Murder In Her Dreams

by Nell DuVall

  “Thanks. I appreciate it. It’s the big one. Only a couple of weeks to go.”

  Ian noticed Jim Mears had already gone as he left Bert’s office. Justin smiled up at Ian as he passed his desk. MaryLou had her purse out, getting ready to leave. Ian returned to his office no wiser than when he had left it.

  So, Bert had money for a Lexus. Had he saved it or taken it? All the accounts balanced. The procedures installed after Harrison’s theft would prevent anything like that happening again.

  Ian hadn’t gotten anything more out of Bert than he had out of Justin. He wanted something. Just one little thing.

  Confronting them had revealed nothing. Both had played innocent. Could Cassie be wrong? Maybe Bradford Harrison was someone else, but how could he tell? He had no idea, but he leaned just a little toward Justin. Maybe if he searched their desks he might find something, something to identify one of them as Bradford Harrison.

  “Do you need anything else before I go?” MaryLou stood at his open door as she did before leaving every evening. “I switched the phones over already.”

  “Thanks. No, I have a few things to clear up here. Have the others gone yet?”

  “Jim left ten minutes ago. Justin and Bert are still here. I think they’re going to the Y to lift weights.”

  “I know. Bert said he’s getting ready for a contest.”

  “It’s all he talks about these days.” MaryLou grinned. “I’ve heard Arnold this and Arnold that.”

  Ian sighed. “I guess I shouldn’t complain. He doesn’t smoke or drink and always shows up to work on time. Those two certainly believe in keeping fit.”

  The gunman had looked fit, too. Ian still had a sore spot on his scalp. He touched it gingerly.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow. Good night, Ian,” MaryLou called as she headed out the door.

  Leaning back in his chair, Ian pondered the evening ahead. MaryLou had a family and always left by five-fifteen unless some rush work kept her. The last few times Justin and Bert had gone to the Y on a Monday they had left around five-thirty.

  Ian glanced at his watch. It read five-fifteen. With Jim and MaryLou gone, he had roughly fifteen minutes before the others would leave and he could begin his search. He didn’t like the idea of going through their desks, but what else could he do? Their responses when he called them Brad had been inconclusive.

  The gunman’s threats still rankled. The man had invaded his office and attacked him. Ian clenched his fists, wanting to hit back. If Cassie’s hunch was right, Bradford Harrison had to be either Bert Hansen or Justin Lord. Cassie favored Bert because of his initials, but Ian found it hard to see either as the would-be killer. All their references checked out. Neither he nor MaryLou had discovered any loose ends. There was always the chance that neither of them was Bradford.

  If it had only been Cassie’s dreams and that load of bricks, he could still dismiss them as coincidence. The gunman changed everything. Ian’s new feelings for Cassie added weight to her words.

  In his mind, he played and replayed the scene with the killer. If he could find one characteristic, accent, or tone of voice he could identify, it would help, but he had come up with nothing. Thinking about Justin and Bert didn’t help. They looked enough alike in height and size to be twins — only their hair differed. One had blond hair, the other black, but the ski mask had hidden the gunman’s hair.

  They both had brown eyes. Either of them could have been the would-be killer. He hadn’t said anything to the police about Bradford Harrison. Maybe he should. The police had the resources to locate Harrison. Ian opened his desk drawer and pulled out Officer Jackson’s card. He punched the number and waited.

  “Officer Jackson is unavailable. After the tone, you may leave a message. If this is an emergency or you need to speak to someone now, punch 1 and wait for an operator.”

  What he had to tell Officer Jackson was important, but not urgent. Ian waited for the tone. “This is Ian McLeod. You responded to a 9-1-1 call on Saturday at McLeod Enterprises. I have reason to believe my assailant was Bradford Harrison. I have no address or other information on him.”

  Ian left his phone number and hung up. Now the police could help hunt for Brad Harrison.

  A stirring in the outer office drew his attention, and he glimpsed Justin and Bert through the open door.

  “Night, Ian,” Bert called.

  “Night, Mr. McLeod,” Justin added. They both waved as they left.

  “Good evening. Enjoy yourselves.”

  When the outer door closed behind them, Ian rose and locked it. He usually kept the door to the office suite locked if he worked late and the others had gone. Anyone unlocking it to enter would warn him by the noise they made.

  He waited until five forty-five. Time enough for Bert or Justin to come back for anything they might have forgotten. He should have plenty of time to search without interruption before the cleaners arrived at seven.

  Justin’s desk sat cater corner across the main office from MaryLou’s. In the far right corner, next to the door into the inner offices, it provided quick access to the files and copier. While MaryLou faced the main entrance, he had his back to it.

  Because Justin sat in the main reception area, MaryLou made sure he kept his desk neat and his personal items out of view. Justin had only a desk and a chair. No bookcase, no files, no personal mementos. The blank expanse of the empty desk revealed nothing. Only vacant twin In/Out trays occupied the desk surface. No help there at all, or was there? Did the emptiness mean Brad masqueraded as Justin Lord? No, he could blame the emptiness on MaryLou. Ian sighed.

  As he walked around Justin’s desk, his conscience tugged at him. He had never gone through another person’s desk before. He felt like a sneak, but he squared his shoulders and pulled open the top drawer. It held a jumble of items — a ceramic mug, several plastic forks and spoons, a few packets of dried soup, a gold earring, and two Skor candy bars. He pushed the items aside, but saw only the bottom of the metal drawer.

  He picked up the earring and turned it over. It still bothered him to see otherwise normal young men sporting earrings. It said punk to him, but Justin wasn’t a punk. So why the earring? Unsatisfied, Ian shoved the drawer shut.

  He had no idea what he had expected to find. He hoped for some clue that would make it obvious Justin or Bert had another identity, but for the life of him, he could not imagine what that clue might be.

  He sighed and pulled open the second drawer. It held paper, pens, paper clips, rubber stamps, and elastic bands. The bottom drawer had a procedures manual, Justin’s employee file, and the three-inch thick American Institute of Certified Public Accountants’ AICPA Uniform CPA Exam.

  Flipping through the file, he found only copies of Justin’s application and last performance review. Ian and MaryLou had given him high marks. Nothing unusual, nothing special, and, except for the earring, nothing personal.

  Ian pushed the drawers shut. Disappointment knifed through him. He had learned nothing. He sighed and stood. Bert’s office remained next. He didn’t expect he would find anything there either, but he had to look.

  He crossed to the door in front of Justin’s desk and walked though to the workroom. As he passed Jim’s empty office, his footsteps echoed on the tile floor. Something creaked. Ian looked behind him, but saw nothing except the files. He entered Bert’s office and circled around behind the desk.

  Bert had a picture of Arnold Schwarzenegger sitting front and center. A copy of the AICPA Uniform CPA Exam sat on the right corner of the desk. Neatly stacked files waited for MaryLou in the Out tray. In the adjacent bookcase, a pile of weightlifting and fitness magazines filled one shelf.

  Ian decided to tackle the desk first. He started with Bert’s desk drawers. The top one had supplies — stationary, pens, staples. The middle drawer had multiple column forms, although they were primarily used as worksheets. Like many of their clients, McLeod Enterprises kept most records on computers now. The bottom drawer held working files related
to the customer accounts that Bert handled. Ian thumbed through them, but observed nothing out of place.

  He leaned back and surveyed the office again. Everything looked innocuous. Nothing jumped at him as being unusual. He tapped his fingers on the desktop. So far, his search had yielded nothing and had only made him feel like a nosy busybody.

  He had wasted his time. There was nothing to find. He was a fool to think Bradford Harrison would leave anything incriminating around. Unless. Unless Harrison had been in a hurry or had forgotten about something, but where? In a file? A book?

  Ian lifted each of the accounting textbooks from the shelf and fanned the pages. A few old slips of paper fell out. Two were credit card slips, another three were receipts, but all looked ordinary. He riffled the pages of the weightlifting magazines, but turned up nothing else.

  He surveyed the office again. He tried the file cabinet, but it was locked. Damn. He would have to ask MaryLou about duplicate keys for the files. Either there was nothing to find or it had been well hidden.

  He looked at the desk again. A large blotter occupied the center of the desk. He lifted a right corner of the blotter. Beneath it, he saw a wrinkled piece of white paper, roughly 3” x 5”.

  Ian started. He stared more closely at the paper. It looked familiar.

  The note Cassie Blake had sent him. He vaguely remembered having thrown it away. So how did it get here, and why had Bert kept it? To the best of his recollection, he had crumpled it up and tossed it in the trash. That would explain the wrinkles.

  The cleaning crew emptied the wastebaskets every evening except Friday and Saturday. He couldn’t remember when he had received the note, but he thought it had been during the week. Someone must either have taken it from his office before the cleaning crew arrived or gone through the building trash later. Going through the building trash made no sense. The chances of anyone finding the crumpled ball and opening it out would be too astronomical to be realistic.

  If someone had taken the note from his office, then whoever had taken it must have gained access when he wasn’t there. During the day, he didn’t lock the office, but he did when he left in the evening.

  MaryLou sat right outside his office during business hours and would certainly have noticed if someone had been in there for any length of time. Yet would she have thought it strange if Justin or Bert had been in his office for a while? That would probably depend on what they had told her. It was possible.

  He had asked for tangible evidence and now he held it in his hand. Bert? He had an obsession with weightlifting, but in Ian’s view, they had always gotten along. Bert had never shown any dislike or anger toward him.

  His gut twisted as Ian sank onto Bert’s chair. Cassie had been right, Bert must be Bradford Harrison. So why hadn’t he reacted to the name Brad?

  Why would Bert save the note? Had it frightened him? Did he think someone else knew he was Bradford Harrison? That made sense. Had he saved the note to identify the sender? Brad Harrison already knew who Cassie was. He had called her.

  Who had been in the office the day Cassie Blake had come to warn him? Ian tried to remember that day. He saw again Cassie spilling the coffee on the carpet. Only MaryLou, Cassie, and he were present. Jim and Bert had been with clients and MaryLou had said something about Justin doing some errand for her. Other than MaryLou and Sharon, he hadn’t said anything to anyone else. Several weeks had passed since. It would be hard to learn anything now.

  He crumpled the note. The crunch of the paper drew his eyes down. A noise in the reception area startled him. Someone was in the office. Maybe Bert had come back. Ian hurried to smooth out the note and replace it under the blotter.

  He walked quickly through the workroom. At the door to the reception area, he paused and peered around the end of the open door.

  Charlie, the cleaner, pulled his vacuum into the reception area and reached for the cleaning cart blocking the entry door. Ian let out a pent up breath. Just Charlie.

  “Hi, Mr. McLeod, don’t see much of you anymore.”

  “Hi, Charlie, I’m just leaving, don’t want to get in your way.” Ian strode into his office and pulled his suit coat from the back of the door.

  “I can clean in here later,” Charlie called.

  Ian shrugged on his jacket as he walked through the reception area. “No need. Good night.”

  He left the office and walked toward his car, head down. He had trusted Bert. His betrayal burned Ian’s gut, a bitter acid eating his insides. After James Harrison, he had promised himself he would never let anyone be that close to him again. He had liked Bert. Only he wasn’t Bert. He was Bradford Harrison.

  For a moment, Ian considered confronting Bert with the note. He could go to the Y or to Bert’s home later. He wanted this business over.

  He had already alerted the police about Bradford Harrison. Now he could tell them about Bert. However, other than the note, he had no evidence. He wanted to put this twisted man behind bars. Ian wanted to make sure he could never hurt anyone ever again.

  Bradford Harrison had been clever, very clever, to create a new identity. If Ian confronted him, he might deny the whole thing or just disappear again and try something else. No, the more Ian considered it, confronting Bert might be satisfying, but it would solve nothing. He had time. He didn’t need to be rash or bullheaded about this.

  Now his enemy had a face, he could guard himself and Cassie. Bert would not catch him unaware again.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Cassie avoided downtown Columbus, especially in the afternoon — too many people, too much traffic. As the capital of Ohio, Columbus contained a plethora of state and federal offices. Unfortunately, most of them had chosen downtown sites to be near the governor and legislators. The Bureau of Vital Statistics closed at 4:30 so she had roughly two hours.

  She drove past the address of the Bureau Reading Room on East Chestnut Street just beyond High Street. No parking places remained near the tall office building. With business people, shoppers, and state officials, she always found downtown parking a hassle even though hot, dusty parking lots covered most of the vacant land.

  At last, she located a place in the shade of a tall building on a two-hour meter several blocks from the Bureau. She parked the car and then fished in her wallet for the necessary quarters. It might be borderline, but the meter should last until the Bureau closed. She didn’t need a parking ticket.

  Cassie suspected a search of the birth records would provide a vital clue to Bradford Harrison. Exactly what she would find, she didn’t know, but something.

  Inside the building, she took the elevator to the sixth floor and then followed the signs to the Bureau. A dark haired woman behind the counter looked up as she entered.

  “Good afternoon, my name is Cassie Blake. I made an appointment with Bonnie Dawson to check on some records this afternoon.”

  The clerk checked a log in front her. “Yes, I have you down in the book. The readers are to your left. If you need any help, let me know.”

  “Thanks.”

  The small reading room looked strictly utilitarian. State-issue gray tables and chairs encouraged the readers to finish their task quickly. A man and two women sat at the three microfiche readers at the first of the three tables so Cassie continued on to the second. She stopped at the first empty place, pulled out the chair, and switched on the machine. The screen glowed a lighter shade of gray. Next to each machine sat a file of microfiche.

  Cassie wondered why the Bureau hadn’t converted it files to electronic form, but suspected the State wasn’t interesting in making access easy. She had used the microfiche index before so she skipped over the death certificate index and concentrated on the file of births. The index provided access to the certificate number by year, county, and then last name.

  She found the appropriate year and quickly located the fiche for Franklin County and the city of Columbus. Unlike the Ohio Historical Society, the Bureau had fairly new readers. She positioned the microfiche c
ontaining the H’s in the reader and adjusted the focus. She quickly scanned down to Hansen. Barbara, Barry, Berry, Buck, Burt. No Bert. She checked the date of birth for Burt, but it didn’t match the one given her by Ian. She scanned back, but nothing seemed to fit. Had Ian given her the wrong date? Bert short for? Bertel, but she hadn’t found a Bertel either. Albert? A little old-fashioned, but maybe. She repositioned the fiche. Sure enough, she found an Albert Hansen with the same birth date as Bert Hansen. Ian hadn’t mentioned the name Albert, but she could appreciate why Bert might have shortened it. She noted the certificate number and replaced the index fiche.

  One down and two to go. She located the appropriate fiche for Lord and repeated the process. Jason, Jeffrey, Jennifer, John. Lots of Johns. This time she had no problem locating the entry and quickly noted the certificate number. With the right name, birth date, and birthplace, she had been able to locate the record quickly.

  Bradford Harrison took a little more work. According to Ian, Bradford’s father, James Harrison, had lived in Columbus his entire life so she limited the search to Columbus and started by assuming he had been born in the same year or one near the other two. She hoped he didn’t have a different first name or she would never find him.

  First, she tried the same year as Bert and Justin, but failed to find a Bradford Harrison. Next, she searched a year ahead. No Bradford. She tried a year back. Still nothing. This could get tedious. She tried two years earlier and found him at last. With a sigh of satisfaction, she copied down his certificate number.

  At the service counter, she filled out request slips to look at the three records and left them with the clerk. Some fifteen minutes later, the clerk called her name.

  The dark haired clerk pointed to the ledger-sized book on the counter. “Here are the first two. I’ll be back shortly with the other one.”

  Cassie stared down at the green covered book that held copies of the certificates. She thumbed through to Bert’s record and then to Justin’s. As she read Justin’s, she let out a low whistle. Under race, “BLK" had been recorded. All three men had been born before 1974. All Ohio public records after that date carried no indication of race.