Unaccounted For

by Nan Willard Cappo

  Neither of them spoke for a while. Ellie squashed bread crumbs and licked them off her finger. A few feet from the roof’s edge the giant American flag in the courtyard snapped and waved in the breeze. The sun shone through the leaves of a potted ficus tree to make shifting shadows on their table.

  It was, in fact, a good day to be alive. Milo roused himself as though from a trance. “Really?”

  She nodded again. “Trust me. I’m older than you.”

  Her hazel eyes were dark green with urgency. He wanted to trust her. “My mother says I should…”

  “What? What should you do?”

  “Watch out for older women.”

  He liked the way she laughed.

  Despite Zaffer’s skepticism, Milo continued to find Gordon Pearce a Person of Interest, so far as the Shoemaker robbery was concerned.

  The day after his rooftop talk with Ellie, he pushed his detecting one more step. During a stream of chatter by Leslie in which she told them all, detail by painful detail, about the open bar at her husband’s cousin’s wedding (Amber had asked for time off to go to her cousin’s wedding), Milo interrupted. Did Leslie happen to know if Gordon Pearce had gone to Tim Shoemaker’s funeral in January? He felt assured of privacy on this, as the instant Leslie stopped for breath, Amber and J’azzmin had stealthily replaced their headphones.

  Leslie followed the change of subject as smoothly as a beagle scenting a second rabbit. Why, no, he hadn’t, and it’s funny Milo should ask because she remembered being surprised at the time that Mr. Pearce had sent his secretary to represent him. He’d said someone had to hold down the fort since so many people in Accounting asked to go. “I think he was jealous that people liked your dad. Seeing as how if he died they could have ten open bars and not crowd a Porta John, that’s all I can say.”

  Belatedly she turned a questioning eye on Milo. Quickly he said, speaking of alcohol, how much beer had her husband’s cousin’s wedding guests gone through? He didn’t have to say another word for an hour.

  “He wasn’t at the funeral of his own department manager,” Milo said, panting. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

  The evening air was sultry and so humid he was already sweating, though they’d just started their run. He and Zaffer jogged along the stream in the Valeene city park after work. They took this warm-up lap slow, Titan lolloping along ready to kick it up a notch whenever Zaffer said the word.

  “I sure am. What’s her phone number?”

  Milo followed Zaffer’s gaze. Across the softball field a girl who could have modeled her hot pink sports bra professionally was walking an animal the size and shape of a salami. “I don’t think you’ll get it after Titan eats that rat-thing. Pay attention. He wasn’t at the funeral, and he had that van. Now tell me that’s a coincidence.”

  “It’s a coincidence.”

  “You are so—”

  Titan spotted the salami dog and lunged. Zaffer hauled on the leash as the dachshund’s owner shrieked and scooped up her dog. By the time they’d stopped and talked and Zaffer succeeded in punching her phone number into his cell, the topic of Gordon Pearce was forgotten. Though not by Milo.

  As though the fates were conspiring to aid him, the following day brought Milo an opportunity to spy on Pearce. He was playing Minesweeper on his computer when Leslie called him over.

  “I need you to take these reports up to Ed Boyle’s secretary. He’s the Sales VP, up on seven. You know where his office is?”

  “Near Mr. Farnon’s?”

  “Around the corner. His secretary is Karen—you’ll see her nameplate on the desk. Karen’s in the meeting but says to leave the reports on her chair.”

  “Will do.”

  She gave a sigh of relief, which made him smile. Had she really thought he’d refuse? Not only did he like to get out of the office, but he would never force Leslie to encounter Gordon Pearce unnecessarily. Milo wondered if anyone at Wolverine, even Pearce’s secretary, liked the guy.

  He took the stairs as always. He hardly ever got to climb all the way to the fire door with “7” on it, but that wasn’t why his heart pounded as though he was about to rob the place. He stepped from the hot, fresh air of the stairwell into the carpeted chill of Executive Row. A low hum of voices sounded off to the left, from behind the conference room doors. To the right, the desk of Farnon’s secretary was unoccupied, though the glowing computer screen and sweater on the chair suggested Margaret would be back any second.

  Milo took a breath. He was about to rob the place, if he could. Or at least trespass.

  He crossed the reception area and took the hall to the right. A long row of five richly paneled doors stretched before him. Two reception areas, so these executives must share secretaries. Both reception desks were vacant.

  If it weren’t for the voices coming from the conference room he might have thought there’d been an attack of deadly nerve gas. He strode confidently down the hall until he reached Karen’s nameplate. It was the desk just beyond it he wanted. The one outside the door marked “G. Pearce, Vice President Finance.” On that desk the nameplate said “Linda Pecora.”

  Milo stuck his head into Pearce’s office, prepared to ask where Mr. Boyle’s secretary was. But no one was there. On the wall hung a framed diploma attesting that Gordon L. Pearce had graduated from the University of Minnesota with a Master’s Degree in Finance. Bully for him, but where was a calendar? Not in plain sight, that’s where. Milo’s eyes swept the room. If a person was afraid of giving anything about himself away, he might have a bland, stage-set office just like this.

  The diploma was the only personal touch. No photos on the desk or the credenza. Either the guy didn’t have a family—and who could blame any woman for not marrying Gordon Pearce?—or they didn’t photograph well. The wide desk held a computer monitor with a screensaver of a Scarlet Ghost, and a blank yellow pad with a pen on it, as though the owner had been about to start a memo. It threatened a return any moment that made Milo’s breath come faster. He bent over the computer to see if any icon was a calendar. A low buzz, like a tiny fan running, came from a metal ashtray under the desk, plugged into an outlet. Milo had seen these before—smokeless ashtrays, which electronically ate cigarette smoke so your surroundings didn’t reek. Too bad Pearce couldn’t wear one around his neck.

  Outside somewhere a door opened. Voices grew more distinct.

  Milo beat it. He waved his report in exasperation, as though someone had sent him to the wrong darn office. He waved it so widely he knocked over a mug of pens on the Linda desk.

  As he stooped to collect them he spotted it in the ashtray. A white glossy matchbook embossed with magenta script. Motor City Casino & Hotel. Milo slipped it into his pocket and grabbed a handful of pens off the floor.

  “What have we here?” said a familiar voice.

  ***

  Chapter 10

  For a big man, Alf Farnon didn’t make much noise. Although the matchbook burned in his pocket—had Farnon seen him take it?—Milo managed to keep his voice steady as he straightened up.

  “Mr. Farnon! Good to see you, sir.”

  “What brings you to this neck of the woods, Milo?” The pale-blue eyes were alight with what Milo sincerely hoped was friendship. He saw no trace of the vagueness that had marked their last encounter. And today he was “Milo” again.

  He held up his sales report. “Just brought this up for Mr. Boyle, sir. Leslie said they needed it right away.” Luckily the pens had spilled halfway between the two desks. Milo fussily replaced them, trusting Farnon would not notice the mug was on the wrong desk. He laid his envelope on Karen’s empty chair.

  “Ah. Good thing Gordon’s not here. He’s already asked me why you seem to turn up everywhere.” Farnon laughed, as though the joke was on Pearce.

  Milo’s heart jerked. “Just going where I’m sent, sir.”

  “Of course, of course. Don’t mind Gordon. I like a little paranoia in a money man—shows he’s alert.”

  In
the awkward pause that followed Milo wondered if Farnon remembered he was talking to the son of a money man who’d been alert to the tune of a million dollars.

  Perhaps so. “I wonder—could Leslie spare you for a few hours? I’m on my way to see something I think you’d find interesting. You’d be back before three.”

  “Thank you, sir, I’m sure she can. I’ll just stop down and let her know.”

  “I’ll meet you in the lobby, then. Five minutes.”

  Leslie lifted a well-penciled eyebrow at this news. “Mr. Farnon? What’s he got for you to do off-site?”

  “Probably needs some boxes loaded or something,” Milo said.

  “Well, don’t spill any Payroll secrets.” She raised her voice slightly. “No need for Alf Farnon to know some people around here take an hour and a half for lunch.” Amber and J’azzmin decided to hear this, for once, and they were all arguing as he slipped out.

  Farnon was waiting at the wheel of the red Shelby Mustang. The motor was running and the top was down. Milo glanced around as he got in, but of course Zaffer was nowhere in sight when you wanted him.

  “Thought we’d take my daughter’s car, she claims it’s been stalling at lights. Though frankly,” Farnon smiled at Milo, man to man, “it could be her driving. She’s new to a stick shift.”

  Then shouldn’t you give her some lessons, Milo wondered, until he was moved to admiration at the easy way Farnon shifted from first through third. In seconds they had looped around the parking lot and were spinning along Carleton Road heading west. It was a beautiful summer morning, in the low seventies with no wind except the breeze of their movement. Milo was not indoors punching his adding machine, but was being driven to an important business site by the president of Wolverine Motors. Who knew his name. Life was good.

  They were in farm country now, and Milo watched the acres of beans and corn rush past. Besides grunting at The Wall Street Journal stock report on the radio, Farnon said little. Milo didn’t mind. In Farnon’s expert hands the Mustang purred like the performance car it was. A sense of well-being filled him. Probably Ellie did need more practice shifting gears. Milo’s father had taught him to drive a stick; maybe he could give her some pointers.

  “Where are we going, sir?” He had to raise his voice over the road noise.

  “Top secret!” Farnon shouted back. “You’ll see!”

  Milo laughed. Alf Farnon wasn’t worried about any chip off the old block. Then his hand brushed the matches in his pocket, and his sense of well-being suffered a check. Pearce hadn’t been at the funeral. Now it turned out his secretary used the same kind of matches the robbers had dropped.

  Pearce was up to something. Milo felt it in his gut. And the man beside him, working so hard to bring prosperity to Valeene, to Milo’s own family, had no inkling.

  They turned off the highway onto a dirt track and drove down it for almost a mile, past woods and more fields, until the track dead-ended in a large yard ringed with decrepit warehouses. Other cars and two big flatbed trucks were parked outside the only sound-looking structure—a long, freshly painted, white concrete building.

  Farnon got out and Milo scrambled after him. Inside, a cement floor was split by railway tracks that ran through wide double doors on either end, making the building a tunnel. Two sleek shapes dominated the space. The glossy white locomotive had a smoothly rounded nose; the blue railcar attached to it had one side open to display comfortably padded seats lining its aisles. Studying these like 4-H judges with a prize sow stood a group of people from Wolverine. Milo recognized a day-shift plant supervisor, and a woman on Mr. Boyle’s sales staff. At Farnon’s entrance they all turned expectantly.

  A skinny Asian man in black glasses stepped forward. Farnon introduced Milo to him as “my colleague, Milo Shoemaker.” The skinny man was Den Kimura, Chief Designer, Special Projects.

  Milo shook hands. Then he stepped back, but stuck to Farnon like a burr, listening. These cars were prototypes built by Mr. Kimura’s staff, being shown for the first time to Wolverine.

  “So?” Farnon slapped the metal side of the white locomotive. “What do you think?”

  The Wolverine people were soon talking over themselves about narrow gauge track, braking systems, diesel-hydraulic vs. electric, top speed vs. rated speed. Milo let the terms wash over him. What came through clearly were the pronouns: “we” could do this, “our teams” could do that, “let’s try this.” Already they were invested.

  And Farnon was as excited as any of them. “Let’s talk about getting these to the new building,” he said, and rubbed his hands. At that point he remembered Milo and sent him to wait in the car; they’d be ready to leave in few minutes.

  Outside Milo found the key in the ignition and played with the radio. He flipped between Christian rock to country-western and couldn’t stop smiling. He—and Clyde the usher—knew something the rest of Valeene did not. Wolverine would get that $300 million. Didn’t they already build the best fire engines? Now they would make the best railcars, too. What a boon for the town! How tickled his dad would have been! For once the thought of his father touched him only with sorrow, not shame.

  But it was Alf Farnon and not Tim with whom Milo shared this secret. Farnon came out a few minutes later, and they headed back down the dirt track.

  “So Milo,” Farnon said,” how does ‘Wolverine Railcar Company’ sound to you?”

  “Like jobs.”

  Farnon roared with laughter and took his hand off the wheel to cuff Milo on the shoulder. “Damn straight! Like progress!” He didn’t talk again until they gained the smoother pavement of the highway. Then they were pulling into a diner in a hamlet Milo had never heard of.

  A waitress took their orders, and Farnon leaned back against the vinyl booth. The background noise from the other diners gave cover even to a voice as resonant as his.

  “I’m glad you came, Milo. Some people will say it’s risky for us to branch out into railcars. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s that you have to take risks if you want to succeed. Risks and sacrifices. No question, sacrifices must be made.”

  The pale eyes crinkled for a moment as though recalling something painful. Milo thought of Ellie, of her mother and the cancer treatments that hadn’t worked. Was time with your family one of the sacrifices?

  But Alf Farnon was more concerned with the future than the past. Wolverine’s future, and Milo’s.

  “When this railroad idea came along I smelled opportunity. We’ll have people and goods moving through Michigan from Chicago to Canada, and they’re going to get off those trains along the way. Think of it. Supermarkets, restaurants, shopping malls—pretty soon those empty houses will be snapped up and they’ll be building new ones. Success attracts success. Move over, Ann Arbor! Valeene’ll be the place to live, because of Wolverine.”

  Their cheeseburgers came, and Farnon talked on. Milo was as charmed as any investor. He listened and nodded and pictured downtown Valeene in the future Farnon drew. Fresh paint on the storefronts; a turn lane down the middle of Main; one of those digital traffic lights that counted down the seconds before you got run over. It was intoxicating.

  When the waitress asked if they’d like dessert he didn’t glance at the menu but ordered chocolate cream pie. Farnon said, “Make it two,” and Milo felt clever.

  Over his coffee Farnon said, “Did you know U of M wants us to sponsor an internship program, a co-op they call it, so students spend a semester or two at Wolverine getting real work experience?”

  Milo shook his head. He tried not to think about U of M, and not going there.

  “It made me think of you, Milo.” Farnon turned serious. “Your situation.”

  Suddenly Milo couldn’t taste his pie.

  “I might have done wrong, letting you come to work for me. Giving up college. It’s not what your dad would have wanted.”

  “It’s what I wanted, sir. You said it yourself. Sometimes you have to make sacrifices.”

  The older ma
n gave Milo a long look over the rim of his cup. “Maybe it’s not too late to kill two birds with one stone. Eh? What if you sign up for this co-op thing? Take some courses but still work for me—at Wolverine Rail. It’ll take longer to get your degree, but meanwhile you’ll be part of something. Something big.”

  Milo’s fork slipped to the floor. He made a production of picking it up, wiping it off with his napkin. Fantasies of astonishing his Payroll coworkers were one thing, but this was real. It was too much. He was a clerk. He’d worked for Farnon only one month. “I don’t deserve this,” he said. “Not after what my dad did.”

  Farnon shook his head. What a kid! “Nobody’s giving you a damned thing, except a chance to work your ass off. I need an EA. Someone smart, good with details. Leslie says you’re that. Someone I can trust. Margaret’s great, but she’ll be staying where she is. I want someone to be my eyes and ears in the new company. And if that someone looks like a kid—even better. No one’ll resent you, you’ll hear things. I keep long hours, I lose my temper, I don’t like to track the little stuff—it won’t be any picnic. What do you say?”

  There was only one thing to say. Milo said it. “Well, yes. It sounds tremendous.”

  “I think your dad would be pleased, don’t you?”

  Milo ducked his head. He didn’t like to think this offer had come about only because Farnon had liked his father. Oh, right, it’s because you’re such a genius. “He sure loved Wolverine Motors,” he said, which wasn’t really a yes, and was surprised at the regret that crossed Farnon’s face.