Fountain of Death(65)

“No,” Gregor said, “it doesn’t.”

Faith Keller rearranged the broad lace collar on her gray-and-white flower-patterned dress. “It’s funny the way you’re asking all these questions now,” she said, “because they’re just the kind of thing Stella was talking about ever since Tim died. Personal questions, I mean, about how we none of us knew much about each other even when we’d been working side by side for years. It was disturbing, in a way. I do value my privacy. In my position, I am forced to.”

“What’s your position?” Gregor asked.

Up until then, Faith Keller had come across as a fluffy, wispy, ethereal woman, the sort who goes into retirement to tend flowers and take up theosophy. Now the look in her eyes sharpened into acid. Gregor thought she was going to tell him to mind his own business.

“My friend and I have been together for the past twenty-two years,” she said tartly. “My friend is not a man.”

“Ah,” Gregor said. “You know, I don’t think most people are as conventional on that subject as they used to be.”

“Some are and some aren’t. My daughter is twenty-six, and she’s extremely conventional on that subject. I have a very nice job here, Mr. Demarkian. I work with very nice people. With Stella gone, I’m going to be moved in here to deal with the records. That will be nice, too. I’d like everything to stay nice.”

“And Stella Mortimer didn’t know—well, how would you like me to put it?”

Faith Keller looked amused. “You can come right out and call me a dyke if you want to, Mr. Demarkian. I don’t know any more about the etiquette of these things than you do. But no. Stella didn’t know. I didn’t tell her.”

“Did she ask?”

“As a matter of fact, she didn’t. I thought she was going to, with all the talk about how we had to connect better with each other and what a terrible thing it was that Tim had died without us knowing anything about him. But Tim seemed to be the only one she was really interested in. Stella even had his personnel file on her desk for a few days. Not that there was anything in it. We only keep personal files to stay in compliance with federal and state employee law. Social security numbers. Yearly medical checkup if relevant to the job. With Tim it would have been relevant, because he gave weight training and that’s strenuous work. Anyway, some companies dredge up extraordinary details on their employees, but Magda and Simon don’t bother. If they like your performance, they think that’s enough.”

Gregor didn’t think this was a bad way to operate. It was the way most of the small businesses on Cavanaugh Street back home operated. “You said Stella had Tim’s file on her desk for a few days,” he asked, “does that mean she didn’t have it on the day she died?”

“Oh, no. She didn’t have it then. I brought it down here myself about a week ago. Like I said. There isn’t really much of anything in it.”

“Can I see it?”

“Of course.” Faith Keller got down off the desk and went to the file cabinet. She went through the second file drawer from the top until she found what she was looking for. She handed the file over to Gregor. It wasn’t much of a file. It couldn’t have had more than three or four pieces of paper in it. Gregor took it out of Faith Keller’s hand and opened it up on his lap.

Workmen’s compensation insurance registration. Social security number. Federal and state income tax withholding information. Salary schedule. Weight trainers, Gregor learned, did not make much more than minimum wage. He pushed past all the official information and went for the piece of paper at the bottom, the official Fountain of Youth employment application. There wasn’t much on that, either. Name, address, phone number. Known medical conditions. Known physical disabilities. Next of kin.

“This really isn’t very much,” Gregor said.

“I warned you. Stella was interested in it anyway. Because of the next-of-kin business.”

Gregor looked down at the next-of-kin business: “Next of kin: Alissa Bradbury. Address: 47 Stephenson Road, Derby, Connecticut. Phone number: (203) 297-7162.”

“It looks fairly straightforward to me,” he said.

“Oh, it was,” Faith said. “But Tim used to tell everybody that his parents had moved out of the area. Stella was quite upset when she found an address in Derby in the file. She thought she’d forgotten to change it, you see, when his parents had retired to Florida or wherever, and now we wouldn’t be able to notify them that he was dead. She even tried calling the phone number to see if they had one of those this-number-has-been-changed-to tapes running on it.”