Thou Art With Me

by Debbie Viguié

  Just keep it together and act like this is a normal case, he told himself. Even if someone is in, it’ll probably be one of the most boring evenings of your life.

  As Mark reached the front door of the building it burst open and two security guards half-dragged, half-carried a kicking, screaming woman outside.

  8

  Mark quickly got over his shock and moved toward them, flashing his badge. “Police officer, what’s going on here?”

  He had no jurisdiction whatsoever, but he was relying on them not actually paying close enough attention to realize that until he got a couple of answers.

  The front door swung open and another woman emerged, this one carrying a file box. She spoke up, clearly having heard Mark’s question. “Ms. Alvarez has been fired. Didn’t want to leave calmly, so we’re escorting her to her car.”

  “Twelve years and this is all the thanks I get?” the woman shouted. “I worked just as hard to build this firm up as anyone else!”

  “Ms. Alvarez, are you going to go quietly or do we need to involve the police?” the woman with the file box asked, voice menacing.

  Mark definitely felt like he had stepped right in the middle of something. Before he could say anything, though, the woman who seemed to be in charge put the box down and turned to him.

  “Is there something I can help you with?”

  “I’m here to see Mr. Mitchell.”

  “You don’t have an appointment,” she said matter-of-factly.

  “No, but it is a police matter,” he said, fudging the truth and hoping he didn’t get caught.

  “We are always happy to cooperate with the police,” she said. “Let me escort you inside.” She glared at the security guards. “And you two, escort Ms. Alvarez to her car.”

  She turned and opened the door, sashaying inside, and leaving Mark to catch the door as he followed behind. She was in complete control and she knew it, her entire manner was arrogant, condescending. She moved to the elevator bank and waited, tapping her toe impatiently.

  The doors slid open and she marched inside and punched a button. The doors started to close on Mark as he squeezed his way in. She pressed a manicured nail against the button for the fourth floor. Then drummed her fingernails against the elevator wall as it began its slow ascent.

  She was trying to unsettle him. What was frustrating was that it was working. Several seconds later the doors finally opened and she exited with Mark right on her heels. After a couple of quick turns they arrived at Fred Mitchell’s office.

  The man was standing, coat over his arm, turning off his computer.

  “Excuse me, sir, there is a police officer here to see you,” the woman said.

  The attorney frowned slightly as he turned toward them. “I wasn’t expecting anyone.”

  “No, sorry for the drop-in,” Mark said, stepping forward.

  “That’s fine. Thank you, Nina. You can go home, I’ll see you in the morning.”

  The woman nodded, turned and left without a word to Mark. Fred, meanwhile, slung his jacket over the back of his chair, sat down, and leaned his elbows on his desk.

  “Your voice sounds familiar.”

  “That’s because we spoke on the phone the other day. I’m Detective Mark Walters.”

  “Oh, that’s right, yes. I believe I was going to call you tomorrow?”

  “Yes, but I was...in the area and decided there was no time like the present.”

  “Fine, I understand. I’m just sorry you took the time when I don’t have better news for you.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes, I’m afraid we’ve searched the files for the entire firm and we haven’t found any references to a Paul Dryer. I even sent someone over to the facility that stores our archive of cases that were closed more than ten years ago, but they called a few minutes ago to let me know they’d struck out. I’m sorry.”

  “And did you search Kent Gordon’s personal files?”

  Fred shook his head. “He didn’t have any. None of our staff do. That’s corporate policy. At the end of the business days all files and notes are checked back in to our filing room which is the most secure spot in the building. Then they’re checked out again in the morning if they’re needed. Kent was killed in a car accident on his way to work. Everything he’d been working on the day before was in the file room. I personally cleaned out his desk and gave his things to his wife. There was nothing but office supplies and personal mementos.”

  “And I’m assuming that his office has been put back into use?”

  “Yes, we promoted one of our newer associates and he got the office after Kent’s things were cleared out. I’m sorry, but it looks like you’ve hit a dead end.”

  He was lying, Mark was sure of it. He just didn’t know what about. It could be that he was being honest about not finding any mention of Paul, but lying about the fact that Kent had files in his office.

  One thing was clear. He wasn’t going to get anything out of the man.

  “Thank you for looking,” Mark said.

  “It was no problem. We are always happy to cooperate with the police.”

  Mark felt a sudden chill. That was exactly what Nina had said, word for word. It was a practiced answer.

  Mark turned to go, then paused and turned back deliberately. “If you have AAA you might want to be calling them soon. I saw a Ms. Alvarez being escorted from the building earlier and I wouldn’t put it past her to slash someone’s tires. She had that look to her.”

  “Melinda?” Fred said with a frown. “She does have a temper. I just hope you’re not right. I’ve got a dinner engagement I can’t afford to be late for.”

  Mark shrugged. “Hopefully I’m wrong. Thanks again for your help.”

  Mark turned and headed out of the office and then made his way downstairs. He knew one person he needed to talk to. He was pretty sure there was no way he’d pry Melinda’s home address out of anyone here, though.

  As soon as he made it to the car he searched for a Melinda Alvarez on social media sites. When he had found her it he was able to get her date of birth as well. He called Liam, asking him to do a DMV search for her.

  A few minutes later Liam called back with her address. Mark punched it into the GPS unit that had come with the car and determined that she was only about twenty minutes away.

  As he headed out of the parking lot he just hoped that she’d gone straight home instead of somewhere to drown her sorrows. He had a feeling she had information he needed and that her firing today was not a coincidence.

  Traffic was a mess and with all the delays it took him twice as long as it should have to reach her house. When he finally got there he parked on the street in front and quickly walked up to ring the bell.

  There was no response and after a minute he rang it again and followed up with a knock on the door.

  He was just about to give up when he heard locks being turned. The door opened and Melinda Alvarez stared at him.

  “I left, what more do they want from me?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “I’m not in any way connected with your former employer. I do, however, need your help. I’ve been investigating a case for a while now and I have a feeling that there’s something Fred Mitchell is hiding from me.”

  “That’s something you’ll have to take up with him. I don’t work there anymore,” she said.

  “Why did they fire you?” he pressed.

  She hesitated and then seemed to give in. “I objected to some bad business practices. I caught them destroying files this afternoon. First they tried to pass it off as nothing, shredding unnecessary documentation that had already been archived offsite. It didn’t smell right to me, though, so I pushed and then they pushed back.”

  Mark could feel his excitement level rising. “Do you know whose files they were shredding?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Have you ever heard the name Paul Dryer?” Mark asked.

  The startled look in her eyes was confirmation that s
he had.

  “Please,” Mark said. “It’s urgent that I get some answers about him.”

  She nodded slowly and then stepped back so he could walk inside. After closing the door she led him to a kitchen table.

  “Would you like some water?” she asked.

  “No, thank you.”

  She nodded and grabbed a bottle for herself out of the refrigerator before joining him at the table.

  “How do you know Paul Dryer?” she asked.

  “We worked together for several years at the Pine Springs Police Department. He was my partner. How do you know him?”

  “He was one of Kent’s clients.”

  “So, when Fred told me they couldn’t find any files mentioning him, he was lying?”

  She frowned. “Maybe. Maybe not. Like I said, I don’t know what files they were destroying earlier. What I do know is that Kent represented Paul Dryer privately. He was Kent’s client before Kent began working for the firm. When things like that happen then normally either the attorney-client relationship is terminated or the client becomes the client of the firm.”

  “Normally?”

  “Yes. Look, I started off just working for Kent when he was a solo practitioner. When the firm hired him he insisted that they hire me, too. Since his death I’ve been a floater, working for whichever attorney has the most pressing caseload at that moment. I did that some before his death, too. I mean, we’d all pitch in where needed.”

  “So, did he take his clients with him to the firm as well?” Mark asked.

  “About half of them. The other half just weren’t comfortable working with a large firm. He understood that and they parted ways amicably. I handled a lot of the correspondence and a lot of the transferring of paperwork.”

  “And Paul?”

  She took a deep breath. “Paul was his first client. In fact, Kent let it slip once that Paul put him through law school and set him up in business.”

  “Why?”

  “I got the impression it was because Paul wanted or needed an attorney who was beholden to him for some reason.”

  “You said you handled all the transition paperwork?”

  “Yes, but nothing for Paul. That’s why I can’t be sure if the law firm had any documentation on him. Whatever Kent did he handled it himself. I do suspect, however, that he might have kept him on as a private client on the side.”

  “What makes you think so?”

  “Because every year on November 15th they had a standing meeting. It was automatically put on the calendar as an annual recurring event regardless of the day of the week. This past year was the first time it wasn’t on the calendar.”

  Georgia had said the attorney showed up about eight months after Paul’s death because of a missed meeting and that would put it pretty much right as far as timing went.

  “If he had kept him on as a private client, where would he have kept Paul’s files?” Mark asked.

  “At home, in his office,” she said.

  “And where would that stuff have ended up after Kent died?”

  “They would still be there. His wife really hasn’t touched any of this things, particularly in that room.”

  He felt a ray of hope shoot through him. “How can I get in touch with her?”

  “You can’t right now. She’s out of town visiting relatives and won’t be home for a couple more weeks.”

  And just like that he felt deflated again.

  Melinda gazed at him shrewdly. “It’s important that you see these files right away?”

  “It is,” he said, forcing himself to take a deep breath.

  “Well, then there might be another way.”

  “What? How?”

  She smirked. “I have a key.”

  “Then what are we waiting for?” Mark asked, standing up.

  Twenty minutes later they were pulling into the driveway of a house large enough to be called a small mansion. Mark had let Melinda drive. She parked the car and they both got out and headed for the front door.

  “He always had me running back and forth picking up things for him,” Melinda said as she unlocked the door and let them inside. She swiftly disarmed the alarm system and then led him into a large office on the first floor.

  It was nicer than the offices had been at the law firm, done all in dark paneling and leather. It had a very old school feel to it.

  Melinda went straight to a bookshelf, lifted a particular book, and retrieved a key that was there. She then moved over to the filing cabinet and unlocked it. She began to flip through the files while Mark walked around the office.

  “Do you believe that Kent’s accident was truly an accident?” he asked after a minute.

  She froze, her shoulders bunching up. She finally said, “I thought it was at first. Just a terrible, terrible accident. But then I began to wonder. Something seemed off about it to me.”

  “What was that?”

  “Well, for one, the area he was driving in. Everyone knows how treacherous that road is on a good day. In fog it’s nearly impossible. And it was nowhere near his house. There was no way he would have taken it from his home to the office. He was going somewhere else or coming back from somewhere else. That’s the only thing I could figure.”

  She took a deep breath. “No one wanted to talk about it, though, or pursue it. For a while I convinced myself that it was because it had to do with something confidential he or the firm had been working on for one of their clients.”

  “But you stopped thinking that?” Mark pushed.

  “I started going through the files, one by one, looking for some reason why he might have been out where he was. I drew a complete blank, though. Nina caught me looking, too, and I had to make up some lame excuse. I think she’s been watching me since then, though, just waiting for a chance to fire me. She’s a strange one. It’s like she lives for getting people into trouble.”

  “And yet her job is to get people out of it.”

  “Like I said, strange.”

  Mark had come to accept that anything that touched Not Paul’s life had been strange.

  “There’s nothing under the Ds, but I’ll keep looking,” Melinda said, closing the top drawer of the filing cabinet and opening the next one.

  Mark sat down at the desk and began to open drawers. It felt weird to do something like this without a search warrant. He kept telling himself that it was okay. Melinda had a key and Kent had authorized her to use it. Of course, that didn’t extend to him. He’d just have to claim that he was with Melinda if they got caught.

  He went through all the drawers on the right hand side with no success. Melinda moved down to the third drawer of the filing cabinet.

  Mark switched to the drawers on the left hand side, but still had no luck identifying anything about Paul. A couple minutes later Melinda finished up with the filing cabinet and shook her head. “I’ve got nothing.”

  “Did he have a safe of any kind in here?” Mark asked.

  Melinda frowned. “He does, but I don’t think it will help.”

  “Do you know where it is and how to open it?”

  She nodded and moved over to a large hunting picture on one wall. She swung it forward to reveal a wall safe behind it. “I know, it’s terribly cliché, but what can you do? He was a traditional kind of guy.”

  “Let’s hope he was traditional enough to leave something laying around that we can use,” Mark said grimly.

  The safe was a combination one and he stood back a couple of feet to give Melinda space. She spun the dials and a moment later was unlocking the safe.

  Mark craned his neck to see what was in there. There appeared to be some cash, a couple pieces of jewelry, and a very small stack of folders.

  The folders were what held Mark’s attention. Without a word Melinda handed them to him. He took them and returned to the chair by the desk. He carefully spread them out, glancing at the titles of each one. The names were meaningless to him, but if they’d been placed in a safe instead of a filing c
abinet, chances were they were important.

  He flipped through the first four and put them aside. Then he came to the last one. Unlike the others it was labeled with only a single letter: P.

  His hands began to shake as he opened up the folder. The first thing he saw was a picture of Paul, staring back at him.

  9

  Jeremiah and Cindy finally made it back to their bungalow after dinner. Once Jeremiah had done one more cursory sweep for bugs they settled down at the table to compare notes.

  “Did you see this?” Cindy asked, holding up one of the brochures she had collected earlier.

  “What is it?”

  “Apparently they have a two week retreat once a quarter for those trying to beat gambling addictions.”

  “What’s so strange about that?”

  “It’s just ironic, holding that kind of a retreat two miles down the road from a casino. I wonder how many people make a run for it?”

  “I guess it depends on how serious they are about getting help. It does seem like an unnecessary temptation.”

  “Yeah, weird,” Cindy said, dropping the brochure back onto the pile on the table.

  “It’s going to be an interesting week,” Jeremiah commented.

  “Yeah, maybe too interesting. I’m hoping we can get this solved so we can get out of here before we have to interact with some of those people again,” Cindy admitted.

  “Like the psychologist?”

  “Yes! What was up with that? Did you see if he had a problem with anyone else besides you?”

  “To be honest I couldn’t tell. I was too busy focusing on each person we were talking to.”

  “He was seriously weird and seriously creepy. Of all the staff he and the guy running it are my picks for villains,” Cindy said.

  “They’re the obvious choices given their behavior, but the question would be why? What would they have to gain by kidnapping or killing a retreat attendee?”