“So, Mr. Ventura, away from hearth and home two nights in a row. What gives?”
He smiled and said, “Yeah, I’m becoming a real man about town, just like you and Denny.”
This provoked a snort from Denny, who was sitting across from Simon and me.
“Simon,” he said, “kindly do not pair me with JB in any category concerning night life, okay? I mean, c’mon, man, be serious.”
“I’ll ignore that,” I said.
“The truth cannot be ignored,” said Denny.
Simon interrupted us, laughing.
“Were you guys like this in, what, elementary school, wasn’t it, when you met?” he asked.
Denny and I just smiled.
“Anyway,” continued Simon, “regarding my being out two consecutive nights, that is unusual. Angie plays volleyball most Mondays, of course, but I don’t really have a certain ‘boys’ night out’ thing. Whenever one of you guys suggests running or hooping or racquetball or whatever, if it works for Ang and me, then I go.”
“What if it doesn’t work for you and Angie?” I asked.
Simon looked at me for a minute.
“Not sure what you mean there, JB,” he said. “There’s never been a situation where something didn’t work for Angie and me that we weren’t able to make it work one way or another. You know that.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I do. I withdraw the question.”
“You all right?” he asked.
“He’s just having a tough time with this case,” said Denny. “Meeting lots of people whose relationships are screwed up. Right, JB?”
The waiter brought our sandwiches then, which gave me a chance to think about what Denny had said.
“You’re probably right,” I said. “It’s just that I keep meeting up with people on this thing who don’t seem to value other people or care about their feelings or respect their opinions. I mean, Denny, remember I told you about the guy who was sitting with the lawyer babe at Station Square?”
He nodded, and we briefly filled Simon in on the situation with Sandra and the Chuckster.
“See,” I said, “the thing is that, while I definitely don’t think Sandra was trying to provoke a fight between Chuck and me, there was still something there, a curiosity on her part, perhaps, as to what would happen when I showed up. I don’t think people should be like that. You shouldn’t mess around with other people’s emotions.”
“Nope, you shouldn’t,” Simon agreed, “and most of the people I know don’t. You gotta remember what line of work you’re in, JB. I’m not saying that all the folks Angie and I know are completely considerate of everyone else in their lives, but I think most of them are reasonably good about it. You and Denny just happen to deal with a whole different segment of the population than the rest of us.”
“He’s got a point,” said Denny. “When I was starting out on the force, I went through a period where I started thinking that everyone I passed on the street was either already an ax murderer or waiting to be one. You have to back off once in a while and look at the whole picture.”
“I know,” I said. “And I know I’m reacting to the fact that I’ve been on this case for two weeks now, and just about everything that confused me at the beginning still confuses me now.”
“You just need to catch a break,” said Denny. “Something will happen, you know that. And once you get that break, stuff will start to fall into place.”
He was right, of course, but I doubt if even Denny suspected that the break would be waiting for me on my answering machine when I got home that night.
Chapter 33
Rachel Pendleton had called earlier that evening and left me a message.
Jeremy, this is Rachel Pendleton. You said to contact you if I thought of anything, anything at all, that seemed strange or unusual about the night before Terry was killed. This is such a little thing, I’m sure it’s not important, but . . . well, why don’t you give me a call when you get a chance, okay? Thanks.
It was too late to call her that night, but I was on the phone with her at eight o’clock the next morning, and she said if I hadn’t had breakfast yet, she’d be glad to make coffee, and she had a crumb cake somebody had left for her. I told her that sounded fine, and thirty minutes later, after making sure that I still didn’t have a tail, I was sitting across from Rachel at her kitchen table. The crumb cake was good, and the coffee was excellent. Rachel was wearing jeans and tennis shoes again, with a long-sleeved burgundy turtle-neck. There was evidence of some care having been taken with both her hair and her makeup, and, briefly, I wondered again how her husband had ended up in the arms of Dee-Dee Wilson.
“Thanks for coming,” said Rachel. “As I said in the message I left, it’s probably nothing.”
“No problem,” I said. “Worst case scenario, I get to have good crumb cake and great coffee with very pleasant company.”
She smiled, something I hadn’t seen her do before, but certainly something I hoped to see her do again. She had one of those smiles that transformed an attractive but basically ordinary face into a visage that could, under the right circumstances, be almost irresistible.
“So tell me about it,” I said.
She took a breath and said, “Okay. The night before Terry was killed, when he was telling me about how he thought he’d be getting a partnership sooner than we’d expected, he was holding a computer disc in his hand. I don’t think I was even aware of it at the time, probably because I was so thrilled at the prospect of his being a partner, with all the extra money and prestige and everything. Then, yesterday, I was going back over that scene, trying to picture it in my mind, and suddenly I remembered the disc.”
“And what’s the significance of the disc?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” said Rachel. “I mean, I don’t know what was on it, but why would Terry be holding onto it the whole time he was telling me about the partnership thing? This may sound silly, but, looking back on that conversation, I just have this feeling that, for Terry, there was some kind of connection between that disc and the partnership offer.”
“And where’s the disc now?”
“That’s just it,” she said. “That’s the reason I called you. I don’t know where the disc is. After Terry and I finished talking that night, I took Sammy out for a walk, and when I got back, Terry was in the shower. When he left for work the next morning, I know it wasn’t in his briefcase, because over breakfast he was reviewing some documents, and he asked me to put them back in his briefcase for him while he got his suit coat from the hall closet. There wasn’t much in the briefcase, just a few other papers. I’m almost sure I’d have remembered if that disc had been in there, too.”
“What about in his suit coat?”
“I’d just picked it up at the dry cleaner the day before,” she said. “It wasn’t even out of the plastic bag. Terry never wore his suit coats or sports jackets while driving. He always hung them on hangers in the back of the car, so they wouldn’t get wrinkled. He carried his suit coat out with him that morning. I suppose he could have put the disc in his coat pocket, but then I would have gotten it back from the police when they gave me Terry’s personal effects. All I got were a few things like his wallet, his watch, and his . . . wedding band.”
She was quiet for a minute then.
“All right,” I said. “Maybe he hid it somewhere here in the house. Have you looked?”
“Yes, I have,” she said. “Everywhere that I could think of.”
“Do you mind if I try?” I asked her.
“Of course not,” she said. “You’re probably much better at it than I am, anyway.”
It took me over two hours, and in the end, it was almost by accident that I found it. With Rachel’s help, I’d done a very methodical search of every room in the house, with no success. We ended up in the living room, me on the sofa and Rachel in one of the side chairs. As I sat there trying to think of places we’d missed, I noticed that the Pendletons had a Heatilator fireplace
, just like the one in my townhouse. On either side of the fireplace were four narrow vertical slits, and on the wall on the right-hand side of the hearth was a knob. Once you had a fire going, you used the knob to adjust a fan that forced hot air out through the slits instead of allowing the air to escape up the chimney. The whole process simply made the fireplace more efficient at heating a room. As I looked at the slits, I realized that they were about the size of a computer disc.
Fifteen seconds later, I located the disc in the third slit I tried. Turning to Rachel, I asked, “Is this it?”
“It looks like it,” she said. “See, the label has a rose-colored background with the firm’s logo on it.”
I’d seen a computer system in one of the upstairs rooms. We went up there and booted up the disc and were asked for the password, which stopped us cold. We tried a few wild guesses, but nothing worked. Since neither of us was anywhere near proficient enough to figure out a way around the password, we didn’t waste any more time on it. On the way back downstairs, I asked Rachel if I could keep the disc.
“Sure,” she said. “If there is something on that thing that will tell us why Terry was killed, I want to know.” I thanked her and told her I’d be in touch. Then I went out to my car and started the drive back home. On the way, I thought about the disc and how I’d get whatever information might be on it. That part was easy. I’d be calling Irv as soon as I got home. I also intended to make another call, this one to the offices of Chaney and Cox.
As I pulled into my garage, I had one more thought about the disc.
It was labeled “Master Copy.”
Chapter 34
It was after noon when I got home, and the first thing I did was call Irv, but there was no answer at his place. I tried Starbucks, just in case he was at work, and I ended up talking with a young woman named Keliyah, whom I’d met when she’d started working at Starbucks a month or so earlier.
“Keliyah, this is Jeremy Barnes, Irv’s friend,” I told her.
“Oh, sure,” she said, “the private detective. I remember you, Jeremy. Geez, I hope this isn’t anything important, ‘cause Irv’s in Tennessee. His father had a heart attack yesterday afternoon, and Irv caught a flight down there last night.”
“Any word on his father?” I asked.
“He’s doing much better,” she said. “Irv called here this morning and talked to Eleanor, the manager. He told her his dad’s attack was minor. The doctors say he’ll probably be able to go home this weekend. Irv’s going to stay down there until then. Right now, he’s planning on flying back on Sunday night. If you really need to get in touch with him, I think Eleanor has the number at his parents’ place.”
“No,” I said. “Thanks, but what I need from Irv has to be done in person. I’ll just want until he returns.”
After thanking her once more, I hung up and then dialed Irv’s number again. This time, I left a message telling him I hoped his father was all right, and asking if he’d give me a call as soon as he got back.
Before calling Chaney and Cox, I went into my kitchen and made some lunch. I wanted to sit and think a bit about exactly what I would say before I made the call. Fifteen minutes later, I was outside of a ham and cheese sandwich and ready for Elias. My main concern was to let him know about the existence of the disc while at the same time distancing Rachel from the whole thing.
I was surprised to hear Elias’ voice answering my call.
“Chaney and Cox,” he said.
“Boy, Melanie, those testosterone treatments you told me about are really working.”
“I beg your pardon,” said Elias. The man’s sense of humor must have been surgically removed years ago.
“It’s Jeremy Barnes, Elias.”
“Oh. Mr. Barnes. Melanie’s down the hall, and I was passing by when her phone rang.”
“You’re a trooper, Elias,” I told him.
“Uh . . . yes. Well, what I can do for you?”
“I just wanted to check with you on something that might be related to Terry Pendleton’s death.”
“Of course,” he said. “Give me a minute to get back to my office, would you? I’ll transfer you back there right now.”
Which he did. Twenty seconds later, he came back on the line.
“Now, Mr. Barnes, how can I help you?”
“It’s probably nothing, but when I was doing a follow-up interview with Rachel Pendleton recently, she mentioned that, a day or two before Terry was murdered, he had a disc at home, a disc that he told her had something to do with that partnership offer he seemed to be expecting. He didn’t go into any detail, and Rachel has no idea at all about what’s on the disc, but she does know that it isn’t anywhere in the house. In fact, the two of us spent several hours this morning looking for it. I was wondering if there might be any chance that the disc is in Terry’s old office.”
“Hmmm, I doubt it,” said Elias. “As for the partnership thing, well, we’ve already gone over that. I have no idea where Terry got that idea. All of Terry’s personal effects were, of course, given to his wife. Tell you what, though. Give me a little time to see if anyone here knows anything about this disc, okay? I’ll get back to you later today.”
“That’ll be fine, Elias. I appreciate your help.”
“Any progress on the case, otherwise?” he asked.
“Oh, you know, you keep gathering information and sorting it out and seeing what sense you can make of it.”
“Well . . . of course,” he said. “All right, then, I’ll call you later.”
After changing into shorts and a cut-off T-shirt, I went into my weight room and put on a Ramsey Lewis Trio CD. The In Crowd. One of my favorites. Blame it on my Uncle Leo. He’s a real jazz buff, and he always had the stuff on at his office, his home, the car, everywhere. It didn’t take me long to become somewhat of an aficionado myself. I especially like to have it on while I’m lifting.
I spent the next hour working on both my upper and lower body, finishing with a little extra concentration on the pectoral area. Upper body strength. Always helps. And it never hurts to look good in a T-shirt, either.
After showering and throwing on slacks and a pullover, I sat in my living room for a while and read the paper. I had a hunch that Elias wouldn’t wait too long before getting back to me, and I was right. He called at 3:45, just as I was finishing an article about how much money the CEOs of some of Pittsburgh’s biggest corporations had made in the past year. I’ve always regretted not checking “CEO” instead of “teacher” when I had that session with the guidance counselor my senior year of high school.
“Mr. Barnes,” Elias said, when I picked up the phone, “this is Elias Chaney. I’m glad I got you at home.”
“Thanks for calling, Elias,” I said. “Any luck with that disc thing?”
“I’m afraid not,” he said. “There were several discs in Terry’s office the day of his death, but none of them dealt with anything but the most mundane of business transactions. There was nothing in the least bit suspicious and, of course, nothing at all pertaining to a partnership for Terry. I’m sorry.”
“Well,” I told him, “it was a long shot, anyway. Thanks for trying.”
“I was happy to help,” he said. “Actually, I had another reason for calling you. I wonder if you’d be willing to have lunch with me this Friday. There’s something I’d like to discuss with you.”
“I never turn down a free lunch,” I said.
“Excellent,” he said. “Why don’t you meet me at the College Club at 1:00 on Friday?”
“I’ll see you then,” I said.
After I hung up, I sat for a minute and thought about Elias’ offer of lunch. I had expected him to tell me that there was no disc in Terry’s office, of course. I was more interested in his reaction to the possibility of the existence of such a disc. Apparently, I’d find that out on Friday.
At the College Club, no less.
Chapter 35
While running along some of the paths at Fric
k Park the next morning, I thought about the disc some more. I’d played around with it a little the night before at my own computer, but, of course, had gotten nowhere. I’m an almost wickedly-fast typist with my Microsoft Ergonomic Keyboard, and I can do a few other things associated with word processing, but other than that, I know diddly about computers. I know people who assume that everyone knows, and cares as much, about computers as they do, and talking to these folks always makes me wish I’d bought stock in Excedrin when I was younger. I could have taken the disc to one of them, but I didn’t want anyone else to see whatever might be on it. I trusted Irv, and he never talked computerese to me, so I’d just have to wait until he got back to see if he could unlock the secrets of the disc. This was Thursday, so it would be just a few more days. Meanwhile, I thought about the possibility that the information on the disc might not be relevant, but at the moment, it was all I had to go on, so I was treating it like an actual clue. Besides, I had a gut feeling that this thing was important. I also thought some more about the fact that Terry, or I assume it had been Terry, had written “Master Copy” on the disc. That implied the existence of at least one other copy. If so, where could it be? Logic would seem to dictate that, if the information on the disc was really important, Terry wouldn’t have kept the backup copy at home along with the master. And if it had something to do with work, maybe something he didn’t necessarily want his colleagues or bosses to get their hands on, he wouldn’t keep it in his office. So if I went with the assumption that the second disc wasn’t at home and it wasn’t at the office, then where else would Terry have put it? Rachel said they didn’t have a second home or a cabin in the woods or anything like that, and as far as I had been able to learn, Terry didn’t have an apartment on the side. So, again, the question was where?
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