“Ahh… hello. I’d like to speak to Mr. Marsh please.” It was a French hotel, and a Hilton at that, but I wasn’t sure where. The number had been a Toronto local, so there had to have been a call-forward set up on it. The accent was definitely Parisian, but it could be the Montreal Hilton for all I knew. Curiouser and curiouser.
“Monsieur Marsh? Un moment, s'il vous plaît.” There was an echo in the background, then a click. It wasn’t Montreal. Unless Bell was routing the call through Alaska. That left France.
When the concierge switched my call to the room, I could tell right away that it was Europe. The ring was distinctively ‘not local’. It gave a few bursts of sound, much like an extended busy signal, but two together, then a pause and then repeating itself. Marsh answered.
“Marsh speaking.” His tone was hard, not the way I recalled from our meeting at his office. His frame of mind had obviously undergone a shift of some kind.
“Mr. Marsh, this is Claxton, you asked me to call?” Apprehension was crowding in on me and I couldn’t say why, things just felt odd. Maybe I was becoming psychic in my old age.
“Claxton, good of you to finally call. Well, do you have a report for me, man?”
I couldn’t tell exactly what it was, but I didn’t like his tone. Not because he was lording it over me with the ‘employer’ thing, but more because his whole attitude had changed. When we had met in his office, there had been genuine concern. Not for J.D., but for the files of so-far-mysterious content, that had gone missing. Since that meeting, George and I had been able to start sketching in the picture, and as it took shape, it just got uglier. The part that made me hesitate was the conspiracy factor. At this point it was just a supposition, but it made sense, given all the tie-ins. Whenever you have a conspiracy, you have to walk softly. The very nature of a conspiracy makes it the scariest of all things to investigate. You never know who’s involved until you uncover the whole thing. And in the back of my mind, there was Therese, fearing for her life with nowhere to turn, except to me.
I decided to give Marsh an abbreviated version of my progress to date. Skipping the connections made with the help of the Metro Police Department, courtesy of George. I also neglected to mention Therese. I sounded in the end like I hadn’t done a whole hell of a lot so far. Oddly enough, that seemed to satisfy Marsh.
“Hmm, yes, fine then. I can see that you’ve been diligent, yes. Well, the situation has changed somewhat, I must say, quite a bit, actually. It seems that the missing files were closer to hand than I first believed. The shock of poor John and all that mess I suppose. It seems we’re going to have to reassess the nature of our agreement. Yes, well. Perhaps you can meet me in the morning at the office. Say nine o’clock? Fine then. In the meantime, hold off on what you’re doing. It isn’t relevant any longer. I do believe that we have an alternate job for you to do though. Yes, quiet. It should be right up your alley. Most important affair actually. Must be handled with diplomacy, etcetera. Just what you do best, as you told me yourself the other day. Well, I have a Concorde to catch, mustn’t be late, long swim home if I miss it, eh? Ha-ha. Yes, well goodbye then.”
I figured I might as well take a stab at confirming where he was. “Mr. Marsh, could you do me a small favour on your way home?” There was no hesitation at all in his reply.
“Don’t have much time you know. What is it then, hmm?”
“There’s a very good duty-free shop at Orly Airport. I’m sure you would be considering a stop there. If you do, could you pick up a woman’s’ silk scarf for me? Anything by Christian Dior will do nicely.”
“Hmm, I see, yes. Well… might do that, might. Depends on the time, of course. That’s it then, yes?”
“That’s it. See you tomorrow at nine.” We hung up. He was being agreeable, and he was in Paris. Mind you, there weren’t too many places where you could catch the Concorde and stay at a Hilton hotel that spoke French on the same day.
I checked the time. 8:40 AM. Twenty-four hours to go. Now I was working against the clock. This had already gone too far to be casually set aside as an unimportant issue that had resolved itself. Being taken off the case would wait until the morning. There was all day to go through yet. I called Midori back.
“Hello?”
“Hi Midori, it’s me again. Got a minute?”
“Oh, hi Jeffry. Sure, what’s up?” I went straight to the point.
“I spoke with Marsh a few minutes ago. Gave him my report while I was at it, so you can relax on that score. I was wondering, though. Does he do much international travel?”
“International? Not really, he sometimes sends a bank representative to go over the details of a deal prior to a closing, but he has a choice of staff for that. I can’t recall him going to any overseas meeting in person.” I changed tack.
“Do you know if he travels abroad for personal reasons? Visiting family, weekend shopping trips, anything like that?”
“Not that I know of, but I don’t run his personal life Jeffry, I just work for him. Bank business is what I know about, that’s it. Why all these questions about Mr. Marsh? What are you up to?”
“Remember what you told Therese about me when she called you?”
“You mean about trusting you, right?”
“Right. I don’t mean to be cryptic, it’s not even important right now. It might be later on. If it is, then I’ll let you know what’s happening, agreed?”
“You’re the investigator. Anything else?”
“Not at the moment. I’ll call you if anything comes up, OK?”
“Ok. ‘Bye for now.” She hung up. It was eight forty-five. I poured another cup of coffee from the thermos and called George. Sarah answered.
“Good morning, Belnor residence. Lady of the Manor speaking.” I couldn’t help but laugh out loud.
“Sarah, you’re a breath of fresh air. How’s the gang this morning?”
“It’s a bit confusing here this morning I’m afraid. The Lady-In-Training has decided that nothing else will do but she must share breakfast with the Lord of the Manor. They’re currently engrossed in a semi-violent negotiation for the last sausage on the platter.” This information was punctuated by a shrill little voice wailing in the background.
“I see that the loser isn’t taking it well. Perhaps if the Lord is finished stealing sausage from the baby, he could come to the phone?” We both laughed then, and Sarah put the receiver down. I heard her calling George to pick it up, it was me on the line.
“Yo Jeff, good timing. Now I won’t have to do the dishes.”
“You haven’t done the dishes since the last time your mother made you. Listen up, buddy. I need you to come over here this morning, we have some breaking news on the case, and it needs to be quick. There’s a lot to be done today.” Right away he sharpened up, getting all serious and cop-like.
“What breaking news?” I held my ground.
“Come on over, I’ll fill you in when you get here. And this news, you want to know.” I could hear him thinking.
“About an hour then.”
“Make it forty-five minutes.”
“Right you are.” He was about to hang up, when I asked him to put Sarah back on. “Ok, hang on.” He dropped the receiver and went to get her.
“Jeffry?”
“Hi, Sarah. I have a question for you. Concerning Cynthia Louwellyn.”
“Umm… ok.”
“I think you know the question Sarah.”
“Oh. She called, right?”
“Resistance is futile. Talk.”
“Wweeell… I did give her a call Jeffry, but I didn’t say anything to make you look, you know… just the opposite in fact. She was the one who mentioned you first remember. At the library?”
“What exactly do you mean by ‘you know’? Would you be referring to ‘desperate’ maybe?” Now she was talking fast.
“No, no, never, I would never say that Jeffry. She likes you, really. But you know, she works so hard, and doesn’t have a chance to m
eet anyone. She asked about you, and I just mentioned that you weren’t seeing anyone right now, that’s all. She’s the one who decided to call you. I had nothing to do with it. Almost.” At this point I think she had to stop for air. I started laughing again.
“Well you’ll be pleased to know that I’ve been asked out on a date. To the Jays’ game this afternoon in fact. I’ll keep you posted, OK?”
Her excitement jumped out at me. “Ohh, that’s great. I hope you have a nice time Jeffry, honestly. It’s just the kind of thing you needed. To get out once in a while. I…”
“Hold it!” She stopped mid-sentence.
“Sorry. I was doing it again, wasn’t I?”
“Yes. As it happens you were lucky this time. I was glad she called, and I think I will have a good time. But don’t start planning any weddings just yet, right?” I tried to sound firm, but I could tell she was smiling from ear to ear.
“Whatever you say, big fella.”
“Ok, gotta go. Talk to you later. Give the princess a kiss for me.” I rung off.
I had no idea how in hell I was going to fit a ‘date’ into the middle of the day I was having so far, but I was willing to give it the old school try. One thing at a time. Time. Eight fifty-eight.
I opened up my scheduler and glanced over the notes I had made to myself the day before. There was Everet’s name. Everet. I had one more call to return.
I dialed the number, and started thinking about battery time. The one I had in the cellular now was good for about two hours of talk time, and the one I had spare was good for about one hour. More to worry about. I had to keep the landline clear for the call from Therese. That had to be the key to whatever this mess was about. Someone answered the ring.
“Hello.”
“Everet?”
“This is he.”
“Jeffry Claxton here, Everet. I’m returning your call?”
“Jeffry, yeah, thanks for calling back. I’ve got a minor problem on my hands. I don’t know if this is relevant, but I figured it’s not for me to decide. Since you’re the one who’s delving into this whole quagmire, I thought I’d put it square in your lap, and let you make of it what you will. Have you got a few minutes? I’ll run over the basics for you.”
It seemed that everyone in the city wanted to talk to me today. “Go right ahead, Everet.”
“Check. This concerns John Dawson’s Computer. You may have noticed that it wasn’t anything like the configuration that was listed on the assets sheet.” He paused for confirmation, and I gave it to him.
“Uh huh.”
“Well, I noticed that too. It was odd, because the asset sheets are always up to date. Anyway, when his system came back to stores, I booted it to verify the applications that were loaded, and wipe it for reassignment. With a setup like that, it wouldn’t be long before someone requested the system. Instead of finding a full set of standard and financial programs, and all the data associated with that, there was nothing.” He paused here, maybe to see if I was following along. I threw in a question to keep him interested.
“What was the size of the hard drive?”
“One gigabyte. More like the drives on our network servers, not on our workstations.”
“Let me guess, it had been formatted.”
“That’s correct. It was bare. Not even bootable. I had to use a boot floppy to bring the system up. That got me to thinking. If…”
I interrupted him. “If John was murdered, what was on the hard drive that someone wanted to format it? Even if he did it himself.”
“Precisely. I don’t know if you’re aware of the techniques available these days for data retrieval on…” I interrupted him again.
“Let me make it easier for you Everet. I have a degree in Computer Engineering. Design and Implementation was my specialty when I was active. If the format was done without using a ‘security wipe’ utility, then it would be a piece of cake to undo the format. If a utility was used, then it would require the services of a clean room, with a good technician to do the reconstruction, but it would still be a good bet that most of what was on the drive could be rebuilt.”
“Ah, I see I’m talking to the right man.” Now he was warming up to the whole tale. He knew I was following it, and he liked the technical comprehension I was showing. I had a feeling that Everet was no slouch in the engineering department either. “Well, all of this occurred to me, but nobody asked about it. I didn’t think it was my place to tell the police how to do their jobs, and I thought the system was going to get reassigned pretty quickly. As it turned out, you were the first person to show any interest in it whatsoever. Anyway, I pulled the drive. The day before you came by. I took it home in fact, to work on it in peace. I get paged constantly at the office. There’s not a single user who actually knows what they’re doing, some days.” I had to speed things along, so I prompted him a bit.
“Everet, I think you did the right thing calling me, and I am interested to know what you found, because if you hadn’t found anything you wouldn’t have called me. I don’t mean to rush you but even though it’s a Sunday morning, I’ve got several irons in the fire, so to speak, and time is in short supply, so…” He obliged me.
“Sorry, I didn’t realize. Ok, so I went through the standard unformat routine, and most of the programs and data came back, smooth as anything. I went through it and it was all pretty standard, except for one file. That one doesn’t make much sense to me, and I thought ‘well, maybe I should call you’.”
“What kind of file is it?” I was getting a funny feeling in the back of my neck, and I wasn’t holding my breath, but damn near enough.
“I don’t know. I’ve never seen this format before, and there are no programs on the drive that can open the file. It’s big, though. About fifty megabytes. I’ve read it with a disk editor, but that didn’t help much. The whole thing’s numerical.”
“Fifty megabytes, and not an ASCII character in the lot?” This was getting good.
“Right.”
“Can you put it on tape?”
“Sure, what format?”
“QIC. Quarter inch cartridge. Preferably with Colorado Backup software. That’s what’s handy right now. Otherwise whatever you have will do.”
“Colorado’s no problem. I’ve already got one made. When would you like to pick it up?” I liked this guy. I had to have a talk with him the next time I needed some computer work done.
“That’s a problem. I can’t leave the house just now, but I’d like to get my hands on this file as soon as I can.”
“I can bring it over to your place, but not until later this afternoon. I’m coaching a softball team in an hour. We have a big game today.”
I had an idea. “Where do you live Everet?”
“Downtown. I walk to work.”
“Ok, give me your address, I’ll have someone pick up the tape in twenty minutes. Is that good?”
“Sure, I’ll be in for another half hour at least.” I took down the address, and we hung up.
I called George on the car phone. It was busy. Knowing him, it could be busy all the way to my place, then he’d have to turn around and go back downtown and I’d miss the time window. Billie Santers. I called his cab company and asked for a callback on the cellular number. Five minutes later I had Billie on the line. I explained what I wanted and he assured me it could and would be done. I hung up again and got up and stretched. What a morning, and I hadn’t even left the house yet. My ear was burning from all the telephone talk, and the cellular heats up when it’s used for more than a few minutes at a time, just compounding the issue. Time check, nine twenty-five. I went to make another pot of coffee. I was in the kitchen when Therese called.
~
Chapter Six
E
ven though I was expecting it, the ring of the phone startled me enough that I almost spilled the open can of ground coffee I was holding. I took a breath, and picked up the receiver in the kitchen.
“Hello, Jeffry Cl
axton.” My tone was calm and professional. A person you could trust. Sometimes it’s important to at least try to sound like the person that you’re expected to be. Right.
The voice on the other end of the line was Therese. “Monsieur Claxton. Allo. My name is Therese Sauvé, and I believe that my life is in great danger of being ended. I am calling you to speak of something quite important. You can help me I think. You must, because I do not know where else I can turn. Midori Kuwabara has given me reason to believe that you will know what must be done to resolve this terror. Will you listen to what I must say? Please?” Terror? What in God’s name kind of day was this going to be? I didn’t keep her hanging on. I tried the direct approach.
“Therese, I’ve spoken with Midori, and I got your message from last night. I’ve been waiting to hear from you, and…” All of a sudden I realized how shortsighted I’d been. “Wait, don’t say anything else. Call me right back on this number.” I gave her the cellular number and hung up. The cell phone rang immediately. Racing back into the office took two rings. I answered on the third with her name. “Therese?”
“Oui, c’est moi.”
“Sorry about that, but if there’s reason to fear for your life, there’s reason to fear for a phone tap. I’m very anxious to hear what you have to say. Is it possible for us to meet? I can come to you, or vice versa, whichever you prefer.” There wasn’t an ounce of hesitation in her answer.
“Yes, we must meet. Somewhere safe. I am feeling so afraid. I must not be seen. There are people involved… I will tell you when I see you. You will understand better than I do.”
The answer was fairly obvious. “Ok, the best place to be inconspicuous is in a large crowd. There’s a baseball game today at the SkyDome. At 1:30 PM. Can you get to the SkyDome for about one o’clock, and do you have any money on you?”
“Yes, I’m sure I can get there. I have money with me, not a lot, but maybe one hundred. I can use my Credit Visa if it is necessary.”
“No, don’t use your credit cards or the automatic teller machines, they can be traced very quickly. What you have should be plenty…”. I paused for a second, yeah it didn’t cost a hundred bucks to get into a Jay’s game, at least not yet, but it could cost a lot to get to the SkyDome if you were far enough away from it. I recompiled my thought train. “Ok, Therese… can you get to the SkyDome and still have twenty or thirty dollars left?” There was no hesitation. “Oui, c’est facile.” “Alright then, get to the SkyDome at one o’clock when the crowd is heavy, coming in. Buy a ticket from a scalper outside the gates. There’s always a lot of choice, but you only need a cheap ticket. It’s important that you get a ticket immediately upon arrival though. I don’t want you standing around outside any longer than you have to. Once you’re inside, go straight to the McDonalds counter. I’ll meet you in the lineup there. Bring anything that you feel may have bearing on the issue at hand. Any evidence that you have to back up your story, any notes you may have made. Or anything John may have given to you. Can you do that?” She spoke in a small voice. I could hear the panic setting in.
The Diamond Dust on Dragonfly Wings: A Jeffry Claxton Mystery Novel Page 13