Читать книгу Unexpected Outcome - Dawn Stewardson - Страница 10

THE SECOND FLOOR SEEMED deserted when Dana reached it, which was just as well. She had a feeling that Helen Rupert was a chatty woman—nice, but chatty. And she really did have to get those notes written.

Whenever feasible, she avoided using tape recorders. They often made people reluctant to speak freely. But the downside to relying on her memory was how quickly things began slipping from her mind.

She reached her own office and opened the door, thinking she should tell someone that the lock wasn’t working. Then she stepped inside and her brain shifted gears.

On the surface of her desk, to the left of the computer, lay a white, letter-size envelope.

Two disposable latex gloves were precisely positioned next to it, one on either side.

Untouched by human hands? No fingerprints? Was that their message?

Odds were, she decided. And odds also were that whoever had left this for her was a tad on the weird side.

She picked up the envelope, opened its unsealed flap—absently thinking no fingerprints or traces of saliva—and removed the single sheet of paper. She silently read the computer-printed message.

I know who you really are. And I know who set the warehouse fire. It was Noah Haine.

Her mouth a little dry and her heartbeat a little fast, she sat down.

What the hell was this? A joke?

If so, it wasn’t a funny one.

And who had left it here, anyway?

She had no way of knowing, of course. Using the back stairs, anyone could have come up without being seen.

Or maybe one of those ghosts Robert had mentioned had snuck down from the third floor.

But where had that thought come from? Was her subconscious trying to creep her out?

Reminding herself she didn’t believe in ghosts, she gazed at the words again.

I know who you really are.

Okay. That could mean exactly what it said, or could merely mean that someone suspected she wasn’t an OD consultant.

And I know who set the warehouse fire.

Possibly. But if true, why hadn’t this person told the fire marshal? And why tell her?

It was Noah Haine. Noah Haine, the first Four Corners person on the scene after the fire.

But what about before it?

She exhaled slowly. If she was going to figure out any answers to her questions, she had to think calmly and logically.

The arson had been an inside job, the arsonist someone with a key to the warehouse.

Or someone with a master key, her internal voice of reason pointed out.

She’d asked Robert about master keys, so she knew a single one opened both this building’s doors and the warehouse’s. And the three people with masters were Robert, Larry and Noah.

Robert and Larry, who had hired a P.I. Noah, who’d had no part in the decision—who didn’t even know she was an investigator. But it was a huge leap from that to the possibility he was the arsonist.

The question of the moment was how huge?

He’d said he’d been home when the service called him. That, however, left some vital information missing.

How long between when the fire was started and when the security guard discovered it? How long after that before he called the service? Then before it called Noah?

More than enough time for him to get from the warehouse to Murray Hill, she’d bet.

Lord, when she’d told herself those missing invoices meant she couldn’t rule him out too fast she’d only been about three percent serious. Now, though…

Yet what did she really have?

She stared at the note again, aware it was most likely the work of…

Never mind someone a tad on the weird side, it could be the work of a total nutcase. Could have absolutely no basis in reality. Probably had absolutely no basis in reality.

But what if it did?

Doing her best to ignore the dull buzz that had started in her head, she began cobbling together some of the pieces that might be relevant.

If she assumed that the theory Robert favored was right, that the problems were all part of a plan to drive down the company’s share price, then whoever was behind it would have to be both smart and circumspect. Stock manipulation was illegal.

So who would know how to pull off that sort of thing with minimum risk of ending up in jail?

There was an only too obvious answer. The man who’d been brought into Four Corners specifically to help take it public—because he knew all the ins and outs of the Securities and Exchange Commission.

FIFTEEN MINUTES BEFORE Dana’s first scheduled “touching base” meeting with Robert Haine, she hit the print key on her computer.

While the notes she’d just finished were turning into hard copy, she dug her cellular from her briefcase and used it to check her Dana Morancy, P.I., voice mail.

Getting that note was going to make her even more careful than usual. And careful included not using a Four Corners phone to call her real self.

For all she knew, her note writer had a quick and easy way of checking the company’s phone records.

There were a few messages for her, all business related except for a friend suggesting they get tickets to a new off-Broadway show. None was from anyone in urgent need of an investigator.

That, however, was just as well.

She’d never been desperate for clients, not even in the beginning. But she was rarely awash with them. So she didn’t like having to turn any away. And if today was a good indicator, this job could take a while.

After making the one return call she couldn’t leave for later, she stuck the freshly printed notes, along with the ones she’d put together at lunchtime, into a file folder—thinking she’d better try to get Robert more interested in hearing about her morning than her afternoon. It was basically a blur.

As promised, Noah had introduced her to some of the head office employees. But she’d done a poor job of concentrating on what they’d said to her. Her attention had been constantly wandering.

Every few seconds she’d caught herself watching Noah out of the corner of her eye, as if she’d actually believed she might see something that would tell her whether or not he was the arsonist.

What had she figured? That he’d set a desk on fire?

Hardly a realistic scenario.

Shaking her head, she silently admitted her behavior this afternoon had not been rational. Especially not considering that by the time…

Well, the arson note had really gotten her mind spinning, and at first she’d been seriously wondering if Noah was the one.

But by the time he’d taken her around, she’d had long enough to have given the situation a lot more thought. And she’d reached the conclusion that, despite the things that seemingly pointed in the direction of his guilt, he really wasn’t a very likely suspect.

She absently tapped her finger against the folder, still convinced she’d ultimately arrived at the right conclusion.

After all, nobody with half a brain would give much credence to an anonymous note accompanied by a pair of latex gloves. So she’d be awfully naive to believe Noah was the arsonist just because the writer said so.

In addition, Noah was far from the only person in New York who could be working a stock manipulation scheme. For that matter, there might not even be one. Until someone proved it true, a theory was nothing more than a theory.

Then there was the fact that Noah was Robert’s nephew. Plus, he had a terrific job here and…

But what if he wanted more than that? What if he wanted to make a truckload of easy money? Retire to some tropical island by the time he hit forty.

No. She sincerely didn’t think that was the case. She was a good judge of character and she simply couldn’t see…Of course, she barely knew him. And her judgment wasn’t infallible.

She mentally shook her head, aware she’d feel far better if she was certain he couldn’t have started that fire.

Conceivably, though, he could have. “Home alone” wasn’t much of an alibi.

Of course, maybe he hadn’t been alone. There might have been someone with him.

A woman.

As those words whispered in her mind she felt a twinge of… She wasn’t sure exactly what it was, but if anyone had been with him that would be good. Then she could be certain he was innocent. So it was too bad that just coming straight out and asking him wasn’t an option.

But he’d know that real OD consultants didn’t try to identify arsonists on the side, and she didn’t want to blow her cover—the way she’d almost done this morning.

After she’d said she’d been in burned-out buildings he’d clearly been curious about the circumstances. And if she hadn’t caught herself before saying it was back when she’d been on the job…

Well, actually, avoiding telling people she was an ex-cop was more a habit than a question of catching herself.

Oh, she routinely told prospective clients. She figured it gave her more credibility. But when it came to other people she tended to keep quiet.

Too often, if she didn’t, it led to questions about why she’d left the force. And in this case, it would really have led to questions.

Noah would have thought that cop to OD consultant was a very strange career path.

Telling herself to stop thinking about Noah Haine, she rose and picked up the file folder. Then she double-checked that the desk drawers were locked.

Until she decided what, if anything, to do about the arson note, she didn’t want anyone seeing it. And nobody would with it hidden at the bottom of her briefcase and locked up tight.

WHEN DANA PAUSED in Robert’s office doorway, he rose from his desk and motioned her toward the conversation area in the corner, saying, “How did your day go?”

She manufactured a smile. “If you mean have I figured out who your saboteur is, the answer’s no.”

He laughed. “But you have narrowed it down to just a couple of suspects, right? So by this time tomorrow…”

“Don’t I wish. I haven’t even met half your staff yet. I basically spent the morning at the warehouse. And this afternoon Noah introduced me to some of the people here, but I reached the limit of what I could absorb pretty fast.”

“Let’s hear about the morning, then.”

Good. They were where she wanted to be, topic-wise.

“Well,” she began, “I talked with all three men for a bit, and made a point of mentioning that I’ll be chatting with every employee in the company. So they know they’re not being singled out. Then I sat down with Stu Refkin and suggested he tell me about a typical day.

“Rather than do that, though, he cut straight to the chase and said he assumed I knew about the arson and the lost containers. Then we went from there.”

“I’m not surprised,” Robert told her. “Stu’s always direct.”

She smiled again—more genuinely this time. Robert had a knack for putting people at ease.

“He couldn’t have been more direct,” she said. “He began by saying that neither he nor his men have a clue who set the fire. As for the containers, he admitted there’s no excuse for what happened. Said Tony should have checked the number unloaded against the delivery form. Period.

“I don’t mean Stu was trying to distance himself from the blame,” she continued. “Actually, it was quite the opposite.

“He said there’d have been no problem if he’d waited around until the ship arrived. And that he would have if he hadn’t had plans.”

“Right. He’s been saying that from the beginning. In fact, none of them has changed his story in the slightest. Whether they’ve been talking to me, the police, the insurance adjuster…”

“I should ask about something,” Dana said when he paused.

He waited.

“You said ‘whether they’ve been talking to you.’”

“Uh-huh?”

“Did they talk to Larry and Noah, too?”

“Not that I’m aware of. I was the one who went over what happened with them.”

“But why would it have been you rather than Noah? I mean, if he’s in charge of the day-to-day operations…”

“You know something?”

“What?”

“For a fake OD consultant you’re pretty good. The administrative lines here are more blurry than they should be.”

“I was wondering about that.”

“Yeah, well, until we hired Noah, Larry and I basically ran things by the seat of our pants. I don’t remember if I mentioned this before, but the financial side of the business was always a mess—because neither of us is good with balance sheets and whatever.

“When it came to other things, whoever heard about a problem first would take care of it.

“And as they say, old habits die hard. So you have that, plus the fact the staff—especially the oldtimers—have always come to Larry or me, and…

“Well, they sometimes still do, and then we tend to jump on things we should leave to Noah.”

She nodded. She didn’t need to be a real expert to know people didn’t change their behavior patterns easily.

“But getting back to what I said about how consistent the fellows’ stories have been,” Robert continued, “is it common for people to slip up and contradict themselves? If one of them did have something to do with either incident…”

“It happens. More often in the movies than in real life, though.”

“Stu’s worked here for thirty years,” Robert said quietly.

“I know.”

“And he’s a good manager. I can’t recall the last time we had a serious problem in the warehouse—before all this stuff started happening.”

Fleetingly, she recalled her father saying he was surprised the warehouse people hadn’t been fired. They probably would have been in most companies.

But thirty years and no problems obviously counted for something with Robert—which made her like him even more than she already did.

Glancing at her notes, she checked to see what else she should mention, then said, “Stu made sure I knew all three of them had taken lie detector tests. And that I’d been told they’d asked to take them.”

There were a few seconds of silence then, before Robert said, “Do you figure there’s any chance Stu was in on what happened? That he knew ahead of time the delivery was going to be short? That he and the captain…”

“I don’t think there’s much chance. Although one thing bothered me.”

“Oh?”

“The plans he had. The reason he didn’t wait for the ship to arrive.”

“He’d promised to meet his wife. She wanted to look at some furniture.”

Dana nodded. “I already knew that’s what he told Detective Tanaka. But when he told me I had a feeling he was lying.”

“Oh?” Robert said again, more slowly this time. “Did Tanaka get that impression, too?”

“If he did, he didn’t mention it. But I’m good at knowing when people aren’t telling the truth. My father’s a cop. He taught me what to look for when I was just a kid, so I’ve had years of practice. And I don’t think Stu was meeting his wife.”

“Then what do you think?”

“That if anyone asked her she’d back him up. The names of the stores they went to would probably be on the tip of her tongue. But it wouldn’t prove anything.”

Robert gazed at her, looking decidedly unhappy. Finally, he said, “So, assuming you’re right, he just doesn’t want anyone to know what he was really doing that evening.”

“Exactly. Which is why I’m not entirely ready to write him off as innocent.

“On the other hand, I give a lot of weight to the results of those lie detector tests. It isn’t easy to beat them.”

“Only Larry seems to figure it is,” Robert said.

NOAH WAS NOT A MAN WHO lurked. Yet he knew that was the only word to describe what he was doing at the moment.

Virtually everyone else had left for home by now, but here he was, standing partway between his office and the front door, lurking.

Glancing at his watch, he wondered how much longer that woman would be spending with his uncle.

It didn’t matter, though. However long it was he’d still be here. He wanted the answers to some questions and he intended to get them.

He paced to his office door, then back down the hall again, almost banging into Chris Vidal, their director of logistics, who was coming out of the main office area.

“On your way home?” Chris asked.

“Shortly. I’m just waiting to catch Robert,” he added when the other man obviously expected more.

“Oh, well, if you’ve got a minute, tell me what you think of these new rates Intercoastal Vans has in mind.”

Chris dug a couple of sheets from the folder he was carrying. “They’ve changed the formula for their weight, volume and distance calculations, and I don’t think it’ll be to our benefit. But the explanation’s so damned convoluted…”

Noah skimmed the pages, hoping Dana didn’t make good her escape while Chris had him captured.

“Yeah,” he said when he was done. “I’d say you’re right. We’d really get nailed on some of those overweight charges.”

“I’ll give them a call in the morning, then,” Chris said, sticking the papers back into his folder. “Talk to them about a guaranteed max.”

“Good idea.”

Noah watched Chris disappear into his office, then went back to thinking about Dana—and assuring himself he wasn’t paranoid. There was no way he’d merely imagined that she’d been covertly watching him this afternoon.

Oh, she’d been very subtle about it. If he hadn’t found himself gazing at her so frequently, he’d never have realized what she was doing.

But he’d introduce her to someone, and a few minutes later he’d see that she was less interested in the conversation than in keeping track of him.

And it sure wasn’t because she found him wildly attractive. She hadn’t been looking at him with stars in her eyes. What he’d seen in them was suspicion.

Man, oh, man, she was not what she was pretending to be. He had no lingering doubts on that score, was entirely back to being convinced she was either a cop or a P.I.

And he had a horrible feeling his worst fear about why she’d actually been hired was bang on.

Larry had convinced Robert that his own nephew could be behind the sabotage. So they had Ms. Whoever-she-really-was in here to check him out.

Looking at his watch again, he reminded himself that all he had to do was learn where she lived. Once he knew that, getting her real identity should be easy.

A doorman might be persuaded to talk, if there was one. Failing that, he’d go back to his NYC database.

She might have avoided any link between her Dana Mayfield, OD consultant, phone number and other information, but he’d be able to get a list of the occupants in her building. Then, by process of elimination…

Of course, if it was a large place, that could present quite a challenge. But he’d do whatever he had to, and after he knew for sure…

He put the brakes on his thoughts. He was going to take this one step at a time and he didn’t have much hard information yet.

At this point, the only thing he was certain of was that she lived somewhere in Manhattan. And that it couldn’t be too far from here, because she’d mentioned that she’d walked to the office this morning.

So, first, he’d offer her a ride home. That had to be worth a try, even though he expected she’d turn him down.

If she wasn’t who she claimed to be, she wouldn’t want him knowing a thing about the real her. And that, of course, included where she lived.

But if she didn’t say no… Would that mean he was totally wrong about this?

Uh-uh. He simply couldn’t believe he was.

He heard the faint noise of footsteps on the stairs and waited, not breathing, until the sounds reached the bottom. Then he strode to the end of the hall and did his best to look surprised when he saw her.

“Working late your first day?” he said.

She smiled. “Trying to impress people.”

Opening the door, he ushered her ahead of him, saying, “Which way do you go?”

“North.”

“Ah, me, too.”

“Oh?”

“I’m not on my way home,” he quickly added, remembering he’d told her where he lived. And Murray Hill was more east than north.

“But why don’t I give you a ride. My car’s parked just behind the building.”

“Well, thanks, but I’d rather walk.” She pointed to the sneakers she’d changed into. “I’m all set.”

He nodded. “You’re sure I can’t tempt you, though? It’s still awfully hot.”

“Even so, walking’s the only exercise I get.”

“Ah. Then I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“I guess.” She gave him another smile before heading down the street, leaving him muttering.

Now what did he do? Follow her?

He wasn’t a man who did that, either. And when the idea had occurred to him, earlier, he’d rejected it. But how else was he going to find out what he wanted to know?

He took a few steps toward the narrow passage that led back to the alley—then stopped.

It was rush hour. She’d be walking faster than the traffic was moving.

On the other hand, his car had air, he was wearing a suit and the temperature had to be in the nineties.

But the bottom line was that he didn’t want to lose her. So he removed his jacket, slung it over his shoulder and started off after her on foot.