, and “arty.” “Mrs. Veatch… I am so, so sorry about your husband. Ex-husband, I mean.”
“Oh.” Mrs. Veatch smiles in a sad way. “Please. Call me Pam. It hasn’t been Mrs. Veatch in quite some time. In fact, ever. That was always Owen’s mother to me.”
“Pam, then,” I say. “Sorry. My mistake. What can I do for you, Pam?”
“Heather,” Felicia says. “Gavin says you can’t call him back, because he’s not home right now.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I say. “Of course I can call him back. Just take down the number where he is.”
“No,” Felicia says. “Because he says where he is, which is the Rock Ridge jail, he only gets one phone call.”
As I swing my head around to stare at her, the front door opens, and Tom comes in, looking as shocked as I feel.
“You’re never going to believe this,” he announces, to the lobby in general. “But that gun they found in that dude’s murse? It was a match for the one that plowed through Owen’s brain.”
13
I’m pushin’ the stroller
Can’t you see?
Or is my baby
