Guilt Trip

by Donna Huston Murray

  Checkmate!

  “Have a nice life, Ms. Lauren Beck,” Julianna told me as she began to close the door.

  No sooner had Julianna Roitman nee Skyes shut the door in my face than I knocked on it again.

  She opened it with a Now-what? expression and the body language of a bouncer.

  I elbowed past, marched back to the seating area, and placed my butt on the still-warm white leather armchair I’d vacated only a moment before.

  The mistress of the house gave me a wide berth. Passing passed through the kitchen, she retrieved her wedding band from a cut-glass dish by the sink. Most likely she had removed it to conceal her marital status from me, a person who admitted direct access to her secret husband’s parents. Putting it back on conveyed, perhaps deliberately, that this was her home I’d invaded, and she knew where the knives were kept.

  Julianna returned to her previous spot on the sectional, clasped her hands together, and lifted her chin.

  I had no trouble appearing contrite. “I’m sorry, but I need to ask you something about your sister. I should have asked before, but I…but I didn’t.”

  In my defense, I’d been blindsided by Julianna’s unwitting, and therefore convincing, alibi for Gavin at the time of the murder. An alibi with her here and her husband at the hunting lodge? I never would have imagined it, so I never could have formed the question. Even if I had, she probably would have guessed what I was after and lied.

  “That’s over,” she told me now. “All of it. What can Luanne’s death have to do with anything?”

  “Maybe nothing,” I had to admit, “but yesterday I came across proof that Toby Stoddard was murdered. I don’t know who killed him or why, but the most likely motive would involve business.” I shrugged. “Until recently your father’s lawsuit against Roitman Industries was their most pressing problem.” I glanced down at the floor before looking straight at my listener. “Frank really did hire me to protect Chantal—mostly to humor her—but he did hire me. And, as it turns out, my private agenda may ultimately insure her safety.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Do you know who Karen Beck is? Toby’s sister?”

  Negative head shake.

  “Mike Stoddard?”

  Another shake.

  "Okay. Karen is married to my brother, Ron—I’m temporarily living with them—and Mike is Karen’s younger brother. I used to be a cop, so I got myself invited on the burial-at-sea trip to learn whatever I could about how Toby died.”

  By now I had a lump in my throat, so I swallowed hard before I asked, “Do you believe your sister’s death was due to a mechanical failure?”

  Julianna’s chest heaved, and she looked away. “The future always hinges on the past, doesn’t it?” Her hands bracketed her face, and her eyes briefly closed. “No,” she replied. “No, not really. Do you?”

  “I don’t know enough about it.”

  She straightened up. Lifted her chin in a different way. “Luanne couldn’t wait to tell our parents she got engaged. It was already dark, raining hard, but she set out for Illinois right after work anyway. She didn’t see the broken-down truck in her lane in time to pass safely…” Tears slid down Julianna’s cheeks. “The ruling was accidental death, and I accept it. I have no other choice.”

  “How about your father?”

  Gavin’s wife wiped her face with the back of her hand. “He was desperate to unload his pain onto somebody else. He couldn’t find out who actually made the part he thinks failed, so he sued the whole food chain—up to and including Frank Roitman. ‘Let the legal system figure it out,’ his words.” She waved her head. Swiped her cheek again. “Turned out it was Luanne who made the mistake.”

  I thought of her brother, the one who’d attacked Frank Roitman and caused him to fall and break his wrist.

  “What do you think your family would do if someone somehow discovered the part in question was defective?”

  Julianna’s forehead creased. “Nothing,” she said. “They’ve already done it and lost.”

  I rose from my seat. “Thank you,” I said, sticking out my hand from habit.

  Gavin’s wife just stared at it.

  “Right,” I said and let myself out.

  Chapter 40

  The good news: Julianna’s magnanimous version of her sister’s death further helped me believe she actually did hear the fatal gunshot while she was on the phone with Gavin. The bad news? The bell had been rung for me on the faulty-part idea, and it wasn’t going to un-ring just by covering my ears.

  I set my phone’s GPS for the antilock-brake arm of Roitman Industries called Nolan Company.

  Two hours later I stopped for a late lunch at the Potomac St. Grill in Brunswick, Maryland. So hungry and anxious that my stomach hurt, I dithered over the battling American, Mexican, and Middle Eastern choices and finally opted for the Cuban Ham and Cheese Panini—comfort food that would have to last me longer than I knew.

  The restaurant’s logo featured an old-time locomotive, so while I waited for my order I asked my dining neighbor, a slope-shouldered fellow in short sleeves and a clip-on tie, what was up with the trains. The gentleman raised his white eyebrows, dabbed his lips, and smiled as if pleased to be asked. Turned out the Baltimore and Ohio railroad figured prominently in Brunswick’s past. When diesel engines rendered the huge local rail yard obsolete, their “Big town/Small city” became home to “more than a few” Washington, DC commuters.

  “You?” I inquired.

  “Not anymore,” he replied with a mischievous wink.

  Nolan Company lay slightly northwest of Brunswick, another fifteen minutes from downtown. The two-story building was brick fronted, sided with functional white stucco and approximately a city block in size, if the city happened to be Brunswick. Since antilock brakes were bound to be smaller than a breadbox, I concluded that they could make quite a lot of them inside those walls.

  The office faced west, opposite the shipping docks located to the far right. I parked in one of the few visitors’ spaces. On a subconscious level I suppose my animal brain expected to encounter mostly men, so on a whim I swapped my sneakers for the heels I’d packed in Chantal’s honor. One walks differently in heels. One thrusts out one’s chest and extends one’s neck in a self-aware, but more or less natural, womanly way. Oh, hell. It seemed a good idea at the time.

  And it was.

  The person manning the opening in the low glass partition turned from his computer, looked me up and down, pursed his lips and said, “I suppose you can’t help it,” with a smile that dimpled his cheek.

  “Help what?” I asked.

  “Looking like that. I have friends who would kill to look half that good. On weekends, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  Fielding a similar compliment from a straight male would be like stepping barefoot into a briar patch. Conversely, faux jealousy from a gay flirt felt like simple, harmless fun.

  I introduced myself.

  “Timothy,” he said as well-kept fingers adorned with a gold signet ring, initials entwined, grasped my hand with a pleasant squeeze. Amusement over my amusement shone from behind stylish, black-rimmed spectacles.

  “What can I do for you?” he inquired. No trace of innuendo of any sort, just a pretty, boyish smile.

  “Would it be possible to have a few words with the president?”

  “The White House is that way,” Timothy gestured toward our nation’s capitol, “but if you mean our leader, that would be John Schug, the Plant Manager. We call him John to his face.”

  “Is he in?”

  Those perfect hands clasped under his chin, Timothy’s elbows now rested on the three-foot shelf of smudged green Formica, the opening from his work station to the lobby. Behind him a pale gray cement-block wall said “Nolan Company” in raised, polished-aluminum letters. Tiny, stylized stop signs served as the Os. “Yes,” he answered, “but you’ll need an appointment, and to get one you have to tell me why you want it.”
r />   I said I worked for Frank Roitman, “and I think I’d better keep my reason confidential.”

  Timothy made a chucking sound with his dimpled cheek. Smile unwavering, he said, “Sorry. You’re going to need an appointment even if you do work for the Grand Poobah.”

  “Okay. When is Mr. Schug’s next available?”

  The phone rang, and I waited while Timothy forwarded the call. He sounded efficient, friendly, and straight. When he finished, he consulted his watch.

  “It’s 3:27 now. Mr. Schug’s next opening is 3:30.”

  “I’ll take it.”

  “Thought you might.” He lifted the receiver again, poked the first extension button and spoke when someone answered. “John’s three-thirty is here.” He covered the instrument and mouthed, “Name?” which I provided again. “She works for Frank Roitman.” An eyebrow raise with an eye-roll. “Not my fault, Lydia. You must not have typed it in.” He hung up, waved toward the hallway on the left, and told me, “First door you come to.”

  The narrow hall was paved with brown linoleum tiles, and each hit from my high heels reverberated like blows on an anvil. My hips swayed nicely though.

  Lydia, a frumpy woman, whose work space should have been a walk-in closet, stood at John Schug’s open doorway and verbally backpedaled. “I don’t know,” she said, “but she’s here.” She turned to look at me, made a brusque gesture with her arm that said, “Get in there right now or else,” and dropped herself back onto her ergonomic chair. Her computer instantly devoured her attention.

  I approached the open doorway like a supplicant Dorothy approaching the Wizard of Oz.

  “Mr. Schug?”

  “Who are you?” he asked from behind an oak desk littered with spreadsheets and post-its. His white shirtsleeves were rolled up, his soft face an unhealthy, sweaty glow. Everything about him commanded rather than requested, which automatically straightened my spine.

  “Lauren Beck,” I announced. “I work for Frank Roitman.”

  “So you say, but Lydia doesn’t make mistakes. So tell me why you’re here before I call security.”

  “Do you mind if I close the door?”

  “Yes, I mind.”

  I reminded myself that I was rattling the tiger’s cage on purpose and my adrenaline glands needn’t bother to speed up my heart. Too late. My pulse pounded in my ears. Nothing to do but push on. I was too close to the end and needed information too badly to back out now.

  “You’re aware of how Frank’s son-in-law died?”

  “Suicide. Yes. What’s that got to do with me?” He hadn’t risen from his chair and had no interest in offering me one.

  An inward sigh. “No sir, it was murder, and Frank hired me to protect his daughter Chantal.”

  Humph. “From what?”

  “I’m getting to that. I’m wondering if Toby Stoddard might have had knowledge of your company using faulty parts, and…”

  “What the hell…?” If he were a bomb, he was about to explode.

  “…and if his wife knew it, too, she might be in similar danger.” I’d been making it up as I went, but at least I was learning something. John Schug adhered to the court’s verdict. Vociferously, you might say.

  “Lydia,” Schug shouted over my shoulder. “Get Frank Roitman on the line.”

  “Yessir.”

  “On second thought, call Security.”

  Schug once again addressed me. “I don’t know who you are or why you’re really here, but for the record that’s the damnest, most lowlife attempt to incriminate an innocent company I ever heard. You must be mental to come in here with that cockamamie story. Now get the hell out of my office. Lydia,” he shouted, “where’s Danny?”

  I assumed Danny was Security.

  I turned on my high heels and pock, pock, pocked my way back to the lobby, crossing my fingers in the hope that Schug’s calls for Security were so rare as to be non-existent, or that Danny was eighty and slower than a snail.

  Behind his partition Timothy was hunkered down laboring at his computer, nobody else in sight.

  “Who should I ask about parts?” I whispered.

  My flirt-buddy appeared to be stunned by the question. “Purchasing Agent.”

  Fine. I could manage without a name. “In a hurry. Where’s Purchasing?”

  He pointed to the hallway on my right. “There’s a sign.”

  Footsteps resounded from the hall back to the left, Lydia’s hurry-up gait most likely; John’s brogans probably would have shattered the tiles.

  “I’ve got this,” Timothy whispered as he shooed me along.

  The Purchasing Department was indeed labeled with a rectangular brown sign I almost missed because the door was open. A guy visibly more slender than his clothes stood at the desk facing the hall.

  “I’m Lauren Beck and I work for Frank Roitman,” I spieled off hastily. “Would you be the person who bought the part that was in dispute in the Sykes trial?”

  Behind him a female worker glanced at me with something more than surprise. For the rest of the conversation she wouldn’t even pretend to work.

  “You’re the purchasing agent, right?” I addressed the man. He was maybe forty, losing his blond hair, married because I noticed his spread fingers tented on the desk. Probably a nice guy since he hadn’t shouted for Danny yet.

  “Yes, what is this about again?”

  “The Sykes trial. I need some information about the part in question.”

  “Why? The trial is over.”

  “It’s a long story, and I don’t have much time.”

  “Why not?”

  “Sorry,” I said, forcing myself to slow down. “Dentist appointment. She’s a bear when you’re late.”

  “No,” said the PA.

  “No what?” This was how people developed migraines.

  “No, I did not purchase the part that was mentioned in the Sykes trial.” He spoke with extra patience, as if English were my second language or perhaps I’d recently emigrated from the moon.

  “May I ask who did?”

  A glance back at the woman, who quickly looked away. “My predecessor, of course. Shouldn’t you know that already?”

  “I’m new, too,” I ad libbed. “Just trying to save time.”

  “Oh, right. The dentist.” Sarcastic, but deservedly so.

  A rustling out in the hallway turned all three of our heads.

  False alarm.

  Different alarm, I should say. Timothy walking back and forth past the open door like somebody who had no idea where he was going or why.

  The PA stared at me with an impatient twist to his lips.

  Meanwhile, the woman, a nice-looking brunette wearing bright pink lipstick was poking her cell phone. Odd because an ordinary phone was within reach right there on her desk.

  No time to speculate. The ball was in my court. “Do you know how I might reach your predecessor?” I pressed.

  “No idea.” The PA’s peeved expression warned me he was running low on patience.

  “Can you at least tell me his name?”

  “Jerry Emper? Was that it, Lucy?”

  Lucy confirmed the name.

  “Thanks,” I told them both. “And he left because…?”

  “None of my business, and probably not yours either.”

  “Ah but it is,” I said. “Frank Roitman, remember?”

  “Your dentist?” The PA folded his arms across his chest while I pondered how to respond.

  Meanwhile, the woman, Lucy, was waving her lighted cell phone screen at me like a concert groupie. “Health reasons,” she mouthed behind her boss’s back. With her free hand she pointed to the ground three times then held her phone to her ear. The message couldn’t have been clearer if it had been written on a billboard: Jerry Emper was listed in the local white pages. I smiled my thanks, told the PA “Never mind,” then made a hasty exit.

  A man, Danny from Security, I assumed, leaned on Timothy’s shelf with his right leg crossed over his left, just kibitzing
since the nervy woman he was supposed to chase was nowhere around.

  I’d removed my shoes for stealth, but paused to put them back on at the edge of the lobby. Unfortunately, this gave Danny time to realize he wasn’t doing his job.

  “Hey!” he accosted me.

  I trotted toward the reinforced steel door. “Sorry,” I said. “Wrong turn.”

  With the Miata loaded with my stuff, I’d been sure to lock it; but I’d left the driver’s window open a crack for ventilation. A chartreuse post-it lay on my seat.

  In tidy printed letters it warned, “JS called FR. T.”

  Chapter 41

  When he was young and naïve, Frank thought having money would protect him, a cruel deception he had learned to despise. In exchange for not starving to death in a freezing gutter, the size of his problems had multiplied exponentially with his responsibilities. At times he felt like a fireman pissing on an inferno.

  After he hung up with John Schug, he helped himself to an outside line and dialed his most trusted bodyguard. Three rings later, he remembered the ex-linebacker moonlighted as a bouncer and slept into the afternoon.

  Four rings became six. Frank’s watch read three thirty-nine.

  “Yuh,” eventually came the sleep-laden answer.

  “Oak Leaf Mall,” Frank stated, confident that his voice would be recognized. “When can you be there?”

  “Twenty minutes?”

  The arrangement was infrequent but established. Frank and the young thug he thought of as “Goliath” switched cars in a prearranged strip mall, a different one each time. Goliath left in Frank’s current Lexus sedan, and Frank went about whatever the day’s clandestine business happened to be in the young man’s anonymous black SUV.

  Frank watched for its arrival with his engine running and the air conditioning on. Every other minute he closed his eyes and sighed. In between he slapped the soft leather seats and cursed Lauren Beck for insinuating herself into his life.

  “I shouldn’t have to do this,” he muttered. “Damn you, woman. Damn you,” and other angry mutterings that boiled down to feeling enormously sorry for himself. He had regained visible control by the time the SUV roared into the lot, but it was close.