The Alex Shanahan Series

by Lynne Heitman

  Chapter Twenty-one

  The receptionist at The Cray Fund was a slim Latino man with long graceful fingers. His short dark hair and soulful brown eyes stood out against the overtly white walls, his white reception counter, and a white-and-gray marble floor that practically glowed in the bright light from the floor-to-ceiling windows. Once again I sorely missed my sunglasses, which had been incinerated along with everything else in my bag. Jack had his on.

  “Cray Financial Services, how may I direct your call?” I thought he was talking to himself until I spotted the translucent earpiece and microphone sprouting from the side of his head. His fingers moved expertly across a console as he went back to a call on hold. “She’s off the line now, I’ll transfer you.”

  “May I help you?” he asked, glancing up crisply between calls.

  “Alex Shanahan and Jack Dolan. We have a ten o’clock appointment.”

  “With whom?” He was exasperated with us.

  “We’re not sure,” I said, courting even more derision. “I called yesterday afternoon and spoke to a gentleman, maybe you, who told us to come in this morning. We have questions about one of the firm’s cars.”

  “Have a seat.” His constantly moving fingers punched up another call.

  Jack had already found a spot on the edge of the white leather couch. He picked up a copy of the Miami Herald. I sank down next to him and picked up one of the company’s prospectuses.

  “Ten to one,” he murmured, “the car in the lot in the middle of the night was this Cray out porking his secretary.”

  I gazed about at our well-appointed surroundings. The place reeked of money, in a tropical sort of way. “I doubt if he’d choose The Harmony House Suites for his romantic interlude, you’re the one who says we have to be open to all possibilities, and porking his secretary?”

  “I’m just going off years of experience running people and their dirty little secrets to ground.” He set down his paper and took in the surroundings. “What do they do here, anyway?”

  “They’re investors. They run a hedge fund.”

  “Is that like a mutual fund?”

  “Sort of, except a hedge fund is an investment pool for rich people. It’s not regulated like a mutual fund is, so it allows much riskier investing, which can mean much higher returns. According to this”—I pointed at a summary page in one of the company’s brochures—“their return last year was over seventy percent. Of course the converse is also true. The downside can be as big as the upside.”

  “You understand all that stuff?”

  “I’ve had a few finance courses in my day.”

  A set of handsome double doors off the reception area opened and a man and a woman emerged. The man was large, muscled, and dressed like one of the Bee Gees. His polyester white slacks were tight across his thick thighs and flared below the knee. The rest of his outfit was all black—silk T-shirt, leather belt, and woven leather loafers. No socks. On his left wrist were a large gold watch and a thin gold bracelet, and on his right pinky, a thick gold ring in the shape of a cross. He was Hispanic, so the chest hairs that curled out above the rounded collar of his shirt were also dark. He walked past us without so much as a sideways glance.

  Jack leaned over to whisper. “He wasn’t the one following you last night, was he?”

  I shook my head. Too big. Way too big.

  The woman lingered in the double doorway, pausing—or posing—momentarily as she gave the two of us a good once-over. She was angular and elegant enough to have just stepped from a Richard Avedon photo—the long graceful neck and those high-fashion bones. What she didn’t have was the proudly vacuous stare. In keeping with the blinding color scheme of the office, her silk suit was ivory and her hair shimmering blonde. I didn’t think high heels were stylish at the moment, given all the chunky shoes that had been stepping on my toes lately. But she had that kind of style that made everything she wore look as fresh as if it had been designed for her the day before and whipped up that morning.

  “I’m sorry to keep you waiting,” she said, slinking my way first. “I’m Vanessa Cray.”

  And you’re a girl, I thought, as I pushed myself up from the couch to greet her. “Alex Shanahan,” I said. “This is Jack Dolan.” I glanced at Jack, anxious to see how this unexpected development fit with his porking theory. Vanessa had turned her attention to him as well. She was tall enough in her heels to gaze directly into Jack’s eyes when she turned to greet him, which was enough for him to finally remove the sunglasses.

  “Mr. Dolan,” she said, “it’s a pleasure to meet you.” She had smiled at me with polite obligation. The way she smiled at him, the way she demanded eye contact and touched his arm with her left hand as she took his hand with her right made me think of how I’d had different résumés when I went looking for work, based on who the audience would be. Vanessa Cray was one of those women who had one personality for her own gender, and a very different one for the other.

  Jack seemed very pleased to have caused such a response and was suddenly much more interested in taking the meeting. “The pleasure is mine.”

  “Won’t you come in?” She detached from Jack and swept us through the double doors.

  Two things hit me right off about Vanessa Cray’s office. It was vast and it was cold. Really cold. This was in spite of her floor-to-ceiling windows that opened out to a gleaming South Florida day that was only slightly tarnished by today’s serving of smoke and ash. The glass in her windows must have been heavily insulated because I couldn’t feel any warmth from the sun. Seeing the brightness outside and feeling the cold inside made for a strange, disorienting sensory experience.

  Another thing that was hard not to miss was the proliferation of flowers. One would think an office filled with flowers would have had a homey charm. But these flowers looked more like exotic specimens growing in petri dishes. The plant on her desk had neon orange blooms that were shaped like lobster claws and looked to be made out of rubber tubing. They were all like that, graceful little sculptures that practically shouted “hands off.”

  “May I get you a hot drink?” She addressed me from behind her desk, which was not much more than a piece of glass stretched across two fancy chrome sawhorses. She glanced up—but only for a second—from whatever had drawn her to her flat screen monitor. “You seem uncomfortable.”

  “Not really.” It’s just that my eyeballs were beginning to frost.

  She continued to keep us waiting for what was turning into an uncomfortably long period as she tapped her keys and perused the screen. “Please excuse my obsessive-compulsive behavior,” she said lightly, making it clear we had no choice. “I’m trying to keep my eye on things. We made some big trades today.”

  “How did you do?” I asked.

  She smiled. “As it happens, extremely well.”

  Jack leaned over the dish of lobster claws on her desk. “You like orchids?” he asked.

  Vanessa shifted her intense concentration instantly from the screen to Jack. It was like a heat-seeking missile acquiring a target. “Do you know orchids?”

  “Not really, but my mother loved flowers. She had them all over the house when I was growing up. I couldn’t help but pick up a few things from her, although I don’t remember any that looked like this.”

  She swooped around her desk to stand next to him, and they both leaned over the dish while I stood to the side, feeling as if I hadn’t been picked for the kickball team.

  “It’s unlikely your mother would have had these.” She ran a finger gently, lovingly along the outside of one of the blooms. “They’re Masdevallia velifera. Their shape is quite unusual for an orchid. This one is called a Solar Flare because of the shape and the bright neon color. They grow mostly on trees in Andean cloud forests, where it’s cool and shady and always bathed in mist. Their ideal temperature is fifty-five degrees.”

  That explained why she worked in a refrigerator. It was probably the least of the concessions she made to her passion. She was prob
ably good at passion.

  “They must be a challenge to grow in Florida,” Jack said.

  “That’s why I grow them. And because they are so magnificent.” She gazed down at the orchid in the same way a parent gazes upon her child—with endless wonder, as if it filled her with both pride and bewilderment to behold what she had made.

  “Perhaps we could get started,” I said. They both looked at me. “So we don’t take up too much of your time.”

  “Certainly.” She directed us to a cluster of chairs, small couches, and tables at the other end of the sparse office. I pulled my notebook from my backpack, opened it up, and noted the date and time and attendees.

  “My assistant tells me you have a question about one of our cars. Of course I’ll provide any information I can, but may I ask why you’re interested?”

  She was glancing over at my notebook, but addressing her questions to Jack, who sat forward on his chair with his elbows on his knees, and his hands clasped together in a posture that made him look both relaxed and alert. I listened carefully to hear how much he would tell her, and how he would couch the information.

  “The license number came up in a case we’re working on.”

  “What kind of case?”

  “We’re looking into the murder of a man at The Harmony House Suites. A black Volvo 580 registered to your company was in the hotel parking lot that night.”

  “How,” she asked, “do you know this?”

  “Surveillance.”

  She tipped her head and gave him a teasing smile. “I’m sure my car wasn’t the only one in the lot that night.”

  He countered with his own crooked grin. “We’re eliminating possibilities.”

  “Then the car does belong to you,” I said, climbing into the conversation.

  “It belongs to my company. But you already knew that. That’s why you’re here.” She glanced again at the notebook on my lap. “Are you Jack’s assistant?”

  If I had been a dog, all the hair on my neck would have stood up right then, although it was certainly her right to find out who she was talking to and why. And I was in a way acting as Jack’s assistant, although I didn’t understand why she felt the need to point that out, unless it was to make me feel as if I didn’t belong there, as if I didn’t know what I was doing, as if she and Jack were the real thing and I was an imposter, an interloper, a party crasher—

  “Ms. Cray,” Jack said, “I—”

  “Call me Vanessa.”

  “Ms. Shanahan is my client. I work for her.”

  “I see.” She had barely glanced in my direction and was now addressing Jack again. “I have a fleet of six Volvos registered to my company. All the same model. All the same year. All black.”

  “The license number is unique,” I said, trying not to behave as if she’d just blown me off completely. It was tough.

  “I’m afraid that won’t tell you who was driving.”

  “The cars are not assigned?”

  “Anyone who works here is welcome to use any car. I had intended them for business use only, but I must admit we’ve never kept careful track.” She shrugged delicately, making it clear that keeping track of six forty-thousand-dollar vehicles just didn’t make it onto her radar screen.

  “How many em—”

  “I have thirty-five employees.”

  “And no procedure for signing the cars in and out?”

  “None.”

  “Does that mean your employees could hand the keys over to friends or family?”

  “I don’t see the need for stringent controls. I trust my employees.”

  Which meant we had to consider not only all thirty-five employees, but their friends, their families, and anyone else they may have felt like handing the keys off to. She couldn’t have made the situation more complicated if she’d tried.

  Jack picked up the ball. “Ms. Cray—”

  “I asked you to call me Vanessa.” She gazed upon Jack as if he’d disappointed her. If he felt disappointing, he wasn’t letting it show.

  “Can you provide us a list of employees and contact numbers?”

  “Of course.” She reached over, picked up her phone, and asked whoever answered to bring a copy of the company’s employee roster. A young woman wearing a serious suit and an expression to match appeared almost immediately with the file, and took the opportunity to say gently but firmly that Vanessa was late for her conference call with London. They’d started on time, she explained, and had gone as far as they could without her. I checked my watch. We had been with her less than twenty minutes and spent at least half that time watching her stare at her monitor.

  “Tell them I’ll be right with them.” The assistant departed. Vanessa paged through the file quickly and handed it to me. “I think you’ll find what you need in here.” She took two business cards from a holder on the table next to her and gave us each one as well. “And if you’d care to look at the cars, I’ll have my assistant call downstairs. Now I really must—”

  “Your name is not on this list.” My tone was more blunt than I’d intended, but then I wasn’t trying too hard. This time when we locked eyes, I felt as though she were seeing me for the first time. I’d finally managed to get her attention.

  “You asked for an employee list. I’m not an employee.”

  “I assume you have access to the Volvos.”

  “Yes, but I don’t use the cars. I have a driver.”

  “I understand,” I said. “What I’m asking you is if there is anyone else with access to the cars whose name is not on the list.”

  “Oh, I see. No, there’s no one that I can think of right now, but if you’ll leave your information with my receptionist, I’ll certainly call you if anything comes to mind.”

  She had walked behind her desk and settled in again to watch whatever it was she found so mesmerizing on her computer screen. If that wasn’t enough of a signal, she punched up her assistant on the phone and requested to be hooked up to the London call.

  We were dismissed. Actually, I had been dismissed even before we’d begun, but now she was apparently through with Jack as well.

  We took the express elevator down from the Andean rain forest. The two of us stood, as people do in elevators, side by side facing forward. Jack stared up at the floor counter while I studied our images in the polished metal elevator doors.

  I was studying Jack’s image more than mine. He was an attractive man, especially spiffed up the way he was with his hair combed and a nice jacket on. I enjoyed that about him. Also his intelligence, his complexity, his sense of humor. His mysterious side. That sense that there were many more layers to him than he was showing. I didn’t like that Vanessa Cray had just tried to crawl up his pant leg.

  He noticed me looking. “What?”

  “Do you think she did that to keep you off balance?”

  “Did what?”

  “Flirted with you?”

  He brushed something off his jacket lapel. “Are you saying you don’t think she finds me attractive?”

  “I think she finds you attractive in the way a lion finds zebra meat to be attractive.”

  He grinned. “I’ve been called a lot of things, but never zebra meat.” He scraped the edge of her business card along his jaw, and I could hear the sound of stubble. “I’ve seen her somewhere before. I can’t remember where, but I know I’ve seen her face.”

  “She’s hiding something,” I said.

  “You just don’t like her.”

  “I don’t like her, and she’s hiding something.”

  He turned his attention back to the floor counter overhead. “Did you ever consider that she was flirting with me to get to you?”

  “Why would she do that?”

  “She likes to play. And she recognizes you as the bigger threat.”

  “How am I a threat to her?”

  “She’s used to controlling men. That’s obvious. But you’re smart, and so is she. You like to be in control, and so does she. And you’re a wo
man. You are more of a challenge for her.”

  We dropped a few more floors as I considered that. Better to be neutralized for being too much of a challenge, I supposed, than to be dismissed for not being enough of one. I decided to feel marginally better. Even so… “I think she’s hiding something.”

  “That’s because you don’t like her.”

  “Yeah.”

  We had to cross to another elevator to get to the garage, where we found the six black Volvos in reserved spots on the bottom level. They were all in, presumably because everyone was at work in the building. We identified the one we wanted by the license plate, and as promised, a parking attendant gave us the keys.

  Jack piled into the driver’s side and I slipped into the back seat. “What are we looking for?”

  “Anything that might tell us who has driven the car lately.”

  I pulled an empty Snapple bottle off the floor and showed it to him. “All we’re likely to prove is that someone drove the car at some point, not who drove the car to the hotel that night and for what reason.”

  He leaned over and opened the glove box. “Don’t overanalyze. Keep looking.”

  “I’m not optimistic.” I reached down into all the cracks between the leather cushions and felt around. All I came up with was a Tic Tac, a penny, some hairs, and a lot of really disgusting lint and grit that made me want to flee to the ladies’ room and wash my hands.

  “You know, Jack, they could have switched the plates.”

  “That’s why we’re going to search all six.”

  We did. It took two hours. The most interesting thing we found came from the first car we’d searched, the one with the license plate that had matched the surveillance. It was a credit card receipt for a gas purchase dated the Tuesday afternoon after John had been killed. The person who had signed was named Arturo. I held it up to the light and tried to read the last name. Impossible. It was nothing more than a long, illegible squiggle.

  “I’m going to have to get someone to run that down,” Jack said.

  “I’ve got a better idea. There’s someone I’d like you to meet.”