Improper Influence

by Melissa F. Miller

  “No. I was with Homeland Security, but I’m retired.”

  “You’re kind of young to be retired,” the officer commented. His eyes flitted over Leo’s shoulder to the kitchen, where it sounded like Fredericks was fixing himself yet another drink.

  Leo shrugged. “Got an offer in the private sector that I really couldn’t pass up. Turns out, working for a big corporation wasn’t my style.”

  The cop bobbed his head in understanding. “You should set up a PI shop. Guy I worked with did that. To hear him tell it, it’s easy street. Serve some subpoenas, follow cheating husbands around, and take pictures of people out on workers’ comp painting their houses and stuff.”

  And get your face blown off by a demented, quasi-military survivalist, Leo added silently. He decided to spare the fresh-faced patrolman in front of him the grizzly story of the late Deputy Russell’s demise.

  “Yeah, that sounds like an interesting gig. So, Officer—”

  “Nederdorf. George Nederdorf. Friends call me ‘Ned.’”

  “Officer Nederdorf, it’s been a long time, but I can remember what it’s like to secure a scene. If you want to go grab a bite to eat somewhere, I’ll sit on the house until you get back.”

  This was a blatant lie. He’d started his career as an air marshal and had spent the majority of his career doing internal affairs investigations, so he’d never gone through the stakeout/babysit a scene ritual. But, thanks to his fiancée, he’d been present at enough crime scenes to have a good sense of what it entailed.

  Ned flashed him a look of appreciation then hesitated.

  “I don’t know. I do need to run over to Oakmont Bakery and pick up a cake my wife ordered for the kid’s birthday party. But ...”

  “Don’t worry about it. Take your time. I’m retired, remember? I’ve got nowhere to be.”

  Leo smiled encouragingly.

  Ned’s eyes floated over Leo’s shoulder to Fredericks drowning his grief in the great room.

  Ned lowered his voice to a whisper. “Well, okay. But, listen; don’t let the old guy leave.” He leaned close to Leo and added, “My boss thinks he might be good for it.”

  “His son’s murder?”

  Ned nodded fast, like he didn’t want Fredericks to catch him in the act. “He came out here late last night, close to midnight, and he and sonny boy took a drive. Says he dropped him off on the porch a little after one. He didn’t mention any of this—until one of his grandkids said he heard a sports car engine revving and looked out his bedroom window and saw his Pap peeling rubber in the driveway.”

  Leo felt an eyebrow creep up his forehead. “Well, that’s interesting. Stone, Jr.’s body was found on the porch, wasn’t it?”

  “Yup. And the medical examiner places the time of death at sometime between midnight and two a.m.”

  They looked at each other in silence for a moment, while Ned let this information sink in.

  “Huh. Well, listen, he’s in no shape to go anywhere. He’ll be lucky to make it to the couch before he passes out. Go get your cake. How old’s your kid?”

  “Turning seven. It’s a fun age, man. You have any?”

  “Kids? No. I mean, not yet. I’m engaged.”

  “They’ll change your life, but it’s worth it. You know, if you’re sure you’re good with it, I am gonna go. I’ll be back in forty-five minutes, maybe less. You want a donut or cookie or something? It’s a great bakery.”

  Leo almost declined, but then he remembered something Sasha had told him once: People don’t like to owe debts. If Ned went and picked up the cake, then he’d be indebted to Leo. Unless he brought Leo a pastry. Then Ned would consider them even.

  “Sure. Pick something good—whatever they’re known for.”

  Ned’s face brightened and he touched the brim of his hat.

  “Will do. See you in a bit.”

  As Ned hurried out the front door like he was afraid Leo was going to change his mind, Fredericks came clomping in from the back of the house.

  “Good work. You got rid of both of them. Let’s have a celebratory drink.”

  Fredericks’ eyes were red and watery, but he wasn’t slurring his words and seemed to be steady on his feet. Here was a man who drank a lot all the time.

  “I’m good, thanks. I understand you were the last person to see Stone, Jr.?”

  Leo watched the man’s face for a reaction. He scowled at the question and snapped, “Aside from his killer, you mean.”

  “Of course.”

  “That’s right. We had some business to discuss, so we went for a drive.”

  “At midnight?”

  “I don’t have a curfew. Do you?”

  Fredericks’ tone was more annoyed than defensive.

  “No, sir, I don’t. I didn’t mean any disrespect.”

  That seemed to satisfy him. He turned on his heel and headed back to the comfort of his dead son’s liquor cabinet.

  Leo waited until he was out of sight, then he called out in a voice loud enough to give him plausible deniability but not loud enough for the man to hear him, “I’m just going to take a look at Stone’s office, if you don’t mind.”

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  Stone’s home office was large, masculine, and an utter mess. Leo eased the door shut silently behind him. He couldn’t tell if the disarray was natural, part of the dead man’s usual work habits, or the result of an overly enthusiastic search for evidence by Ned or other law enforcement officers—or Stone’s killer.

  He surveyed the chaotic office. Papers covered every horizontal surface and spilled out of folders and redwelds on the floor. Taking it all in, he was left with the distinct impression that someone had been looking for something in a hurry.

  He stepped carefully over a stack of business journals and minced his way over to the desk, taking care not to disturb any of the papers where they lay.

  The desk was stacked with discrete piles, at least. He examined each stack, working from left to right: invoices; human resources materials; a poster board mock-up of a marketing plan for Champion Fuel, with the smiling faces of a Steeler, a Penguin, and—half-hidden behind a person-sized can of the energy drink—he could make out the brim of the hat of a Pirate. Next, centered on the desk and positioned just in front of the leather desk chair, was a three-inch thick stack of reports stamped “Confidential R&D Materials—Do Not Distribute.”

  Leo checked his watch. He’d been in the office less than two minutes. This stack presumably was what Stone had last been working on. He could spare a few moments to thumb through it.

  Twenty-five minutes later, Leo finished his frenzied review of the studies and sunk into Stone’s chair, his heart thumping in his chest. He scrubbed his face with his hands and processed what he’d been able to understand of the scientific studies. Then he reminded himself that he didn’t believe in coincidences.

  He needed Bodhi to read these studies and tell him if he was right about what he thought they meant.

  Leo sat motionless for a long moment. If he took them, he’d be stealing confidential, proprietary information from the Better Life Beverages. He’d be interfering with a homicide investigation. He’d be removing evidence. He’d be breaking too many laws to count.

  His hand twitched toward the studies. Then he stopped.

  Bodhi wouldn’t read them. He would know what Leo had done and that, leaving aside legality and bureaucracy, it was wrong to take them. Plain, old, morally wrong.

  Crap.

  He didn’t have time for an extended internal debate. Ned would be back soon, or Fredericks would come crashing through the office door in search of a drinking buddy.

  What would Hank do?

  Hank would shove the freaking documents down the front of his shirt and get the hell out of there.

  Leo shook his head. He needed the information, not the documents. But there was no way he could copy down all the study results accurately, let alone quickly enough.

  Okay, what would Sasha do?


  He pinched the bridge of his nose, thinking. Then he laughed aloud.

  Over the weekend, when they’d been scouting reception locations, Sasha had dragged him over to a display at the Carnegie Museum—some dinosaur exhibit that featured a creature her nephew had done a report on. She’d pulled out her cell phone and started taking pictures of the information placards so she could show them to Liam later.

  He fumbled in his pocket for his iPhone and opened the camera application. He focused on keeping his hands steady and the phone square with the papers. He worked methodically and mechanically, flipping the pages and snapping picture after picture of the ten-point type, the bar graphs, the charts, and the tables.

  He was straightening the stack to return it to its spot on the desk when he heard the front door open.

  When Ned stuck his head into the office, Leo was standing, hands in his pockets, admiring the wall of diplomas, certificates, and awards that papered the wall behind Stone’s desk.

  “What’re you doing in here?”

  “Hiding from the old guy. I can’t drink any more scotch on an empty stomach,” Leo said, turning and shooting Ned a sheepish smile.

  Ned’s face relaxed.

  “He’s something else, isn’t he? Good news. He’s crashed out on the couch snoring to wake the dead. And I have crullers and coffee.” He raised a white bakery bag as if to prove his point.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Mackenzie watched Barry pretend to react to the news of Stone Fredericks’ death. His face reflected bewilderment and disbelief, a flash of sadness, and then, finally, an expression that she always thought of as pure statesmanship. She wondered how many years it had taken him to perfect his politician’s mask.

  “This is tragic,” Barry intoned in a mayoral baritone.

  “It is,” she agreed primly, matching his somber tone.

  She was impressed by the show he put on. She knew full well that Fred had called him before the sun was up and told him that Stone had been killed. She also knew Barry would deny receiving such a call—and deny the calls he subsequently made on Fred’s behalf. His subterfuge was nothing personal. She’d have done the same thing. You can’t very well announce that you’ve spent the morning pulling strings. Or the next time you need to, you just might find that your network’s unraveled.

  They let a respectful silence hang in the air for a full thirty seconds.

  Then Barry said, “We’ll have to convey our sympathies to Fred.”

  “My secretary’s sending flowers. And, of course, you and I should attend whatever memorial services the family plans.”

  “Of course.”

  She waited a beat.

  “The silver lining to this terrible loss is that Fred will be able to focus on moving our partnership forward without the distractions that Stone had been focusing on lately.”

  “Distractions?” Barry repeated stupidly.

  She stared at him and willed him to figure it out.

  “You mean—surely, you aren’t calling a rash of deaths a distraction, Mackenzie.”

  He sounded genuinely offended. She arranged her face into a picture of mildly indignant piousness and backed away from the statement.

  “Lord, no! How could you think such a thing? The deaths of those young women in our city keep me up nights. Getting to the bottom of their deaths isn’t a distraction, Mr. Mayor, it’s a priority.”

  He nodded in relief and agreement.

  She paused to marshal her thoughts before she continued.

  “But, sir, Stone was adding to the confusion, with his insistence on following his wild theories that Champion Fuel was somehow responsible for the deaths. If he had continued down the path he was on, it could have clouded the issues and interfered with the Medical Examiner’s investigation. There was a real danger he would have damaged the stellar reputation of the brand he and his father worked so hard to create. That’s all I meant, sir.”

  Barry’s cheeks flushed pink at the chastisement.

  “Of course. I apologize if I suggested that you meant anything untoward.” He hurried to change the subject. “Speaking of the Medical Examiner’s investigation, has Sonny made any progress?”

  “We have a briefing with him scheduled for right after lunch. He can fill us in then.”

  “Good,” he said with a satisfied nod.

  She briskly moved on to the mayor’s daily agenda, walking him through his appearances, meetings, and engagements before he could realize she hadn’t actually answered his question.

  The benefit of having a boss with the attention span of a puppy was there was always another squirrel she could point him toward when the conversation got uncomfortable.

  She made a mental note to check in with her own sources before they met with Sonny. Her ulcer couldn’t handle any more surprises.

  “If you don’t need anything further, I’ll leave you to your correspondence.”

  Barry loved answering letters and emails from his constituents on subjects ranging from pothole repair to the appropriate time for a city park’s baseball field lights to go out for the night—the more mundane, the better.

  Her hand was on the door when she heard him say, “I’m not as dumb as you’d like to think I am, Mackenzie.”

  Her heart skipped, and she turned back. “I beg your pardon?”

  His head was bent over his pile of papers, and he didn’t look up. “I didn’t say anything.”

  She hesitated for a moment, sure of what she’d heard.

  He continued to read his letters.

  She tried to shrug it off, but as she stepped on into his reception area and pulled the door shut behind her, her pulse was fluttering in her throat.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Sasha returned to work feeling like an overcooked, beaten noodle from her lunchtime sparring session with Daniel. That was nothing new. But the exhausted bliss that usually followed a Krav Maga session was glaringly absent.

  She was mad at herself. Door-slamming, foot-stomping mad. Daniel had gotten the jump on her not once, not twice, but three times in the thirty-minute workout.

  His scolding echoed in her head as she stormed up the stairs and stalked down the hall to her office.

  “Come on, Sasha. I’ve stabbed you, strangled you, and pinned you. Pull your head out of your butt before you end up raped. Or dead. Or is your plan to let your fiancé protect you from now on?”

  Hot, angry tears pricked behind her eyes as she remembered his disgusted lecture. As his star student, she’d never before been on the receiving end of one of his tirades. She wasn’t sure what made her feel worse—his disappointment in her or her own.

  She swept into her room, fuming, her cheeks still burning with humiliation.

  Great.

  Instead of the solitude she so badly craved, her office offered her an ensemble cast: Bodhi, Naya, and Connelly were all staring at her with varying degrees of concern. She took a deep, shaky breath and let it out slowly, releasing her self-flagellating angst with the air. It appeared she had other things to worry about at the moment.

  “What now?” she tried to inject some levity into the question but failed.

  All three of them started to talk at once. Their voices melded together in a frantic cacophony. She picked up enough to know that none of them was trying to communicate good news.

  “Hold on.” She raised a hand like a crossing guard.

  The chorus of squawking ceased.

  She pointed at Bodhi. “Guests first.”

  He graced her with a grateful smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

  “I’ve been served with a lawsuit,” he said in a soft, disbelieving voice as he crossed the room and shoved a crumpled sheaf of papers at her.

  He stood silently and watched her scan the complaint. The parents of Jasmine Courtland, the third woman to die of myocarditis, were suing him civilly in his personal capacity, alleging that he destroyed his files as part of an effort to cover up the connection among the deaths, resulting in inte
ntional infliction of emotional distress.

  She looked up and met his grave eyes. He was pale and drawn.

  “Okay. First thing, an IIED claim is notoriously hard to win.”

  “IIED?” he repeated blankly.

  “Intentional infliction of emotion distress. They’ll have to prove that you deliberately caused their distress and that they’ve suffered actual, quantifiable damages. It’s basically a junk cause of action that lawyers tack on to lawsuits. But, here, it’s the only cause of action. That means these guys know they don’t have a case. It’s probably a money grab, I’m sorry to say.”

  She flipped back to the complaint to see who was representing the parents, but he put a hand on her arm to stop her.

  “Wait. I’m sure they are genuinely grieving, Sasha.” His voice shook.

  “Of course they are. But, that doesn’t mean they have a cognizable legal claim.”

  “You don’t get it. Someone’s manipulating them. Someone inside, I mean. How else do they know that my files are missing?”

  And with that question, posed in Bodhi’s calm, melodic voice, it clicked.

  “You’re being set up by your office.”

  He nodded mutely.

  She chewed on the cap of her pen while she considered this.

  “Where we you served?”

  “Downstairs. Standing in line for a chai tea.”

  “Who from your office knows you’re here?”

  “Nobody.”

  She flicked her eyes away from Bodhi and shot Connelly a look that said wanna help me out here?

  Connelly cleared his throat. “What about Saul?”

  Bodhi shrugged. “I guess Saul might know. I told him you guys were helping me. But he’s not in management. And it’s not like he’s got a tail on me ...”

  He trailed off and grew even paler, if that was possible.

  “So, it’s safe to say that whoever has been shadowing you is (a) connected to city government somehow and (b) still following you,” Sasha said.

  He absorbed this news like a body blow. “Right.”