A Cadgers Curse

by Diane Gilbert Madsen

  A small stream of blood trickled from the corner of Marcie's mouth, and her matted hair was wet and entangled with congealing blood.

  "No sign of any pulse," Oscar said. "She's totally unresponsive. The medics'll be here any minute. Can you show them where to come? I got to stay here."

  As I headed to the exit, I realized that Oscar was handling himself well in the clutch and my assessment of him had improved.

  Outside, Sparky, pale and shivering, was gulping drafts of the bitter air. Icy tears traced down her cheeks. "I thought I'd wait here and direct the ambulance people." She wiped her eyes.

  "Sparky, are you all right? Should I get a doctor?"

  "Ohmygod, I've never seen anything like that. Do you think she's dead?"

  "Oscar does. What floor was her office on?"

  "Fifth. That's a long way to fall," Sparky said dully.

  Fall, I thought. According to Insurance Institute Statistics, the chance of dying from any kind of fall was 1 in 20,666. While Marcie Ann may have been smart, she was also terribly unlucky.

  "Nothing like this has ever happened before at HI-Data. First Ken. Now Marcie," Sparky said, sobbing.

  We heard sirens. She shivered. I put my arm around her.

  "You know I didn't like her, but this is awful."

  I tried to say something comforting, all the while wondering if it was the fifth floor where I'd seen Sparky just before Marcie fell. I wondered, too, how Marcie had managed to fall off that balcony. Those balcony railings were at least waist high and very sturdy. Statistically speaking, girls like Marcie aren't the suicidal type. I didn't like what I was thinking about HI-Data.

  An ambulance and two cop cars arrived at the side door. Sparky wiped her eyes and motioned the paramedics to follow her. I waited with the other bystanders in the lobby, steadfastly refusing to think of the similarities to Frank's death. Instead I concentrated on figuring out what the hell was going on here at Hi-Data.

  TWENTY-SIX

  IT WAS NEARLY ONE o'clock when Marcie Ann Kent left HI-Data zipped up in a dark green plastic body bag. We were all questioned as witnesses, and it was after three o'clock before they let anyone leave.

  As soon as I could, I went to Jeff Fere's office. His secretary, Jennifer Brand, fussed when I showed up without an appointment, but I insisted. When he agreed to see me, I quickly filled him in on the details about John Olson aka Dan Karton.

  "Excellent detective work," he said. "But I am wondering why Norman didn't uncover this information."

  I suggested HI-Data revise its policies and do complete background checks, including fingerprinting, before hiring new employees. I also asked why there had been a delay in doing the full bonding check.

  "We don't usually put our trainees through this type of security clearance. But Ken fast-tracked these four new employees in an accelerated training program. We realized we would be able to integrate them into our new research and development program a lot sooner than expected. Since this new R&D work is proprietary and confidential, they all had to have top level security clearances. That's why Ken contacted Universal Insurance. Again, as to why he asked for you, I don't know. HI-Data hasn't had security worries for a long time. But from what you told me about Olson, also known as Karton, my belief is that he should be suspect number one on the police list."

  After saying he would take my suggestions under consideration, we shook hands and I left. I felt certain he would give Norman a hard time over this mistake. I also suspected that Norman would take revenge on me for uncovering it.

  Like Jeffrey, I too considered Olson/Karton a prime suspectnot just for the murders but also for slashing my brake line. He certainly had the opportunity. So I checked the Miata for slashed tires, a broken fuel hose, and a car bomb, but nothing was wrong. Even so, when I turned the ignition key, beads of sweat collected on my forehead despite the winter chill.

  There'd been no chance to be alone again with Sparky to ask her more about the affair between Marcie and Ken, and about that file she was going to show me. Maybe something in there would shed light on why they both were now dead and why someone had sabotaged my car. Meantime, I had to finish my assignment and move my office.

  I parked the Miata and bought an egg salad on wheat at the greasy spoon across from Consolidated. They serve a dose of heartburn with everything, but I was desperate. The cashier took my money and dumped mustard and mayo packets in the bag. I managed to grab it just as a day-trader in suspenders talking on his cell phone shouldered me roughly out of the way. I don't like bullies, and under other circumstances, I'd have taken action. Today, I turned and headed back to my office.

  There were no messages. I made coffee and ate the sandwich, surprisingly fresh and as tasty as egg salad can manage to be. Then I hit the phone lines to finish cross-checking the data I'd gotten on Tanaka and Rivers.

  The first five calls were a breeze. The more I worked, the less I thought about death and HI-Data. On the sixth call, I hit a snag. I'd gotten connected to Miss Fresher, the head librarian at the University of Michigan where they catalog dissertations from every university in the United States. She said she was unable to scan Dissertation Abstracts Outline to confirm that Joe Tanaka's Ph.D. thesis had indeed been published under the title he listed on his form. I could have connected through my local library DIALOG database on my computer like my electronics whiz friend Jerry had shown me, but that would only have given a title, and I wanted Miss Fresher to read the whole outline.

  "I'm sorry, Ms. McDull, but-"

  "McGil," I said.

  "Well, we're on partial staff over the holidays and don't have time to do a personal search. You'll have to go through interlibrary loan or come in here personally after January tenth when we open again to the public."

  "I can't wait that long. A job candidate will be out on his duff if I can't confirm this information before the first of the year. Where's your holiday spirit? Would you want it on your conscience if he lost the job?"

  After a long silence, Miss Fresher sighed and agreed to get the outline. She took my number and promised to get back in a few days. I thanked her and told her to read the abstract into my answering machine if I wasn't here.

  My investigation was in a way a matter of life and death for Joe Tanaka, as it had been for Marcie, and I could feel my heart double skip. I tried to relax and empty my mind. In the opposite corner, a small spider was making its careful way down a slender thread shimmering faintly in the winter sunlight. I sat back, fascinated at its jerky, steady progress. I didn't have the heart to kill it. There'd been enough death around me lately. As it made its way downward, I mentally wrestled with the eternal verities, not sure anymore of anything in this world except maybe the spider and the fly.

  There was a loud knock on my door, but I wasn't in the mood to see anybody. I hunkered down near the space heater and pretended not to be in.

  The knocking persisted.

  "Ms. McGil? We know you're in there. Open up. Police."

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  SURPRISED, I UNLOCKED AND opened the door.

  "DD McGil?"

  "That's me," I said as the two detectives flashed their shields in my face.

  "We need to talk to you," said the thin one in the gray overcoat. He tucked away his badge before I could focus on it and muscled in past me.

  "It's important," the other one said as he pushed past me.

  "Sure is a small place you got here," gray overcoat said. "Cold, too."

  "What's the DD stand for?" the other detective asked.

  I wasn't eager to exchange social niceties with cops, let alone tell them about Daphne December, but I forced myself.

  "He's Detective Watlin," Gray overcoat pointed.

  "And he's Detective Lester," Detective Watlin pointed at gray overcoat like they were some kind of professional police comedy duo. They shuffled their feet and blew on their ungloved hands.

  The one called Watlin cracked a thin smile and nodded in the direction of my coffee pot. "Hel
p yourselves."

  They poured their coffees, taking plenty of my cream, all the while casing my place.

  "Sugar?" Detective Watlin asked.

  "I don't take sugar," I said.

  "So what's a girl like you doing in a dirty business like insurance investigation?" Detective Lester asked abstractedly as he rifled through my two shelves of reference books. I winced instinctively as he grabbed one by the spine.

  "Where'd you say you're from?" I asked.

  "Naperville Police," Watlin said as Lester continued perusing my books.

  "What do you want to see me about?"

  "We understand you're the one who found Ken Gordon's body at HI-Data," Watlin said.

  "And?"

  "We need to ask you a few more questions, okay? Think there's enough room for all of us to sit down and get cozy?"

  Lester was all cop. He didn't converse except in the interrogatory. In general, suburban cops aren't as hard-nosed as Chicago cops, but they're more hot-doggy trying to exert control over their turf. He pulled out a chair and motioned me to sit. Ignoring his offer, I went around my desk and sat in my own chair.

  "What more do you need from me? I told the other detectives everything I know."

  "We've inherited the case. Did we forget to tell you we're from Homicide?" Lester flashed a lopsided grin. His front teeth were slightly crooked.

  "The coroner's report says he was zapped by his computerelectrocuted by his keyboard. Jesus, this coffee tastes like mud." Lester wiped his lips.

  "I like it strong." I smiled sweetly.

  "We know you moved the body, Ms. McGil," Watlin said.

  "What?"

  "What we need to know is exactly what you saw when you first found the body," Watlin said. "Every detail."

  "Yeah, you're the closest thing we got to an eye witness," Lester added.

  "I already told all this to your compatriots and..."

  "Tell us again," Watlin said.

  "Yeah, humor us," Lester added.

  "He had his back to me when I entered the room," I said.

  "Was the door locked?" Detective Watlin asked.

  "Yes, but my security card opened it. I heard the lock clunk. I called out to him, but he didn't answer. Then I touched his arm and he fell off the chair onto the floor."

  "You notice the keyboard at all?" Watlin probed.

  I didn't want to tell these guys anything more than I had that night at the station, but I couldn't evade Watlin's questions without telling a lie.

  "Well, yes. It fell down with him, so I picked it up and put it back on the desk."

  "That explains your fingerprints on the keyboard," Watlin said.

  "Huh?"

  "Your prints were on the keyboard," Lester said. His unblinking eyes did not leave me for a second. "We were beginning to think nasty thoughts about you, like maybe murder, maybe withholding evidence, maybe who knows what?"

  "I thought all that was straightened out."

  "Hey, look at it from our point of view, Miss DD," Detective Watlin said. "You never told us that Ken Gordon asked for you to come to HI-Data on the trainee investigations. Then we find out otherwise. You never told us you handled anything in the room. Then we find otherwise. What are we supposed to think?"

  "Why didn't you tell us the truth right off?" Lester asked, circling behind my desk.

  "Look, I still don't know why Ken asked for me. I told you the truth about that. And I should have told you about the keyboard, but Norman got me so upset I must have forgotten." I realized I sounded like Marcie trying to explain her new car.

  "I was only there for a few minutes. I couldn't have..."

  "Yeah. We know that," Watlin said.

  It took several seconds to digest what he'd said. It was practically the only declarative sentence he'd spoken since he'd walked in.

  "You know I didn't kill Ken?"

  "Yeah. We know whoever did it had to have time to rig it up," Lester explained. "And they had to know how to rig it up. You wouldn't have had time, would she Watlin?"

  I sighed with relief.

  "But we need to know if you saw or heard anybody or anything on the third floor when you were wandering around up there. Anything more you haven't told us?" Watlin asked.

  "No. Nothing. It was totally quiet. That's all I know. What I'd like to know is why you guys aren't investigating who cut the brake line on my car."

  "When did this happen?" Watlin asked, peering at me while Lester rifled through some papers.

  "Last week. When I left HI-Data."

  "Well, I can't find a report on any incident like that. Where'd you report it?" Lester asked.

  "I didn't."

  They looked at each other then at me. I could tell they didn't believe me.

  "So this building's coming down around your ankles and you haven't moved yet?"

  I recognized the classic police tactic of abruptly changing the subject.

  "What's the problem?" Lester asked. "Can't find anything this small somewhere else?"

  I was in enough trouble as it was, so it wouldn't do for me to be lippy. Still I couldn't resist dropping a bomb of my own.

  "I've been busy with other things. I just left HI-Data a couple hours ago. Did you know there's been another death out there?"

  "What?" they asked in unison.

  I'd scored a coup.

  "One of the trainees fell from the fifth floor atrium balcony. Do you think this might be connected to Ken's death?" I asked, unable to resist turning the screw a little.

  Lester cocked his head at Watlin and stood up.

  "And did they tell you at HI-Data about the trainee named John Olson, who is really named Dan Karton, and probably an industrial spy?"

  Lester wrote something in his little spiral notebook, then looked at Watlin. The two of them headed for the door.

  "This is all for right now, Mzz. DD McGil," Watlin said.

  "But we'll be back," Lester added. "And don't try to leave town."

  "You guys really say that?"

  Lester held the door for Watlin and followed him out. "I wouldn't be such a smart ass if I was you. This is serious, and you better straighten up."

  I'd been hearing the same song since third grade and my Permanent Record was a mess. I waited until they turned the corner at the far end of the hallway before I closed the door.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  ALL DAY I THOUGHT of Marcie lying on a slab at the morgue. I knew I should keep looking for new office space, but couldn't face dealing with it. I knew I should go see Auntie Dragon, but couldn't face that either. I locked up and headed home.

  Cavvy meowed excitedly and led me straight to the bedroom. There was Scotty Stuart, back from England, naked and asleep in my bed. I blinked my eyes, but he was still there after the third time. I grinned and my heart skipped a few beats as I watched him sleep. You can learn a lot about people from the way they sleep. Ready for battle, I thought.

  I jumped into bed alongside him and lightly kissed his nose.

  He rubbed his eyes. "Hi there, good looking. Welcome home. I've been napping off jet-lag. Come here."

  We kissed for a very long time. Cosmopolitan magazine says men think about sex more than women do, but I think about it an awful lot, and I wonder just who they interviewed.

  "Hi yourself," I said finally. "You gave me one hell of a shock, showing up unannounced like this. What if I already had a date tonight?"

  "I'm real glad to see you, too," he said, his hands finding their way under my clothes. When his cool fingers slipped inside my panties, heat spread from the soles of my feet to the roots of my hair. While we made love, I forgot about Ken, Marcie, Robbie Burns, and everything else.

  "God, you feel wonderful," he whispered in my left ear. "Still love me?"

  "I lust you. As to whether I even like you, I'm not sure."

  "Well, I love you and I lust you. It's a miracle I'm here at all. I pushed like hell to finish the first phase of the job two days early. Then I rushed to catch my flig
ht. I was going to call your office soon as I touched ground and leave a message, but I thought you might already be home."

  "I'm glad you're here," I said.

  "Anyway, if you had other plans, you'd cancel them, right? You wouldn't give up these two fifty-yard line tickets I got from Jerry, would you?" He flashed two tickets for tonight's Bears game with the Green Bay Packers.

  "Wow. A chance to beat the Cheeseheads. I'm tired, but not that tired." I jumped out of bed. "Let's go"

  TWENTY-NINE

  AFTER WE SHOWERED, I put on two sweaters, a pair of jeans, warm socks and a down jacket. I also grabbed a roll of toilet paper. Axiom: there's never any TP in women's johns at sporting events. I jammed it into my purse on top of the envelope from Marcie. Now that she was dead, there was no urgency to go over her lease and her tax returns, but I'd follow up on them later, just to satisfy my curiosity.

  We waved good-bye to Cavvy and drove to Soldier Field. The red caps flagged us toward outlying parking lots, all rapidly filling up. Scotty tipped the attendant an extra two bucks to park nearest the street so we could exit quickly after the game.

  As we got out of the car, Scotty asked about the spare tire on the right front. "Where's the new Michelin?"

  "I'll fill you in later." I pulled him into the crowd. "Let's not miss kick-off."

  The field was lit up like Las Vegas, glowing against the backdrop of the black Midwestern night sky. A frigid wind blew off Lake Michigan. Even with our stadium blanket, it was damp and cold. Nonetheless, any Bears fan would have killed for these seats.

  At halftime the score was 17 to 10, Bears. The partisan crowd was cocky, even with a wind chill factor of minus-13. While the Jessie White Tumblers performed impossible feats, Scotty told me the job he was working on in London was top-secret, and I told him about being stuck with Auntie and Robert Burns, and about the two deaths at HI-Data.

  "I met some people from HI-Data at a seminar last year."

  "What do you know about HI-Data?" I asked, pulling the stadium blanket tighter around us.