Old Poison

by Joan Francis

  * * * * *

  EIGHTEEN

  “Why don’t you join me for lunch in my private office?”

  “Nate, you have an office? I thought you just conducted business in the park.”

  He was still clutching my arm, and my anger made my voice loud enough to turn a few heads. Nate’s eyes shifted around to take in the curious looks, then he laughed as if I had made a joke. Then he said, “Only when we’re doing the ecology survey, my dear. Today I think my office will be much more comfortable.”

  Looking down at his hand on my arm, I replied through a clenched-teeth smile, “I think I’d rather take my chances in MacArthur Park at midnight.”

  He dropped my arm like it was hot and looked lamely at his offending hand as if it had acted upon its own volition. “It’s great to see you again, my dear,” he said warmly, then gave me a hug and a peck on the cheek as if we were long-lost buddies. As he did, he whispered in my ear, “Diana, please, there are watchers.”

  As he pulled back, I could see the fear in his eyes. Either this guy was genuinely frightened or he was a wonderful actor. Knowing Sam was listening to my lapel mike I asked, “Okay Nate, but I have something to take care of first. Where is your office? I’ll meet you there in about five minutes.”

  “Good! I’m in the Jason building, right across the street, suite 1200. Thanks.”

  He turned and walked away, and I watched him wend his way through the crowd, dispensing hugs and kisses as if this were a family reunion instead of an insurance conference. My cell phone rang. “Yeah Sam?”

  “I thought we agreed you would steer clear of any close encounters.”

  “The situation is a little different than anticipated, and I do have a lot of questions for him to answer. You get that location?”

  “Yeah, I’m on the way. Be careful.”

  While Nate was still schmoozing his way through the crowd, I walked across the street and took the Jason building elevator to the 11th floor. Quietly I entered the fire staircase and started for the 12th floor. As I rounded the landing, I caught a very surprised-looking Sam sitting on the top step near the door. Always prepared, Sam wore the coverall uniform of a ubiquitous electrical service company and had a toolbox of legitimate-looking equipment.

  Covering his surprise, he said, “Good girl! You learned something on your last case, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah, I guess so.” In my last case I had been trapped on an upper floor by some unpleasant people and had learned the benefit of fire stairs and caution.

  “Well, I checked the hall for you,” he said. “His office is locked and no time to check it out. I don’t see any muscle, but the place is lousy with both surveillance and counter-surveillance equipment. He will probably know you’re wearing a wire, but that’s okay. Put him on notice not to pull anything. Here, take a look.”

  He reached under the top tool tray and handed me a video screen about the size of a pocket TV. It was hooked to a tiny wire that slipped under the door, and on the screen I could see a fish bowl view of the entire hall. As I watched, the elevator opened. A waiter stepped out and pushed a food cart down the hall to suite 1200. He unlocked the door and entered, leaving the door standing open. I handed the screen back to Sam, quietly opened the fire door, and waved Sam a goodbye.

  As I walked quietly past the office door, I could see the waiter’s back as he set out lunch on a small round table. I hit the elevator button to open and close the door, then clomped loudly back up the hall, humming to myself. When I reached the open door, I gave two friendly raps on the wood and said, “Hi, Nate.”

  The waiter whipped around, and I feigned surprise and laughed. “Whoops, guess I beat him back here. Oh, coffee, wonderful! Could I get you to pour me a cup of that? I missed mine and was yawning all through the morning session.”

  His occupational desire to present excellent service vied with his suspicion that there might be something not quite kosher about my entering Nate’s office. As he served me, however, the routine won out over the troubling prospect of questioning my presence. I pulled a twenty from my purse and slipped it in his hand as I ushered him out the door saying, “Let’s leave the rest covered to stay warm until he gets here.”

  With the door shut, I looked around Nate’s office. I was sure I would be the star of Nate’s office surveillance video, but I didn’t even care. He had certainly gotten a good view of my apartment. At least my bedroom and bathroom were walled off from his surveillance.

  His large, prestigious corner office had windows on two sides, giving him a spectacular view of the city. It was sparsely furnished, no hard wood, only easily replaceable pine and man-made materials, not the ostentatious display one normally expects from VP quarters. It was neat as a pin. That was predictable.

  The first file cabinet held only insurance papers; the second was dedicated to weather and global warming. Nate had been doing his research for years. A wooden cabinet held what I was looking for, video tapes. I was determined to retrieve the ones of my apartment and searched through his neatly organized cabinet with careless abandon, dumping the tapes on the floor.

  I did not hear the door open, but despite the surprise, I managed not to jump when Nate said, “Good afternoon, Diana.”

  Without taking my hands from the file cabinet I replied, “Hi ya, Nate.”

  He shut the door and punched in a code on the security control panel, then hung his jacket in the closet. Moving to his desk, he pushed a button that closed the drapes on all the windows. Then he opened a gadget on the top of his desk revealing a flat video screen and a number of controls. When the screen lighted it showed one small blinking red light. He compressed his lips slightly as he considered the light. Looking at me and at the mess I had made on the floor, he said, “I think you’ll find what you’re looking for in the out-basket on the front of my desk. I had them out to give to you this morning.”

  As I walked around the desk, he watched the little blinking dot on his screen. I could see that when I moved, it moved. Leaning over the top of his desk to get a better view, I could see that the screen contained a floor plan of the office and all of its furnishings. My red dot and I were now directly in front of his desk. As I leaned forward, so did Nate. Speaking in the general direction of my lapel, he said, “And good afternoon, Sam.”

  “Neat gadget,” I said.

  “Yes, it’s a helpful tool, and those drapes are of a special, very expensive material that prevents anyone from picking up the vibrations of our conversation on the window pane. So now that we know that Sam is the only one listening, we can talk.”

  From his out-basket I picked up four video tapes with my initials and a date. Well, that eliminated any question in my mind as to whether or not he knew I was coming today.

  “Over in the hall you said there were watchers. Now I see you’re serious about that. Who’s spying on you, Nate?”

  “Let’s eat, shall we? We don’t have much time. Sorry I can’t invite you to join us, Sam, but I only ordered for two.”

  We settled in at the small round table, and Nate played mother and served us. It looked and smelled delicious, and like the picnic lunches he had served me, was completely vegetarian. As he filled our plates he said, “I don’t have time for chit chat, Diana. I need to know if you found the diary.”

  “I’ll have answers before I give any. Who is spying on you, Nate?”

  He shrugged. “Just standard corporate security.”

  “Right, and I suppose you’re going to tell me that your corporate security has access to the Big Brother chip you put in my TV.”

  To my amazement, Nate lost it. He slammed his fork down and his face went red. His eyes were red and watery. Fatigue? Or had he actually been having a good cry? Whatever cool he had managed this morning was gone. In a loud voice he said, “No, the guy I had sweep my office for bugs found that chip in that video surveillance camera over the door, just like Sam found it in your TV.”

  He leaned forward and touched both of my arms wit
h his hands. His voice changed to a plea as he asked, “Diana, please don’t ask any more questions. I can’t answer them, and believe it or not I am trying to protect you as well as myself. The only way to do that is to pass that damned diary on to its next Caretaker and forget we ever saw it. If we don’t do that, and do it fast, we are in as much danger as Evelyn was.”

  Stunned, I sat a moment evaluating him and deciding on my response. “That’s a very convincing performance, but then you have played all of your roles well, Mr. Borson, and played me for a sucker. I don’t care if the very hounds of Hell are chasing us. I don’t intend to play blindman’s bluff anymore. I want the facts. First fact: Did you kill Evelyn or have her killed?”

  He was silent, examining me. “Would you believe me if I told you no?”

  “Who did?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I slammed my closed fist down on the pine table, rattling the dishes. “Whoever killed her had to have read the diary. You must have at least a short list of suspects. Who else knew about that diary?”

  “Diana, I don’t know which group did it, and knowing anything about them will just put you in danger. I won’t have another death on my hands if I can help it. I’m so sorry I involved you in this, but I didn’t know . . . so you might as well stop with the questions. I won’t answer them.”

  I had imagined several possible scenarios for this interview, including ones that had made me bring both my stun gun and my Walther. This, however, wasn’t one of them. His fear seemed genuine, but I was determined to have some answers. It was time to play my trump card. From my wallet I pulled out the business card for Special Agent Neal Camas. Handing it to him, I said, “In Arizona I had a very interesting talk with Agent Camas.”

  His eyes moved slowly from the card to my face. “Did you tell him about the diary?”

  “No. I told him about my disappearing clients, the ones I met in city parks and on bicycle trails, and failed to get their address or phone number. He got a good chuckle out of that. Somehow, he seemed to think it reflected rather poorly on my professionalism. And you know what? I had to agree with him. I did promise him that if I ever heard from Mr. Borson again, I would get back to him with the address and phone number. I believe he is quite eager to talk with you about Evelyn’s death. Now, as much as I disliked this little prick, either you answer my questions or I call him up and answer his questions, all of them: diary, red stuff and all.”

  Nate put both elbows on the table, folded one hand over the other, and rested his chin in the cup formed by his thumbs. His eyes strayed in the general direction of the drapes, and he sat silent for a full minute. Finally, looking back at me, he said, “Okay, Diana, you give me no choice. I’ll tell you the whole story and hope to hell it keeps you from doing something that would sign both our death warrants.”

  * * * * *

  NINETEEN

  He opened his office safe, took out a large manila file, and placed it on the table. As he pulled out his first exhibit, I was astonished to see that it was an eight-by-ten-picture frame with three pictures of himself and Evelyn, looking like happy lovers. One picture was in front of Niagara Falls, one in front of an enormous glacier, and one on a tropical beach somewhere.

  “We met two and a half years ago at a global warming seminar in Costa Rica.” His voice cracked with emotion and he paused. I sat absolutely spellbound. Nothing he could have told me would have surprised me more. What was wrong with my people reader? I hadn’t had a clue.

  Regaining control, he continued in a matter-of-fact tone. “We had a lot of common interests and spent as much time together as possible. She always worked it so we met outside the United States, except for that one time that we took a quick trip to Niagara during a holiday in Canada. Eventually she told me about the warrant for her arrest after her protest at Blue Morpho Petroleum, but not until her lawyer had succeeded in getting all of the charges dropped. She still didn’t tell me about Mars and Red 19---not then, anyway.

  “We were on our last trip, the one to Tahiti, when the house in San Jose, Costa Rica, burned. Evelyn and her colleagues had used the place as a headquarters for their environmental movement. Everyone inside was killed, and Evelyn later told me that they were all dead before the fire started.

  “She was totally changed after that: haunted, paranoid, distant, distracted. Half the time she wouldn’t even hear what I was saying to her. Finally she began to tell me about this secret society she belonged to, the Caretakers of the Martian Diary. It was upsetting to see that she believed this tale about Martian pollution destroying that planet’s atmosphere and Martians migrating here. I told myself that the deaths of her friends, and her accidental escape, had just temporarily unhinged her mind. I was trying to be supportive and protective and humor her until she got over the shock. I didn’t know then that she had started with the Martian stuff years before.”

  He had been staring at the drapes but now hesitated and looked into my face. “By that time I was hopelessly in love with her and would have done anything she asked. So, when she told me that she had been ordered to pass the diary on and wanted me to be the new Caretaker, I agreed without asking too many questions. My mistake.

  “Before she could give me the disc, we had to meet with one of her society members, who put me through weeks of indoctrination. Sometimes I could hardly keep a straight face. Other times I thought about cults like Jonestown or that group that believed they were going up to join the mother ship when the comet came by. I often worried about what I was getting into. Perhaps the most frightening moments were when part of this tale actually began to sound plausible. Then I questioned my own mental stability. The bottom line to the indoctrination was that I was to guard the disc, find a safe hiding place for it, and never reveal its existence to anyone unless told to by the society. The society teaches that for eons this information has been handed down in some form: parchment, verbal memory, and now, CD ROM.” He laughed self-consciously at the ludicrous statement he had just made.

  There was another pause “Soon after I was confirmed as Caretaker, Evelyn began working on me, relentlessly. She was absolutely convinced that Blue Morpho was very close to developing the type of fuel that produced Red 19 as a byproduct, some chemical combination that I think was supposed to include helium and lead. She was determined that I should publish the diary and her Blue Morpho information electronically– transmit it all at once to every insurance company, every scientist, every environmentalist in the world. If I didn’t do it like that, zap it instantly over the Internet, ‘they’ would stop me.”

  I was trying not to interrupt but had to ask, “They who? Blue Morpho or the Martian cult?”

  “At the time I thought she was talking about her Caretaker friends. Lately, I haven’t been so sure. My Caretaker contact tells me that the persons who killed her friends and burned the house were thugs associated with Blue Morpho.

  “Anyway, when she told me that part about the helium and lead, I made some quip about it going up like a lead balloon. We had the biggest fight we ever had. Her reaction was so crazy, I had to promise her I would help before I could calm her down. I never made light of the subject again, never questioned her at all. The one thing I insisted on was that we could not email such an accusation unless we had more information about Blue Morpho’s fuel experiments. It seemed like a good compromise, but I know now that my plan was not good enough for her.

  “The day after I agreed to help her, I started getting very angry admonishments from Caretakers warning me not to reveal the diary. There were mysterious messages on the phone, the computer, right on my desk, even after the office had been locked. The security video showed no intrusion. They seemed to know everything I did. Scared the hell out of me.”

  I couldn’t resist the sarcasm. “Gee, I seem to know exactly what you mean.”

  He paused long enough to acknowledge the rebuke. “I know, it’s not much of an excuse, but I’m trying to explain why I . . . I hired a man from Sam’s line of
work to find out how they were spying on me and to set up counter measures to protect myself. Victor, my spy versus spy guy, debugged my office, took the chip he found in my surveillance video camera, and planted it in your TV. He also helped me set up the computer program.

  “I told myself at the time that I was protecting both of us by making sure you didn’t reveal the information. It was a vile thing for me to do. I am sorry, Diana.” He looked into my face, expecting forgiveness.

  His expectation made me furious and triggered my outrage. “Oh, right! There’s always a good reason to invade another’s privacy, and the James Bond glamour of the Cold War removed any worry about illegality, immorality, or principle. From Nixon’s Watergate crew to the database the local supermarket keeps on all its customers, to the illegal wire taps now going on in the name of national security, we all think our need overrides the law. But in the final analysis, that’s just the quickest way to loose our freedom.”

  For a moment he seemed taken aback by my rant, then conceded, “You’re right. Once you allow the end to justify the means . . . but it started so innocently. All I wanted was a thorough and careful investigation so I could show Evelyn there were no Martian conspiracies. I wanted to convince her to drop out of the society and continue the wonderful relationship we had started. I was hoping your report would do that for me. I was dumbfounded when you found Evelyn. It never dawned on me that you could do that. When I read the first paragraph of your report and saw that Evelyn had been attacked, the whole world changed. All of a sudden it was real and dangerous and I–”

  “Wait a minute. How did you know about the attack? The report I sent you on email came back as a bad address.”

  “Actually, I sent that error message. Those emails were never really on any Net server. Too public. The program I installed on your computer captured your mail to me. The minute you typed in my address. Every letter of the message was captured and encrypted and sent directly to my computer by direct phone line.”