Free 1 Picking Lemons by J.T. Toman Page B

therefore, looked different to Mary Beth. As Stephen was a practicing Buddhist, C.J. could not imagine Mary Beth had seen Stephen wandering around the department with looks of murderous rage on his face frequently. Though, in Mary Beth’s defense, Stephen was prone to be moody. “No. I’m not quite sure I know,” murmured C.J.
    “Oh , yes. And then he had that terrible temper. Why, just on the day of the murder, he got into a terrible fight with Professor DeBeyer.”
    Now Mary Beth had C.J.’s attention. “A fight? When?”
    “After lunch . I had come back from my lunch and was going up to Professor DeBeyer’s office to drop off the letters I had typed for him...”
    C.J. interrupted . “What time was this?”
    “That’s the thing. Time is, like, so confusing. I’m supposed to be back from lunch at exactly one. But I was running a few minutes late, as I had to finish reading this article in Us Weekly about new ways to style your hair that will drive your man wild. Though I’m not sure a hair style is what guys are into, you know? I find that a push-up bra and a scoop tee work pretty good.”
    C.J. cleared her throat. “You got back to the office?”
    Mary Beth look ed at C.J. blankly for a moment. “Oh right. Yeah. So, I got back to the office, a little late. And then, I had to find the letters. I was sure I had left them on the tray on the right side of my desk. But there they were, on the left side, after all. So my best guess is that it was about when the big hand was pointing to the two or the three.”
    C.J. just stared.
    “I have this new watch, you see,” explained Mary Beth, seeing C.J.’s confusion. “It has a face. But it’s like super confusing as it doesn’t actually say the time.”
    Mary Beth showed C.J. her analog watch, and C.J. could see at once that Mary Beth was saying that she went to Edmund’s office between ten past and fifteen past one. “Ahh. I see. So you went up with the letters …and then what happened?”
    “Well, I could hear Edmund yelling something awful. But only when I got right up close to the door, mind. Those offices are built like fortresses. I wish my apartment was that sound proof. The things I hear my neighbors doing. TMI, that’s all I can say.”
    C.J., not at all interested in the sex lives of Mary Beth’s neighbors, tried to steer the conversation back. “But at Edmund’s door...”
    “Oooh , yes. I heard Professor DeBeyer in a right old dust up with Professor Choi. He must have said something to make Professor DeBeyer real mad because Professor DeBeyer yelled ‘You’re finished, you hear me, you are finished!’”
    C.J. waited, expecting more, but Mary Beth was clearly done.
    “What happened after you heard Professor DeBeyer yell that?” asked C.J.
    “Well, it obviously wasn’t the time to drop off the letters , so I went back down to my office.”
    C.J. stared at the girl for a few moments. “Mary Beth. Let me make sure I understand. On the day Professor DeBeyer was murdered, you told Professor Daniels that you saw Stephen Choi walking downtown while you were sitting at Bruegger’s Bagels at a few minutes before one o’clock. And now you are telling me that sometime between 1:10 and 1:15 p.m. on the same day, you overheard Professor DeBeyer yelling a threatening statement at someone. But you didn’t see that someone or hear that someone. So, you don’t know who that someone was or even if that someone was in the room with him. That person could have been on the phone.”
    Mary Beth couldn’t contain herself any longer. “But, we do know it was Professor Choi who was in the office arguing, Professor Whitmore,” said Mary Beth, with the tone of one explaining basic math to a child. Again. “It was Professor Choi because he’s the killer. It’s not my job to explain how he did it. I guess he ran back really quickly. Professor Choi had such a bad temper he provoked Professor DeBeyer into an argument and then killed him. And that