With a Kiss I Die

by J. A. Hennrikus

  I hit the link to the folder Holly had sent me and was asked for Babs’s password. I put it in, and looked at what I had access to. I went up a couple of levels and was pleased to see that Babs was an extraordinarily organized person. The file structure seemed simple: folders were broken up into seasons, shows, categories of production, personnel, board minutes—all aspects of running a company. A quick perusal also showed that Babs seemed good at separating her personal life from her professional life. No one folder indicated that it had anything to do with Babs the person. They all had everything to do with Babs the managing director. Nonetheless, surely there were some clues.

  “Earth to Sully. Here, eat some pizza. Let’s let Eric tell us what he found and you can explain your cryptic it’s all tied together comment before you dive too deeply into your project for Holly,” Emma said, sliding a piece toward me. Barbecue chicken pizza. Yum. I took a bite, and then another.

  “Having those two groups of files was really interesting,” Eric said, wiping his mouth. “I copied them both into new directories on my computer, so that the originals wouldn’t be changed. Then I made a copy of those, in case somebody went in and changed the originals—”

  “Isn’t that a little paranoid?” Emma asked.

  “I’ve been hanging around Sully too long,” Eric said. “I’ve developed a healthy paranoia about not having multiple copies of everything. I’m glad I took the extra steps. On the copy of the copy on my laptop—hope you’re following this—I ran a comparison of documents and made a list. Most of them were duplicates. A lot just showed differences in drafts. Both Gus and Hal were good about keeping all drafts of all documents. But there were a few, a dozen or so, where the final document on Gus’s file did not match the final document on Hal’s file.”

  “How did that happen? Weren’t they PDFs? Were there dates that helped?” Emma asked.

  “The dates didn’t help as much as I hoped. It’s hard to know when the changes were made, since the drafts went back and forth in Word form. It was easy enough to make the changes and then re-save the document.”

  “But,” I said, swallowing some pizza, “someone had the original documents. Or they were signed in one of those services that certified the document itself. If Hal—and for the sake of this conversation, let’s assume it was Hal who made the changes, though it was likely someone else more directly involved—”

  “Like Mimi or Jerry, or Kate, or—” Emma began.

  “Or someone who worked for Mimi or Jerry. Though in my experience, folks who do things like this? They work with a small group of people who know the entire picture of what is going on. Secrets are best kept by only a few people.”

  “Given the way our company works,” Eric said, “I see that. Not that we try to pull one over on anyone, but we keep the decision-making to three people. Emma, Gus, and me.”

  “Anyway,” Emma said, moving past the fact that Gus was the only person working on both the Whitehall Company and the Century Project’s legal documents. Gus and maybe Kate. “I’m going to assume that for whoever made the changes, some of this would’ve started to catch up with them, wouldn’t it have?”

  “The changes were really tiny, but significant,” Eric said. He stood up and went over to the sink, filling three glasses with water and bringing them back to the table. “That chorizo has a kick to it. Anyway, the changes were things like preferred vendors, deadlines, escrow amounts, that sort of thing. Gus’s document had a deadline of May 15th, for example. Hal’s had one of May 1st. If someone hit an earlier deadline, it wouldn’t have triggered any concern for Gus. But in two cases, there was a late charge on services that didn’t meet the deadline. Those late charges became part of the cost of doing business, and they started to add up.”

  “Who paid the late charges? Give me an example,” Emma said. I noticed she’d stopped eating and was staring at Eric.

  “Well, we paid some of them. Remember that project in Salem, the one last spring? There were several additional costs on that project that Terry explained away at the time. But now I think they were part of the scheme. The fees all went into a separate account, one which the Whitehall Company had no access to.”

  “Do you think Terry knew what was going on?” Emma said. “Did he sign off on any of this?”

  “I have no idea. Tomorrow I’m going to call in a forensic accountant. I waited, wanting to talk to the two of you before I took that step. Once I pull that trigger, I think a lot of things are going to start happening. At least on the Century Project front. I’ve also got to admit, some of this doesn’t look good for Gus, since it could be argued that he may have missed the deadlines on purpose. Hold on, hold on, I know. I know Gus. He’d never do anything. But it feels like, it seems like, maybe he was set up a bit.”

  “By Hal?”

  “I’m actually thinking by somebody who worked more closely with Gus.”

  “Kate?” I asked. Eric nodded. “That sort of makes sense, doesn’t it? Kate would have access to the documents, to Gus’s work—”

  “I called her earlier, asked if we could meet tonight or tomorrow morning,” Eric said.

  “Did you tell her why you wanted to meet?” Emma asked.

  “No, just asked if she was going to be at the meeting with Jerry tomorrow, told her we should talk beforehand.”

  “We should talk indeed,” Emma said. I looked at her carefully. She was angry. In true Yankee style, her anger was controlled, but I could see it seething near the surface. Eric could too. He took another piece of pizza and put it on Emma’s plate.

  “Em, you should eat. We’ll figure this all out. No one is better at untangling a mess than you are.”

  “Actually, I think Sully’s got me beat on that one,” she said. She pushed her pizza around on her plate but didn’t take a bite. “Your turn, Sully. What are you thinking?”

  “While I was getting dressed I started thinking about all these different roads we’re going down, all the stories folks are telling us,” I said. “I’m starting to wonder if they’re all connected in some way. I was hoping Babs’s files might give us more of an insight, but so far all I see is work product. See this here—if you open this up, you’ll see that she was deep in the weeds planning next season.”

  “Isn’t it a little early?” Eric asked.

  “No, not at all. She’d need to get the rights to shows before she makes the season public. She’s probably planning on making the announcement in March, April at the latest. Without an artistic director, in must’ve been hard, but it sounds like the company worked together on this process. At least that’s what Dimitri’s told me. An interesting model for running a company. A model that does depend on Babs at the helm, steering the ship.” I turned my computer and was showing Eric and Emma Babs’s files.

  “Hello,” I said, having opened the file that said prospective projects. “Here’s an interesting choice for next season. I’ve read it. A new play about Bernie Madoff.”

  “Well, a play about one of the biggest Ponzi schemes in history would be interesting. So many people in New England were affected by him. It makes sense,” Emma said.

  “It’s the note she made on the show memo that’s interesting. See here? You can see the comment field. I doubt anyone else could, without her password. She only wrote one line. ‘Change the name to Jerry Cunningham.’”

  “When did she write that memo?” Emma asked.

  “Hard to tell now that I’ve got it open, but it looks like the file folder was created last week.”

  “That isn’t proof of anything,” Eric said. “But it does make me feel that the forensic accountant is crucial. We should probably postpone the meeting with Jerry tomorrow.”

  “Don’t postpone it yet. If you do, he might leave tonight. What time is it set for?” I asked.

  “Four o’clock,” Eric said.

  “Okay, let me work on Holly’s budget for
a few minutes and I’ll look around the files, see what else I can find. Eric, show Emma more of what you’ve found. Then we can figure out next steps. How does that sound?”

  “Sounds good,” Emma said, taking a bite of pizza.

  I went back to my computer and looked at Babs’s files, including the budgets for past years. I wasn’t surprised that the bottom line didn’t vary much from year to year. I started to cut and paste into a new spreadsheet. I made comments so that Holly could answer questions about the production. Was the playwright coming in? Were the actors local? From her answers, she would be able to get a sense of the budget and where there might be movement to give scenic more money. I sent it to her in an email and suggested she keep some money aside for unexpected expenses. While I worked, Eric and Emma did as well. Their computers were next to one another, and they were looking at both screens.

  “Budget done,” I said. “If anyone cares.”

  “What? Oh great. That was fast. We’ve been looking at files,” Emma said. “I’ve got to admit, this whole exercise is making me lose my faith in my fellow human beings. Deals are cut all over the place. Money is being skimmed—”

  “By whom, can you tell?” I asked.

  “Hard to say,” Eric said. “Looks like Knight, Smythe, and Brown were working both sides of the street.”

  “Gus? I can’t believe that—”

  “Kate uses the same files,” Emma said. We looked at each other.

  “Listen, I want to loop Toni into this conversation, even peripherally.”

  “Who’s Toni?” Eric asked.

  “Toni is Sully’s ex-partner. A cop.”

  “She’s investigating Mimi Cunningham’s death. I believe all of this has something to do with that.”

  “We don’t even know what this is,” Eric said. “It’s going to take weeks, maybe months to figure it all out. By the by, chances are good this may not end up being good for the Whitehall name, or business.”

  “Eric, I have complete faith that you and Emma will get the shine back on the Whitehall family name,” I said. “But this can’t be about saving face or protecting your dad’s legacy. This has to be about justice. Justice is messy, but it’s the only thing that really matters.”

  “You know, Sully,” Emma said, finally picking up her piece of pizza and nibbling the corner, “a year ago I would’ve thought you weren’t for real. But now I know that your life mission is justice for all. It must be exhausting.”

  “It is,” I said, choosing to take Emma seriously. “It cost me my job, my career. Probably cost me my marriage. Once I start to focus on an injustice, I’m determined to fix it. Mimi Cunningham may not have been a law-abiding citizen. She and Jerry may have been running a Ponzi scheme. But still, somebody took justice into their own hands and killed her. We can’t have that.”

  Emma sighed, then looked at me. “Let’s figure this out a bit more, then we’ll follow your lead, Sully. Won’t we, Eric?”

  “All the way, no matter where it takes us,” Eric said. “Meanwhile, let me call an accountant.”

  Emma, Eric, and I continued to eat pizza while clicking keys and searching files. I started framing the idea that this was all part of one whole rather than separate parts. I made notes on index cards, putting them in the order I expected them to be in and then shuffling them around. What if Mimi Cunningham’s death had nothing to do with Gus’s disappearance? Or if it did have something to do with Gus’s disappearance but not in the way we all thought? What happened if Mimi Cunningham’s death was the middle of the story, not the beginning?

  I stood up and took my cell phone. “I’ll be right back. I’m going to call Toni now and let her know what I’m thinking.”

  “I’m not sure we’re ready to let the police know we’re hiring a forensic accountant,” Emma said. “Not until we know what we’re looking at—”

  “Em, I trust Sully to use her discretion. Let’s not forget, Gus is missing. That may end up being one small piece of a very large puzzle, but that’s the piece I’m most worried about right now,” Eric said.

  “Of course, Eric, you’re right. I’m glad you’re on my side. I need you as my moral compass. Sully, do what you need to do.”

  Toni picked up on the second ring. “I assume you have something for me?” she said abruptly.

  “Hello to you too,” I said.

  “Not the best time or place for niceties,” she replied.

  “John’s there?”

  “You could say that,” she said. “I won’t put you on speaker phone unless you want me to.”

  “Not only do I not want you to, but I’ll start speaking a bit more softly so he can’t overhear my booming voice on the phone,” I said. “Listen, my priority is finding Gus. But I’m finding that I can’t look for Gus without touching parts of your investigation. There are a couple things off the top of my head you should know about. First, something hinky is going on with the Cunningham Corporation. Don’t ask me how, but we have some files of Gus’s and some files of Hal Maxwell’s regarding a few Century Projects. Theoretically they should be the same files, but there are small discrepancies in some of them. Things like escrow balances, deadlines, preferred vendors.”

  “Not the first time I’ve heard that,” Toni said. “Tough finding folks willing to go on the record, though.”

  “I’m going to assume this is part of the investigation but you need some hard evidence to use as proof ?” I asked. Toni didn’t say anything, so I went on. “I’ll ask the person working on all this to get in touch with you. Should we use your home email? Get you some notes on the case?”

  “That would probably be best for now. Very helpful. And yes, about your first concern, you should put in a missing person’s report for Gus. It hasn’t been forty-eight hours yet, but given the nature of this case, it’s good to officially let the authorities know you’re looking for him. I told Kate Smythe this earlier. She probably already did it, or at least that was the plan when we spoke.”

  “Thanks, Toni. Of course I assume this is a little rote, since the authorities are already looking for Gus?”

  “No comment.”

  “Fair enough,” I said. “Let me get my thoughts in better order, and then I’ll give you a call later?”

  “Any time. You do that thing you do with making order out of chaos, and catch me up when you’re ready.” Toni disconnected the call and I looked down at the cell phone in my hand. That thing I do. Back when we were partners, Toni always talked about that thing I did. That way of taking bits and pieces of information, rearranging them, and creating a new narrative for them. That thing I did, I do, is to remain open to telling a story from a different perspective. Facts were facts, but truth depended on who was telling the story. Too often facts and truth got confused.

  I went back out to the kitchen and sat down. I grabbed a pile of index cards and a red marker.

  “Okay gang, new project. Anything circled in red is a fact backed up by actual knowledge, not guesses. On all of this, what are the actual facts?”

  “Explain what you mean, Sully,” Eric said.

  “Sure,” I said. “Take this card, ‘got a text from Gus.’ That’s actually a guess, not a fact. I assumed it was from Gus because it came from his phone, but did he send it? Or did somebody spoof his number, or steal his phone and send the text? Texts aren’t facts. Phone calls, when we know we spoke with somebody, are facts. It’s subtle, but see the difference?”

  “I do,” Emma said. “Other facts include things like one document is different but we can’t know who made the changes.”

  “Exactly,” I said. “It’s the assumptions we need to get rid of. They may be leading us down a path, sending us in the wrong direction. I suspect that you may not be the only people looking for a forensic accountant these days. Or maybe you are, but I can’t help but wonder if Gus was thinking the same thing. My priority, t
he thing I’m most worried about, is looking for Gus. I know we all are. So let’s separate facts from suppositions and take a close look at what we really know, and where we’re making leaps of logic that may not hold up.”

  “I’m going to make some coffee,” Emma said. “This could take a while. But we need to get it done tonight.”

  “No time to lose,” I agreed. “In the meantime, I want to give Kate a call, see if she filed a missing person report for Gus. If she didn’t, one of us should. More can be done with official channels open.”

  “What makes you think she filed one?” Eric said.

  “Something Toni said,” I said. “Besides, it would give me a chance to set up a time to talk to her. She’s an interesting player in this particular drama. She intersects with too much of this puzzle.”

  “She does,” Emma said. “However, let me call her. She’s a lot more likely to pick up a call from me then she is from you. No offense.”

  “None taken,” I said.

  “Maybe we should invite her over for some pizza?” Eric said.

  “Kate doesn’t eat,” Emma said. “We could ask her over for a drink. That’s more likely to get her attention.”

  The front doorbell rang and we all looked at each other. Neither Eric nor Emma moved.

  “I’ll go,” I said.

  “Thanks, Sully,” Eric said. “If it’s the press—”

  “If it’s the press, I’ll deal with it. This isn’t my first rodeo. I’ll be right back.”

  • Fifteen •