Deadly Dues by Linda Kupecek

Lorraine speaking.”
    She listened patiently for a few moments.
    â€œI’ll get back to you in half an hour on that. We’re busy here today. I know your production schedule. Don’t worry. We’ll fix it as soon as possible.”
    She made some rapid notes, then remembered our presence and looked up at us impatiently. We were lurking, and doing a lousy job of it.
    â€œYou can check his office if you want, not that he’s in there.” She nodded towards the door. “I don’t have time to deal with that workshop right now.”
    â€œGee, Bent,” I said, with jolly cheerfulness worthy of an award, “let’s go into Stan’s office and see if he’s napping on the job.”
    Bent perked up.
    â€œGood idea.” Neither of us were looking forward to opening the door and seeing what we had already seen, only eighteen hours more ripe.
    The phone rang again, and Lorraine started another businesslike conversation on contracts and deadlines.
    Bent and I moved reluctantly to Stan’s door. I knocked officiously.
    â€œHey, Stan,” I called. Bent frowned at me, and I knew why. Normally, I would have emitted some sweet version of “Hey Stan, you rotten royalty-robbing rabble-ripping rat.” Perhaps I was overplaying the courtesy. We waited a moment, and then another. Nothing.
    Bent reached across me and tried the knob. The door creaked open. Stan made ten times what any of us made in a year, but he never got around to fixing the creak in that door. Maybe he sensed he would meet a nasty end and wanted to make sure that he left something creepy behind.
    Bent and I each took a breath and stepped into Stan’s office. I already had my scream planned, not the one I had used in a stage production of Sleuth , but instead the one I had used decades ago in a low-budget horror flick.
    We looked at the desk.
    I gasped, and stifled that scream. Bent grabbed my arm so hard it felt like a nutcracker had grabbed me.
    The room was empty. There was no body, no Stan, no blood, no letter opener. Only a desk and chair. A very clean desk and chair.

The Travelling Pinky Ring
    â€œStan?” I croaked tentatively. Bent should have been wildly impressed by my ability to recover from the shock of not finding a body (for a refreshing change) and mouth the appropriate words. Instead, his eyes were darting from ceiling to floor, as if he thought that if he looked hard enough, Stan’s body would be hanging artistically from the ceiling.
    I jabbed him with my elbow and backed out of Stan’s office.
    â€œGolly, Lorraine,” I said, as she hung up the phone and started going through folders on her desk. “I guess you were right. Stan’s not in.” I congratulated myself on my cool demeanour.
    She put her chin on her hand and smiled at me, not unkindly, her other hand still on the files.
    â€œLu,” she said, “when will you learn that every time you say ‘golly’ any idiot within a mile knows you are up to something? I don’t know exactly what you’re up to, but when a woman of your age and experience starts saying words like ‘gee’ and ‘golly.’ I generally lose faith in her sincerity.”
    I felt like a jackrabbit in her musket sights during one of the historical re-enactments. Lorraine was the real deal, and, as I had just been reminded, it was difficult to lie to her.
    â€œI’m feeling anxious,” I said, truthfully. “Too many bills. Not enough money.” Then, not so truthfully, “I had geared myself up for pitching the workshop to Stan.”
    She nodded. “Well, good luck. You know what your chances are.”
    Bent and I said our goodbyes and escaped into the hall.
    We were silent in the elevator, as it lurched in hair-raising instalments toward the ground floor. On the second floor, the doors shuddered open to admit a person of indeterminate sex in a brown (or was it grey?) overcoat,