The Oak Leaf Mall lay parallel to a four-lane highway. Six enterprises lined up like inches on a ruler. Two were vacant. Two others sold pizza and Chinese food respectively, which nobody wanted at this hour. A harried mother of two exited the Dry Cleaner with shirts on a hanger and her eyes on her kids. Frank and his employee would be the briefest of dots on her radar screen, there for a second and gone.
A conspiratorial smile tilted the bodyguard’s lips as he leaned down to open Frank’s door. The assumption was that he was enabling Frank to meet a woman, and Frank preferred to leave it at that.
“See you in the morning,” he said as they exchanged keys.
“In the morning? Yes sir!” Since the young man hadn’t lasted a year at West Point, the military affectation came off as an arrogant conceit. Perhaps Frank had placed too much trust in the fellow after all. The last thing he needed was another mouth to shut.
“Uh, where?” he was asked, much to his surprise. The usual arrangement was to switch back before Frank went home. Nothing for Marsha to suspect that way.
Frank sighed from his toes up. This problem was much worse than an angry wife. As bad as Toby Stoddard. In the long run probably about as bad as it can get.
He replied, “The usual. Pick up the driver and meet me at the estate.”
Goliath’s eyebrows shot up nearly to his crewcut. “Yes sir.” He spun on his heel, smoothly lowered himself into the Lexus, then entered the quickening traffic like a stunt driver in pursuit of a cinema felon.
Another check of his watch told Frank that Lauren had probably arrived at Jerry Emper’s house by now, a monumental complication and extreme regret, but there was nothing to be done.
In the end, Frank supposed he was better off biding his time. Let Lauren grill the down-and-out purchasing agent; Jerry wouldn’t give her anything. Then after she was long gone, Frank would solve that problem for now and forever.
The turn of the SUV’s key blasted his ears with shouting so loud and raucous it couldn’t possibly pass for music. He poked the double arrow on the dashboard until he came to a familiar station out of Washington, DC.
Next he searched for the source of a strange stink. A pair of “graphic novels” lay on the passenger seat. He’d smelled their sweat-dampened ink from the back seat of the Lexus before, but these lurid rags were curled and dry.
Taco wrappers crumbled and thrown on the floor proved to be the culprits. Once Frank recognized the spicy smell, he realized his mouth was watering. A “stress eater,” his doctor described him, alluding to an unsatisfactory weight gain. “You’re of an age, Frank,” he said. “Slow down, buddy. You’re not sixteen anymore.”
“Neither are you,” Frank reminded the doctor, another overachiever from the neighborhood. Frank’s accomplishments had outdistanced the internist’s by miles, nothing either one would ever mention, but as he turned north on the four-lane highway, Frank pondered how many of the doctor’s admonitions might be sour grapes.
Two miles later the acid in his stomach actually hurt. Did he dare stop? Yes, he dared. He was hungry, dammit. Oh hell yes, stressed, too. But he would prevail. He always did.
At the first opportunity, a McDonald’s, naturally, he bought a double cheeseburger and fries. If it still agreed with him, he’d have ordered chocolate milk, too, which was when he admitted the doctor was probably right. He was as stressed as a man faced with life or death.
The afternoon was one of the warmer ones so far, so despite the highway exhaust tainting the cooling breeze, Frank took his meal to a picnic table next to the deserted children’s play equipment. The breeze might be better described as a light wind, but he’d eaten cold hamburgers before. Eaten them and been grateful to be eating anything at all.
Before the first bite his cell phone startled him with its distinctive irritating noise, and he squeezed the sandwich so hard ketchup squirted back onto the wrapper.
“Frank!” Marsha shouted in her stage voice. “Where are you?”
“Please,” he beseeched her, “my eardrum.”
“Where are you, Frank?” she asked at a lower volume.
“On the road. Something urgent came up.”
“Lana said you won’t be home for dinner.” The way she said it, it sounded like a serious matter. So serious in her view that he finally comprehended the smallness of her world. How had F. Scott Fitzgerald put it? Life balancing on a fairy’s wing? Something like that, except Marsha’s world balanced on him. The realization produced such a burden of responsibility that he put down the sandwich and doubted that he would pick it up again.
“No, darling. I will not. What are you having?” Hearing the empathy in his own words, he realized how much he loved the woman but also how sorry he felt for her. The sorrow was new.
“Beef burgundy,” she lamented.
“Sounds delicious,” he lied. Nothing appealed to him now.
“Will you be late?”
“Yes, I expect so. May I wake you? I think we should talk.”
If it were possible to sense terror vibrate through miles and miles of moving air, then Frank felt Marsha freeze with fear.
“Yes, alright,” she said at last.
Frank returned his food to its oily bag then dropped the bag in the nearby trash can. A wash-up in the men’s room and he was back on the road, his clean hands gripping the wheel as if it were a rope dangling over a ravine.
Chapter 42
Swiftly putting Nolan Company in my rear-view mirror, I drove until I found a quiet side street and pulled over as if to make a phone call. The spring leaves all around the cottagey neighborhood had nearly achieved their heavy summer hues. Dried daffodils stood among healthy green stalks, indicators of what had just been and what would return next year.
My plan was far less certain. With a post-it slipped through my car window, Timothy, the rebel receptionist, had warned me that his boss phoned Frank Roitman, most likely to complain about me. Which meant Frank already knew I’d alluded to the use of faulty parts—parts that had been legitimately ruled out as the cause of Luanne Sykes’s death. Whether or not Frank was guilty of anything worse than bad luck, he would not thank me for reopening that wound. I didn’t especially care about that, but I cared very much that my privileged insider status was probably toast. Such was the risk of rattling a tiger’s cage, but it really couldn’t be helped. When an investigation gets as stuck as this one, you have to do whatever you can to shake it loose. If that means showing up at a potential witness’s home without warning, well, Ms. Manners would just have to forgive me.
Sitting there in my relaxing surroundings, I Googled how long it would take to drive from the Middleburg, Virginia, area to Brunswick, Maryland. On average the 31.4 miles up Route 287 took 46 minutes, or 49 minutes in current traffic. Should Frank Roitman decide to join me at Jerry Emper’s house, I had less than an hour to find the place and pry whatever information I could out of the Nolan Company’s former purchasing agent.
With sweaty fingers I poked my phone back to the GPS then shifted the Miata into motion.
Jerry Emper’s abode stood out, but not in a good way. His front porch leaned to the right, and its rain gutter lacked a downspout. The clapboard siding wasn’t gray any longer, but the cream-colored trim was. Also, the six-foot long cement walk that both guests and residents had to negotiate, sober or otherwise, rocked and rolled like an oldies band.
I knocked on the dust-caked screen door. From inside came the sound of an aluminum can crinkling, then the thump of feet dropping to the floor. My spiel was simple, but I rehearsed it in my head while I waited.
Thirty seconds later Jerry peered out through the ten-inch opening he risked on a stranger. He appeared to be a tall, gaunt guy with four-day stubble disguising a psoriasis rash and dirty black hair that sprouted unevenly from his head and ears. He blinked at the daylight and emitted a tiny burp.
“Not buying any,” he said as he attempted to shut me out.
I pushed back his ten inches and added few more, p
ermitting him to focus on me for real.
“I work for Frank Roitman,” I said. “He asked me to check in.”
“Why?” When he tried, Jerry Emper looked reasonably intelligent. He also had beautiful, if weepy, eyes. He might even look decent again if he rethought his grooming routine. Something serious must have happened to him, but I couldn’t guess what.
In lieu of answering his question, I asked if I might come in.
Jerry’s hungry eyes peeled me like an orange while he moistened his lips with beer-scented saliva. For at least the thousandth time I thanked the police academy for teaching me self-defense and the trainer whose fitness regime I adopted soon after I finished chemo. The Glock in my purse didn’t hurt my confidence any either.
“Certainly,” said the spider to the fly.
The inside of Jerry Emper’s house, surely a rental, rivaled the set of a horror movie. It smelled like skin and tobacco ash and beer. The ottoman where his booted feet had rested was an old typewriter crate most likely left behind by the first railway worker who lived here. There were no drapes on the casement windows, just milky-blue smoke residue.
“Have a seat,” my host offered, watching me askance as he wet his lips once again.
The available chair was a well-shaped wooden specimen, also of an expired century. Painted black, it sported a faded pattern of fruit across the top done in gold-leaf. I found it surprisingly comfortable. Dusty, but comfortable.
Jerry returned to a soiled green overstuffed armchair facing the twenty-nine inch television on the dresser to my left. Beyond Jerry was a dining room with no table, and past that a kitchen I couldn’t really see. Against the wall to my right was a stairway to the second floor.
Jerry caught me looking up the stairs as he lit a cigarette, and the left corner of his mouth lifted.
“Frank sent you,” he stated.
“Yes.”
“I don’t believe you.” The former PA’s shining eyes narrowed as he drew in a lungful of smoke.
“I can give you Frank’s private cell phone number if you like.”
Jerry’s emaciated shoulders rolled forward as he leaned on his knees. “Shit. What the hell do I care?”
Another awkward thirty seconds ticked away.
“So. How are you?” I asked without demonstrable concern. I didn’t yet know whether I was speaking to a blackmailer, a victim, or a co-conspirator. It was like walking across the peak of a roof.
“Not well, thank you.” As if I hadn’t noticed. “Just got out of the hospital, if you must know. But you would be aware of that if you know Frank.”
“He didn’t mention it.”
“Umm,” Jerry hummed skeptically.
“He just wants to know how you feel about things,” I said, making things sound as ambiguous as possible.
“You mean am I going to keep quiet?”
“Exactly.” What am I talking about, Jerry? Toss me a crumb.
“Put another way, do you need anything?” More jewelry money, for instance?
The man flopped back and breathed in some regular air. Looked out the window then back at me.
“Hell, yes,” he said. “I beg your pardon. Yes. I need a new hot water heater and probably a new set of lungs. I’m told I need a colonoscopy and a new carburetor for my car. I need meds for depression, and I need a goddamn good night’s sleep. I could also use a winner on a long shot at Santa Anita. You wanna help me with any of that?”
“Gotta pass, Jerry, but I advise you to get the colonoscopy. I’ve had cancer and it’s no fun.”
“You had cancer?”
“Hodgkins disease.”
“You don’t look like you’ve been sick a day in your life.”
“Trust me.”
He looked me over again. “Sure. Why not? What do you want to know again?”
“What part was it they thought was defective in Luanne Sykes’s car?”
Emper looked at me differently yet again. “I guess you do know Frank.”
“That I do, but he wouldn’t answer me when I asked that.” Should have said if I asked, but whatever.
“I don’t suppose he would. So why are you asking me?”
“I’m trying to understand why the case went to court. You put your foot on the brake and the car stops, right?”
“I may be screwed up, and I may be sick, but I got eyes, and I can see you’re not that dumb. Not even close. So tell me right now why you asked me that, or you’re outta here, whoever the hell you are.”
I crossed my legs. Took a deep breath and confessed. “Because I think Frank may be on his way here to kill you.”
Jerry’s arm jerked out in such a sudden spasm that he knocked his ashtray to the floor. He glanced down at the mess as if he couldn’t fathom what it was.
I walked over and rubbed out any embers with the toe of my shoe. I was sitting down again before Jerry recovered enough to talk. “You sure about that?”
“No. That’s why I’m hitting you up for information.”
“Who the hell are you?”
“I’m an ex-cop. That’s the short version. We don’t have time for the long one.”
“Shit.”
“You got that right. Now tell me about the defective part, Jerry. I think it’s the key to everything.”
It turned out to be a sensor, and its job was to tell the antilock brake whether to engage or not. The Nolan Company usually bought theirs from an American supplier, but as with every other manufacturer, they couldn’t help but notice that overseas parts cost less. Jerry tried a shipment of sensors from a Chinese company, but his quality control guy discovered that a certain critical portion of it was thinner than the American counterpart. “He recommended dumping the new supplier and scrapping the imported shipment.
“I figured it wasn’t exactly defective, just inferior,” Jerry explained, “so I just had the warehouse guys set them aside.”
“Then what happened?”
Jerry waved his head and snorted with disgust. “Our regular supplier got backed up at the worst possible time. We had an order from our biggest auto manufacturer coming up fast, and missing their deadline would have cost us the contract.”
“Not good,” I sympathized.
Jerry’s moist eyes widened with disbelief. “Not good? Try catastrophic. The end of the company if you want to know the truth.”
“So you dusted off the Chinese parts and filled the order?”
“You make it sound easy. No, I called Frank and we decided together.”
“You know him that well?” I had trouble believing a purchasing agent from one of many companies owned by Roitman Industries would have direct access to the CEO.
“Frank and me grew up in the same New York neighborhood. Looked out for each other since we were kids.”
I read that as Frank took care of Jerry ever since they were kids, but I kept my impression to myself. “That how you got the PA job?” I wondered.
Jerry had been consumed by his story, and the interruption brought him up short. “Yeah. Sure. What of it?”
“Nothing,” I apologized. “Go on.”
He eagerly returned to his tale. “Like I said, it wasn’t that easy. I had to change the shipping containers and all.” He’d been talking with the cigarette stuck in the corner of his lip, and now he sucked in smoke while his eyes solicited my empathy.
“Got it,” I said, worrying more and more about the expenditure of time.
Jerry’s right knee bounced and his left eye had developed a tic. He smoked faster and ignored me more. If he wasn’t processing what I said about Frank being on his way here to kill him, he was even crazier than he claimed.
“And then Luanne Sykes happened,” I said.
“And then Luanne Sykes happened,” he agreed. Then he began to cry.
Chapter 43
Touching Jerry Emper would be neither sanitary nor wise, so I resisted the urge to comfort him. As he dried his face with his sleeve, I tried to focus him on what was already an urgen
t problem.
“Actually, I misspoke,” I remarked as if I were a rational person about to correct a trivial error. “Frank probably wants to kill both of us.”
Momentary confusion. Then Jerry dove right back into his own dark hole as if the idea of his long-time protector wanting him dead had depleted an already meager reservoir of joy.
“Did you hear me?”
“No. Not Frank.” The former PA waved his head and sniffled. Apparently Frank’s potential treachery had also short-circuited Jerry’s ability to process information, including the fact that I was now on his side. Why? Because blackmailers were not the sort to cry if their mark turned on them; the sickos simply carried out their threats. On the other hand, weak people who had been bribed to go away quietly, who literally depended on their benefactors to keep them alive, might fall apart at the thought of betrayal.
“Hey!” I said to get the guy’s attention. “I have a gun.” I dug it out. “See?”
Jerry flinched and huddled deeper into his chair. Whatever his problems were, I seemed to be making them worse.
“What’ve you got for dinner?” I asked.
“Whaa?”
“Dinner. What’ve you got planned?”
“Uh, tomato soup.”
“Okay, Jerry. Why don’t you go into the kitchen and make your tomato soup. I’ll wait here for Frank.”
The man had the survival instincts of a feral animal; I didn’t hear so much as a clinking dish for thirty-five minutes, which was when Frank tapped on the screen door and I released the safety on the Glock.
“Come in,” I said, hiding the gun under the purse on my lap.
The screen door squeaked, the regular door eased open, and I received a view of Frank’s derriere as he entered backwards to pull the door shut. Very civilized. Marsha would be proud.
“Don’t even think about it,” I told him before he uttered a word.
“About what?” Frank inquired mildly. He was dressed in business clothes, okay for an air conditioned office, not okay for this dusty, stuffy shoebox. Already he had begun to sweat. Or perhaps the cool, collected Frank Roitman, CEO and multi-millionnaire, was a bit nervous, too. I could only hope.
Guilt Trip Page 20