Free Draw (The Jake Samson & Rosie Vicente Detective Series Book 2)

by Shelley Singer

  “Carlota? Where was Nona when she did that?”

  “In the toilet. I have a feeling only Carlota will be home.”

  I laughed. “Watch out, babe. She was looking at you like you were her very own birthday cake.”

  Rosie snorted. “I never mess with married women. Especially if they’re total twitches.”

  “She may also be a mite confused,” I said, and told her about the anonymous groper in the hot tub.

  “Interesting,” she said, once she stopped laughing. “Things like that never happen to me.”

  “Probably because you refuse to take off your cowboy boots.”

  “Good night, Jake.”

  “Good night, Rosie.”

  10

  The Bright Future Home Study Plan Incorporated occupied a two-story office building in an industrial park north of San Rafael. The redwood siding must have looked good a decade before; now it was fading and starting to break loose from the vertical slats that covered the seams. I didn’t bother to drive around back to the parking lot. There were plenty of spaces on the industrial park’s pseudo-streets.

  I pushed through the door into the reception area. My attention was immediately split between the smiling receptionist and a real eye-catcher near the right-hand wall: a spiral staircase about three feet in diameter, bolted through the royal blue carpeting to the floor and dead-ending at the solid acoustical ceiling. A sign hanging from it at eye level said, simply, “Bright Future.”

  I must have stared at this symbol a bit longer than most casual visitors because the receptionist interrupted my musings.

  “May I help you, sir?”

  I looked at her. Teased hair, molded and sprayed. Dimples displayed by an over-wide smile. Long fingernails painted to match her reddish-brown lipstick. She looked like she’d just finished eating raw liver.

  “Yes,” I replied politely. “I’m Jake Samson. I have an appointment with Mr. Bowen.”

  If she could have smiled wider, she would have. I was big stuff. I had an appointment with the president of the company. But the smile was brief. I guessed that my status was only partly resolved. I had an appointment with the president, sure, but what kind of welcome would I get? She buzzed his office. If I was really somebody, Bowen himself would come out to fetch me. If I was nobody in particular, his secretary would appear. The third alternative? Have the receptionist send me back on my own, which could mean I was an old friend— very high status— or they hoped I’d get lost on the way. I was pretty sure I’d get the secretary, since I doubted that someone who’d identified himself as a writer from Probe magazine would be left to wander around on his own.

  I was there, supposedly, to look over the possibilities for a story on education— the economics and feasibility of what these people called home study, as opposed to other kinds of schooling. As far as I knew, however, no one had ever been interested in said feasibility until one of the company’s vice-presidents got himself tossed down a spillway.

  Like I figured, I got the secretary. An intelligent-looking middle-aged woman who didn’t overdo my welcome. She escorted me back to the presidential suite. The outer office, which she inhabited, was small but carefully decorated with blue carpeting, a wood-grain desk, and white file cabinets. The inner office, where Bowen sat, was big enough for a typing pool. White carpeting, blue walls, lots of big windows with blue drapes, a real wood desk with two visitors’ chairs upholstered in blue and white tweed, a conversational group of more blue and white chairs and a white table with a blue ashtray. A blown-up photograph dominated one of the walls, a photograph of an old building on a city street. Screwed to the frame in brass was the legend, “First Corporate Headquarters, 1953, Chicago.”

  Bowen stood up and walked around his desk to greet me solemnly. He was a short man, thin, with white hair worn medium long. The glasses he wore, and his suit, a slightly wrinkled, brown off-the-rack business suit, looked as though he could have been wearing them since 1953. His face, like his suit, was wrinkled. He had watery, gentle blue eyes. He didn’t seem to belong in his office. A formal little man, at home in Chicago in a dead era, transplanted to 1980s California casual. Just a different kind of elegance, maybe, but awfully bright colors for a man in a brown suit.

  “Mr. Samson, please sit down. Edna?” The secretary had waited just inside the door. “Would you bring us some coffee, please?” He spoke very precisely, the way teachers used to talk back when they were trying to set a good example.

  After he’d finished shaking my hand, he invited me to sit in one of the chairs facing his desk. No conversational grouping for me. Or maybe the decorator’s idea of conversation was different from his. He reached for the book of matches lying next to a desk lighter set in a glittering gold ball and lit a cigarette, dropping the dead match in a large blue ashtray that matched the one on the table across the room. There were just a few butts in the ashtray. He offered me a cigarette. An unfiltered Chesterfield. He needed only a brown fedora to complete the time warp. I, being a modern person, declined the cigarette.

  “I’m afraid,” he said quietly, “that I’m not very clear on why you wanted to see me. Something about a magazine article?”

  I leaned forward earnestly. “I’m very interested in the home study phenomenon. Historically and currently.” I wasn’t sure he was hearing me. “Mr. Bowen?” He looked up. I took out my notebook and a pen, and gestured toward the photograph on the wall. “Is that the year of your founding? 1953?” He swung his chair around to face the photograph and spoke to it.

  “Yes. And that was our building.”

  I counted rapidly. “All five floors?”

  He kept his eyes on the photograph. “Well, no. We started with the second floor. But by 1963 we occupied all of it.”

  “Very impressive. Do you still have an office there?”

  He turned around to face me again. “We moved out here in 1975 and consolidated.” He smiled sweetly. “Things aren’t the way they used to be, you know. A business can only grow these days by paring away the fat. And of course you needed more people back then, just to operate. No computers, that sort of thing.”

  “So your business has grown?”

  “Recently, yes. But we have always kept even with the economy.” I wasn’t sure, but it seemed to me that keeping even with the economy didn’t sound too good, overall.

  “And the key to that,” I nodded, “is the management team, right? A solid corps of executive talent. Mature experience and fresh new blood.” The corners of his mouth turned down slightly in a half-born frown. “And I know— I’m terribly sorry— that you recently lost one of your team members.”

  The frown was now complete. “Ah, yes. Very sad. A longtime and loyal employee. A young man, too, with a family. But the company goes on.” For the first time in our conversation, he looked alert. “It always has.” He paused. “Mr. Samson, isn’t Probe magazine somewhat given to sensationalism? What is sensational about a respectable old company that has dedicated thirty years to the education of people all over this country?”

  “Mr. Bowen,” I said, gazing directly into his eyes, “Probe is a monthly journal that attempts to report on and interpret the significant events and developments of our society.” Artie had given me that one, and I’d never had a chance to use it before. “Sometimes, certainly, those events are sensational. But I’m not on the staff of the magazine. I’m a free-lancer who gets work where he can.”

  The old man was no fool. “Just the same, Mr. Samson, James Smith’s death was a sensational one. He was murdered.”

  I sighed and shook my head. “Mr. Bowen, I’m afraid that murder no longer qualifies as unusual enough for the national media to bother with. Assassination, yes. Murder, no. Mr. Smith was, undoubtedly, valuable to your company. But his death is of very little interest to a magazine like Probe.” It was pretty interesting to one of Probe’s editors, but Bowen didn’t have to know that.

  He was, or seemed to be, nearly convinced. “It does seem coincidental
that this magazine has not shown interest in Bright Future before.”

  I affected a world-weary shrug. “Let’s say that the murder brought your company to my attention. I pick up ideas from the newspapers. I suggest those ideas to editors.”

  “Ah.” He nodded, relaxing.

  “Actually, I expected that you’d be pleased by the possibility of national exposure.” I’d no sooner said “exposure” than I wished I hadn’t, but he had drifted off and away from alertness again so it didn’t matter.

  “Perhaps if you’ll tell me what aspect of our institution interests you the most, I can direct you to those departments and persons involved,” he said indifferently.

  “The history, of course,” I replied. “And the academic department. Sales. Whatever subsidiary departments those might have. I’m afraid I don’t know much about your corporate structure.”

  He nodded. “Let me give you some printed background materials and turn you over to my executive vice-president. We can talk again another time.” He buzzed his secretary, gave her some instructions, and said a polite goodbye.

  She, in turn, pulled a few items out of her files, handed them to me, and led me off to another wing of the executive first floor, where she passed me on to another secretary who asked me to wait a moment, please. I sat down and looked at the top sheet of the stuff the first secretary had given me. It was a diagram of the corporate structure. Nothing very unusual about any of it.

  I didn’t remember Alan saying anything about an editorial department or an advertising department. Just communications, which, on this diagram, applied to both. Did two vice presidents share one department? That alone sounded like a motive for murder. I glanced quickly through the other papers. They were advertising flyers.

  The executive vice president came striding out of his office, a tall thin man with youthful bearing and gray hair. His suit was gray, too, very nicely tailored, and worn with a pale blue shirt and a gray, blue, and red-striped tie.

  “Bill Armand,” he said, sticking out his hand.

  “Jake Samson.” I took brief but firm hold of his manicure.

  “Sorry to keep you waiting. I was on the phone. Listen, I’ve got a meeting in just a few minutes. I wonder if I could get you started by taking you over to our sales chief. He knows just about everything there is to know about this place.” Armand flashed a smile that was too good to be true. Were those really his teeth?

  I was beginning to feel like a marker in a Monopoly game. If the sales vice president shook the dice again, who knew where I’d end up?

  11

  “Howard Morton is one of the most knowledgeable people we have,” Armand was saying as he walked me briskly toward the end of the hallway. “All aspects of the business. Amazing guy. Absolutely amazing. Joined the company just a couple of years ago, and he’s done wonders.”

  We passed a door marked “Controller.” I stopped. “I’ll want to meet him, too,” I said, pointing toward the closed door.

  “I’m afraid you can’t,” Armand said sadly. “He died.”

  I swallowed hard. Another one? “When was that?”

  “Last year.” The vice president looked at me coldly. “He was eighty-two years old. He had a heart attack. I’ve taken over that end of things for the time being.” He touched my elbow and got me moving again.

  “Did most of your people come out from Chicago?” I asked. I wondered how far back Smith went with the company and how far back the other executives went with Smith.

  “Well, let’s see…” he wrinkled his handsome forehead as if he actually had to think to answer my question. “Bowen, of course, is the founder. I joined him out there in 1970. Then of course there’s our communications manager. She first joined the company back in Chicago. Chloe.”

  “And what about James Smith?”

  He shook his head, sad again. This guy was a total phony. “Oh, yes. He went all the way back with Bowen, back to the fifties. So does old Ed, the man who runs our shipping department.” I thought it was interesting that only presidents and vice presidents had last names. “Old Ed,” presumably, was a mere manager. Like Chloe.

  Armand was smiling at the sales vice president’s secretary, who was young, pretty, and a little flashy. “Tell Mr. Morton we’re here to see him, Sandra.” She buzzed her boss.

  Howard Morton came bouncing out of the inner office and grabbed my hand. Armand left me with him.

  “Come right on in, Samson,” Morton said, his arm around my shoulder. “Always happy to tell the Bright Future story. Always. Happy to. Sit down. Can I have my secretary get you anything? Coffee? Or do you press guys only go for the hard stuff?” I was tempted to tell him I was a teetotaler, but I wanted him to think I was just one of the guys.

  “Nothing, thanks,” I said heartily. “Had a little more than I needed last night.” He liked that. Morton had a conversation grouping just like the president, only in white plastic. That’s where we sat, leaning back against upholstery etched with some fictitious animal’s skin wrinkles.

  Morton looked like he should be fat but managed, by sheer strength of will, to keep his belly flat. He looked like he’d just shaved. His light brown hair was carefully styled and I was pretty sure there was spray on it. It looked solid, like it wasn’t made up of individual hairs at all. He was wearing a double-knit suit that showed the contours of his bulging thighs and biceps. He looked like a cop wearing a wig.

  “Bill says you want to do a little magazine piece on us. Great idea. Tell me more about it.” He had small eyes and he kept them well covered with lid. I explained that the story wasn’t just about Bright Future, it was about home study generally, and how it stacked up against in-class education. His eyes got even smaller.

  “Uh huh. You starting with some kind of premise or are you really open to the true story?”

  “Open. Totally open, Mr. Morton.”

  “Howard.”

  “Jake.”

  “Great. Really great. Because you know home study just doesn’t have the snob appeal of, say, your trade school or college. But listen, have you seen any of the stuff we print? About the advantages of working at your own pace?”

  “Well, I haven’t read anything yet, but I’ve got a bunch of brochures and things. I thought I’d try to maybe get some quotes from the people who know what it’s all about. Tell you the truth,” I added confidentially and untruthfully, “I never went to college myself. Always thought it was overrated.”

  I’d gone too far. He looked suspicious, then covered the look with a smile. “Let’s just say that nobody should ever underrate the power and value of any kind of education, Jake. Now what kind of information, exactly, did you want from me?”

  That was a very good question.

  I wanted information about a dead man; I had to ask for information about the company he worked for.

  “Well, let’s see,” I said thoughtfully, “why don’t you tell me a little something about the courses.”

  “Better than that.” He opened a desk drawer and pulled out a handful of brochures. “I’ll give you these to take home with you.” I took them and thumbed through them. Single-fold booklets, each describing a different course. None of the brochures said anything about price. I mentioned that.

  He chuckled. “Right to the heart of things, yes sir. Rest assured, Jake. Our prices are competitive, fair, and in the right ballpark. There’s a range, of course. Depends on what the student’s getting. You just pick one, I’ll tell you what it costs.”

  “Business English.”

  “That’s a good choice. Runs two hundred dollars for the whole thing— twenty lessons, twenty-chapter textbook, and a set of ten learning guides to go with it. Just like having a teacher in your own living room. And tests. They take tests and send them in and get them corrected.”

  “Okay, what about Spanish? How do you teach a language by mail?”

  “There’s a book, and some support materials, and tapes. They can go all the way through the equivalent of a two-y
ear program if they want. Starts out at two hundred and fifty dollars for the basics.”

  “Do a lot of them manage to do it? I mean, how many students do you have?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t have the exact figures right off the top of my head at any given time. You got sign-ups who don’t go ahead, you got dropouts. But you could say we’re reaching thousands. Thousands of people.”

  “Dropouts?” I landed on the word the way I guessed a good reporter was supposed to. “You get a lot of those?”

  “Again, Jake, I don’t have the exact figures right here. But let’s say we’ve got a solid eighty percent completion rate. Of course, the academic department would know more about that. If you need the exact numbers, we can always run something off on the computer for you.”

  “Great,” I said. “I’ll get back to you on that once I’ve got the big picture.” I figured Morton could run off just about anything he wanted on the computer, and as far as I knew, the academic department was dead. But I was glad he’d brought up the subject. “And about the academic side of things— who would I talk to about that now? Is there a replacement yet for James Smith?”

  Morton looked pained. “Takes more than a few days to replace a vice president, Jake. He ran an important area of the company.”

  I nodded sympathetically. I was thinking that if Alan was right about the care that went into the company’s product, they might not bother replacing him at all.

  “Speaking of areas,” I said, “I’ve got an organization chart here and I was kind of having a quick look at it. Is it current?” I showed it to him. He nodded. “Okay,” I said. “Tell me a little about your sales operation. How it works. How do your people find out someone wants to buy a course?”

  He smiled at me patronizingly. “It’s pretty complicated, Jake. First, I should tell you about the old way, and how it used to work. Real simple. A potential student would see an ad, like one of these.” He got up, went to a bookshelf, and pulled down a book, which he brought back and opened on the coffee table. It was an album full of pages cut from magazines, with Bright Future ads on them. The one he was showing me was dated 1963. The ad showed a lot of little photographs of people saying how studying high school at home had changed their lives. There was a coupon at the bottom.