Scene 2

As the minute hand reached twelve and the clock chimed the nine o'clock hour, the halls of UNIDAC, eerily vacant only minutes before, came vibrantly to life. A young man from the mailroom stopped at the desk of an attractive if skittish blonde woman seated in the middle of a large secretarial pool and dropped the day's mail unceremoniously upon her desk before moving on. Startled by the sudden ringing of the phone on her desk, the young woman snatched up the receiver.

"Mr. Burnett's office," she greeted. "Oh, I'm sorry, Mr. Burnett will have to cancel today…Thursday?" She nervously eyed an office door. "Let me check…" She counted to three before speaking again. "Thursday would be fine. Goodbye."

"Alessandra Henry?" Remington asked as he and Laura approached her desk side-by-side from behind. Startled again, she turned around quickly. "Remington Steele. My associate, Laura Holt." Relief washed over the woman's countenance.

"Oh!" She bolted out of her seat. "Thank God."

"You said it was urgent?" Laura reminded her.

"Um, right this way," Alessandra instructed, walking briskly to the door she'd been staring at less than a minute before. Laura and Remington exchanged a look as the young woman opened the door to the office and led them inside, closing the door firmly behind them. The pair of detectives stared agog at a man seated in a chair, slumped over his desk, a knife protruding from his back.

"I'd say urgent was an apt description," Remington remarked. Laura's response was far less blasé.

"Good Lord! The man's—"

"I know," Alessandra interrupted anxiously.

"Why didn't you call the police?" Laura wondered.

"Because I killed him," the young woman blurted out. The confession captured the full attention of the detective duo.

"What?" Remington asked, disbelievingly. Why would the woman kill the man and then call them? Did she expect them to help her get rid of the body? Never would you see such a convoluted plot in a movie, he mused.

"I mean, I mean, I mean…" she stuttered, "It looks like I killed him! That's my letter opener."

"Uh-huh." In his mind, he'd already closed the case and was wondering how long it would be before he and Laura could get the day back on track.

"And look," she continued, clearly panicked, indicating the computer monitor.

"Okay," Remington drawled, doubtfully, clearly humoring the woman. An equally dubious Laura followed as well. Alessandra turned the monitor towards to the detectives so it could be clearly seen. "'Dear Alessandra,'" he read aloud, "'I'm going back to my wife. I don't want to fight about it anymore. David.'" He resisted the urge to openly scoff, instead muttering another, "Uh-huh." The distraught woman stabbed at the delete key on the keyboard repeatedly.

"I can't delete it," she told them, veering towards panic. "It's locked in the main computer somehow."

"Look, slow down," Laura advised trying to calm the situation, ignoring Remington when he displayed a bit of anxiety of his own as he glanced at his watch. "Were you and Burnett having an affair?"

"No!" Alessandra exclaimed, appalled."There were rumors, but it's not true. He had a bad marriage, and – I was someone to talk to. A friend."

"Oh," Remington remarked, while looking towards the door.

"Oh, come on! Does he look like my type?" she demanded, insulted.

"Well, it's hard to tell from this angle," Remington cracked. Laura lips thinned and she shot him a quelling look and turned to address Alessandra.

"Go on."

"Last night, Dave called and said something strange was going on here. He wanted to meet early and talk about it. I came in, and there he was," she gesticulated with a hand, "… skewered."

"Excuse us just a moment, will you?" Remington interrupted. Enough was enough and as far as he concerned her story had moved to unbelievable to the bad plot of a movie. All he had to do now was to convince Laura, so they could walk away from this fiasco and attend to more important: Him, and ultimately this partnership of theirs. "Um, They Won't Believe Me," he shared in an undertone.

"Who won't?" Laura asked, clearly baffled.

"Robert Young, Susan Hayward, RKO, 1947. Young tries to disguise his girlfriend's death—"

"You think she's lying?" she wondered, cutting to the chase. Remington eyed Burnett's body.

"Well, in Robert Young's case—"

"If I were the killer," she interrupted, "I don't think I'd hire a pair of hot shot detectives to investigate—"

"There's no harm in provoking a conversation, Laura," he cut in this time, while straightening his tie nervously. How could he disagree? Hadn't he been thinking much the same only a minute ago?

"Well, thank you, Phil Donahue. May we continue?" she indicated Alessandra, sarcasm dripping from her words. Irritation flashed through him.

"Sure, go ahead," he agreed, stifling his reaction.

"Thank you." She turned back around to consider Alessandra. "Alessandra, do you know what your boss means when he said something strange was going on?"

"I think this whole place is strange," she replied, honestly."I'm just working here until I finish my PhD dissertation on Dostoyevsky." That little nugget caught Remington completely off guard. She seemed much like the many vapid women he'd once chosen to keep company with. A PhD candidate?

"What does your boss—" he stumble, correcting the tense of the question. "What did your boss do?"

"Procurement division, middle level assistant cost accountant."

"Oh," he deadpanned. He'd lost interest somewhere around the word 'middle' when it became apparent the man's occupation hadn't involved intrigue of some sort.

"I was never sure exactly what he did," Alessandra admitted, as Laura examined the body to see if it gave up any clues. Spying something on the floor she stooped down to pick it up: A key with 'G 949' stamped upon it.

"'G 949,'" she read aloud. "It's possible Burnett was trying to hide this from whomever killed him," she hypothesized. Dutifully, Remington took the key from her an examined it.

"Uh huh," he agreed by rote.

"That would be Building G, Room 949," Alessandra clarified, capturing Laura's natural curiosity.

"What goes on there?" she wondered.

"Beats me," Alessandra replied, unhelpfully. "I don't know what goes on down the hall."

"Shall we, Mr. Steele?" Laura suggested. He resigned himself to the futility of trying to sway her from her quest. It was easier to appease her, and hopefully, curiosity assuaged, she'd turn her attentions elsewhere, at least long enough to get the task done.

"Good idea." He turned towards the door with her.

"But what about Dave?" Alessandra asked. Remington opened the office door, peered around the busy work area and then close the door again.

"I'd vote against moving him for now."

"We can't just leave him here," Alessandra insisted, aghast.

"Why not?" Laura inquired with a casual air, then pointed out, "Mr. Burnett's a very busy man." Remington grinned, amused, as he swung the door open for a second time.

"Good to see you, Dave," Remington called out loudly so many a person near might hear. "Take care!"

"Nice meeting you!" Laura added, mimicking the volume of Remington's voice.

"Let's have lunch sometime," Remington contributed a final time, rather enjoying this bit of deception.

Following them out the door, Alessandra closed it behind them.

"I think I'm going to throw up," she muttered, as the phone at her desk began to ring. She metamorphoses back to the scared, jumpy woman she was when they arrived before their eyes. Laura guides her back to her desk

"Just business as usual," she reminded the other woman, forcing a smile onto her face as Alessandra answered the unrelenting ringing phone.

"Mr. Burnett's office… I'm sorry, Mr. Burnett's in conference now. Can we get back to you?" Laura gave her a thumbs up and Remington winked at her.

Alessandra's eyes followed them as they left.