Free Waiting for Armando (Kate Lawrence Mysteries) by Judith K. Ivie Page A

7:30. About halfway through my account, there was a knock on the door, and a uniformed officer stepped in to hand Diaz a small sheaf of papers that looked to be photocopies. Diaz glanced through them briefly, then nodded for me to resume. I did. Diaz nodded, Donovan made notes. Things were back on track.
    When I finished, Diaz thanked me for my time and rose from her chair, coming back around the desk to see me out. She paused with one hand on the doorknob.
    “Just one more thing,” she said, reminding me of pesky Lieutenant Columbo in the old television series. “I would be very grateful if you could clarify something for me, Ms. Lawrence.”
    “Kate, please,” I said quickly in a belated attempt to make nice. “Of course. That’s what we’re all here for.”
    “Thank you.” The detective gazed at the photocopies on her desk thoughtfully, then back at me. “Before we came upstairs this morning, I asked one of my officers to interview the security guard at the front desk, Charles Harris. He was on from midnight last night to eight o’clock this morning. He’s a senior at Trinity College and works that shift fairly frequently to supplement his scholarship, I gather.”
    My palms started to perspire.
    “I asked him to make photocopies of the log book pages covering his shift. I also asked him if he remembered anyone unusual entering the building between, say, six and seven o’clock this morning.”
    I swallowed so hard, I was sure she could hear it.
    The punch line wasn’t long coming. “He said no, no one unusual, just the woman who gets her jollies signing in with fictitious names. Just started at BGB, he said, Kate something. All the guards know her.”

 
 
 
 
    Six

 
    “Kate, Kate,” Strutter lamented yet again. “How could you have been so foolish? She shook her head in that maddening, disappointed mother way she had adopted with me since that morning.
    “Okay, okay. It wasn’t a good idea, I admit it. How could I know that the security guard on the desk this morning would turn out to be Mr. Conscientious? He always seemed to be bored stiff when I saw him. I was just having a little fun.”
    I was relieved to spot Ingrid and Margo coming through the patio door of Bleu and waved them to where Strutter and I waited at a corner table. The little jazz nightclub had opened recently on Ann Street in the two-story space that had been occupied years ago by the Russian Lady. An open-air patio on the upper level offered welcome respite from the smoke-clogged bar beneath us. The Friday happy hour patrons swarmed in to begin their weekend, although the live music wouldn’t begin until late in the evening. We had snagged a table on the patio only by taking off work an hour early, leaving Bellanfonte and Bolasevich spluttering in our wake. Frankly, my dear, neither of us gave a damn.
    As our friends squeezed through the closely placed tables, I noted Ingrid’s pallor with concern. As long-time secretary to the murder victim, she had borne Diaz’ persistent questioning for far longer than I had. The good news was that she hadn’t played fast and loose with the building’s security measures, then lied about doing so to the police.
    “How are you holdin ’ up, Sugar?” Margo asked me, placing a napkin and a tall whiskey and soda on the table before sitting down. The subdued Ingrid sat in the remaining empty chair. She held a bottle of beer and a tall glass.
    I groaned and put my head in my hands. “Ask Strutter ,” I said without looking at her. “Did you know the kid who was on the security desk this morning is her nephew? Charles Harris, her sister’s boy, named for his Auntie Charlene. A dean’s list senior at Trinity.” I groaned again.
    The Lena Horne story had circulated through the firm like wildfire, thanks largely to Bellanfonte , who thought it was possibly the funniest thing he had ever heard. He passed it on to Bolasevich , who confided it at the top of his lungs to Strutter , who