“Private investigator? Are you, like, investigating the company or something?”
“Should I be?”
“I mean, the paper waste at that place was criminal,” she said, smirking, drawing my attention over toward her reusable bags and the reusable double-walled mug she’d brought to the coffee place. “But no. It was on the up-and-up as far as I could tell. So you’re not investigating it?”
“No.”
“What are you investigating then?”
“Right now? You,” I told her truthfully.
“Me?” she asked, actually letting out a little laugh at the idea.
“Were you fired from your job?”
“No. I mean… no,” she said, shaking her head at herself. “Look, here’s the thing. That job was… intense. It was like running a marathon every single day of your life. And, sure, that’s totally fine if you are a trained athlete. But me? I’m allergic to too much exertion,” she told me. “It was too fast-paced an environment for me. I wasn’t cutting it. I knew it. My direct manager knew it. We both kind of just… agreed it was time for me to get laid off. You know… so I could collect while I looked for something else,” she said.
“No hard feelings then?”
“No. I mean… I’m a little hurt that no one I met there ever reached out after I was gone. But that was kind of the atmosphere there. Everyone was in it together, and outsiders just didn’t get it.”
“You don’t hate Miranda?”
“Miranda? No. That’s crazy. I barely ever met the woman,” she said, shrugging. “But from what I could tell, she was a good boss. We had a great health plan. I miss that. But I’m much better suited for the job I have now.”
Nothing, absolutely nothing, she was saying rang false to me.
“Wait… did someone hurt Miranda?” she asked, pressing a hand to her heart.
“They’re… trying to,” I said, not wanting to give her any sort of personal information on Miranda.
“Oh my God. That’s horrible. I mean, even if I had left on bad terms, I would never. She’s a total idol. Not many women get to that level she has without marrying into affluence or spending a lot more decades building up. She’s so impressive. But, I guess, that level of success must make her a target to jealous people.”
“Will you talk to me about your time there?” I asked. “As someone who was in the trenches, I mean,” I explained.
“Sure,” she said, stooping to grab her coffee after tucking her weapons away, then leaning against the building. “Shoot.”
“What was the staff like? Did they trash Miranda?”
“I mean… no. I really only ever remember people grumbling about their immediate management, not the boss-boss. I guess they might have made some unkind comments about how much she worked and thinking she needed to get laid. I’m sorry. I know. That’s crude. But those were the kinds of things they might say if they saw her on their floor or something.”
“So, while you were there, you didn’t notice anyone who seemed to genuinely dislike her?”
“I really can’t think of, wait,” she said, pursing her lips. “I mean… I guess he didn’t really work there. He was more there on a contract job.”
He.
That sounded like a much more likely culprit.
Female stalkers and attackers on female targets were relatively rare. Male ones on female targets, though, it was so common place it was sad.
“Who?” I asked.
“Ritchie,” she said, shrugging. And the way she let that name slide off of her tongue seemed to imply that she thought I should have known who he was.
“Ritchie,” I repeated.
“Yeah, he had a contract to do some advertising. But it was… an epic failure,” she said, grimacing. “He’d been really calm when they’d called him in to tell him. But then as he was walking away, he was ranting and raving.”