A Motor for Murder (Veronica Margreve Mysteries Book 1)

by Valerie Murmel

The low grey office park buildings looked just like other office park buildings, and gave the same impression of compartmentalized efficiency. This one contained a chess academy run by a Ukrainian emigrant, an Indian deli, a personal trainer’s office, what looked like someone trying to be a CPA / financial adviser, and finally Ba-Ele Tech Inc.

  As I really didn’t think I could find Roger any faster than police or a professional investigator would, I decided for the time being to assume that he was not in danger, and not go looking for him explicitly; and instead try to get the rest of the known facts to fit into some sort of a theory.

  I drove around the complex and the next office park across the street as well – no white BMW in the parking lot in either place.

  I parked at the far end of the row and pulled the baseball cap low over my eyes, popped a stick of chewing gum into my mouth, and leisurely, like someone who is on her feet all day and walking the same route, chewing the gum in rhythm with my steps, walked out. The most difficult things to disguise, in general, are a person’s back and walk, and I was hoping that adding the gum-chewing was changing the cadence of my gait to make it unrecognizable at a casual glance. I wanted my entire demeanor to project the boredom of someone doing the same thing day in and day out, like a guard in an office park. If someone saw me or a security camera recorded a video of my walking past, I was hoping that it would have been un-recognizable as being me.

  I knew, from what Roger had told me and from driving by the office complex the previous week and not seeing his car, that Roger normally wouldn’t show up in the office before 10:30. It was barely 7:30 am on Wednesday.

  Of course, he was missing and not answering his phone, but I still preferred to be careful. Not to mention – there was no reason to be observed by more people than necessary. So I chose an early time for my visit.

  I saw no activity at the Indian deli or the chess academy, but the personal trainer had a couple of Porsches parked in front – belonging to those go-getters that, I imagined, got up early, worked out hard and went on to make oodles of money throughout their day. No cars were in front of the CPA / financial adviser. I was probably taking too many precautions with my disguise – but you never know. If Roger was here, either because he was hiding, or because Rita didn’t tell me the truth, my dress-up might have allowed me to not be immediately recognized if spotted, and to make my getaway. And playing detective with this cloak-and-dagger stuff was fun! Doing this gave me a mission to accomplish today, and distracted me from thinking about the reality of the murder.

  Walking along the row of the doors of the office park and chewing my gum, I discretely kept an eye out for their security systems and saw none. The door to Ba-Ele Tech Inc didn’t have a camera or any special security system on it either. I stood by the door and listened to any noises inside. Not hearing any for about two minutes I walked up to the lock, pulled on gloves and got out a set of lock picks. I got them at DefCon two years ago, and I brought with me today specifically for the purpose of gaining entry into the office. (Working in computer security, my job sent me to BlackHat and DefCon regularly, and I had picked up some interesting skills in the process – including attending a long session on how to pick locks. Time had come to put my knowledge into practice.) I stood outside for 3 minutes, working on getting the door opened. Finally the lock clicked. I opened the door just a crack and paused, listening for a siren, or a beep, or anything indicating that a security alarm was activated. Silence.

  I counted to 30, didn’t hear anything except my heart beating madly, and went in.

  This was my first time “breaking and entering”. I closed the glass door behind me, took a deep breath and looked around.

  I was in a small office. The room had posters on the walls of several super-cars and car diagrams, including a big one of Tesla Model S, a small desk and 2 chairs, and a locked filing cabinet. There was no desktop computer, but there was a monitor on the desk – likely, Roger connected it to his laptop when he came here. There was no phone on the desk – any calls to the start-up probably just went to Roger’s cell phone.

  Behind the desk was another door. I came close and studied it: this one had serious locks, and what looked like an active security system. From the shape of the building, I knew that the space behind that door was big enough for a 6-car garage. It was clear that this wasn’t used only as a physical address of the start-up; Roger actually did his work on the premises, in the area beyond that door. I sniffed the air. I didn’t know what to expect – a whiff of something burning, of some acidic smoke perhaps? – but in any case didn’t smell anything of the kind. I decided that so far there was no reason for me to try to get in there. I doubted that Roger was hiding there, but in case he was, I didn’t want a confrontation right now. I switched my attention to the filing cabinet, and carefully picked its lock.

  The grey light from the outside filtered through the outer glass door, so I did not turn the ceiling lights on.

  I pulled out several drawers of the file cabinet, saw some files inside, took them out and flipped through them. Second from the top was a manila folder labeled “Finances”. I sat down on the cheap black office chair, and started reading through it. The adrenaline from being in the place illegally kept me focused (otherwise, accounting has always bored me to tears, and would have this time as well).

  I saw that the rent on this office was pre-paid in advance for a year (and had another 9 months remaining). The funding for the enterprise was coming from George's account, with several checks deposited in the last severals months: regularly, one per month, the last one at the beginning of September. I noticed that neither Roger, nor George, nor John was paid any salary from the Ba-Ele Tech Inc so far – making the start-up’s only expenses the rest for the office (relatively cheap for the area), some office products (like the monitor on the desk), and the majority of money going into buying supplies for Roger's experiments. I read through the supply lists and order forms – things from hardware stores, some other harder-to-find stuff bought on Amazon, and so on.

  Whoever did their accounting kept good records. I speculated for a second on who that was. Roger? John? George himself could have done it, but I doubted he had the time. Vinay had said that George kept things to do with this start-up “pretty close to the vest”, so I didn’t think that they employed an accountant. A quick search on LinkedIn on my phone told me that Ba-Ele Tech Inc didn't have a formal CFO.

  When my phone alarm, which I had set for 20 minutes, started vibrating in my pocket, I nearly jumped up a foot into the air, startled. It was time to go – I didn't want to overstay my welcome and get noticed.

  I took photos of the book-keeping and incorporation records with my phone, carefully put everything back, got up, moved the chair I was sitting on. I took one last look around, walked out and locked the door behind me.

  As I drove on and the rush from picking a lock, breaking in and ruffling through drawers dissipated, I realized that I felt pretty bad about what I had just done – breaking into Roger’s office made me feel dirty in some way, since it was a violation of the kid’s trust. I felt that it impinged on his ideas and his dream, and made the world less trusting and magical, somehow. I was surprised by the negative feelings in me. I still thought of him as a college kid. He was about 12 years younger than me, and still had stars in his eyes.

  When I got to work (early, to make up for my absences the previous couple of days), I left the baseball cap in my car, and un-tucked my polo shirt. Now I looked just like any other engineer fond of free “swag” with the company product name on it. I had a bunch of code reviews from my colleagues that accumulated over the last several days, awaiting my sign-off; I got through all of them before my colleagues came in. The feeling of peering through grey unappetizing soup – which I recognized as the feeling of disgust with myself – persisted. I worked on to overcome it.

  I dove into my research on a new computer virus that recently surfaced in Iowa; the signature was similar to a loose band of East
ern European hackers my firm had been tracking for a while.

  19

  In the evening, I decided to tie up some loose ends by tackling another angle of this mystery. George took out $5K in cash and likely gave it to someone the day of the party. Who? I thought about it, did a couple of internet searches, took a wild guess and called Stan.

  “You sold George something, didn’t you?”

  “Want are you taking about? It was just investments.”

  “Your house went to foreclosure, your marriage is apparently heading for divorce, and you are taking this opportunity to convert some of your assets into cash before your soon-to-be-ex-wife notices. And I do mean cash – you had asked George to pay you in cash so that the money wouldn't show up in any accounts, didn't you?”

  Stan didn’t say anything. I could hear him breathing into the phone.

  “Didn’t you?” I repeated. As the silence stretched, I was starting to fidget and lose confidence in my guess. To prevent myself from losing faith in my idea, I pressed on.

  “He paid you around 5 grand in cash during the party. Isn’t that right?”

  I heard something like a door closing on the other end of the phone. He probably moved to another room.

  “Yes.” He finally exhaled into the phone.

  “What did you sell him?”

  “Collectible Cuban cigars. 20 years old. Very rare.”

  I sat back in my chair. Wow. I would not have thought about that. But it was plausible – I did see George smoke a cigar during the party. And I recalled seeing a humidor in the corner of his office.

  “How did you bring them to the house?” I was genuinely curious. I was thinking that, for such refined rarities, taking them out of a humidor where they undoubtedly normally reside might negatively impact their taste and balance. I also wanted to check whether Stan had considered it – if he was telling the truth, either he or George would have thought about the best transportation for the cigars.

  “I have a portable humidor. I came into his office and we put the cigars into his humidor.”

  “Do you have a big collection?”

  “Oh yeah. My ex-wife-to-be doesn’t really pay attention to it and doesn’t know what it is worth.” Very few people outside of cigar aficionados would count up all the cigars stored in a humidor and try to guess at their value. And it would be easy to explain away the disappearance of a box of cigars as having been smoked or shared with friends during a celebration or watching a football game. This was not an asset that divorce attorneys would really track – but a sizable collection of rarities (just as with wine) could bring in a steady influx of cash. Money that would not shown up on any communal accounts, and would represent a nice tax free “nest egg” for Stan.

  “How did you get them originally?”

  “I got them in the 90s, through Canada. I’ve kept them in my humidor at home ever since, in perfect conditions. Those things would be such lovelies.”

  “Was this the first part of your collection that you sold to George?”

  “No, the second. The first was a month ago.”

  “Did George have a big cigar habit?”

  “I don’t know whether he smoked more than one a week. He was stockpiling them, I think. I do have some nice stuff, very rare, and I was willing to let it go for cheap if paid in cash.”

  “Did George pay you all in cash?”

  “Yeah. I still have the money. If need be, police can match the numbers with the bills that George got when he withdrew them.”

  He was silent again, and I was thinking about his admission. Yes, it might have been the same money, but it didn't prove that Stan didn’t kill George to get it. But really, $5K by itself wasn't enough money for Stan to kill George over.

  Finally he said:

  “So you see, I would be an idiot to kill George. He was giving me cash when I needed it, he was a steady buyer for my cigar collection. Hurting him in any way would be a really stupid move on my part.” His voice was rising, there was panic in it. He didn’t seem like a premeditated murderer to me.

  As I wrapped up the call, it struck me was how many people had gone into George’s office that night: Stan, Paul, Kevin, Wayne. Their reasons for going there (with possible exception of Wayne’s) all swirled around money. I wondered whether having people ask you for money all the time went hand in hand with being rich.

  I called Rita back and left a message that it was Stan that the money was intended for. Then I called Detective Davis and told him what I knew about Stan Greenwich being in George Ellis’s office that night. He was gruff and didn’t sound too pleased with my findings. Prior to the call, I was internally debating whether to tell him about Roger’s disappearance. I did feel a sense of accomplishment over what I found out in the evening. Now, Detective Davis’s tone wounded me. In a fit of pique, I decided that I would not tell him about Roger being gone from home.

  20

  I thought again about what Rita had told me; and the conversation I overheard between Caitlin and George by the pool that night. Something was bothering me about the situation. Something that the stress of the events was not yet allowing me to see.

  I walked into the kitchen and made myself more herbal tea. Getting out a mug, I left the upper cabinet door open, and Bitty got into the kitchen cabinets and was exploring the high shelves. She liked being there, viewing everything from above, undoubtedly feeling superior to her lowly minion, i.e. me. I watched her weave gracefully between stacks of plates – being so small, she found plenty of space in there –, as I continued to think.

  Then I realized what had bothered me – the fact that Caitlin was invited to the party in the first place. I could not believe Rita would allow Caitlin to come to the party if her husband has had an affair with her in the recent past. No matter that Caitlin was his assistant at the dealership.

  Unless – Rita was unaware that Caitlin was coming? I had not seen Rita and Caitlin interact together during the party in any way, so I couldn’t judge whether the girlfriend’s presence was a surprise to the wife; or whether there was an open or suppressed animosity or resentment between them. (In fact, I realized that after the initial house tour and until the death occurred, I spent my time talking to other people and didn’t see Rita or George at the party at all, and only heard George’s voice in the conversation with Caitlin.)

  If George had suspected that Rita knew about the affair, wouldn’t he un-invite Caitlin? And in the snippet of the conversation that I heard between the lovers that night, despite all of George’s frustration, there was no admonishment to stay out of Rita's sight.

  What if Rita didn’t know about George’s affair before the party? What if their previous fighting was for other reasons altogether? For instance, his drinking – she had mentioned that she had been unhappy about it and that they had argued over it. She said he convinced her to work on their marriage and go to therapy – that sounded plausible enough. But would Rita be throwing a house-warming party under those circumstances? Maybe – if she wanted to show her commitment to the marriage and the life together with George. However, would he go along with the party if he was still seeing Caitlin, and knowing that she was an invited guest?

  What if Rita only found out about the affair for sure during the party?

  During our conversation, she mentioned Caitlin asking George for something at their house. I had not told her that I heard the fight. Perhaps Rita had overheard it herself? Standing by the patio wall, in the shadows? Or even like me, curled up small in one of the big chairs?

  In that case, she had a new motive to kill her husband that night. In the rage of discovery of betrayal, she might have gone into his office and done him in.

  The story she told me about how she discovered the affair might have been partially true – something similar probably had happened to make her suspect that he was having an affair. Perhaps a message from Caitlin did come in late in the evening, and she recognized the text message sound; but couldn't know what was in the message.


  Alternatively, if Rita knew about the affair with Caitlin, but didn’t expect Caitlin to show up at the party, she and George could have had a big fight about it that night, perhaps ending in his death.

  And speaking of the party: why did Rita invite me to the party in the first place, after we had not talked for several years? She needed a friend by her side in the aftermath of George’s death. Was this all pre-planned on her part? Was she manipulating me throughout all this, to try to dis-prove the police case against her by finding another likely suspect? I had been flattering myself and my deductive skills, of course. I had not found a credible suspect – or I found too many suspects, depending on how you look at it. My gullible and feeble detective opinion would not have much sway over the police, in any case.

  OK, this was getting crazy. Enough. Both of my suppositions about Rita could not be true at the same time: she could not have pre-planned this and had a new revelation send her into a fit of rage during the house-warming. I was going round in circles.

  But the circumstantial case against Rita looked stronger and stronger.

  And what about the physical case? George was not a big man, slim and slightly taller than me. Rita was about my size, and I knew that she had for years waited tables, carrying heavy and awkward things around. In acro yoga classes at the Knotty yoga studio, I had seen even small women lifting slightly bigger guys in the air. So, physically, she could have committed the crime.

  I didn’t know what to do. Going to the police with my suspicions seemed like a sure way to get her arrested. And I was not ready to do that yet. Going to Rita herself? She had already told me she didn’t have an alibi. What could she say, even with all my willingness to believe in her innocence, that would prove to me that she didn’t kill George? Should I go to her lawyer with this info?