My Boss is a Serial Killer Read Free Page A

figured that at the very
worst, Detective Haglund would leave the building puzzled and
disgusted by the trampy secretary who had assaulted him after just
ten minutes of acquaintanceship, and tomorrow when he came to meet
with Bill, he would politely ignore me.
    What happened instead was that he said,
“Maybe you should give me another one of those cards. One has to go
in the file, but I’d like to keep one for myself. In case I need to
verify any information with you.”
    Beaming, I handed him another business card.
I hoped my hand didn’t shake when he took it from me.
    He said, “Thank you for your time and all
your help.”
    Oh, no! He had to leave? Probably had some
murders to solve, suspects to grill. That sounded a lot more
exciting than what I had to do. He had to follow some leads given
to him by his streetwise informants, who were doubtlessly all
hookers. He was probably friends with lots of hookers. They were
probably all hookers with hearts of gold, who looked upon him as
their savior. I wished I were a hooker with a heart of gold.
    “ So I’ll see you tomorrow morning,
bright and early,” I said, guiding him back toward the office
lobby.
    He agreed that he would. So much in common! I
kept doing silly things for him, like pushing the elevator button
and waiting while the rackety old deathtrap lurched up to our
floor. Lucille watched us, hawklike, from the reception desk.
    “ I forgot to ask you,” said Detective
Gus Haglund suddenly. “Did you know Adrienne Maxwell?”
    “ Not very well, but I talked to her a
few times. It was a couple of years ago.”
    “ I may have some questions for you
tomorrow.” The elevator came, yawning open before us. He held it
open with one hand, his attention on me. “Nothing intense, so don’t
worry.”
    “ I wasn’t worried.”
    “ I’ll see what I can get from Mr.
Nestor first; it may not even be relevant.”
    “ You’re such a tease,” I accused
him.
    “ Bye,” said Detective Gus
Haglund.
    “ Bye.” I watched the elevator close and
leave. Screw, screw, screw. The words sang softly in my
head.
    “ Scale of one to ten?” asked Lucille
rather loudly.
    Turning from the doors that had just devoured
my new friend, I told her, “His name is Augustus.”
    Charlene materialized at Lucille’s side.
“Well? What did he ask you?”
    “ Nine and a half,” I said to
Lucille.
    The receptionist looked disappointed in me.
“Why not ten?”
    “ Because all the data has not been
compiled. Now, I need to get back to work.”
    Having declared my need to get back to work,
I was cleared to come and tell them everything that had just
happened. Women want details, and women provide details. If there
is a detail a woman can’t remember, she is perfectly qualified to
make something up that is just as good.
    So impressive was Detective Haglund that we
barely discussed why he had come in the first place. The important
thing was that he had arrived looking good, that he hadn’t shot
down my advances out of hand, and that he was coming back the next
day. His cuteness went a long way to crushing speculation about why
he was interested in Adrienne Maxwell’s suicide or what Bill Nestor
might be able to tell him about it.
     

Chapter Two
     
    A legal secretary is not necessarily a
secretary who abides by the law, but a secretary who works
specifically for an attorney, paralegal, or judge. The
qualifications are specialized: one must be capable of performing
ordinary secretarial tasks while tolerating whatever brand of
mental illness the attorney, paralegal, or judge is suffering.
Secretaries who work in the non-legal field may argue with me that
mental illness is not exclusive to the legal field. However, like
eating disorders and ballet dancing, mental illness and law are a
matched pair.
    As a legal secretary, I learned to wrangle
paper. The practice of law can generate mountains, tides, great
rivers of paper like molten lava, so heavy that the fissures could
crack open the