Sheer Gall by Michael A. Kahn Page A

I said, “Sally came to see me on the afternoon of October fifteenth. That was a Wednesday, the day after the attack. Did she tell you what Neville did to her?”
    â€œThat wasn’t her style,” Amy said, looking over her shoulder at me, “but I knew something was wrong.”
    â€œHow?”
    â€œWhen I got to work that morning, Sally was in here, and her door was locked. That had never happened before. Ever. She was gone when I came back from lunch, and I didn’t see her the rest of the day.”
    â€œDid you see her at all that day?”
    Amy shook her head. “Not until Friday.”
    â€œWhat about Thursday?”
    â€œShe called that morning to say she wasn’t feeling well and wasn’t coming in.”
    â€œAnd on Friday?”
    â€œShe came in late that morning.”
    â€œHow did she look?”
    Amy frowned, trying to remember. “Her face seemed a little puffy. I didn’t think much of it at the time, you know. I mean, she’d gone home sick on Wednesday, called in sick on Thursday. I assumed she looked a little puffy because she still wasn’t feeling well.”
    â€œWhat about her eyes?”
    â€œShe wore sunglasses the whole time.”
    â€œDid that seem odd to you?”
    Amy moved her head from side to side, as if weighing the question. “It does now. Back then, maybe not. I know it sounds dumb, but I probably thought the glasses were connected to her illness. I get migraines occasionally, and it helps if I wear dark sunglasses. Cuts down on the glare. I guess I thought she had a bad headache.”
    â€œShe didn’t say anything about the attack?”
    â€œNot a word.” She paused. “You need to understand something, Rachel. Sally was strictly business in this office. No girl talk, no gossip, nothing about her personal life. That’s the way she was. You know that pizza you and I shared in the kitchen? Well, I worked for Sally for three years, and we never had lunch together.” She shook her head. “Not even once. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining. We had a strictly professional relationship. She was the boss, I was the employee, and that was the extent of it.” She sat back with a faraway expression. “It didn’t really bother me. Back when I was a temp, I worked for a real mixed bag of lawyers. You wouldn’t believe some of the weird personal stuff they expect their secretaries to handle. Sally wasn’t warm and fuzzy, but she was fair.” She turned toward the computer on Sally’s credenza. “Let’s see if we can find it.”
    I joined her by the terminal screen. She zipped through the directories with speed and skill. There were hundreds and hundreds of documents in the directories and subdirectories. Amy looked back at me. “You say she came to your office on the fifteenth?” she asked.
    â€œRight.”
    â€œHmmm, maybe this is it.” She moved the cursor down to the document entitled PLEADING. It showed a create time and date of 9:49 a.m. on October 15. “Let’s take a look.”
    She typed the instruction to open the document. The screen went blank for a moment, and then the first page of a familiar document appeared:

    Amy leaned back in her chair and gestured at the screen. “That explains why she had the door closed all morning,” she said. “She came to your office that afternoon, right?”
    I nodded. It was eerie to be staring at Sally’s handiwork, frozen in time on the computer a few hours before she handed it to me. “Is there anything else she created on that day?” I asked.
    â€œLet’s look.” Amy returned to the file directories.
    â€œActually,” I said, “let’s look at everything she did up to her death.”
    Amy nodded. “Good idea.”
    It took about ten minutes to check the origination dates on all the files. The petition was the only document Sally