Armed and Fabulous (Lexi Graves Mysteries) Read online

  I cleaned the kitchen, phoned Lily and left a message before going back to bed for the rest of the day. My phone rang a couple of times, but I let the answering machine pick up the messages. One was from Lily, saying she was fine, and the police had been very nice, and she was staying in bed to catch up on sleep. The other was my mother asking if I knew where to get a belly-dancing outfit. I didn't.

  I wanted to enjoy a day in bed too, but instead of sleeping, my mind whirred with possibilities. Finding the bodies had been horrible, but I couldn’t help thinking about the key, the numbers in the notebook, and the missing money. I wanted to know what was going on under my nose.

  I had the urge to call in sick on Monday and spend another day hiding under my quilt, but my commitment to work seemed to have increased tenfold, now that I had the discovery of two bodies under my belt. A day of wallowing had taken me from fear to anger to resolute determination to find out what the hell was going on.

  Looking in the mirror, I couldn't believe that two nights ago, I had been a half-dressed slut, and today I looked... well, pretty damn stylish in red pants, a cream blouse and cute, two-tone heels. I got up early to blowdry my hair, sweep it into a ponytail, grab my beige tote, and leave. Downstairs, all was quiet in Lily's apartment so I figured she was still asleep. Not me though. I had murderers to catch, and today, I planned on talking to everyone in the office.

  As I rode up the elevator with three call center monkeys, I added a quick chat to their supervisor to my list. My reasoning was pretty simple, someone had passed the fraudulent claims through the department and I wanted to know how, as well as who. I suppose I could have asked Maddox, but somehow, I thought he probably wasn't telling me everything, given that I wasn't PD or FBI. I was just a blonde temp who had the unfortunate habit of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  After logging on and ensuring Maddox wasn't around yet, I decided to start with Dean's assistant.

  "Hey, Dominic," I said, coming to a stop in front of his desk. Behind him, the doors to Dean's office remained firmly shut.

  "Hey," said Dominic, looking up and checking out my ensemble. For a couple of weeks, I thought Dominic was on the other team, then I was informed that he was in the metrosexual camp. I still had no idea what that meant, except he seemed to enjoy fashion and gossip, and had an eye for the ladies. He was single, kinda cute and an efficient guard dog to Dean's office, which he pretty much ran when Dean wasn’t around. I had a hard time envisaging him putting together a multi-million dollar fraud scheme, even if he managed Dean's personal diary and correspondence closely.

  "Dean still not back?"

  "No." Dominic leaned forward. "I'm kinda worried, you know. I have to book his travel and hotel for next week, and he's so particular, but I can’t get in touch. Do I book it? Or wait until he gets back?"

  "Book it," I said. So what if Dean would never use them? It was company money. Besides, I wasn't supposed to know he was dead.

  Dominic nodded, so apparently, I'd given the right answer. "I'll book everything he had last time. He didn't complain."

  "Does he ever take a girlfriend with him?" I asked.

  Dominic frowned. "Not that I know of. I don't think he even has a girlfriend, but he wouldn't tell me, I guess. Why?"

  "Just wondered." Come to think of it, I hadn't seen any photos in Dean's house of Tallulah or anything else feminine around. Maybe she didn't stay over, or he was just super tidy. Whatever their relationship was, he clearly trusted her to do more than just spank him.

  "I can't imagine Martin getting romantic. I don't think he even stretches his expenses. You would not believe what some of the secre... uh, executive assistants in the building get asked to do."

  "Like what?" Clearly, I'd caught Dominic in a gossipy mood.

  Dominic leaned in. "Flowers, chocolates, jewelry. And not just to their wives." He winked and I tried to look appropriately scandalized. "You remember when David Bernard got fired?"

  I shook my head.

  "Oh, right. It was before you started. Bernard got a little frisky with his accounts. A meal here, drinks there with clients. Then a meal here, a champagne there with his girlfriend... both of them. Dean clamped down on the expense account after that, and even he isn't exempt."

  "So you'd say he's pretty honest with money then?" I pretended to examine my nails and look disinterested.

  "Yeah. Between you and me, he's got a big mortgage and some expensive habits, but he draws a good salary and his pension package is one nice kiss-off. Sally-Anne, in accounts, told me."

  "How do you know about his expensive habits?"

  "I opened his Amex a couple times."

  "Anything naughty?"

  "Oh, you!" Dominic laughed. "Martin Dean is a man's man. Imported cigars, a tailor, racing cars, fine wines and some seriously old whiskey for ten thousand bucks."

  "Wow. I don't get the cigars or whiskey thing, but I'd like a tailor. He must make a good dinner guest," I mused.

  "Honey, you don't need a tailor. You'd make a paper bag look good." Dominic waved a hand over me. "Loving the outfit today. Very retro. Very foxy lady."

  "Oh, shush." I preened anyway.

  "I hate to ask, but do you have time today to do some typing for me? I have to type up Dean's notes from the executive meeting, and I still have to organize next month's brokers conference. It's a bore of a chore."

  "Sure. Hand it over."

  "You're a star." Dominic handed me a blessedly slim file and blew me a kiss as I retreated to my own desk.

  Okay, so far as I could see, Dominic did not have one mean, murderous bone in his body and now I knew a little more about the big boss. Ten thousand dollar whiskeys needed a good salary to keep up; and after seeing his house and the location, I already knew it was pricey. Now I knew the mortgage cost a pretty penny too. I could imagine Dean wanting to grease the wheels with a little extra. He did have a lifestyle to keep up. An expensive one. The only thing I hadn't gotten was any information on his personal life. Who did Dean hang out with? Who were his friends? And what was the deal with Tallulah? On first glance, she didn't seem like the type of woman Dean would take home to meet his mother. But she was clearly the type of woman he possibly got it on with regularly, given the waitress' comments and what Lily gleaned from her colleague.

  I checked Maddox's desk, but he still hadn't come in yet; so I dropped Dominic’s typing on my desk, swiped off the floor and took the elevator down to the call center.

  A burst of noise hit me as I entered the room. Row after row of people, like robots penned behind desks, wore headsets as they carried on one-sided conversations, their fingers flying across keyboards to dumb terminals. I looked around, spotting the nearest supervisor and walked over, waggling my fingers in greeting. I knew Scott from Green Hand’s summer party and he always made a point of saying hi to me.

  He looked up from his screen as I approached and smiled. "Hi, Lexi. What can I do for you?"

  " I just have a couple questions about claims. Just something that cropped up while I was typing up a, uh, report on the claims process."

  "Is this about the new process they're testing?" Scott sighed, leaning back in his padded chair. He was in his late twenties and still dreamed of escaping the call center pen. I took Lily to see him play guitar with his band a month earlier and had a strong suspicion he'd taken a fancy to her, making him the best person for me talk to right now.

  "Oh, no, I don't think so. Did something change recently?"

  "Yeah, a bunch of claims were siphoned off through another branch. They should have come to us because they're in our area, but there was some kind of test being run on a sample."

  "What kind of test?"

  Scott shrugged. "I don't know. I keep expecting to get the reports, but this test has been running for nearly a year. It's a real pain. It sounds a lot more streamlined, so I was hoping we could use it here too."

  "How is it more streamlined?"

  "It just cuts a lot of the red tape we ha
ve to wade through. It's supposed to be some kind of service that collates everything for the customer so they get their claim payout faster."

  "I don't follow."

  "Instead of us having to chase down the police reports or the fire department, this service sends out automated requests and faxes the reports in, getting them on the system. It could cut our case time by thirty percent and the customers get their checks faster."

  "That sounds pretty good."

  "I know, right? I've been trying to get a report of the progress, but when I called the Boston office, no one had even heard of it. Maybe they pulled the plug already, but I'd like to at least look over the report and see what happened. I asked Martin Dean about it, but he said it was confidential."

  "You want me to ask Dominic about it?"

  "Oh no. You know, I'm not sure I was supposed to have said anything. I guess I'll find out eventually. So, what was your question?"

  "I just wanted to know what happens when you get a fraudulent claim."

  "That's easy. We get people trying it all the time. First, we check them against the claims register internally, then externally. We don't insure people with prior fraud convictions, but sometimes they slip through the net; plus, we have to log every claim so that two policies don't pay out on the same compensation request. That's fraudulent too. If it's damage, we usually need a proof of purchase or some evidence thereof. Sometimes we send out an investigator, especially in the high cost claims, to check that everything looks okay. Basically, if there's a problem, we have to get more information before we can pay out."

  "What kind of information?"

  "Receipts. Home photos with the claimed item in. Statements from householders. Those sorts of things."

  "Burglary and malicious damage, too?"

  "Yes and fire damage. We need crime and fire reports along with receipts. We need to make sure the householder wasn't at fault, or caused the damage themselves to try and get some quick cash, or an upgrade on their TV, or whatever. Our car insurance department, that's the Boston office too, had a problem with a hit-and-run gang writing off cars a while back. All over-insured junkers. It was in the news about two years ago."

  "I think I remember that." It had been a pretty big deal. The gang had claimed more than a quarter million dollars before the insurers got wise. It wasn't just Green Hand Insurance that was targeted; it had been a statewide problem.

  "Do you need anything else?" asked Scott.

  "No, that's it," I said. "Thanks. You've really helped out."

  "Anytime, Lexi. Let me know if you hear anything about that test process."

  "Sure."

  "And say hi to Lily from me."

  "I will."

  I chewed on Scott's comments as I waited for the elevator. When I stepped in, lost in my thoughts, I looked up to find Maddox, so I made a point of looking at my watch.

  "I had a briefing," he said.

  I imagined Maddox wearing briefs and flushed. "Hot in here," I said. He looked at me oddly as the doors closed. "Did you know Martin Dean liked to drink ten thousand dollar whiskey?" I asked.

  Maddox whistled. "Must be some nice stuff."

  "Are you a whiskey drinker?"

  "No. Beer is my poison."

  "Dean had some expensive habits." As we glided up, I repeated what Dominic told me. "Do you think his salary could have supported that?"

  "Maybe. We didn't see any red flags on his financials. Not much in the way of savings though."

  "What about his pension? Dominic said it was good."

  "Basic would be my opinion, and a nice kiss-off from Green Hand when the time came," said Maddox, confirming roughly what Dominic had related from Sally-Anne in accounts.

  "I wonder what he planned to live on when he retired. He must have had..." I counted on my fingers, "nine years to go? He didn't sound like a man who could live on a basic pension, despite the extras, and Dominic said his mortgage was hefty."

  "I agree," said Maddox as the elevator shuddered to a halt and the doors opened. I caught him by the sleeve, halting him before we could enter the office. "I just spoke to Scott in the call center downstairs. He said there was a test process for streamlining insurance claims. It seems like it was some kind of secret program. I think it sounds fishy."

  Maddox frowned. "I haven't heard anything about this."

  "It's supposed to be running out of the Boston office, but Scott said when he called, they hadn't heard anything about it."

  "I'll look into it. Good work, Lexi."

  "Thank you. Did you hear anything about Saturday?" Somehow, I couldn’t say “murder” without getting a lump in my throat.

  "I'll get a report later."

  "Will you tell me about it?"

  "Yes."

  The door opened then and Bob plodded out, nodding to us on his way to the men's room.

  "Back to work," said Maddox, his voice business-like, and I followed him through the doors, splitting off to head towards my desk.

  After completing Dominic's typing and ditching it on his desk, I went in search of Anne, but she'd gone home sick, so I stopped by Bob's desk.

  "Hey, Bob."

  "Hi, Lexi." He looked over one shoulder, then the other one, and beckoned me closer. "You any good at cryptic crosswords?"

  "I'm craptic at cryptic."

  "Too bad. I'm stuck on eight down. What can I do for you?"

  "I heard something about a new secret insurance process that Green Hand was testing. You hear anything about it?"

  "Nope. Who told you that?"

  "Overheard some gossip."

  "Probably just that. Your contract up or something?"

  "Or something." It was a rolling contract, but once Dean's death was announced, who knew? I quite liked Green Hand. The work was easy, the people were nice. I might not be so lucky on my next assignment.

  After taking a look at Bob's crossword, I gave up and went back to my desk. I had clues, but I didn't know what to do with them, so I got stuck into typing something else Dominic had sneakily slipped onto my desk, a Post-it with a smiley face on top, and I mindlessly typed while I worked out what to do next.

  ~

  In all the commotion last week, I'd completely forgotten about handing in my timecard. I didn't even think about it until I rooted in my desk drawer for hidden candy mid-afternoon and saw the card flit across the cluttered drawer. After Maddox signed it, ignoring my billing for the afternoon I'd spent meeting his team, he looked it over once more, and erased my time out the night we discovered Dean's body. He carefully wrote in four p.m. and I blanched at my mistake, but didn't say anything.

  One more sign off to go and the dollars would be hitting my account. With a glad heart, and the thought of fresh groceries and paying my rent, I paused by Vincent's desk and waited. After a moment or two of foot shuffling, I realized he had ear buds firmly wedged in his ears. Tapping him on the shoulder, I suppressed a giggle when he leapt half a foot into the air before swiveling around and yanking the ear buds out, his face red.

  "Oh... hey, Lexi," he said, a smile breaking out as he ran a hand through his hair. His bald spot seemed to be expanding by the day. He tried really hard to be popular, but he had an issue with personal space, or more precisely, staying out of other people's. He didn't take hints well either. I decided to wrap this up quick.

  "Hey, Vincent. I…"

  "I'm rocking out to Nickleback," he interrupted, his head making a funny little thrusting movement, like a strutting rooster.

  "Sounds like Bon Jovi to me."

  Vincent's face fell.

  "I like Bon Jovi."

  "You do?" His face lit up as he seized the first thing in common between us.

  "Sure. What's not to love? Big hair, big songs." I flapped the timecard between us hopefully.

  "I think they all got haircuts," Vincent said, ignoring the card.

  "Too bad."

  "I have tickets to their comeback tour. Do you... want to go with me?"

  "Oh, hey, we
ll, I... gee," I spluttered, for once, at a loss for words. Vincent and me out? Together? "Don't they have to go away to do a comeback tour?"

  "I have no idea. We could grab some dinner, too, maybe." Vincent shrugged casually, but his eyes looked hopeful.

  How hard could it be? Vincent might not be the guy of my dreams, but I could do a concert and a burger without talking commitment. "Sure," I said. "Sounds like fun."

  "I'll give you my number and you can give me yours, and I'll let you know the deets." Vincent did a funny little hand move in his attempt at talking street. So, he had a haircut geeks wouldn't sport, but he was down with the kids, clearly. He scrabbled on his desk for a notepad, then a pen, his hands shaking slightly as he scribbled his number. He tore off the sheet, passed it to me, then extended the phone pad and I gave him my number, hoping I wasn't about to regret it. If Vincent wanted to be phone buddies, I would have to get a new number.

  "Cool car," I said, nodding to the neatly clipped magazine pages Vincent had pinned on the felt walls of his cubicle. They all featured the same sleek Lamborghini Spyder in cherry red.

  "She's a beauty,” Vincent said reverently, his finger reaching to trace across the page. “I'll get her right before the concert."

  "Wowsers." Wowsers indeed. The car easily cost six figures. I hadn't thought Vincent made that much, but clearly, company accountants did better than I assumed, unless he had a secret family fortune squirreled away. It was the same car that my car grew up wanting to be.

  "Originally I wanted a DeLorean, but she is a million times better."

  "Sure is. Can you sign this, please?"

  Vincent scribbled his signature next to Maddox's on my timecard. "And you'll be the first person I take for a spin in it," he said, looking up.

  Well, I was a lucky girl indeed. "Looking forward to it. Later, Vincent."

  "The seats recline," he called after me.

  Barf. I pretended not to hear while hoping he was joking.