Читать книгу Green's Way - Juli Bunting - Страница 5

On October 27, 2011, the pilot of the Heartland Global Insurance private jet announced they were about to land at the Executive Airport in Orlando and that it was seventy-seven degrees on the ground. That helped considerably to brighten Samantha’s sour mood. She put on her usual smiling face, however, when she met the insurance agents from Chicago who shared this flight.

It bothered Sam that she would miss Halloween in Columbia and had to leave Teddy on a holiday he hated. Well, she didn’t actually know if her dog hated Halloween. But she did know that the motion-activated screaming skull she put on the porch every year sent him into a howling frenzy. And that was magnified several times over on Halloween night when every single trick-or-treater that came to the door set the thing off. It was pretty much screaming all night long. Her friend, Wanda—lover of all things dog—was staying with him as she did most of the time when Samantha was called away on work. Since Teddy had never had to spend a Halloween without her, Sam made a mental note to call Wanda and have her turn off the scream machine for Halloween night.

Sam shut down her laptop and put it away in the shiny black leather computer case Unk had given her last Christmas. She thought of him as she zipped it up and made another mental note to call him when she got to the apartment the firm had rented for her while she was in Florida. It was a relatively short flight from Columbia to Orlando, so she hadn’t done any work on the flight. Besides the short time in the air, Sam was unusually distracted by thoughts of Thanksgiving and the upcoming holidays. The best she could hope for was to get this case wrapped up quickly so she could get home to Columbia, get Teddy, and make the trip to Unk’s in time for Thanksgiving. It was the holiday she loved the most at her uncle’s large, cluttered home in Chicago; the home she’d grown up in on South Bennett Avenue. The house was always filled with an interesting mix of faculty, students, politicos, artists, and journalists. Samuel Carson was known for his parties and Thanksgiving was a time for nothing but parties. Unk was involved in all kinds of civic ventures besides his activities in historical societies and academic pursuits and thus had a stimulating circle of friends. Samantha felt better just thinking about spending Thanksgiving in Chicago.

Since she hadn’t spent much time reviewing the facts of the case on the plane, she essentially only knew that it involved the theft of some expensive paintings from a mansion somewhere near a golf course. She wasn’t familiar with the pieces that had been stolen, how extensive the police investigation had been, or who the victims were. She had a lot to study tonight before meeting with the home owners tomorrow morning.

When the jet door opened, she could smell the warm Florida evening breeze and felt the sultry air hit her face. She stood and grabbed her laptop and carefully made her way down the air stairs into the warm Florida evening. Oh man, she thought, this could be really wonderful, despite the fact that she was missing Halloween in Columbia. Too bad Teddy wouldn’t be here to enjoy this beautiful weather with her. Of course she probably wouldn’t have time to enjoy the weather much anyway. She would be spending her time working.

There was a black limousine waiting for her when she stepped onto the tarmac and she watched the five agents, led by another chauffer, walk toward another limo. Her driver, who introduced himself as Tom, grabbed her bags and put them in the open trunk. “Tom.” Samantha laughed. All of Heartland Global drivers were “Tom.” It was a security measure. All drivers were at all times to introduce themselves as “Tom.” So no matter how many days you had the same driver or how many times he took you from the company apartment to the library or the scene of the crime, they were all instructed to say, “Good morning, ma’am, my name is Tom.” Even female drivers were known as “Tom.” Samantha always thought it was over-the-top silly, but then this work could be dangerous and the company was notorious for its security measures. “Thanks, Tom,” Samantha said as the driver opened the back door of the limo for her to climb in.

The drive from Orlando Executive Airport to her townhouse on Cardinal Meadow Trail took just under half an hour. “Tom” retrieved her bags, carried them to the front door, and handed her a set of keys which included keys to the townhouse and to the new Prius parked in the driveway. She opened the front door and told “Tom” to leave her bags in the entryway.

“Well, if there’s nothing else, I’ll be on my way. Just make arrangements with the company and one of us will pick you up for your return trip,” Tom said.

“Thanks, Tom. I’ll be fine. Thanks for everything.” Sam closed the door of the townhouse behind him, feeling pangs of guilt as she always did for not tipping. Tipping company drivers was strictly prohibited.

The townhouse was beautifully furnished, as Samantha expected. Heartland usually went all out for their top investigators. Considering that a top investigator could save the company hundreds of millions of dollars in claims by exposing fraud, Heartland executives thought the expense was well worth it. Samantha was their top claims investigator and probably cost them half of what other investigators did because she rarely wanted to be put up in expensive places. She usually liked to be close to the crime scene and sometimes that meant very expensive and sometimes not. This place was about a thousand bucks a month and the claim here was for ten million dollars, so the company execs considered it money well spent. Especially if Sam could help police solve the case or if she discovered there was fraud involved.

The townhouse had two bedrooms, one furnished as a bedroom with a queen sized bed, nightstands, lamps, a closet and a dresser, and the other furnished as an office. Samantha knew she would spend most of her time working downstairs at the small bar area between the kitchen and living room, but it was nice to have the option, especially if she woke up in the middle of the night and wanted to work. In that case she would only need to stumble across the hall. Of course it was all set up with Wi-Fi, satellite TV, and high speed internet. There were three flat screen TVs—one very large one in the living room and two smaller ones upstairs in the bedroom and the office.

She kicked off her heels and unpacked her suitcase. She hung up her work clothes and the three evening dresses she always took on a job in case evening wear was called for. She put her yoga pants, sports bras, pajamas, jeans, undies, t-shirts, and socks in the dresser. She carefully laid out her shoes on the floor of the closet—two pairs of pumps, a pair of stiletto heels, two pairs of sandals, two pairs of running shoes, and a pair of slippers. She put her jewelry bag on the top shelf of the closet and her toiletries in the bathroom. After squirming out of the tight black skirt and white starched blouse she had worn on the plane, she carefully put her pearl necklace and pearl earrings in her jewelry bag. Then she pulled out a pair of black satin pajamas and a matching robe, put them on, and went downstairs to set up her computer for the evening.

In the living room, she clicked on the large black flat screen TV and surfed until she found MSNBC. She hadn’t realized it was late enough for Rachel Maddow, but there she was up on the big screen talking about Eliot Spitzer and the Wall Street scandals he had uncovered and prosecuted. Then she showed a clip of Senator Carl Levin blasting some schmuck from Goldman Sachs. Sam opened the fridge and was not surprised to see it was stocked to her usual order. Yogurt, cheese cubes, a large wedge of cambozola cheese, eggs, hot dogs, 12 water bottles, bag-o-salad greens, red and yellow peppers, pine nuts, an English cucumber, Smart Balance, and three bottles of Horse Heaven Sauvignon Blanc. In the freezer there were sugar-free frozen fruit bars and low-carb chocolate ice cream. She looked in the pantry and saw whole wheat, whole grain bread and buns, peanut butter, water crackers, Starbucks Morning Joe, and two cases of bottled water on the floor. She glanced at the Cuisinart Coffee Plus machine on the counter and smiled as she realized everything was stocked according to Green’s Way. That’s what one of the assistants at Heartland had said when Samantha was dispatched to her first job away from Chicago.

“You’ll find everything you need, everything stocked Green’s Way when you get there,” the pretty young assistant had said.

“Green’s Way?” Sam was confused.

“Yes, ma’am. YOUR way. Everything should be just as you requested. Green’s Way.”

Now in Orlando, Sam pulled a corkscrew from a drawer and opened a bottle of the wine. She took a wineglass from one of the cupboards and poured herself a glass. Then she grabbed the Cambozola and the water crackers and sat down at the bar and opened her laptop.

Harold and Missy Brownfield had come home to their mansion on Tavistock Road the evening of October twenty-fifth to find five rare and very valuable paintings missing. The pieces ranged in size from a thirty-six by twenty-four inch painting to a twenty-three by twenty. According to police, there was no sign of forced entry into the mansion and no fingerprints anywhere near where the pieces had been hung. The home security alarm had not been triggered. According to the report from Heartland, the Brownfields were both in their mid seventies and had four children and fifteen grandchildren. It was a very old Orlando family and very old money. Harold Brownfield had been an international financier who had business interests all over Europe. The four Brownfield children, three boys and a girl, had all done well in their own right. The two eldest boys, both in their late forties, were doctors. The other son, forty-two, owned a chain of successful music stores, and their thirty-eight year old daughter was a scientist with some branch of the defense department. The kids and grandkids were scattered all over the country and no one was anywhere near Orlando when the burglary occurred.

“Doesn’t mean they weren’t involved,” mused Samantha. “But unlikely.”

In her experience, Samantha found that successful children of wealthy parents were sometimes involved in this type of crime. But unless there was a lot of family animus or a history of drugs, gambling, or debt among the children, it wasn’t all that common. And there was none of that indicated in the very extensive report from Heartland in this case. Practically every single bloody nose or skinned knee any of the kids had ever suffered was in this report. The family seemed very tight. The whole clan would get together for birthdays, vacations, Christmas. They traveled together, celebrated together, and seemed genuinely close as a family. They all seemed to spend a lot of time together at the family “compound” in the Bahamas. Even though this appeared to be some kind of inside job, Samantha figured she would be looking outside the family for the thieves.

Before going to bed that night, Sam remembered to call Wanda and warn her about the screaming skull on the porch and how it might turn Teddy into a screaming ball of fur on Halloween. After talking with Wanda, she dialed the familiar Chicago number.

“Hello there, Samantha. How’s my ace investigator?” Unk sounded the same as always—awake, healthy, and happy to hear from her.

“I’m good, Unk. I’m in Orlando.” Samantha proceeded to tell her uncle about the call from Heartland and her orders to go to Florida and investigate the case of the missing artwork. Unk was more interested in her work than she was sometimes. They talked for almost half an hour before finally saying their good-byes with Sam promising to keep him in the loop.