With His Dying Breath by Nancy Hogue

office at 9:10 p.m. The city floor was empty except for the night clerk at the copy machine. He walked into his office and realized something was different. The sixteen telephone message sli ps left on his desk were gone.
    He checked his pockets. The red folder for the Brockton murder. No, not there, either.
    “Patsy,” he yelled “Did you get the messages off my desk.”
    “No,” she yelled back.
    He buzzed downstairs and asked the guard if he’d let anybody up here. No. Just the cleaning crew. A woman came in earlier to use the restroom. But that was all.
    Cain asked, “A woman wanted to use the restroom?”
    “Yes sir, she said she was parked on the other side of the hospital and didn’t think she could make it all the way.”
    “Did she go anywhere else in the building?” The phone cord stretched so tight, Cain knocked his soda off the desk.
    “Well, I didn’t follow her around. I showed her to the bathroom passed the visitor’s lounge. She came out a little while later and thanked me and left the building.”
    “You think we got her on the security camera?” he asked wiping up the mess.
    “Well, I’ll have to pull the tape from upstairs. It’ll take about fifteen minutes for me to scan it, but I can’t leave my post. Not until my relief comes in at 10:30.”
    “Okay, if you don’t mind, please get me a copy of that tape. I need to know who she is and what she looks like. Do you remember?”
    “Not really, seemed kind of innocent, you know, just a woman needing to use the bathroom. Seems like she had black hair, all dolled up, you know, makeup, dressed good. I remember she had on high-heeled shoes those five or six inchers. I remembered ‘em ‘cause I was thinking I wouldn’t want to walk all the way to the hospital in those!”
                  “Okay, thanks! When you get that tape, please call me and I’ll come down to get it, extension three one five.”
    Blake reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out the disc of the recording made earlier. He was so glad he had done that. Why would anyone want his telephone messages?
    He walked two cubicle rows over to the receptionist’s desk located near the elevators, staircase and just outside the City Editor’s office. “Hi Patsy, you got the night shift, huh?”
    “Yeah, afraid so, anything I can get for you?”
    “Well, did you see anybody up here earlier, you know, somebody who doesn’t work here, you know doesn’t belong up here.”
    “No, don’t think so. There was a lady about an hour ago. She wanted to know if Miss Hawkins had left a package for her. There wasn’t one here at the desk. She seemed pretty upset and asked if it could still be on her desk. So I walked back to her office, and there was no package anywhere. When I got back to my desk, the woman was gone.”
    “What was her name?” Cain needed to know who took his messages.
    “She didn’t give her name. The package was for Belium Ronsum Industries. I’ve never heard of them, have you?” Patsy was very upset that she had been duped.
    “Yeah, but it really goes by BelRon that new company that just started up a few months ago. What does Miss Hawkins have to do with them?”
    “Well, I thought her duties were school board, principals, you know, anything and everything school related. That’s what I was told. Maybe they’re putting together employee kits or something,” Patsy said.
    “Maybe. Did you notice her, remember what she looked like?”
    “She was kind of attractive, I guess, in an odd sort of way. She had on too much make-up even for a party. She wore a blue skirt and a blue jacket but they didn’t match. Different fabrics with different tones of blue, you know what I mean. She did have a big purse with her. It didn’t match her clothes, either.”
    “Thanks, Patsy. I might need you to help me later. I think she took some stuff off my desk.”
    “Oh, Cain, you sure about that? I was just gone for a few seconds.”
    “Patsy, did you notice