Suicide Season

by Rex Burns

  “And in those moments he relied on you?”

  Her chin lifted. “Yes!”

  And so to bed. I finished my martini and lifted a finger. Across the narrow room, George nodded and headed quickly for the bar. “But suppose he had a secret crisis he couldn’t share with you?”

  “After the Columbine and Lake Center projects, we were all under suspicion, Mr. Kirk. As we should have been.”

  Two more drinks silently arrived, followed by the salads, small and carefully arranged on large, chilled metal plates, and beside them forks wrapped in icy cloths.

  “Suppose, Miss Busey, there was good reason to suspect the man and he knew it? Suppose he believed he was about to be exposed?”

  Her face hardened into porcelain. “He would have told me. I shared that part of his life, Mr. Kirk—the vital, the most alive part of his life: I shared it. Not his wife, not anyone else. If he made a deal with Aegis, he would have told me!”

  “Would you have approved?”

  She hesitated, then shrugged. “It happens all the time in business, and Austin had ambition. He knew I would support whatever he did.”

  The serving cart coasted across the carpet to the table and George presented each dish with a little flourish of introduction. I waited until the ceremony was over and the waiter had dropped out of earshot.

  “Do you know if Haas had enemies?”

  “Of course he did. Strong men make enemies.”

  “Anyone who hated him enough to want to frame him for the theft of the projects?”

  “What do you mean?”

  I told her about the anonymous call to McAllister’s office, the one that said Haas had been approached by the Aegis Group.

  She idly tugged at a curl of blond hair that sprang back into ranks when her fingers opened. “That only makes me more certain that he didn’t kill himself.”

  “But do you have any idea who might have made that call?”

  “No.”

  “You had access to the same information as Haas, didn’t you?”

  “Of course. We worked together.” Her fork stopped in midair. “But don’t draw the conclusion that I sold the information to Aegis.”

  “If it wasn’t wrong for Haas, why should it be wrong for you?”

  “It would have been a betrayal of Austin.”

  “But not of McAllister?”

  “Austin came first.” She leaned over the white tablecloth. “Mr. Kirk, Austin did not sell those trade secrets to those people. And he did not kill himself.”

  “He’s dead.”

  “He was murdered. She killed him.”

  I studied the face that, for all its immobility, was even more intense. “You mean his wife?”

  “Yes!”

  The tines of my fork pushed my scaloppini across the large, richly patterned dish. “That’s a very serious accusation, Miss Busey. You shouldn’t say something like that based only on your dislike for her.”

  “She was the only one in the house with him, wasn’t she? He did not kill himself—he did not! And she’s the only other one who could have!”

  “But why should she?”

  A note of satisfaction tinged her voice. “Jealousy.”

  Her gray eyes finally thawed with an emotion: hatred. I watched it surge up like blazing straw and then slowly ebb as she stared at me. “Why now, Miss Busey? Why didn’t you bring this up when it happened?”

  “Because I’ve had time to think, time to put things together so they make sense.”

  “The police were satisfied that it was a suicide, and for very good reasons. The wound was a close-range head wound, only one round had been fired from the weapon that killed him, and residue was found on Haas’s hand.”

  “Residue?”

  “Burned gunpowder. Anyone firing a pistol will have gunpowder residue on his hand.”

  “I don’t care what they found. I know what I know.” She reached down for her purse and took out a checkbook. “I want to hire you to prove that Austin did not kill himself, Mr. Kirk.”

  “I can’t do that, Miss Busey. In the first place, I’m already working for someone on this case. Secondly, my search is for facts which lead to a conclusion, not vice versa.”

  “You’re working for McAllister, aren’t you? He wants the same thing I do—the truth.”

  “Which is what I’m after. If something turns up to show that Haas didn’t kill himself, then you’ll get what you want without having to pay for it.”

  She closed her purse and held it on her lap, gazing for a moment at the plate of cooling food. Then she looked up. “I see. Perhaps I should find someone else.”

  “You would be wasting your money.”

  “It’s my money, isn’t it?” She pushed her chair back.

  “Miss Busey, may I ask a couple of questions?” I went on before she could say no. “When you learned of Haas’s death, did you go through his desk? Did you remove anything?”

  The gray eyes stared beyond me before she answered, and perhaps she was gazing again at that morning when she had come eagerly in to work expecting her lover and found only a brief message. “A few things, yes.”

  “What were they?”

  “Personal things. Some notes I wrote him. A card we laughed over.” She drew a deep breath. “Nothing that would tie him to the Aegis Group, because there was nothing like that in his desk.” She stood abruptly, saying a quick good-bye and was gone before I could rise. Across the room, George followed her long-legged stride with a worried glance, then came to the table.

  “Is the food satisfactory, Mr. Kirk?”

  “It wasn’t the food; it was the company.”

  “Ah.” Quickly, he cleared the dish and silverware so it looked as if I were dining alone. “At least your meal should not go to waste, sir.”

  It was almost four when Bunch came into the office, wearing that tight little half smile of satisfaction he had whenever something fell into place. I remembered it from the first case we worked together when he was still in the police and I was still a Secret Service agent. A series of telephoned threats to the president had come from the Denver area, and—with more hindrance than help from the FBI—Bunch had managed to narrow down the source to a single corner of the city. That had been the first step in a long but ultimately successful siege of stake-outs and patient surveillance.

  “How was Gianelli’s?”

  “The food was good. And we almost had another client for the same case.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Carrie Busey wanted to hire me to prove that Haas was murdered by his wife.”

  “Oh yeah? Don’t tell me, let me guess: the secretary’s jealous of the wife. Is it with reason?”

  “With reason.”

  “And you told her you were already hired by the wife?”

  “I managed to avoid that; she thinks we’re working for McAllister. This is one very tough and vengeful lady. And she’s absolutely certain that Haas had nothing to do with the Aegis Group.”

  “She is, is she?”

  I eyed that little smile. “What’d you find out that’s different?”

  “That phone number you gave me—the one that came from Haas’s desk.”

  “The one with the man’s voice?”

  “The same. It’s a direct line to one of the executive offices for the Aegis Group. My contact wouldn’t tell me who, because he didn’t have a directory for all the internal numbers on that prefix. But it’s definitely an Aegis number.”

  CHAPTER 7

  BUNCH EYED MY expression. “You don’t seem very happy about it, my man. This is what you literate types call a break in the case.”

  “Yeah, it is. But it still doesn’t prove anything.”

  “Come on, Dev—this is an unlisted number. It’s a private pipeline to the opposition. And it was in that envelope full of crap that came out of his damned desk.” The big man peered at me. “Or do you mean you don’t want it to prove anything?”

  That was it. I had been th
inking of Haas and Carrie Busey and the effect of their affair—if she did not already know of it—on Margaret. And now that little scrap of paper that had been buried in Haas’s personal effects threatened to rake all that garbage and more to the surface again.

  “She asked for it, Dev. She asked for the information because she wanted to be sure. And the reason she wanted to be sure was because she had her doubts. We both know that.”

  True enough. People often hired p.i.’s to find the evidence that would deny what, in their hearts, they suspected. And then were disappointed when the evidence confirmed their suspicions. I sighed and agreed that the telephone number meant a lot, and most of it bad. “But it’s still not conclusive. And we don’t know whose office number it is, do we?”

  “No, we don’t. And it could have been planted, too. By his secretary, who swears he didn’t do it. Or by Bartlett, who can’t find his ass with both hands. Or by Mrs. Haas, who’s spending all that money so we can prove hubby innocent.”

  “Or by the same man who called McAllister about Haas. Spare me the sarcasm, Bunch. The fact is, it isn’t enough.”

  He grunted. “Yeah—that phone call. But damn it, Dev, Haas committed suicide. And that phone call, this number, they all explain why he did. As far as I’m concerned, this is proof. And I think it’s up to Mrs. Haas to decide if she wants something more. You’ve got this thing for damsels in distress and now you’ve found one. But remember, it’s her money.”

  Bunch was right about that. This might be all the evidence that Margaret needed, and it wouldn’t do to stretch out the case—and its expenses—without her approval. I sighed again and reached for the telephone.

  Margaret answered this time, and she seemed genuinely pleased to hear my voice. And I was glad to talk about something else for a few moments. But after the how-are-yous and the what-have-you-been-doings, there was no easy way. “We found some evidence that Austin was in close touch with the Aegis Group, Margaret.”

  “What evidence?”

  “An unlisted telephone number. It’s a direct line to one of the office telephones at Aegis. It was in Austin’s desk—in the envelope you gave me.”

  “My God … “

  “It’s not conclusive, and there’s no indication that he ever used the number. But it was there.”

  “I see. I think I see … It’s just so hard to comprehend—I’ve tried to consider the possibility, of course. But it never seemed real before.” The telephone line stayed open and silent. “I don’t know what I’m going to tell our son.”

  “There’s no need to tell him anything. Not until he asks, and not until he can understand.”

  “How can he understand? Even I can’t understand.” In the background, a distant squawk of children’s voices rose to an excited squabble and then died away as a door slammed. “Do you know anything about this person? The one whose telephone it is?”

  “No. It’s an office at Aegis. I didn’t know if you wanted to go any further with this.”

  “I want to know why he did it.”

  “Does that make any difference?”

  “It might.”

  “He probably did it for the money. I’m sure there was a tremendous amount of money promised him.”

  “But we had enough money—he made a good salary.”

  Everybody always wants more, especially an ambitious man, especially if he had a mistress or two. “Why not just let it go, Margaret? He made a mistake, and paid a far greater price than he should have. Get on with your life and let the rest stay buried.”

  “I want to know, Devlin. If it was for so much money, then what happened to it? If it wasn’t, then why?”

  “You want us to keep digging?”

  “Yes. Please. You will, won’t you?”

  “Of course. I’ll be in touch.”

  Bunch raised his eyebrows.

  “She wants to know why he did it.”

  “Like you told her—for the money.”

  “And she asked what happened to it.”

  “Yeah.” He ran a large bulging knuckle along his jaw where his whiskers made a rasping sound. “That’s a good question. If she don’t know, then there’s a hell of a big account somewhere that’s going to be drawing interest for a long time.”

  “You figure he got the payoff when he delivered the plans?”

  “Half up front and half on delivery. He’d be a fool if he didn’t. And he didn’t seem like a fool—except for shooting himself.” Bunch nudged the slip of paper with the telephone number and sent it spinning across the waxed corner of the desk. “Where do you want to start?”

  “Maybe Aegis paid by check. We’d have a trace on the money if they did.”

  “Yeah. And so would anybody else. My bet is cash only, and a lot of it. But any way you slice it, Aegis is the place to start. Want to flip for it?”

  It came up tails—my job. Bunch patted my shoulder. “It’s about time you did some real work.”

  The telephone book’s white pages had the address of the Aegis Group, and a stint in the Chamber of Commerce reference works gave me a little more than that, but only a little. Listed as a development corporation, it had the necessary state licenses to “undertake any manner of lawful business” granted two years ago, and what few references to it in business and financial publications said cryptically that the group was involved in “business enterprises.” That meant, I supposed, that they didn’t want to be excluded from anything that might make a profit. The only other information about them came from McAllister, whose view was biased.

  The president and chairman was one W. S. Merrick, and its executive secretary was Leonard Kaffey, neither of whose initials fit the “D.N.” on that slip of paper. Those were the only officers listed, which wasn’t all that unusual. I dialed the public number, which was the corporation’s switchboard, and asked for Mr. Kaffey’s office. A few moments later, the representative of Devlin Securities and Investments had an appointment for the following morning.

  Seventeenth Street—Denver’s financial district—seemed to grow longer and deeper as new buildings kept rising, and by the time I reached its southern end, within beckoning distance of the state capitol’s shiny gold dome, the high walls had pinched the sky into a narrow slit of blue. The lobby of the Action West building, one of the newest, offered no relief from the canyon outside. Entering it was like walking under a poised boulder—the heavy design and massive cubes of lobby services emphasized the tower’s weight hovering over the tiny humans crawling beneath it. The Aegis offices, however, were entirely different. Small separate rooms surrounded the large general work and reception area, and light fell through banks of windows that stretched up to a second level of private offices surrounding the atrium and reached by an open and gently raked staircase. The hominess was reinforced by a scattering of comfortable chairs for waiting, by a color scheme emphasizing wooden beams and sand-colored plaster, and by a receptionist whose secretarial skills might be unknown but whose ornamental qualities were flagrant.

  “My name’s Kirk. I have an appointment with Mr. Kaffey.”

  “Just a moment, please.”

  No sterile intercom system here; she walked on long, slender legs to one of the corner offices and knocked briefly before opening the door. A moment later she came back and nodded at the tan leather chairs. “It’ll be just a couple of minutes. Won’t you sit down?”

  I chose the one nearest her desk. “It looks like a nice office to work in.”

  At the other desks, men and women dealt with papers and telephones, and one area was spotted by half a dozen computer terminals busily beeping and clicking to each other.

  “I like it. And we’ve certainly been busy lately!”

  “The company’s new, isn’t it? I understand it was chartered only a couple of years ago.”

  “I don’t know. I’ve only been here about a year—about the time they rented these offices. But they’re very nice people to work for.” She looked toward a doorway and a lean, balding man w
earing a gray suit. “Here’s Mr. Kaffey.”

  He offered a bony hand and an equally fleshless smile. “Come in. You’re with the … ?”

  “Devlin Securities and Investments.” I handed Kaffey one of my collection of business cards. “We’re a Canadian group interested in the possibilities of investment in this area.”

  “I see. Yeah—that’s a volatile currency, right?” His corner office had windows and space and everything else an important man’s office should have. All of it slightly oversized so that Kaffey seemed to shrink when he settled behind the expanse of wooden desk. He aimed a couple of fingers toward a heavy couch that half faced the vista beyond the tinted glass: other office towers rising as high as this one, and, in the distance, the wall of mountains forming the western horizon where the thin vapor trail of a jet streaked toward San Francisco. “Drink?”

  “It’s a bit early for me, thanks.”

  He put the bottle back unopened. “What brought you to us, Mr. …?”

  “Kirk. We learned that you’re developing two major projects, a shopping center and an industrial park. They seem very promising, and we’re looking to invest in that kind of enterprise.”

  “Yeah. Right. They’re good projects. But we haven’t made any announcements. What makes you think we need …?”

  “Capital? Well, they’re both big projects. Probably two of the biggest in the last ten years in this region. I also hear that you received funding from First Western. They’re quite conservative, and we trust their judgment.”

  Kaffey leaned back in his chair and crossed his hands behind his head and said nothing.

  “I also happen to know that the amount you borrowed isn’t sufficient to cover the full cost of developing both projects, Mr. Kaffey. In fact, it’s surprisingly small. We suspect—we hope—that you need further financing. I want to convince you that our money is just as good as anyone’s—and perhaps less expensive.”

  Under their sleepy lids, Kaffey’s dark eyes studied me as if to memorize my face. “That information’s not generally known. Do you have someone over there who …?”