The Rooftop Party

by Ellen Meister

  Dana leaned back as she considered it. She hated saying no to Jamie, but knew that Ari would be troubled by this kind of meddling in the evidence. This was police work. On the other hand, she burned with curiosity about what the hell Ivan could possibly have on Eleanor, and knew it was information Ari wasn’t at liberty to share with her.

  “You wouldn’t even need to come with us,” Megan said. “Just let us in. If anyone asks, you can just say Jamie wanted to get some of his dad’s personal things.”

  “No way,” Dana said.

  Megan looked surprised. “What?”

  “If you’re going to be snooping around for that file, I want to be there.”

  17

  “Need anything else today?” Ashlee asked. She stood in the doorway of Dana’s dressing room, as blonde and statuesque as a supersized Charlize Theron, her coat draped over her arm.

  “Just one little thing. When you’re on your way out, check and see if Beecham is still there,” Dana said. “Then send me a text with the answer.”

  “Do I want to know why?”

  “You do not.”

  The fact was, Dana knew that Beecham checked the entryway security cams, scrutinized the day’s visitors’ logs and did one last walkthrough of the building before leaving for the night. His replacement was a young guy whose dedication to the job went about as far as his paycheck.

  A few minutes later, Dana’s phone pinged with a text from Ashlee:

  He’s still here, but looks like he’s wrapping up.

  “What should we do?” Megan asked.

  “I’m sure he’ll be gone in five minutes,” Dana said. “But let’s give it twenty, just to be safe.”

  And they did, staying in Dana’s dressing room until she felt it was all clear. Then she led them to the elevator and up to the executive floor, where they waltzed by the empty reception desk. Dana waved her ID card over the electronic sensor and pushed open the door to the main corridor, letting it lock behind them. They walked down the long carpeted hallway to the massive corner office Ivan had occupied.

  The décor was plain compared to Eleanor’s and Sherry’s offices. The windows had tan slatted blinds, and the walls were painted a dull beige. They held framed prints of extreme close-up photography from the natural world—kiwi fruit, a bee on a petal, a snowflake, the nose of a dog, the eyeball of a human. The effect, Dana thought, was for Ivan’s guests to feel as if they were under a microscope. She also detected just a faint whiff of his aftershave, as if part of Ivan Dennison still lingered. Dana sneaked a glance at Jamie to see if it brought anything up for him, but his face looked more tense and determined than pained.

  She noticed there was an oddly placed cross, very high up on the wall, facing the visitors’ chairs. Dana could imagine Ivan calling maintenance and telling them to bring a ladder. But she couldn’t discern why he wanted it so high. Closer to God? Harder to remove?

  The king of the room was the massive black desk, which had several piles of paper neatly stacked. There was no computer, and Dana assumed the detectives had already confiscated it to do a deep dive into Ivan’s background, looking for clues on who might want him dead. That, she knew, could yield a long list, as nearly everyone at that party had a reason to despise the man.

  At the corner of the desk, in a heavy silver frame, there was a wedding photo of Ivan and Blair looking young and healthy. Next to it was a picture of a grinning boy of about ten, holding a cheesy tennis trophy. He wore glasses, but Dana knew immediately it wasn’t Jamie. The kernel-sized teeth gave away that it was a young Ivan, pre-contact lenses. What kind of egomaniac kept their own picture on their desk? At least it was balanced by a picture of Blair as a young mother, flanked by two little boys, the smaller of whom was clearly Jamie.

  Jamie made quick work of unlocking the drawers and file cabinets, and they began their hunt.

  Dana and Megan went to work on the file cabinets, rifling through the folders, while Jamie rummaged through everything that didn’t hold files—cabinets, shelves and desk drawers.

  As far as Dana could see, all the folders held budget reports. It was just numbers and more numbers. Still, she was careful to check every file, just in case.

  She was just finishing up the first drawer when she heard Jamie cry out. Dana turned to see him holding a blue file folder that seemed to be filled with two or three magazines.

  “What’s the matter?” Megan asked.

  Jamie dropped the file on the desk and backed up, as if it were radioactive. “Porn,” he said, his face contorting in disgust. “My dad has a porn stash...in his office.” At that moment, his journalistic guard was down. He was just a son horrified by his father’s vulgar habits.

  “Why can’t he just go online like a normal person?” Megan asked. It wasn’t rhetorical—she seemed genuinely curious.

  Jamie lowered himself into the leather swivel chair behind the desk, as if he needed a moment to recover. He pushed the file farther away from him and answered. “For a guy who made his living in electronics, my father was incredibly unschooled in cyberspace. He knew just enough to understand that his internet searches could be traced, but he didn’t know how to hide his ISP or delete his browsing history without calling in an IT guy.”

  Dana and Megan approached the desk and stared down at the folder.

  Megan slowly lifted the corner. “Anything especially pervy in here?”

  “I don’t even want to know,” Jamie said.

  “You look a little ashen,” Dana observed.

  Jamie made a face like he just got wind of something putrid. “How would you feel if you found your father’s porn stash?”

  Now that’s a rhetorical question, Dana thought, and her only response was an involuntary shudder.

  Megan grabbed the top magazine and opened to a random page, which showed a close-up of a woman’s lipsticked mouth on an impossibly thick shaft.

  “Pretty old-school,” she observed, cocking her head for a better view.

  “Just set it down,” Jamie said. “I’m begging you.”

  Megan returned it to the folder and tried to hand it to Jamie. “Put it back in his drawer,” she said.

  “You don’t think I should throw it out?”

  “It might be evidence or something.” Megan waved the folder at him to indicate that he should take it.

  “I agree,” Dana said. “You don’t want to tamper with anything. Just in case.” She didn’t want to get too specific with Jamie, but if his father’s sexual proclivities wound up being relevant to the case, the police would want every bit of evidence.

  Jamie shook his head. “I don’t want to touch it.”

  Megan tsked. “I’ll put it back,” she said, and walked around the massive desk to the drawers in the front. Jamie rolled back his chair.

  “This where you found it?” she asked.

  He nodded and she slipped the file back in the drawer and began sorting through the rest of it. “You know, he’s got several porn files. They’re just labeled A through M. Looks like D was his favorite.” She pulled out the file and began looking through the magazines. She took one out and held it toward Dana. It was well worn, with a title font that looked like something from the seventies or eighties. In bubble-shaped letters, across the cleavage of a very large woman, were the words Big Fat Tits.

  “Subtle,” Dana said.

  “Kind of makes me wonder what he saw in you,” Megan teased her.

  Jamie held his head in his hands. “Make it stop.”

  Megan took out another publication and held it toward him. “The man had eclectic tastes, at least.” She turned the magazine toward Dana. It showed another large woman, but from the other end of her anatomy.

  Jamie said, “It’s all fun and games until the young son of the deceased has a heart attack in the middle of his office.”

  “Okay, I’ll stop,” Mega
n said. “But you’ll laugh about this later.”

  She put the folder back and continued looking through the drawer. She pulled out another file.

  “Have mercy,” Jamie said.

  Megan shook her head. “This isn’t porn.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s labeled with the letter G, but it doesn’t have magazines inside.”

  A secret folder hidden among his secret porn? Now Dana was intrigued. “What’s in it?” she asked.

  Megan opened it and studied the top page. “Looks like some kind of a purchase order signed by Eleanor Gratz. It’s dated December 12, 1999.”

  Jamie sat up. “Why would he have something that old?”

  Megan put the folder on the desk and the three of them stared down at the page, which seemed to be an agreement with a skin care company called Maria Faye. It contained a lot of legalese about delivery and payment, most of which seemed boilerplate. Megan flipped the page to expose an invoice to the Shopping Channel for $227,000, minus a sum of $15,000 paid to a company called Hartsdale Marketing. Someone had drawn a circle around the amount and the company name. Dana reached over and flipped the page to find a photocopy of an article of incorporation for Hartsdale Marketing. The principal owner of the company, according to the filing, was Philip M. Wagoner.

  The name was familiar, and it took another second for Dana to make the connection. She felt a chill prickling her shoulders. “Oh shit,” she whispered.

  “What does it mean?” Megan asked.

  “Philip Wagoner is Eleanor’s husband,” Dana said. “And he’s not in marketing. He’s a middle school teacher.”

  Megan looked confused. “I don’t understand.”

  Dana went back to the page showing a payment of $15,000 to Hartsdale Marketing. “I think this is a kickback,” she said. “Eleanor signed the order, meaning she bought these products for the Shopping Channel from this Maria Faye company. Then they kicked back money to her husband’s company...or rather, a shell company set up by her husband.”

  Jamie stared down at the page for several seconds, concentrating. “I think you’re right,” he said.

  Megan whistled, impressed. “Since when did you become a forensic accountant?” she said to Dana.

  “It’s all right there. And honestly, a year ago this would have been meaningless to me. But when I first came on board, Sherry made me spend so much time studying those spreadsheets that some of it seeped in.”

  “Now all the pieces fit together,” Jamie said. “Eleanor threatened to go to my mother with dirt on my dad. And then he threatened to expose her for this twenty-year-old kickback.”

  “This is sickening,” Dana said. “I just didn’t think Eleanor was a grifter.”

  “If it makes you feel any better,” Jamie said, “it looks like he had to go back a long time to find any dirt on her. My guess is that she’s been clean ever since, or he would have used something more recent.”

  “So what now?” Megan asked. “Do we show this to the police?”

  “No!” Dana said sharply. “No one can know I let you in here. I could get fired.”

  Jamie pulled out his cell phone and took pictures of the pages. Then he closed the file and put it back in the drawer. “It’s okay. I’ll tell the police what I saw at my house, and what I suspect. I’ll even tell them about the email I found. They’ll search the office and find this on their own.”

  “How can you be so sure?” Megan asked.

  Dana thought about all the stories she heard from Ari about the depths of his investigations, and knew they’d comb the office and uncover this file. Nothing got past these guys. “I’m sure,” she said.

  Megan paused, as if weighing Dana’s words, and deciding to trust them. She let out a breath. “Then let’s get out of here,” she said.

  Jamie took out his keys and relocked all the drawers. Then he led them down the hall toward the exit door.

  “Wait up,” Dana said. “I need my ID card to get us out.”

  She flashed her card across the sensor. The light stayed red. She tried the door. Locked. She tried her card again. Nothing.

  “What’s the matter?” Megan asked.

  “Oh god,” Dana said. “What time is it?”

  Jamie looked at his phone. “Six thirty-six. Why?”

  “I forgot that I don’t have twenty-four-hour clearance anymore,” Dana said. “It never came up before, but my card only works until six thirty.”

  “How is that possible?” Megan asked.

  “It’s one of Beecham’s new security measures,” Dana said. “Most employees no longer have twenty-four-hour access. My card works only during specific hours in specific areas of the building.”

  Megan tried the door, as if she might have the magic touch. “What are we going to do?”

  Dana thought about the young security guy downstairs. She could call him and they would be out in minutes. But he would ask what they were doing up here, and no matter what she said, he would tell Beecham. That was his job. And Beecham would report her to Honeycutt. She turned to Megan.

  “What would happen to me if Honeycutt found out I’d let you in?”

  “We can come up with a sympathetic story,” Jamie said. “I can say I wanted a picture from my dad’s desk and that I was so grief-stricken I convinced you to let me in.”

  “Beecham isn’t an idiot,” Dana said. “He’d want to know why you couldn’t ask the security guard to take you up here, and why it was such an emergency.”

  Jamie turned to Megan. “Dana’s their star host right now. They’re not going to fire her, are they?”

  Megan sighed. “The problem is that the company is still shaky. If it doesn’t turn around, they’re going to look for excuses to break contracts.”

  Jamie looked back at Dana. “Is there anyone you can call? A friend in the company who has a twenty-four-hour ID card?”

  It was an excellent question, and Dana ran down the short list of people she knew who might have round-the-clock security clearance. Most of them were executives, and possibly their assistants. Dana had cordial relationships with all of them, but close friendships with none.

  Then she realized there was someone who might be able to help. Ashlee. The girl was a walking friend magnet. Maybe she could finagle an ID card from a sympathetic pal. Dana whipped out her phone to call her assistant. When she finished explaining the situation, there was a pause, and she worried Ashlee might clutch her Southern pearls in horror.

  “Can you help?” Dana pleaded.

  As she heard Ashlee inhale, Dana prepared herself for a no. Of course Ashlee wouldn’t help. Why should she? The girl had nothing to gain and everything to lose. Dana went through her mental checklist again, looking for anyone else who might come to her rescue. But there was no one. There would be nothing left to do but try to convince Beecham to keep their secret—which she knew would never work. She was ready to hang up the phone in resignation when Ashlee finally spoke.

  “Of course, you silly goose,” she said. “I’ll be right there.”

  Sure enough, less than twenty minutes later, they heard the ding of the elevator and then the soft click of the door unlocking. It swung open and there stood Ashlee St. Pierre, like a goddess in a white faux shearling jacket and a proud grin.

  Dana was stunned. “How did you manage this?”

  “Nothing to it,” she said, as if people asked her to do things like this all the time.

  “I thought it might take hours, at best,” Dana said.

  “I was at a bar nearby when you called. So I ambled back into the building and flirted with that cute boy at the desk, tellin’ him I forgot my hat upstairs. Played it real cute. He’s a nice kid, but so dumb he could throw himself on the ground and miss. While he was looking at my chest, I swiped one of the other security guards’ ID cards from the desk. Easy as cherry pie.
”

  “I knew you had talent,” Dana gushed, “but I’m still impressed.”

  Ashlee brushed it off. “A little Southern charm, a little method acting. Nothin’ to it.”

  They were all silent for a moment, in shock that she had pulled it off so neatly, looking for adequate words to thank her.

  At last Megan said, “Any chance you’re looking for a manager?”

  18

  By Sunday’s rehearsal, the Sweat City Company was making actual progress with the production. The rhythm was making sense to the actors. Sometimes they even got a sense of when they would need to pause for laughter. But for Dana, there was lingering anxiety. She felt she was struggling with the character, whose earnestness seemed to override her common sense. She couldn’t figure out how to play her without going broad. It got laughs from her fellow cast members, but she knew it wasn’t quite right.

  “I thought I got her, but now I’m not so sure,” she complained to Nathan after everyone else had left.

  Despite being in his late thirties, he still had a boyishness to his face, with full cheeks, small eyes and naturally blond hair that was just beginning to recede. They were backstage, in the space they called their greenroom. It was actually a black-painted alcove, separated from the rest of the backstage area by an ancient velvet curtain that had been retired from use. The furnishings were also scenery castoffs.

  “You will,” he said.

  She studied his face, trying to read it for sincerity. She feared he would regret casting her for the role. He seemed to read her mind.

  “Dana,” he said, putting his hands on her shoulders and bringing his face right up to hers. “I wrote this part for you.”

  “You did?” It was a surprising revelation. She knew Nathan admired her talent, but he felt that way about everyone in the company. So why her?

  He stood so close she felt his breath on her face, and another thought flashed through her mind. She hoped it was wrong. Nathan was like a big brother to her. And he was a married guy. But for minute, it felt like he was going to lean in and kiss her. She tensed.