“Tell me about the phone calls you had with Loriela and with her mother.”
He stuffed another huge bite of bacon and biscuit in his mouth.
Giulia waited.
A huge swallow finished the huge bite. “You know I’m stalling, don’t you? Geez, you really are like my grade-school principal. Okay, I give. I called her old number but she’d changed it. So I decided getting in touch with her was more important than my pride, and I called her mother.” A shake of the head. “Have you met her mother?”
Giulia kept a straight face. “Yes.”
“She’s a force of nature, isn’t she? That’s the only way I can put it without swearing. She ripped me up one side and down the other. How dare I stalk her daughter? I must know her daughter has always been too good for me. Never call here again or I’ll regret it. And then a click. I bet it really pissed her off that you can’t slam down a cell phone like you could with the handset on an old-fashioned phone.”
“But you didn’t get Ms. Gil’s number,” Giulia said, softening her professional investigator manner to maintain his comfort level.
“Not from her mother. She was wrong, though, if she thought she could shut me down. I have a few connections. I called one who owed me a favor and he called a friend of a friend and a couple of days later I called Lori’s new number.” He crumpled up the wrappings for both sandwiches. “Ever see those cartoons where someone gets yelled at and they shrink down to about two inches high? Whoever animates those must’ve known Lori. She talked for five minutes straight. You might think that the worst way to attack someone is with a string of four-letter words. Hah. Lori used perfect English, never cursed once, and I’m telling you that by the time she finished, I really felt about three inches tall.”
“What did you do next?”
“What could I do? I hung up.” He finished his coffee. “You’re fishing to see if you can catch a killer in a coffee shop. I don’t blame you, it’s your job, but let me tell you something. The only things I’ve ever killed are rats in the bar’s basement. You don’t strangle rats. You poison them.” He plopped his hands on the table. The table quivered. “I’ve heard Rocky jokes all my life. Learned early to laugh them off. I even wear the movie costume in the bar on Halloween. Everybody jokes about it and they all like to buy drinks from ‘Rocky.’ But here’s the thing: I can beat the crap out of most people. Had to do it a few times in the bar when morons wouldn’t quit fighting. So of course I’m strong enough to throttle someone and before you ask, yeah, Roger Fitch’s neck was mighty tempting. But nobody and nothing is worth jail time.” He stood. “That’s all you’re getting from me.”
He turned his back on her and walked out, flinging his trash across the parking lot.
Seventeen
When Colby Petit, Esq. arrived at the offices of Creighton, Williams, Ferenc, and Steele at the leisurely hour of 9:25 that same morning, Giulia and the fashion-plate receptionist had discovered a mutual love for Scarpulla’s Deli, pumpkin spice coffee, and Denver and the Mile High Orchestra. They were in the middle of a debate on the finer points of Italian cheesecake when Giulia realized Colby was standing in the entrance way with his mouth open, staring at them.
“Good morning, Mr. Petit,” the receptionist said, the fashion-plate mask back in place. “Ms. Steele would like to meet with you at ten-fifteen about the hockey parent assault case. Mr. Karloff’s assistant wanted to remind you that Mr. Ferenc’s stag party begins promptly at seven tonight at the Rivers Casino. Ms. Falcone-Driscoll has been waiting patiently and would like five minutes of your time.”
“Uh...thank you. Certainly, Ms. Driscoll. Please come with me.”
He didn’t speak again ’til he closed them into his gray-and-white office.
“What magic did you work on our receptionist?” He set his briefcase on the floor next to his desk. “No one’s going to believe me when I say I saw her laugh. Not just smile a genuine smile instead of her formal mouth-curve, but actually laugh.”
Giulia didn’t waste time trying to explain to him that lower-level staff were people too. “Mr. Petit, you neglected to give me copies of the security footage from Mr. Fitch’s apartment building.”
Without missing a beat, he said, “I apologize. I was focused on making copies of documents to give you and didn’t think of the footage as a document.” He booted his computer. “Did you bring a flash drive with you?”
“Of course.” Giulia unzipped a side compartment of her bag and pulled out a plain black sixty-four gig thumb drive.
“Great. Let me open the files...here we go.” He inserted the drive into a USB port and began dragging things from one window to another. “This is going to take a few minutes. Images make for huge files. Is there any progress to report?”
“I’m finishing the main interviews today. This weekend will be dedicated to collating all the data, and you know how much there is.”
“Do I ever. Three minutes to go.” His phone rang. “Excuse me.”
Giulia opened her tablet and checked mail until he hung up the receiver.
“All set, Ms. Driscoll. This is the exact version we’ll be submitting as evidence for the trial.” He ejected the flash drive and handed it to her. “It’s a pleasure working with someone who doesn’t have to be reminded about confidentiality.”
How passive-aggressive, Giulia thought, but said only, “Thank you. I’ll give you a report on Monday. Mr. Fitch knows I might be calling on him any time this weekend. Please go ahead with your schedule. I know my way out.”
The receptionist was fielding two different phone lines when Giulia passed her desk, so she mouthed, I’ll send you the recipe. The receptionist gave her a manicured thumbs-up.
Giulia created yet another voice memo in the elevator ride down to the first floor: “Send Grandma’s cheesecake recipe to Cathy at the lawyer’s office.”
Only ten a.m. and already she wanted to escape to the gym for a pounding workout and fifteen minutes in the whirlpool. Since neither were in her morning schedule, she drove to the office. No open spaces to be seen in the minuscule parking lot at this hour, so she fed a nearby meter eight quarters and set an alarm on her phone for an hour and forty-five minutes later.
Her body had burned through the six-thirty meeting coffee. But awesome coffee was never a problem for any Driscoll Investigations’ employee because their offices sat above Common Grounds. Giulia pushed open the door to Heaven with a barista.
“Good morning, Ms. Falcone-Driscoll. What may I get for you?” the dweller in Paradise said.
“Good morning, Gene.” She scanned the specials whiteboard. “An extra-large house blend with a shot of salted caramel syrup and two macadamia nut cookies, please.”
“Coming right up.”
Giulia abandoned willpower on the stairs up to DI’s offices and attacked the first oversized cookie. Her stomach stopped sending her hate mail. The coffee went down smooth and rich and delectable. The day started looking up.
Sidney’s coat hung on the coat rack but her desk was empty. Zane pointed to the bathroom as the printer next to him whirred to life.
“Morning, Ms. Driscoll. This,” he reached for the first page coming out of the printer, “is the first draft of the retainer contract for the Diocese of Pittsburgh. Also, Mr. Fitch called twice, demanding a progress report.”
Giulia rolled her eyes exactly like a sixteen-year-old girl. “We love our clients. They pay our bills. Right?”
“Right.” Zane stacked the papers and handed them to her.
“Trade you.” She took the papers and handed him her iPhone. “What’s your schedule today?”
“Waiting for changes to the contract in your hands and bending the AtlanticEdge data to my will.” He rubbed his hands together like a mad scientist.
“Excellent. Could you take a break from AtlanticEdge and sync my voice memos to iTunes? I backed them up to my tablet last night because I’m paranoid, but it would be a big help if you start transcribing them. Get through as much
as you can and I’ll finish the rest tonight.”
Sidney came out of the bathroom. Giulia glanced from her to Zane and back again. Both of them wore green plaid Meier Farms shirts with the bright orange logo on the pocket of an alpaca knitting a sweater out of her own wool.
“Who didn’t send me the email?” Giulia said. “If the store’s running a promotion and needs everyone to be walking billboards, I have to do my part.”
“We didn’t plan it, honest,” Sidney said, easing herself into her chair. “It’s one of the three shirts I own that still fits me. Zane and I must be psychically linked.”
Zane tried not to look worried, and failed. “Is it a problem? I need to do laundry and this was the only decent clean shirt in my drawer.”
Giulia hung her head. “Zane, I swear you will drive me to beat you with a ruler. Of course it isn’t a problem. Relax. But not before you transcribe my voice memos.”
He snatched the spare cord from his center drawer and plugged the phone into his computer. “I’m on it.”
“I look like a country-western whale,” Sidney said.
“You look adorable,” Giulia said. “I’m meeting the last interviewee, thank God, for lunch. The temp will be here to fill out forms at two. The only reasons anyone should knock on my door between now and eleven-thirty are fire or nuclear war.”
“Ma’am, yes, ma’am,” Sidney said.
Eighteen
Alone inside her lemon and ivory retreat, Giulia set the contract draft aside for later and got Roger Fitch’s nerves out of the way first.
He answered on the first ring. “Driscoll? Where have you been? What’s the news? Do you have any updates? Colby Petit just called to say you’d been to his office asking for the surveillance footage from my apartment complex.”
Giulia schooled her voice to patient calm. “Mr. Fitch, I did tell you that it might be late today or even tomorrow before I contacted you. I’m finishing up the interviews and collating other information.”
“You’ve got to move faster. You’ve got to get on the ball.”
“Thorough investigation takes time. You don’t need to remind me that we have very little of it. I’m aware of that.” She took a deep breath. “I’ll be able to work with greater efficiency without interruption. When I need to contact you, I’ll do so immediately.”
“All right, all right, I’m chastened. Call my cell when you’re ready. I’ll turn the volume up to the max because I’m going to the Penguins game with the guys tonight.”
The dial tone sounded. “What a delight you are,” she said to the receiver, and hung up.
She dug the flash drive with Petit’s exhibit from its tiny zippered pocket and fitted it into a USB port. When that upload finished, she took the flash drive Frank had given her from a different zippered pocket and plugged it in. A few minutes later, she opened both files side by side.
The complex used motion-sensitive cameras rather than a constant video feed. Its cost-cutting maneuver might turn out to be a bad idea for Fitch. Well, she’d get what she could from the photos.
The slide show from Colby Petit’s office was several megabytes smaller than the one the police received from the apartment complex manager. The first photos were identical: The landscaped ground on the balcony side of Fitch’s building. The rain obscured many details, but the complex hadn’t skimped on curbside appeal.
Side-by-side shots of rain. Of a human-shaped shadow. Of a lightning flash that illuminated footprints in the mulch.
The next still in the police version changed to a shot of the barberry bushes beneath the balcony. They didn’t look like someone had used them for a stepstool. The fourth still in Petit’s version was a shot of the balcony.
Giulia worked all the way through both sets, then reset them to the beginning and opened a spreadsheet. At the end of the second viewing, the Petit column boasted twelve photos. The unedited police column, nineteen.
The meeting alarm on her computer chirped at her.
“I’m in the middle of something.”
A minute later, it chirped again.
“All right. All right. I’m going.” She saved everything. Before she left her desk, she felt around for her phone to make a new voice memo. “Zane still has it. Argh.” She opened the spreadsheet again and wrote her suspicions in a third column. Another save before she logged off.
She grabbed her bag and opened the door.
Sidney sat back down. “I was just going to barge in.”
Zane handed back her phone as she passed his desk. “Second interview almost completely typed up.”
“You guys rock,” Giulia said. “See you before the temp arrives.”
She ran downstairs and in three minutes was fighting lunch-hour traffic. To focus her mind for the interview, she found the local retro radio station and cranked it. The weather had turned again, so her windows were up, but she would’ve sung along at the top of her lungs to Journey and Van Halen no matter what. When she got to the Indian buffet restaurant, she was headbanging to Queen with an invigorated brain.
“All right, disgruntled co-worker, let’s do this.”
A precise, makeup-free blonde sat in the waiting area by the cash register wearing a gray peacoat, jeans, and sneakers with uneven wear patterns.
Giulia walked over to her. “Hello. I’m Giulia Falcone-Driscoll. Are you Shirley Travers?”
The woman held out her hand. “Yes. Thanks for being on time. My lunch hour is limited.”
Her voice was pitched to be heard over a crowd. Giulia wondered where she worked now.
Eight minutes later, armed with full plates and bottles of water, they scored a two-person booth against the window. The other woman dug in like she hadn’t eaten in a while. Giulia sampled her own. The size of the restaurant kept the ambient noise much lower than Giulia feared. She would be able to conduct this interview at standard volume.
“I coordinate the district’s school busses and today I’m pitching in as driver. Breakfast happened before five a.m.,” Shirley said between the saag paneer and the curried chicken.
“My first meeting today took place over coffee at six-thirty. I feel your pain.” Giulia stabbed more of her saag aloo.
“Another one of Loriela’s victims?” Shirley drank half her water.
“I wouldn’t have put it that way.”
“Hah. You haven’t been digging into her past for long then. I didn’t dance in the streets when she died, but I sure didn’t send a sympathy card to Roger, either.” She studied the eggplant pakora and chose the chicken vindaloo instead.
“I understand that Ms. Gil was focused on her career—”
Another laugh. “Is that what they call it now? Come into the ladies’ room with me. I’ll take off my shirt so you can see the imprint of her fancy spiked heel in my back.”
“I see.”
Shirley hacked a second piece of chicken in half. “Well, aren’t you nice and neutral. You don’t have to tiptoe around me. Loriela was a greedy, implacable bitch who wanted to be head of accounting and did anything to get there.” She chewed the chicken hard enough for Giulia to hear her teeth click. “I take that back. She didn’t seduce the VPs or the Big Boss. Guess that means she had some morals.”
Two small children chased each other down the aisle next to them, shouting “Freeze tag! Freeze tag!” A harried older woman followed a moment later.
Giulia said, “And you know about Ms. Gil’s company celibacy because?”
“Seriously? Did you ever work in an office? Anyone who doesn’t pay attention to office gossip is doomed.” Shirley stuffed a piece of naan in her mouth. “I love me some hot sauce. Whew. Look, I ran payroll. Started as a grunt and worked my way up the proper way. Positive employee reviews, volunteered for extra duties, peer reviews that got noticed. Then Loriela arrived. I helped her like I helped all the newbies. Showed her how AtlanticEdge did things, checked her work, stayed late when she got into a crunch. The gossip started five months later, when she became my second
-in-command.” She paused to finish the saag paneer. “Loriela was good. She never said anything too extreme or actionable. She never claimed I was cooking the books. All she did was imply that I wasn’t working with the same exactness I used to. And that she heard I’d been keeping late nights. Oh, and my favorite one: That she, Loriela, had been putting in unpaid overtime to double-check my work because she was concerned for the company’s reputation.”
Giulia tore off a piece of her own naan. “To whom did she repeat this gossip? How close together did she start the rumors?”
Shirley leaned back in her chair and appraised Giulia. Finally she said, “Thank you for assuming I did nothing wrong.”
Giulia smiled in a noncommittal fashion, not saying anything about the years of embezzlement.
Shirley returned to alternate mouthfuls of food and mouthfuls of information. “She targeted the company’s best rumor-mongers and gave each one about a month to run with her latest tidbit. Like the smart cookie she was, she never told the boss. The whole company knew that too much stress on him could’ve led to a stroke, exactly like the massive one that landed him in rehab for months. That might be why she never seduced him. His daughter, the one running the company now, isn’t the type that gets fooled by long legs and a big smile. It was to Loriela’s advantage to keep the old guy in his executive chair as long as possible. Anyway, the rumor-mongers spread shit about me around the coffeepot timed for pre-meetings when the VPs all grabbed coffee.”
“Did you try to refute any of the rumors?”
Shirley laughed. “All that would have done is give credibility to her poison. Loriela never stopped being my sweet and helpful Number Two. Anyone who didn’t know what she was doing would have thought I had it made.” She mopped up the rest of the curry sauce with the last bit of naan. “I had a few friends in other departments. That’s how I found out what Loriela was up to. That and the talks the HR manager called me into his office for. The rumors did exactly what they were supposed to, and I got warnings in my file about the conduct expected of an AtlanticEdge employee and about maintaining focus on my job.”
Nun Too Soon (A Giulia Driscoll Mystery Book 1) Page 10