Free Chill of Night by John Lutz Page A

finished.
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    â€œBev,” Mary Jean Maltz, assistant sales director at the Light and Shade Lamp Emporium, said to Beam and Nell. She was a stolid woman with dark bangs, a white blouse, brown slacks, and extremely wide thighs and hips. “Everyone called her Bev, not Beverly.” Mary Jean brushed a knuckle across a reddened eye; she’d obviously been crying. “She was a Bev.”
    Beam was prepared to believe it. He looked around at the sea of lamps and shades and dangling chandeliers. Almost everything was lighted. For display purposes, or in honor of Bev Baker.
    â€œEveryone loved her,” Mary Jane said.
    Don Webb, an elderly, mustached man whose family had long ago founded the lamp emporium, and who was Bev Baker’s supervisor, finished the phone call he’d been making when Beam and Nell arrived, and walked over to join the conversation. His long, lined face wore a somber expression, but his blue eyes were dry behind thick rimless glasses.
    â€œIt’s a blow to all of us here,” he said, “what happened to Bev.” He fixed Beam with a steady, magnified gaze. “She was the best sales manager we ever had.”
    â€œDo you mean that literally?” Beam asked. “Forget for a moment about speaking well of the dead. We’re here for the truth. We’re trying to find out who murdered Beverly Baker.”
    â€œ One of the best,” Webb amended.
    â€œAn absolute peach to work for,” Mary Jane added.
    Webb looked at her. “Why don’t you check that floor lamp shipment that came in yesterday, make sure none of the shades are bent.”
    She nodded, slightly embarrassed. With her hips cocked sideways so as not to bump anything, she hurried away in a little side shuffle through what seemed like acres of glowing table lamps, floor lamps, and light fixtures on chains. Beam thought the electric bill here must be phenomenal, but then, they were selling illumination.
    Isn’t that what we came for—illumination?
    â€œI had no complaints about Bev,” Webb said, when Mary Jane was out of earshot. “She really was damned likable, and she worked hard and got the job done. Sales increased every quarter in the four years she was sales manager.” He gave Beam the same sincere expression he’d worn earlier. “It didn’t hurt that she was attractive and knew how to treat customers, how to talk to them.”
    â€œHow to bullshit them?”
    â€œHow to sell.”
    â€œCan you think of any enemies she might have had?”
    â€œNo. But then I wasn’t privy to her personal life.” Was there a note of regret in Don Webb’s voice?
    â€œMight she have been in debt?”
    â€œI wouldn’t know, but I doubt it. She was well paid and knew how to manage money. Smart woman. Take-charge type.”
    The sort who’d volunteer to be jury foreperson.
    â€œAny changes in her behavior over the last six months or so?” Beam asked.
    Here Webb hesitated. “A few months ago she began taking longer lunches, coming in late sometimes in the morning. I never complained. I mean, if she came in late, she tended to stay late.”
    â€œWhat were her reasons for being late?”
    â€œOh, one thing or another. Tell you the truth, I never asked her very often. I wasn’t kidding when I said she was a valuable employee. You don’t mess with people like that in this business or any other; you want to keep them.”
    A flurry of motion made them look to the side. A gray-haired woman who was apparently Webb’s assistant stood just outside the door to his partitioned office, holding up a telephone receiver and motioning frantically to him with her free hand that he had a call.
    â€œMust be important,” Webb said.
    â€œGo ahead and take it,” Beam said. “Thanks for your help.”
    Webb nodded gratefully and hurried away.
    As Beam and Nell moved toward the exit, Mary Jane, who’d