“I know she’d been working here part-time and I thought you might have observations to share.”
“Observations?”
“A detail you noticed or a remark Shannon made. It’s possible she’d crossed paths with the killer in the weeks before her death and mentioned something that could be relevant.”
“But they’re saying it was a serial killer, right?”
“Right, but it could still be a person she’d had previous contact with.”
“Uh... okay. Did you want to come in for a minute?”
“Thanks, that’d be great.”
She motioned for me to enter the reception area and then led me down a hallway into a far bigger space, which featuredseveral glass offices along one wall and a center area with about a dozen workstations, separated with gray dividers. The recessed fluorescent ceiling lights were on, giving the place a weird, too-bright look.
“I wish there wasn’t so much to catch up on,” she said over her shoulder. “I don’t exactly love the idea of being alone here right now.”
“I don’t blame you. It’s a scary time.”
“Do the police have any leads yet, do you know?”
“Not that I’m aware of—so it’s smart to be cautious. Where—where do they do all the bottling?”
She pointed a long, slim finger toward a closed door in the far wall. “Through there. This space is for the sales and office staff.”
We were at her workstation now, directly outside a large glass-fronted office that I assumed belonged to Cody. Riley settled into the desk chair and indicated that I should take the cushioned filing cabinet on wheels. Her desk was neat and well organized, and one of those mind-numbing Excel files was on her computer screen. I had a sense that she was the kind of kick-ass assistant who made sure the trains always ran on schedule.
“Have you worked for Cody long?”
“Since he took over as president three years ago, though I’d been an assistant to a bunch of the sales guys for a few months before that. When Mr. Baker retired, Cody asked me to work directly for him.”
“And Shannon had been working here, too, right? Starting in March?”
“March? Yeah, I guess that’s when it was. She worked from home for a while, though more recently she was coming in here on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. With the kind of stuff she was doing, she didn’t have to be on-site every day.”
“And what kind of stuff was that?”
“Marketing. Promotional materials, creating buzz for the company.”
“Marketing?” I said, stifling my surprise. J.J. had used a phrase likelending a handto describe Shannon’s efforts at Baker, as if her duties had included filing and manning the phones when the receptionist went to lunch.
“That’s what her background was in. She’d done marketing for the hotel she worked at in the Caribbean—and she’d helped her dad out here years before. I had the impression that she was pretty eager to restart her career now that her kids were a little older. And we were happy for the help, of course.”
“Did you have much chance to talk to her during the past months?”
“A little bit here and there. I would have liked to have spent more time with her, but Cody keeps me pretty busy.”
“Did she ever mention anything to you about going to St. Timothy’s?”
“No. But Cody told me about it the other day. That she became a Catholic again. He’s been planning a funeral service for when Shannon’s body is finally turned over to him.”
“Were there ever any times when Shannon seemednervous or upset to you or made a comment about feeling that way?”
“Not at all. She always seemed really sunny.”
“And Shannon got along with everyone here? There wasn’t any friction with another employee when she came on board?”
“Oh no, everybody liked her, and she worked hard. My husband’s in sales here, and the ideas she had for the new promotional pieces were really super.”
