by Glenn Rogers
Lyell's eyes were locked onto hers.
“Dad, Doris is ...”
“Actually, June,” I said, interrupting her. She turned to me as I continued. “Maybe we should have the rest of this conversation in your office.”
She looked from me to Conrad and back to me. “Yes, of course,” she said. “Dad, why don't we go to my office?” It wasn't really a question.
She led us out of Conrad's office.
Chapter 59
Once we were in June's office and the door was closed, June said, “Dad, Doris didn't just overstep her authority, she’s the one who's behind all of this. The payoffs, the thugs, the assassins, all of it. Doris is the one, Dad.”
Lyell was too stunned to say anything for a moment. He just stared at June, trying to make sense of it all. Finally, he said, “Doris?”
June nodded.
“But Doris has been with me almost from the beginning. We've been through so much together, she and I. How could Doris ...?”
It was almost too much for him. He went over to a chair and sat down. His eyes searched the floor in front of him. He shook his head in disbelief.
“Dad, everything that goes out of your office goes out through her, and everything that comes into your office comes in through her. Cole Jamison sent you two letters about the cover-ups. You never got them, did you?”
Still looking confused, he shook his head.
“Doris intercepted them,” June said.
Lyell looked at June.
“She’s the one who changed your budget. She doctored the books. And when I hired Jake to look into why Jane left, she knew about it because she’d had my office bugged. She hired people to scare him off and when that didn’t work, she tried to have him killed.”
It was as if every word June spoke was a burden crushing her father’s spirit under its horrible weight. It was almost more than he could bear.
June turned to me. “How do we handle this?” she asked.
“I think we need to talk to Doris,” I said.
“What about the police?” she asked.
“Right now,” I said, “all we have is Conrad's testimony that Doris told him to bug your office. We don't actually have evidence that she's done anything else. We need to get her to confess.”
“How do we do that?” she asked.
Alex said, “Got a small tape recorder?”
“Sure,” June said. She retrieved one from her desk.
Lyell was listening and watching but otherwise just sat in stunned silence.
June handed the small recorder to Alex, who slipped it into his jacket pocket.
Then June said, “So we go and confront Doris and try to get her to confess?”
“Yep,” I said. “Just like on TV.”
“There’re going to be admissibility issues with that,” she said. She was, after all, a Harvard trained lawyer.
“The recording may not be admissible in court,” Alex said. “But if she confesses with the three of us present, we've got something we can go to the police with.”
“You're an FBI agent,” June said to Alex. “Couldn't you arrest her?”
Alex and I both shook our heads. Then Alex said, “Most of what’s happened here is LAPD stuff. Better to let them handle it.”
June nodded and looked at me.
“Might as well get to it,” I said.
June looked at her father. “Ready, Dad?”
“Yes. Who's going to handle the questioning?” he asked.
Alex spoke up. “I think Jake should handle the questioning.”
June said, “I agree.”
Lyell nodded. “I will instruct Doris to cooperate fully,” he said.
We crossed the reception area between June's office and Lyell's. Lyell led the way and opened the door to his office suite. I could see past him. Ms. Wentworth smiled adoringly at him and then saw the rest of us. The smile faded. Lyell approached her desk. She looked at him with an eagerness in her eyes.
“Doris,” he said, gently. “There are some things we need to discuss. Let's go into my office.”
“Yes, Sir.” She stood and followed him into his office. June followed her. Alex followed me.
Lyell led us to his small conference table and held a chair for Doris, who sat. Lyell sat next to her. When we were all seated, Lyell said, “Doris, some disturbing information has come to light. It involves you. Mr. Badger is going to ask you some questions. I would appreciate it if you would cooperate and answer honestly.”
“Of course,” Doris said, and looked at me.
I had the four little microphones in my left hand. “Earlier this morning,” I said, “Alex and I found four listening devices in Mrs. Morrison's office.” I let the four little devices fall onto to the table. Doris looked at them.
“I took them down to Mr. Berkholtz and ask him about them.” Doris' eyes bore into mine.
“I asked him if he knew anything about them. He said that Mr. Lindell had instructed him to plant them in her office.” Doris' stared at me intently.
“Mr. Lindell, of course,” I said, “who was there with us, denied giving such an instruction. Mr. Berkholtz said that the instructions came from you. He said that you said that Mr. Lindell wanted him to plant the listening devices. He was to generate a digital transcript of the conversations that took place in Mrs. Morrison's office and to email them to you. You, then, would pass them on to Mr. Lindell.”
Doris sat like a stone statue. She didn't blink. She almost wasn't breathing. Her hands were folded, resting on the table.
“Is Mr. Berkholtz telling the truth?” I asked.
She didn't respond.
Lyell reached over and tenderly put his hand on hers. “Doris,” he said softly.
She turned her head and looked at him.
“I did not instruct you,” Lyell said, “to have Mr. Berkholtz bug June's office.”
Doris' chin began to quiver. Her eyes began to tear up. She shook her head and began to cry. “No, you didn't.”
“Why did you tell Mr. Berkholtz I did?” Lyell asked.
She looked at Lyell and then at June and then at Lyell again. In a trembling voice, she said, “Because we needed to know what she was planning. She's trying to take your company away from you. We needed to know what she was going to do next so we could stop her.”
It looked as if Lyell's heart was breaking as she spoke. He shook his head. “Doris,” he said, his hand still grasping hers gently. “June isn't trying to take the company away from me. I'm giving it to her. June is my daughter and I'm giving the company to her. She's worked very hard for many years to be ready to take over for me. She isn't taking it from me.”
Doris tried to get her crying and breathing under control. I looked at June. What she was witnessing mystified her.
I gave Doris a moment and then said, “Ms. Wentworth.”
She gave me her attention.
“There are some additional concerns we need to talk about.”
She nodded.
I hesitated and then said, “Cole Jamison.”
Her eyes began to wander the table in front of her. Her lips were clamped tightly shut.
“Twenty-nine years ago he discovered some, shall we say, uncomplimentary information about Lindell Industries. He tried to schedule an appointment with Mr. Lindell to discuss the matter. But he did not want to tell you what the meeting was about and you would not schedule one for him. Then he tried to communicate by means of a letter about what he had discovered. He thought Mr. Lindell had gotten the letter. But the letter never got to Mr. Lindell, did it?”
Doris kept her eyes focused on the table in front of her but did not respond.
I said, “Someone hired an assassin to kill him.”
Doris began breathing faster and harder.
“The attempt failed,” I said, “and Mr. Jamison again attempted to contact Mr. Lindell, explaining that if anything happened to him, the information about Lindell Industries’ indiscretions would become public. He al
so explained that since he could no longer work at Lindell Industries, he would need an annual income. He wanted one hundred thousand dollars a year, plus an annual cost of living increase of five percent. Mr. Lindell never got that letter either, did he?”
Her eyes came up from the table to meet mine, but she did not speak.
I forged ahead. “You've been paying him a great deal of money each year for the past twenty-nine years haven't you?”
Lyell gently squeezed her hand.
“Yes,” she said.
“But before you began paying him,” I said, “you hired someone to kill him.”
“He was going to hurt Lyell. He was going to ruin Lyell's company. I had to protect my Lyell.”
Lyell removed his hand from Doris' and she turned to him. “He was going to ruin you. Don't you see? I had to protect you. That's what you do for those you love. You protect them. I love you, Lyell. I've always loved you. From the very first day. I love you. Don’t you know that? I had to protect you and your company.”
We were all quiet for a moment. Then I said, “And when I began to look into why Jane left, you thought I might discover the same indiscretions Mr. Jamison had discovered.”
She nodded. “I didn’t know why Jane left,” Doris said. “But given that she worked in R & D, I thought it was possible she had discovered some of the mistakes the company had made. I thought that being an idealistic young woman, but also loving her father, she might have decided to leave rather than become a whistle blower. I thought if you started digging up the past, the mistakes would be made public.” Doris' voice seemed distant and disconnected now. “Lyell would be disgraced,” she said. “I couldn't let that happen.”
“So you called someone and asked him to send people to warn me off.”
She nodded and said, “Yes.”
“And when that didn't work,” I said, “you had him send people to kill me.”
“Yes.” She brought her eyes back to mine.
“And when they failed, you had more people sent after me.”
“Yes,” she said. “But you were too good for them, too tough and too stubborn. You’re a lot like Lyell.”
“And when you learned that there was a witness in Falls Church?”
“I made another call. And he sent someone to shut her up so she couldn't hurt Lyell.”
“Who sent the assassins, Ms. Wentworth?” I asked.
She shook her head. “I don’t know. I just call a number and then send money.”
Lyell's head was bowed. I thought he might have been crying.
She turned to him. “I did it all for you, my love. I did it all for you.”
Lyell looked at her for a moment, sadness and pain in his tear-filled eyes. Then, without a word, he got up and walked out of his office.
Chapter 60
The rest of us sat quietly for a moment. Then Doris, turned to June and said, “I love him, you know. I always have. That’s why I stayed all these years. I never married. I took care of him. I protected him.”
June listened patiently, feeling sorry for Doris Wentworth. I could see it in June's eyes. She was wondering how long Doris had been sick.
“I never married,” Doris said. “I waited for him. I knew that eventually he'd come around. Eventually he'd realize that he loved me, too. We're going to be married, Lyell and me. Would you like to be my maid of honor?”
June gave her a small, sad smile.
Was Doris acting, I wondered? Or had being confronted with what she'd done driven her over the edge? I didn't know. It wasn't up to me to decide. What I did know was that she'd told us enough. She'd confessed. Now I could call McGarry.
When he answered, he assumed there was another body to collect. He was happy to know no one else had been killed and that we had a live suspect for him to arrest. He said to give him forty-five minutes. I told June and Alex that he was on his way. Doris was sitting there, but I don't know if she understood what I was talking about or not.
June said, “I need to go find my father. Can you two stay here with her?”
“Sure,” I said.
It took McGarry about thirty minutes to question Doris. They’d do a more thorough investigation at police headquarters. They’d find out who she’d called to arrange the hits. She’d give them the number. They’d also check her cell phone.
McGarry had two uniforms stay with her in Lyell's office and took Alex and me into the outer office to get statements from us regarding her confession. Alex gave Frank the recording. Frank asked Alex to find Lyell and June so they could give their statements as well.
He had everything he needed in about an hour and had the uniforms take Doris away. He thanked us and left.
Lyell was very upset and said he was going home. I thanked Alex for his help. He said goodbye to June and left. June and I went into her office. She asked Ingrid to bring us some tea. We sat and tried to unwind as we sipped the warm, soothing liquid.
“How's your father?” I asked.
“He'll be okay,” June said. “He's a little shook up right now. Feeling guilty that he didn’t know what was going on.”
“And you told him there was no way he could have known.”
“Yes.”
“And he said that he should have known.”
She nodded.
There wasn't much to say. We sat quietly for a while.
Then June said, “Well, I guess that's it, huh?”
I studied her for a moment. “No, I don't think that's it.”
She looked at me as she sipped her tea. “You think there's more to find out about Jane?”
“I do.”
“You think it matters now?”
“I do.”
“I'm not sure it does,” June said.
“There are still questions that need to be asked and answered,” I said. “If they mattered two weeks ago, they matter today.”
She considered it for a moment and finally nodded. “So what are you going to do?”
“I'm going to keep asking questions. And I'm going to show copies of that photo around until someone remembers something.”
“The photo,” she said. She went to her computer, put a sheet of photo quality paper in her printer and then found the file she wanted. She printed the picture and brought it to me.
“You probably won't hear from me for a couple of days,” I said. “I'm going to be very busy. You try to get things back to normal here, and I'll get back to you when I have some information about Jane.”
*****
It was lunchtime and I was hungry. But I missed Wilson. So I drove back to my office. When I came into the office, Wilson spent a couple of minutes jumping around, greeting me with the kind of enthusiasm you can only get from a dog that loves you. I waited around long enough to tell Mildred the sordid details of Doris Wentworth of Lindell Industries. She listened patiently and then shook her head and said, “Love can be one of the best things in life, or it can be one of the worst.”
I took Wilson with me to In-N-Out Burger. I ordered a double double with fries and a chocolate shake for me and a plain double double and some fries for Wilson. We ate in the Jeep, listening to the Beatles.
It was a nice lunch. Afterward, we went back to the office and I explained to Mildred what I was going to do. I told Wilson that he would need to stay with Mildred for a couple more days. He woofed gently at me and then went to lie down on his pillow.
Chapter 61
The next morning I was up early, went for a run, ate, packed a bag, gassed up the Wrangler and hopped on the 10 East, heading for Tempe, Arizona.
I wasn't in a big hurry. I stopped twice for a Coke and had lunch at a Pizza Hut about half an hour east of Phoenix. The drive to Tempe took me just under eight hours.
I went to the motel where I'd stayed the last time and checked in. The clerk remembered me and asked if I wanted the same room. I told him it didn't matter. He put me in a different room—a different room that was identical to the room I'd stayed in the last time.<
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It was mid-afternoon. Eric wouldn't be home yet. So I decided to go to a movie. I found a nice theater not too far from the motel. The theater was dark and cool, the popcorn was fresh and hot, the movie was mindless syfy fun, a group of intergalactic criminal misfits who had to save the galaxy.
After the movie, I went back to my room to read. At five, I drove by the house to see if Eric was home. His truck was in the driveway. I parked on the street and went to the door.
“Hello, Eric,” I said when he opened the door.
“Hello, Jake,” he said as he stepped aside so I could enter.
He was drinking a Coke Zero.
“Want one?” he asked, holding the can up.
“Sure.”
I sat on the sofa while he went to the kitchen.
“I wondered if you'd be back,” he said, handing me a cold, black can.
“Thought any more about your family?” I asked.
He sat down, took a deep breath, took a drink, and said, “Yes.”
I waited. When he didn't explain, I said, “And?”
He was thinking.
“I wasn't completely honest with you before. I do know who my father is.”
I studied him for a moment. I knew who his father was, too. I’d figured it out a couple of days before. I reached into the inside pocket of my sport coat and took out the picture June had given me, the one I'd seen in her bedroom, the one with Greg Morrison sitting between Jane and June, his arms around each of them.
I handed it to Eric. “Here's a picture of him,” I said.
He looked at it and nodded. “How'd you know?” he asked.
“How'd I know? You’re like a clone of him. You're a little older now than he was when that photo was taken. But you look just like him. As soon as I saw the picture, I knew.”
He nodded again and handed it back to me. “Mom had the same picture,” he said. “It's still sitting on the dresser in her room.”
We each took a drink of soda.
“Your grandfather would like to meet you,” I said. “So would your aunt.”
He nodded. “Mom said they would.”