My Boss is a Serial Killer Read Online Free PDF Page A

tell you anything
about it?”
    “ Hmm? Well no, she wasn’t very
forthcoming. She’s terribly upset, as you can imagine, and it might
be embarrassing to her.” Bill then asked me, “Did you go through
the file?”
    “ No indication of any messages taken
since we last saw her,” I said. “The last thing in correspondence
is your thanks-for-your-business letter.”
    “ Still, you never know what they might
be looking for.” Bill hadn’t yet taken his eyes from the file, and
I wondered if it had just hit him that a client of his was dead.
Knowing of a death and fully comprehending it aren’t quite the same
things. “I guess I should put in my final notes about her passing,
since you’ve got the file out anyway. I’ll dictate something after
the detective leaves.”
    “ Speaking of which, got any letters on
here?” I went to his Dictaphone and popped out a tape, replacing it
with a clean one and returning the little recorder to its own
special place, firmly in the right corner of the OUT box. “You
don’t have anything else pending this morning. There’s a board
meeting at twelve.”
    “ Will you be at your desk all
morning?”
    “ Sure will.”
    “ When will you take lunch?”
    “ Twelve to one.” I took lunch from
twelve to one every day. Bill asked me every day, nevertheless. He
liked the ritual, a touchstone in his morning that kept a clock
firmly in mind. I used to take lunch when I got hungry, whether
that happened at eleven-thirty or one , but that caused Bill a lot
of worry. It was better if he always knew where I was. It was a
concession to extreme order that I was willing to make because I
liked the crazy man. He always remembered my birthday and brought
me presents that actually had some relevance to my likes and
dislikes. TV shows on DVD, bless him. Last time it had been Buffy the Vampire Slayer , Season Two—my favorite Buffy season of all.

*****
    Detective Haglund showed up at ten to eight
and Lucille called me at my desk. “Is he still cute?” I asked
her.
    “ Oh mah, yes.”
    “ Be right there.” I wondered if
Augustus Haglund would seem as attractive today as he had
yesterday. Yesterday he’d brought me back from the brink of
insanity. Thursday mornings are always easier than Wednesday
afternoons. Still, I had primped in hopes that my lecherous
thoughts would bear out. I had, in effect, “gussied up for Gussie,”
which was a terrible turn of phrase that I promised myself I would
never say out loud, unless to Gussie himself after he and I had
been married for fifteen years.
    I noticed a number of staff people were
having an impromptu meeting in the lobby about the condition of our
Internet service. “Terrible,” I heard them say, and “so slow” and
“won’t download,” which meant that they were having trouble
watching sports news over their broadband connections. The purpose
of the meeting was to get an eyeful of the detective, who had
somehow overnight turned into an office legend. These kinds of
things are absorbed through osmosis. Now the women took turns
checking out the cop.
    Melinda, the bold one, even asked him, “Are
you my eight-thirty appointment?”
    “ I don’t know; are you Bill Nestor?” he
asked her.
    She admitted with dismay that she was not.
Her groupies, Mary and Daphne, looked admiringly at her for being
brave enough to speak to the Bobby Lane candidate.
    Lucille had taken it upon herself to turn on
the charm again. My new friend, Detective Gus Haglund, was leaning
over her reception counter, looking with convincing interest at the
biography that Lucille was reading.
    “ Ah think people are so fascinating,”
Lucille said. That much was true. I’d never seen her read anything
but biographies.
    I greeted Detective Haglund and was rewarded
with happy warm tingles when he looked at me. I had to refrain from
giggling girlishly because I had an audience. “Let me take you to
Bill’s office. How about a coffee or something on way?”
    We walked