by Dale Mayer
“And there are three rooms full?” Kai asked.
“Yes,” Johan said. “All different types of materials though. The last room appears to be medications, like drugs and chemicals.”
Kai nodded slowly. “I wonder how old they are, whether they’re outdated and stored down there as out of circulation or whatever and waiting to be destroyed.”
Johan thought about that and shrugged. “That would be good to know. I didn’t see anything on the boxes, like labels or expiration dates, but I didn’t look that close at all sides of every box.”
“We’ll probably have to open up some of the cases to see expiration dates on the bottles,” Joy said, “because, in reality, that stuff could have been there for a long time.”
“As in years or decades?”
“If that part of the building isn’t used, it’s hard to say,” she said. “So who would have access to it is what we need to know.”
“I can talk to Edward when we go back tomorrow morning,” Johan said. “He came in and reamed us out pretty good because I was talking to the shipping foreman.”
“The usual dig in to cause a stir and shake things up a bit tactic?” Kai asked with a knowing grin.
Johan gave her a lopsided grin. “Everybody lies when it suits them. Some only reveal the truth when they’re shocked.”
“So let’s really shake them up a bit then,” Tyson said. “We might have to get one of our guys assigned to the building too though.”
“That would be interesting,” Joy said. “I wonder if there’s any inspector the new guy could come in as.”
“Not likely. Maybe audits though,” Johan said. He looked at Kai. “What do you think? Some kind of special investigator?”
She frowned and said, “I don’t know one end of a bookkeeping ledger from another,” Kai said. “What about health inspectors?”
“There would be no reason for them to be there,” Joy said. “No animals are on the premises. But will your fake auditor get access to the secret dark rooms that nobody seems to know anything about?” Joy joked. “Or will the company try to keep any auditor away from everybody and especially Level B3?”
“We’ll have to look into that,” Tyson said, still texting somebody. “I think we’re better to go in as auditors or something that gives us broad access to their computer system. Ice will know what to set our covers up as.”
Joy presumed it was his boss, Levi. “So who is paying all your wages?” she asked suddenly. “I don’t want you guys getting in trouble for being here.”
“We’re here with Levi’s permission,” Kai said.
“So what’s in it for him?” she asked.
Kai looked at her, surprised. “That’s a very good question. In Levi’s case, it’s likely for justice. He hates scenarios like this. He has brought up this case with the police to maybe link to Chelsea. So, if it’s a murder investigation, it’s on everybody’s radar.”
“But then we’d have the cops in my building,” Joy said. “Not health inspectors.”
“Well, that’s a good point too,” Kai said. “Maybe some of Levi’s guys could go in as detectives.”
“You mean, pretending to be police officers?” Joy said. “That’s against the law.”
“Not if we have permission from the police,” Kai suggested.
“That you won’t get,” Tyson noted.
“Possibly not.”
There was silence as everybody considered what their options were.
“Is there a company above this one?” Kai asked.
“Just the board,” Joy said. “This is the umbrella company. I believe a couple companies are under it, one of which used to work at this location as well.”
“Used to?”
“Used to,” Joy said, “though I’m not exactly sure why I used past tense there. Maybe it is an old defunct company, and maybe the materials in those rooms were leftovers from that business. Although I thought I remembered seeing something about an office supply company, so maybe not in relation to the drugs you found there.”
“That would be good to know either way,” Kai said, writing down notes. “More conversations for Edward.” Kai paused, then asked, “What about the owner-CEO himself?”
“Edward seems to think Barlow’s an idiot,” Johan said. “I’ve never met Barlow, but I’ve seen his board member photo.”
“He is not the smartest bulb,” Joy said. “I would have said he was slimy but harmless, up until I talked to Phyllis. Now I’m not so sure.”
“And how bad does Phyllis feel about all this now?” Kai asked. “Any chance of her being after revenge?”
“It’s a long cold day for revenge,” Joy said. “But why would she have told me all that history if it was her? That wouldn’t have been very astute of her.”
“True, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. It’s an odd scenario, but we’ve seen a lot of odd people doing odd things in this world,” Johan said.
Joy agreed with that. She sighed. “So, as much as it is great to see you guys, was this intended as a personal visit or as a business meeting?”
“Both,” Kai said, reaching across to grab her friend’s fingers and squeeze. “And we wanted to make sure that you were safe.”
“Well, I’m safe enough at the moment,” she said. “But, if we keep digging through the company, they may start to take steps to protect themselves.”
“They’re already doing that,” Johan said.
“Can you tell that from the accounts?”
“We can tell that from the IT. There’s been a lot less activity on the network this past week, now that we’re watching, than there was compared to the previous week’s IT activity.”
“Of course it’s expected that some things will stop. People checking in on friends and relatives, going to social media sites that they shouldn’t be going to while at work, using other people’s accounts, or using other people’s log-ins. Things they might do on a regular basis at work become something they don’t want to take a chance on now. Not that they have any illegal motivation, just that it’s not the best practices and probably against corporate policy, and they don’t want to get caught.” Joy sighed. “So what do we do from here?” she asked. “It’s not just about theft. If you think that Chelsea died because of her job, then this is about murder.”
“Yes,” Kai said gently. “But how widespread is this? We don’t want to cut off one head while the main part of the body is gloating beneath us.”
Joy wrinkled up her nose at that thought. “Okay, that sounds pretty ugly. So what do we have to do in order to make sure that we get all of it?”
“It’ll take time,” Johan said. “It will be a few days before we can get to the bottom of this.”
“I hope you’re right about that,” she said. “I hadn’t really planned on quitting my job just now, but obviously I no longer have a choice.”
Kai nodded slowly. “And that’s one of the reasons why I was hoping maybe we could get you to quit earlier.”
“I don’t know,” she said. “That’s a hard thing to do. I don’t want to leave it right now. We don’t exactly have a reason for it either.”
“Maybe not,” Kai said, “but making the wrong choice now could have a very bad outcome.”
Joy smiled at her friend. “I trust you. I trust all of you. You’ll do your best to keep me safe. And, if you guys can’t do it, so be it. I sure as hell couldn’t do it on my own,” she said with a smile.
*
Joy’s words were something that Johan kept close to his heart as he continued his cyberwork Saturday morning from his hotel room. He was frustrated because every time he thought he’d gotten through to another level of the company’s intranet system, he kept coming up with more blocks.
He turned to Galen as they worked side by side and asked, “How come we’re having so much difficulty getting through everything?”
“I think they’re busy putting up firewalls right now,” Galen said.
“It’s mid
“And you’ve got to wonder why.”
“Maybe someone on the board of directors could be the hacker and whoever’s doing the stealing,” Johan said.
“And it could be an otherwise honest loyal employee who disagrees with what Edward and the board have allowed Barlow to do.”
“That brings up another point. It could be whoever’s against Barlow, Edward, and the company too.”
Galen shook his head. “The hackers are not even really trying to hide their tracks, and, if they’re asked about it, they’ll say that they were asked to boost the security within their company.”
“Are you ready for a field trip?” Johan asked, sitting back.
Galen looked at him, smiled, and nodded. “Always. I’m more than done with being on the computer,” he said.
Johan stood. “Let’s head over and look at the company itself.”
“Have we been given permission?” Galen asked.
Grinning, Johan snapped his laptop closed. “Yeah. Edward refused. He’s still mad about me talking to the shipping foreman. Finally Barlow caved, once Levi had him on the phone.”
“I’ve just been waiting for you,” Galen said, laughing. “Let’s go.” As he logged off his laptop, Galen then asked, “What about Joy? Will you tell her?”
Johan shrugged. “She’ll just want to come along.”
“True enough. I’d suggest you send her a text to make sure she’s doing okay though.”
“Kai stayed overnight,” he said, “and Tyson. I’m sure Joy’s fine.” Nevertheless he grabbed his phone and quickly sent her a text. Heading out to do more intel work. Just wanted to make sure you’re okay.
I’m fine. We’re about to sit down to brunch.
Good enough. I’ll contact you later.
He pocketed his phone, nodded at Galen, and they walked out of their hotel room. They were just ten minutes away from the company.
As they walked in, using their passes on the side door, he noted that the place sounded like a morgue. “Weird how office buildings are so empty on weekends,” he said.
“And yet I wonder how empty this one is.”
They headed to their workspace, hooked up their laptops, and started searching online to see if anybody was around.
“I’m into the security system,” Johan said. “Two cards were accessed at noon, which were ours, and two were accessed this morning.”
“Where are they now?”
“One is Barlow. He’s up in his office. He’s supposedly still there, but I don’t know that for certain. I don’t have an ID on the other one. It just says, visitor pass.”
“Did he come in with Barlow?”
“Within a few minutes.”
“So that person could be with him, or it could be someone who followed behind him.”
“I know,” he said. “First things first, let’s go find Barlow and see if he’s even here.”
“And the reason?” Galen asked. They took their laptops with them and headed toward the elevator.
“We’re here to investigate crimes,” he said. “Do we need another excuse?”
Galen shrugged. “Not really,” he said, “but it would be nice if we had something that we could pinpoint. Pretty quickly they will all look at us as wasting everybody’s time.”
“I know,” he said. “We could say the same thing about them too.”
They rode up the elevator and finally stopped on the top floor. When they stepped out, once again that empty hollow sound permeated the area. They walked down to Barlow’s office and rapped on the door. When there was no answer, Johan turned the handle, but it was locked. Johan frowned, asking Galen, “Did he come out of his office?”
“No,” Galen said, frowning as he checked. “It says he’s still in here.”
Johan pulled out his card and used it to unlock the door, only it wouldn’t unlock. “Once again we don’t have security override to enter everywhere,” he said. Pulling out his lockpick set, he had the door opened in a few seconds.
“Now that set off an alarm,” Galen said. He worked on his laptop, holding it with one hand, shutting down the alarm with the other.
“Good enough.” Johan pushed open the door and called out, “Barlow, are you here?”
There was no answer.
They were in what appeared to be a large reception area with a couple private offices farther inside. “So this is like a private suite,” Johan muttered.
Galen sat in the front room, still working on his laptop.
Johan walked through the reception area, headed toward what was the biggest office in the corner. He didn’t need to look far because Barlow was right here on the floor. “Damn.” Barlow stared at Johan, but no life was left in his eyes. A bullet hole decorated his forehead. Looks like a .22 made entry. A woman’s gun usually, Johan thought. But don’t get trapped into that thinking.
“Damn,” Johan whispered. “This case just got much uglier.”
Chapter 8
When the phone call came to her cell an hour later, the two other phones in her apartment went off as well. Joy looked at Kai and Tyson as they all reached for their phones.
“Johan, what’s up?” Joy asked.
“The CEO of the company—Barlow—he’s dead,” he said. “Two security cards accessed the building this morning. His was one of them.”
“What?” she cried out. “That’s terrible. How did you find him?” she asked, her hand over her chest as she thought about the ramifications. “Was it a heart attack?”
“Possibly, but it went hand in hand with a bullet then too,” he snapped.
“He was murdered?” She bounced up to her feet.
She and Kai had been sitting here, nursing the second pot of coffee, talking about everything—from Kai’s relationship with Tyson, Joy’s relationship with Johan, which she’d called a nonrelationship—all as Tyson worked in the living room. They’d shared a wonderful brunch of pancakes, and, when that was over, things had fallen to the side of girl talk. But now all three of them were on their phones.
“This is just too unbelievable,” Joy said. “I wonder why?”
“We did a quick search of his office,” Johan said, “but we didn’t find anything else.”
“Who was the other security card?” she asked.
“It was a visitor’s pass,” Johan replied.
“You should be able to check the log to see who it was signed out to.”
“Okay, hold on a sec.” When he came back on the line, he said, “Galen’s checking.”
After a few seconds, she heard Galen say something in the background to Johan.
“Jesus,” said Johan. “It literally says Donald Duck.”
She stopped pacing and froze. “Are you serious?”
“Yeah. Quack-quack,” he said in disgust.
“So Barlow likely came in with his killer.”
“That would make sense, yes,” he said. “We’re thinking that, chances are, he was followed to work, and this person came in right behind him.”
“That makes sense,” she said, “unless it was somebody he knew.”
“We’re also looking at the security cameras, but guess what?”
“What?” she asked, her heart sinking.
“All the cameras were offline this morning.”
“Oh, good Lord,” she said. “So, it was a setup, and he was definitely targeted.”
“Which means everybody in the company is now in danger—as well as a potential suspect.”
“And yet,” she said, “it still doesn’t make any sense.”
“It will,” he said, his voice grim. “We just don’t know all the details yet.”
“So, what do you want me to do?”
“Stay safe. Stay there with Kai and Tyson.”
Joy took a deep breath. “Fine, I’ll be careful,” she said. “I feel safe here.”
“How can you feel safe,” he said, “when you know that your place was bugged?”
“But that’s past tense,” she said, “it isn’t now. Besides, Kai and Tyson are here. Past meaning that I don’t want to think about it.”
“Not wanting to think about it doesn’t change anything,” he snapped.
“Makes no sense right now.” She took several slow deep breaths, the tension in his voice catching her attention. “What do you want me to do?” she asked.
“I want you to stay alive. That’s what I want you to do.”
“And you? You could have a murderer in that building right now.”
“We’re counting on it,” he snapped, and he hung up. She slowly put down her phone to see the other two staring at her. “I presume you heard the news?”
They both nodded. “Yes,” Kai said. “The cops will be there any second, if they’re not already. Johan and Galen are searching the building, and the members of the board of directors are being contacted.”
“Right. A whole investigation kicks into gear now, I suppose.”
Kai paced around the room. “The real question is, who would want him dead?”
“Well, if he’s the slimy asshole I believe him to be,” Joy said, “the real question is, who wouldn’t want him dead?”
“A huge suspect pool, great. That won’t help,” Tyson said.
“I believe over 240 people work for the umbrella company, so that’s not an enormous pool but big enough.” She stopped, stared, her mind obviously working overtime. “Honestly, even though I kinda like the woman for her tenacity, I’d have to put Phyllis at the top of the list.”
“You don’t believe her when she says she doesn’t care anymore?”
“I don’t know,” Joy said. “It would be hard for me to continue working there.”
“Got it,” Tyson said, “but you’re different from everybody else, and people have all kinds of reasons for doing what they do.”
“I get that,” she said, “but still, I’d be checking into her whereabouts.”
“That’s for the police to do,” he said. “Again we were officially kicked out of that investigation as well. So we’ll do an unofficial investigation. I’m waiting for Johan and Galen to complete a full search on the building.”
-->