Family Secrets: A Jake Badger Mystery Thriller

by Glenn Rogers

  I waited to see if Jamison would say anything. He said nothing. His eyes were locked onto mine, his facial muscles tight. June sat quietly, observing him closely.

  “As it turns out,” I continued, “the corporate secrets go back many years and what I'm wondering is, is it possible that Jane, working in R & D, discovered one of these potential corporate scandals, and, rather than dealing with it, decided to leave.”

  Jamison’s eyes wandered the room for a moment. He swallowed. Then he brought his eyes back to mine. “That's your theory? You think Jane stumbled on a corporate secret and ran off rather than face the fact that her father's company was less than perfect?”

  June said, “You say that as if it were an outrageous and meritless idea.”

  Jamison looked at her.

  Before he could reply, our food came.

  Jamison had ordered a chicken pot pie and took a moment to open the top of it with his fork to let it cool a little. Then he said, “Jane was a smart woman. She did her job well. She was focused on the project she was working on and did not waste time digging into the corporation's past.”

  “Can you be sure?” I asked.

  “Jane and I were close. Good friends. We spent a lot of time together. If she had been digging around in the corporate archives, I would have known.”

  “You say you were close,” I said. “How close?”

  He took a deep breath. “Not as close as I would have liked. We were friends. We were not lovers.”

  “Were you aware that she was in a relationship with someone?”

  “No. How do you know she was?” he asked.

  “Because she had a son. He'll be thirty in a few months. That works out to her being about two months pregnant when she left.”

  His eyes wandered the table in front of us. He shook his head. “I didn't know.”

  I picked up my burger and took a bite. June ate some of her salad. After a moment, Jamison began nibbling at his pot pie. It looked good.

  We ate in silence for a moment. June and I would sneak glances at Jamison, trying to get a read on him. He was distressed, distracted, intentionally not looking at either of us. I wanted to know why.

  “Cole,” I said.

  He looked at me.

  “It was not our intention to make you uncomfortable. But apparently we have. You appear to be quite distressed right now. Can I ask why?”

  He looked at me and then at June.

  “Is it because Jane was pregnant?” June asked.

  “No. At the time, I loved her. But that was thirty years ago.”

  “So what is it?” I asked.

  He took a deep breath. He looked at June and said, “You're the current CEO of Lindell Industries.”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “When this is over, you need to talk with your accountants,” he said.

  “Why?” she asked.

  He focused his attention on me. “You're not the first person Lindell Industries has tried to eliminate.”

  “Who else?” June asked.

  “Me,” he said.

  We waited for him to explain. He took another bite of his pot pie. He drank some of his iced tea.

  “It wasn't Jane who discovered company secrets while poking around in the corporate archives. It was me.”

  Chapter 43

  “What did you discover?” June asked Cole Jamison.

  Jamison looked coldly at June and asked, “How much do you know and how much do you want to know?”

  “Until I know what you know,” June said, “I don't know how much I know.”

  He nodded, his eyes narrowing a bit, as if evaluating an adversary.

  “Are you aware that Lindell Industries has been paying me a substantial consulting fee each year for twenty-nine years?”

  “How much of a fee?” she asked.

  “A lot,” he said. “The deal was a hundred thousand a year with a five percent per year cost of living increase. The last check I got was for over three hundred and ninety-two thousand.”

  “For what kind of consulting? June asked.

  “The kind that allows Lindell Industries to keep their secrets secret.”

  “So you're blackmailing my company.”

  “No,” Jamison said.

  “No?”

  “No.”

  “How would you characterize it?” June asked.

  “The money they pay me is reimbursement for damages.”

  “What damages?”

  “The trauma associated with an attempt on my life.”

  “They tried to kill you?” she asked.

  “Someone there did,” he said.

  June hesitated, uncertain as to how to proceed, so I jumped in. “Why don't we stop with the twenty questions and you just tell us what happened?”

  He ate the last of his pot pie and drank some tea. Then he began. “The project I was working on, a long range listening device, was similar to an old device we'd attempted years before. I thought it might be helpful to have the info on that older model, so I went digging through the archives. I found reports on brain implant experiments and several failed devices. People had died. I understood what I had discovered. I didn't want to harm the company, but the families of the people who died had a right to know, and a right to compensation. I tried to get in to see Mr. Lindell.”

  He paused and looked at June. She remained silent.

  Jamison said, “I wanted to discuss what I considered to be an appropriate response to what had happened over the years. I didn’t want anyone else to know, so when his secretary wanted to know why I wanted to see him, I wouldn't tell her. Unless I explained what I wanted, she wouldn't schedule an appointment. So I wrote a letter to Mr. Lindell. Next thing I know, a guy shows up at my house and threatens me. Says if I know what's good for me, I'll keep my mouth shut. I didn't like being threatened. I was right and Mr. Lindell was wrong. It was a matter of principle. So I wrote another letter. I told Mr. Lindell I was not afraid of his thug and I wanted him to make things right with the families of the victims. I told him if he didn't take action on it, I would. The next day, the same thug showed up. He was waiting for me in the parking area of the apartment complex where I lived. He had a gun. A semiautomatic with a silencer attached. There was no one else around. He was between me and the apartment complex. He raised the gun and pointed it at my head. He squeezed the trigger and there was a click. But that's all. It didn't fire. The guy was so shocked that he froze for a moment. He looked at the gun and then at me and back at the gun and I took off. I ran right past him. He tried to grab me, but he missed. I must have run for a mile or more. I ended up at a buddy's house. Told him I needed to crash there for the night. He said, sure, so I did. The next day I went back to my apartment, being very careful that no one was waiting for me. No one was, so I got all the papers I had smuggled out of the archives and made several copies of them. I hid them in different locations, sending two copies to two different lawyers with instructions to open and distribute the material upon my death or disappearance. Then I wrote Mr. Lindell again and explained what I had done.”

  Jamison paused and looked first at June, then at me.

  “What happened next?” I asked.

  “Two days later a woman came to see me at my apartment. She said if I remained silent, there would be no further attempts on my life. I told her that wasn't good enough. I said that since my career was effectively over I needed an income. She said there was no reason I couldn’t continue working at Lindell Industries. I told her there was a very good reason I couldn’t. She asked what I had in mind. I told her double my annual salary plus an annual cost of living increase of five percent per year. She agreed and we arranged for payment to go into an offshore account. That was twenty-nine years ago.”

  We were all silent for a minute. Then I asked, “Why are you telling us this now, after all these years?”

  “Because of what you told me. Because they're still trying to kill people and they have to be stopped.”

&n
bsp; He looked at June. “Are you part of this?”

  “No,” she said. “I'm not. And I'm going to find out who’s responsible.”

  “And then what?” Jamison asked.

  It was a question June was not prepared to answer. I had suggested to her that her father might not be behind the attempted killings. But what if he was?

  “I don't know yet,” June said. “But I will find out who's behind the cover-ups and the killings. And I'll deal with it.”

  He took a card from his pocket and handed it to June. “You've got thirty days. Then I'm going public.”

  “You won't need to,” she said.

  “Why not?” he asked.

  “Because I will,” Jane said.

  Chapter 44

  “You believe him?” June asked as we pulled out of the parking lot. A silver Camaro pulled out into traffic behind us. Behind it was a green F150, and behind it was a white Mercedes C Class.

  “Given all that we've discovered and all that's happened,” I said, “there's no reason not to believe him.”

  June nodded.

  “Can I ask you a couple of questions?”

  “Sure,” she said.

  “How could someone be paying that kind of money each year for twenty-nine years and no one seem to know about it?”

  “That's a good question. Like Jamison said, I need to talk to our accountants. Over the years it adds up to over six million dollars.”

  I waited for her to explain. I also noticed that the Camaro was no longer behind us. The pickup and the Mercedes were still back there.

  June said, “Actually, hiding something like that in a company the size of Lindell Industries is not all that hard. Each department has a budget. There are hundreds of departments. We use dozens of consultants. Someone in a position of authority signs off on a given expense, and a check gets cut. It's listed in a valid category and the expense becomes routine. No one thinks of questioning it. The reality is that in a company the size of Lindell Industries, a few hundred thousand dollars is small change.”

  “How would you go about finding who is authorizing the payments?” I asked.

  June nodded as she thought. “Basically, it’s going to require a company wide audit.”

  The F150 had turned off. The white Mercedes was still back there. Three cars back, but still there. The street I was on, Roscoe Boulevard, would take me to the 405, which was where I wanted to go, but I needed to see if the Mercedes was following us. So I turned right. So did the Mercedes. I turned left. So did the Mercedes. I made a U-turn. So did the Mercedes. June was lost in thought and didn’t even notice what I was doing. The Mercedes stayed at least three cars behind me and sometimes five or six cars back, but it stayed with me. I made my way back to Roscoe and got on the 405, but going north instead of south.

  Finally, June asked, “Aren't we going in the wrong direction?”

  “If we were going back to my office,” I said, “yes. But right now we can't go back there.”

  She noticed me watching the rearview mirror. She turned around and looked behind us. “Are we being followed?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Lead them to an isolated location where I can discourage them from any kind of aggression.”

  She studied me for a moment. “Are they after you or me?”

  “At this point,” I said, “it doesn't really matter. They may have orders to take out both of us. They won't.”

  “Are you really that good?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you going to kill them?”

  “Not if I don’t have to,” I said. “I don't like killing. I'm good at it. I've done a lot of it. But I don't like it. If I can stop them without killing them, I will.”

  “What are the odds that you'll be able to stop them without killing them?”

  I looked at her. It wasn't the kind of question you'd expect from a fifty-something women who'd lived a life of privilege. She must have sensed my surprise, because she said, “Being the CEO of a corporation that has weapons contracts with the government and deals with the military, you learn to think in terms of battlefield strategies and realities.”

  I nodded. “The odds of their surviving the encounter are not good,” I said.

  I kept on the 405 north to the 5 and continued north on the 5 past the 210. Then I got off the freeway and followed a winding road back into an unpopulated area with lots of trees.

  I kicked up my speed to put some distance between us and the Mercedes.

  “Can you run in those shoes?” She looked at them and took them off.

  “I can run.”

  “The skirt?”

  “I can run.”

  “Okay, when I stop, you get out fast and run back to the stand of trees we will have just passed. Can you do that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Right there,” I said, “that stand of trees. When I stop, jump out and run for it. Fast as you can.”

  I went about thirty yards past the stand of trees and stopped quickly. “Go,” I said.

  She jumped out, hiked up her skirt, putting safety ahead of modesty, and ran. I jumped out the driver’s side and followed her. It took me a couple of steps to catch up to her. She was fast. I grabbed her arm and we made it to the stand of trees before the Mercedes came around the bend in the road. It was an old trick. I hoped it would work.

  We waited two minutes. Three. Five. No Mercedes. They weren’t going for it. These guys were smarter than the three guys who’d followed me the last time. We waited another few minutes just to be sure.

  “You wait here,” I said to June.

  I hurried back to my Jeep and backed up the ten yards where June was waiting. She hopped in and I drove cautiously back toward the road. We got back onto the paved road, both watching for the white Mercedes. It was gone.

  “Don’t take this the wrong way,” she said, “but are you sure they were following us?”

  “They were following us. But they were smart enough not to drive into a trap.”

  “So now what?”

  “Now we go to your place, let you pack for a few days, and then find a nice safe place to hide you.”

  I got back on the freeway and headed toward Beverly Hills, where June lived.

  Chapter 45

  June lived on North Hillcrest Drive in Beverly Hills. I scanned the street for the white Mercedes as we approached the house. There were no cars at all parked on the street.

  June's house sat far back off the street. The immaculate lawn looked better than most golf courses. Two large evergreen trees, a row of tall hedges, and a dozen or so rose bushes gave the metropolitan estate a friendly country feel. I pulled into the long driveway that circled around to the garage that stood behind the stately old home.

  “Nice house,” I said as we entered through the back door.

  “It was built in 1932,” she said as she punched in the code to disarm the security system. “Dad bought it in 1967. Jane and I were nine when we moved here.”

  “It's very nice,” I said.

  “Thank you,” she said. She smiled, but it was a tired, distracted smile. “Come with me,” she said. “You can see the house as we walk through.”

  I followed her through the expansive home. It was beautifully decorated but still felt comfortable, homey. A wide stairway off the main entryway led to the second floor.

  “So, what is this,” I asked, “about six thousand square feet?”

  “Seven,” she said as we climbed the wide curving staircase.

  “When did you move back in?”

  “Just a couple of years ago,” she said. “After Mom died, Dad moved to a smaller house in Malibu, overlooking the water. And after Greg died, our house felt cold and lonely. So I moved in here. It's home.” We went to the master suite at the far end of the second story. She pointed to a closet. I have a red bag in there,” she said as she walked past it and into the master bath. “Would you get it for me?


  “Sure.” The closet/dressing room was almost as large as my living room.

  I came out of the closet; she came out of the bathroom and went into the dressing room and closed the door. I put the small suitcase on the king sized bed. On the dresser, I noticed a photo of June and Jane and a man that I assume was June’s husband, Greg. They looked to be in their early twenties. The girls were sitting on either side of Greg. He had his arms around them. They were on a boat. He looked friendly, almost familiar. All three of them looked happy, contented.

  As I was studying the photo, my phone rang.

  “Jake,” the electronic voice said, “this is your father.” It was odd, I thought, I always referred to him as Dad. He always referred to himself as my father. “I need you to take me to my office again.”

  “Hi Dad. Having a nice day?”

  Typing.

  “No, I am not having a nice day. One of the junior associates that I recruited handed in his resignation. I need to go straighten him out.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that, Dad. But I’m kind of in the middle of something right now. I can’t take you right now.”

  More typing. “Jake, this is important. This young man has potential. I cannot let him throw away his career by expecting superior training from an inferior mind.”

  He may have had a stroke, but it hadn’t humbled him any. “Dad, what I’m doing is important, too.” I heard him start typing. “I can’t just drop what I’m doing to chauffer you around.”

  “And just what is it that you are doing that you think is more important than the career of my young associate?”

  “I’m working a very important case that involves people ever wealthier and more powerful than you, Dad. People you may even know. Certainly people you know of. During the course of the investigation two different sets of thugs have tried to warn me off the case. Two assassins have tried to kill me. A witness in Falls Church has been murdered and now my client and I are being followed. Is that important enough for you, Dad?” As soon as that question came out of my mouth, I regretted it.