Retreat

by J. F. Gonzalez

  Emily regarded them with a look that seemed to say, do you think I’m stupid? The wait staff? Really? And why would you think that?

  “They have access to all the rooms,” Paul said, as if he were answering the question she seemed to be silently asking with her gaze. “One of the housekeeper’s, Carmen Hernandez, struck up an affair with a maintenance worker named Brian Gaiman, who was part of the work-release program.”

  “Carmen even came to my office to report him missing,” Rick said, trying to inject some confidence in his tone and pose. “I admit, she sounded very convincing. We’d already had the first theft when Brian went missing. He became our chief suspect immediately.”

  “And you’ve searched their rooms?” Emily asked.

  “Yes,” Paul said. Rick nodded.

  “And?”

  “We didn’t find anything in either room.”

  “Is Carmen Hernandez still employed with us?”

  “Yes.”

  “Have her activities been monitored since Brian’s disappearance?”

  “Most certainly,” Paul said. “We’ve traced calls she’s made and received from her room. She hasn’t been in contact with Gaiman at all since he disappeared.”

  “Hmmm.” Emily appeared to think about this. “According to the report I read this morning, neither Mr. Gaiman nor Ms. Hernandez have the background that suggests they’re capable of such brazen thefts. In fact, Ms. Hernandez has no criminal record whatsoever, and she passed our entrance polygraph exam with flying colors.”

  “Polygraph tests can be fooled,” Paul stated.

  “True. But what about their technical background? Neither seems to possess any.”

  Paul frowned. “Technical background?”

  “I’m referring specifically to the theft from Carl White’s bank account,” Emily said. Sitting across from him in her crisp, beige business attire, Emily looked more like a prosecutor than a rich businesswoman. “It takes somebody with a deep knowledge of network security and computer hacking to be able to penetrate a financial system’s database and move the funds from one account into another one, then erase all signs of the transaction, which is obviously the case there. Do you agree?”

  Rick glanced at Paul. They’d talked about this briefly. The financial institution that Carl banked with reported no logs in their system that recorded any network breach. The firm’s network security chief was currently performing an audit on their system for the time-line in question, trying to find where a computer hacker might have breached the system. If they could find anything, even a blip of an IP address—

  “Well?” Emily bore the look of impatience. Dealing with the commoners.

  “I agree that Gaiman and Hernandez do not seem likely candidates for the theft of Mr. White’s funds,” Paul said.

  “So where does that lead us?” Emily asked. She was directing this question as much to Rick as she was to Paul. “If Gaiman and Hernandez are involved at some level, we’ll find them. We have resources in place to locate them. I believe your next step is to question your direct reports and have a search conducted of their living quarters.”

  Would that include us? Rick thought.

  Emily turned to Rick, as if sensing he had something on his mind. “Anything you’d like to share, Mr. Nicholson?”

  Rick recovered quickly. “I was just thinking that if all the employee’s rooms were searched and they were questioned by Paul’s team, what about the thought of a fellow guest who bore a grudge against the victims?”

  Emily looked like she hadn’t considered that option. Her features were poker-face. “Have our guests been quarrelling? Is there anything you might have heard during the season to suggest this?”

  Rick shrugged and looked at Paul. “He has a point,” Paul said to Emily. “For the most part, our direct reports should be considered suspects just as much as the lower-level staff. But we never once considered the guests suspects. There’s really no reason to.”

  Emily applauded lightly, the tone of it sarcastic and mocking. “Brilliant! A brilliant deduction, Watson! In fact, it is so brilliant, that any student of criminology will look at it and instantly deduce the same thing! Why would a guest at a vacation resort with a net worth of twenty million dollars resort to stealing a combined total of two million dollars from three different guests over the course of his or her time with us? It makes no sense! But an employee? Well, why not an employee!”

  “Look, I understand your concerns,” Paul said.

  “Do you? I don’t think you do, Mr. Westcott. In fact, it seems to me that your refusal to not even consider the questioning of your direct reports suggests you’re trying to protect somebody.”

  Rick cut in before the exchange could escalate. “There’s a guest here named Shane Daniels. He and his wife, Jackie, have ruffled quite a few feathers with other guests.”

  Emily dismissed this with an impatient wave of her hand. “Shane Daniels. He’s no more capable of a theft this grand than finding his own asshole with a flashlight.”

  “Maybe not Shane, but Jackie used to be the Chief Technology Officer at Motorola,” Rick continued. “In fact, her specialties were network security and financial databases.”

  This news was met with stunned silence. Emily and Paul regarded Rick with a sense of disbelief, as if this information was completely new to them. Paul appeared to be on the cusp of asking, how do you know this?, when Rick beat him to it. “Jackie told me this one night,” he said quickly. “Bragged about it, actually. Both of them brag a lot. It’s their very bragging to the staff and to the other guests that have made them very unlikable among staff and other guests.”

  For a moment, Rick wasn’t sure if Emily Wharton was going to buy this. She sat in her chair, body posture straight. If she was considering this information, it didn’t register; that’s how poker-faced she was. “Tell me more,” she asked Rick.

  Rick settled back in his seat, both as a way of assuming a more comfortable position and as a way to quickly gather his thoughts. He decided to start at the beginning, with his first season at Bent Creek. “Last year, Shane and Jackie made enemies with another couple,” Rick began, the memory spilling out all at once. “A computer software tycoon and his wife. I’m not sure what you know of Shane and Jackie’s background—”

  “I know enough of it,” Emily said.

  Rick nodded. “Then you know Shane made his money through corporate sabotage.”

  Emily frowned. “Corporate sabotage? Explain.”

  “His words, not mine,” Rick said, then quickly outlined a conversation he overheard in the lounge between Shane Daniels and the aforementioned software tycoon last year. Shane had been drunk, and aside from needling the software tycoon about his “piss-poor product that couldn’t perform worth a shit”, he’d bragged to the same tycoon that he’d risen to stature in his company—a global metal product corporation—through ass-kissing and sabotaging the work of his corporate rivals. “He’d take on projects he wasn’t suited for, then carefully lay explosive trip mines that would cause either his fellow team members or those who were ahead of him on the corporate ladder to trip over and back fire on them, enabling him to either fix things and save the company, or would make them look bad so he could come in later and offer solutions. Because he was already tight with the people he was trying to impress, Shane’s tactic worked. He pulled the same strings for Jackie. Ever since he became CEO of MetalWorks, he’s pulled in over ten million in salary, bonuses, and he’s sold his stock options prior to the company’s nose dive.”

  Emily took this news with great interest. She nodded. “I see. Tell me about his argument with this software tycoon. Would that be Gilbert Manning?”

  “Yes.” Gilbert Manning was the owner and CEO of Manning Software, which was a financial services company. “Manning’s combined net worth is around half a billion. He acquired this money quite quickly, I might add. Shane Daniels, on the other hand, has a net worth of around twenty million. Shane made it very clear to Mann
ing that his number one goal in life was to be a billionaire and that he was going to do anything and everything to obtain that goal. He pretty much told Manning that the only reason he came to Bent Creek was to hobnob with the rich and successful so that some of their riches would rub off on him.”

  “I see,” Emily Wharton said. Her mood seemed to darken.

  “This season, Shane and Jackie were more abusive and degrading to my staff members than usual,” Rick continued. “They were also more obnoxious with the other guests. They acted like they were more privileged, as if they deserved to be here more than them. Jackie got into a heated verbal argument with Parker Goode early on in their stay, and their altercation with Carl White came a few days before the theft of funds from his account.”

  “Did either Mr. Goode or Mr. White ever file a formal complaint against Shane and Jackie?” Emily asked.

  “No,” Paul confirmed. “But other guests did.”

  “So...?” Emily made a is that the only evidence you’ve got? gesture with her hands. “If you’re trying to convince me that Shane and Jackie are involved in these thefts, you need to do better than that. They’ve always been good clients.”

  Rick was about to try another tactic when Paul jumped in. “Last season, a young woman filed a complaint with me against Jackie. She said Ms. Fox made unwanted sexual advances to her.” Paul fixed Emily with a serious look that was uncompromising. “I interviewed her. She was very disturbed by it. It was...” Rick watched the exchange between Paul and Emily, his breath held as the Chief of Security’s features became grim, his eyes locked with Emily’s. “...it was disturbing to the point that if Jackie had tried something like this outside, she’d be in very, very big trouble. If you know what I mean.” Paul’s gaze remained locked with Emily’s.

  “Yes, I think I know what you mean,” Emily said. Her once hard, poker features seemed to slacken, as if she’d just received a bad scare. She quickly recovered and nodded to Paul in understanding. Paul nodded back. Rick remained slouched back in his seat, pretending to wait for the exchange to end but giving it rapt attention. If I were the paranoid type, I’d think they were having a subliminal conversation, he thought. Something about the way Paul looked at Emily when he related Jackie’s sexual advance to the female employee from last year, the way he said it could have gotten her into very big trouble on the outside...and Emily getting the message. What the hell did that mean?

  As quickly as Emily appeared to be shocked, she recovered, regaining her composure. She turned her attention to Rick, once again no-nonsense and direct. “Do you think it’s possible for Shane and Jackie to have committed these crimes?”

  “I think it’s possible one of them could have persuaded a housekeeping staff member to grant them access to the rooms in question,” Rick said. “It wouldn’t have taken much. A couple thousand dollars in cash to the housekeeping staff is like winning the lottery to them. The Daniels couple were sociable enough with much of the guests and staff that both of them, working together, could have conspired to steal the money from Mr. Goode and the Westlake’s for the purposes of embarrassing them and wounding their egos, not for their own personal financial gain.”

  “The Westlake’s had trouble with Shane and Jackie, too?”

  Paul nodded. “Yes, several. They made it a point to avoid the restaurant, even though they’ve professed to love Chef Munchel’s food. They took most of their meals at the Roadhouse and other restaurants in Green River.” Green River was the closest town to Bent Creek, and despite a population of around twelve thousand, boasted a number of good dining spots.

  Emily nodded. “Okay. What about the theft of the money from Mr. White’s account?”

  Rick shrugged. “Jackie has the technical resources. She either did it herself, or had somebody do it for her. Of course, I can’t prove it, but of the three victims, Carl White openly despised them and was causing them trouble with management, namely me.” Rick offered Emily a pensive smile. “He was lodging complaints against them from his first night with us, nearly two weeks ago. Some of Paul’s security staff had to intervene a few times in the lounge and the restaurant when their arguments went from heated to on the verge of full-fledged blows.”

  Emily turned to Paul. “Have they checked out yet this morning?”

  “As of twenty minutes ago, they haven’t.” Paul moved toward his desk and accessed his computer. His fingers flew across the keyboard as he accessed the guest check-in database. “The system shows they haven’t checked out yet. They’re probably still sleeping off last night’s big party.”

  “Have Shane brought in for questioning, but be careful with him. I want to explore this as quietly and as discreetly as possible.”

  “What about Jackie?” Rick asked.

  “I think it would be best to have them questioned separately,” Emily said. “First Shane, then Jackie. Don’t let either of them know they’re under suspicion. Is this more or less standard security protocol?”

  “It is,” Paul said. He reached across the desk and picked up his phone. “Let me see what I can do.” He dialed an extension, waited a moment and then, with his eyes on Emily, said, “Glenn, I’ve got an assignment for you. Locate Mr. Shane Daniels and escort him to the West Conference room. Be as discreet as possible, and if Jackie is with him, don’t give her cause for worry. I don’t want either of them to think they’re in trouble.” Paul was silent as Glenn said something. “Yes, have Jackie watched while Shane is in our custody. Report back to me if she returns to her room, or does anything suspicious.” Beat. “That’s right, don’t make it an issue. If you need to do some stroking of their egos, do it. There’ll be a giant bonus for you at the end of all this. I’ll buy you buckets of beer and all the wings you can eat.”

  Rick smiled at this as he heard Glenn’s voice come in over the line, tinny in its sound, but ultimately happy. “Thanks a lot, Glenn,” Paul said. His eyes met Emily’s and he nodded. “I owe you one.” Paul hung up. He regarded Emily and Rick from across his expansive, but cluttered, oak desk. “Glenn and Pete Atkins will bring Shane. Glenn said he’ll have Scott Baker watch Jackie. When we’re finished questioning Shane, I’ll have Scott escort Jackie back here and, depending on how I feel about Shane’s answers to my questions, I’ll either have him transferred to an empty office and have somebody watch over him, or I’ll have him escorted back to his room through another route so they don’t cross paths with each other.”

  Emily Wharton rose to her feet. She smoothed her skirt down. “Excellent. I’ll be waiting for your call. Two hours?”

  “Two hours should give me enough time.” Paul rose to his feet as well. “Final checkout isn’t until four and it’s barely noon now. We have plenty of time.”

  Rick got to his feet as Paul saw Emily out the door. No sooner had she left than Paul sighed. He looked like he was relieved to be out of Emily’s presence. “Man, am I glad that’s over with.”

  “Tell me about it,” Rick said. As tired as he was, Rick couldn’t help but feel on edge.

  Paul shook his head as he moved back behind his desk. “Wharton’s always been a ball breaker, but she’s smart as a whip. Sometimes I think she runs things around here instead of Wayne.”

  “I can see how it would seem that way,” Rick said. He stood by the door, uncertain of where things were going to go now. He’d originally come to Paul’s office to tell him he was taking the day off. He was literally jumping out of his skin in anticipation. If he could get off the grounds, get back home and do what he had to do and see his mother, he could return to Bent Creek in record time for the private event tomorrow night. “Listen, Paul,” Rick began. “I’ve been trying to find Wayne all morning and I understand he’s out of commission until tomorrow night. Do you have any way of getting in touch with him?”

  Paul looked at Rick as he moved a file out from under a sheaf of papers. “No, I don’t. Why?”

  “I need to talk to him about taking a day off. Just the rest of the day and tomorrow. I’d be ba
ck by tomorrow night.”

  “I think Wayne would be just fine with that,” Paul said. He was smiling at Rick, his gray eyes containing a twinkle of knowledge. “In fact, Wayne just gave me the go-ahead to offer you a permanent position with the firm.”

  The news came as a surprised shock to Rick. For a brief moment, it felt like he’d had the wind knocked out of him. He blinked. “Are you serious?” He couldn’t think of anything to say, he was so blindsided by the news.

  “Yes,” Paul said. His smile was broad, genuine. “And may I be the first to congratulate you. I assume you’ll accept the position, correct? I mean, you’ve expressed more than enough interest in becoming a full-time permanent employee, and you’ve proven to be an exceptional leader. We could certainly use you.”

  The surprise and shock enveloped Rick like a warm blanket. Everything he’d been working for, everything he’d been striving to achieve since discovering his love and talent for running a business, was finally paying off. “Yes,” he said, the words coming out in a rush. “Yes, of course I’ll accept. Thank you!” He reached across the desk and took Paul’s hand in a vigorous handshake.

  “No, thank you, Rick,” Paul said, his grip firm and strong. “You’ve earned it.”

  A thousand thoughts were racing through Rick’s mind. What to do; how to reorganize his life, his savings, his financial and personal goals. What he could do to help his mother. “My mother,” Rick said, her image coming and the reason for originally seeking Paul out coming to mind. He looked at Paul. “I told you she’s got cancer, right?”

  Paul nodded. “Yes, you did. How’s she doing?”

  “As well as she could be. The reason I wanted to bug out for a day is to drive down to Boulder to see her. Make sure things are okay at home.”

  “It’s okay with me,” Paul said. “To tell you the truth, trying to get an appointment with Wayne between now and tomorrow night is going to be next to impossible due to the meetings the board members are having and all the preparations they’re doing for tomorrow’s event, but what Wayne doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”