by Lee Killough
Flaxx looked up, scowling. “Try knocking before you come in.”
Last night had really dented the urbane facade. “Are you this grumpy just over that camera?” Cole sat down across the desk from him, hoping Irah was still watching. “I told you I put it in to help you.”
“Without bothering to ask first.” Flaxx’s mouth tightened. “But then, you’re not bothering to ask about much of anything lately, are you? I think that gives me the right to be grumpy, as you put it. You may be my sister but…” He sat forward and stabbed a finger down on his desk. “…I own this company and you’re an employee. If you can’t remember that, I’ll fire your ass out of here just as fast as I would anyone else! Now what do you want.”
Please let Irah be catching this. “To ask if you know Earl plays chess.”
Flaxx grunted. “Of course I know Earl plays chess. Every time he won a trophy he’d come around waving the thing like a dog showing off a new toy. So what?”
Cole tented his fingers. “So…chess uses strategy and mind games.” He paused, hoping to provoke a response that would let Irah follow the conversation.
“What of it?”
Not a helpful response. “Chess strategy doesn’t necessarily focus on the next move. It may be more concerned with the next five or six moves. So the current move may not make sense. It may even involved a sacrifice. But it sets you up for a checkmate. I’m thinking it’s occurred to good old Earl that between you thinking he’s indispensable and what he’s learned about events in the past week, he’s in a position to better his position here…maybe demand to be made a partner.”
Flaxx stared at him in exasperation for several moments, then reached for his phone. “Earl, will you please come to my office right away for a meeting with Irah and me?”
Shit. Cole’s mind raced. He did not want Irah seeing both men talking to someone invisible to her. He needed out of this. He widened his eyes and stared past Flaxx out the window.
As he hoped, Flaxx swivelled his chair to see what was outside the window.
Cole let go of everything except Irah’s voice. “I need to run to my office.” And he still had energy to spare.
Flaxx turned. “Irah, don’t- ” His blink of disbelief turned to a sigh of exasperation. He started to stand but sat back down when the door opened and Lamper came in. “Earl.” He produced a mechanical smile. “Have a seat.”
Lamper sat on the edge of the chair, peering anxiously at him. “What’s up?”
From the doorway, Irah said, “That’s what I’d like to know.”
Good, she came. Cole relaxed, and felt even better seeing the calculation in her eyes as she looked Flaxx over. After she sat down, he stood to the side where he could watch all three faces, keeping motionless to hang on to the spare energy.
Flaxx leaned against the desk in front of them. He sighed…a sound carrying weariness and sadness. A sigh intended to portray him as a burdened man? “Earl, Irah…we have a problem. Ever since the washroom incident yesterday each of you have been coming to me with suspicions and accusations of the other. But…” He paused as though searching for words. “…that’s counter-productive. We have nothing to gain and everything to lose by turning on each other. So let’s bring everything in the open and clear the air so we can get back to business.”
Ah. Cole’s lip curled. This was a pep rally. Rah, rah go team.
Lamper seemed to agree with the idea. He nodded at every sentence. Irah crossed her legs, folded her hands together in her lap, and eyed the others appraisingly.
Flaxx started to cross his arms over his chest, then must have decided that made his body language wrong. Instead, he slid his hands into his jacket pockets, thumbs hooked outside. “And the first problem we need to resolve is your belief, Irah, that Earl was outside the washroom.”
“I swear I wasn’t,” Lamper said.
Flaxx nodded. “I believe you. If for no other reason than whoever it was had knowledge of…certain events that you don’t.”
“How do you know he doesn’t?” Irah said. “And who else could it have been?”
“Well…” Now Flaxx folded his arms. “There’s you.”
Cole smiled. So last night’s visit had planted at least one seed.
Irah arched her brows. “Really.”
Lamper straightened, looking thoughtful. Remembering that coming up in his “dream” last night?
“You’re familiar with the event mentioned and you’re a great mimic,” Flaxx said.
“But with no reason to pull such a stunt.” She remained unruffled.
Still, Flaxx smirked as though he had scored points on her. “Earl doesn’t have one either. So…I don’t want any more men’s room confrontations or accusing phone calls to him at home.”
The beginnings of a grateful gleam in Lamper’s eyes turned to bafflement. “Phone calls? She hasn’t called me at home.”
The smirk vanished. Flaxx frowned. “What the hell? When you showed up on my doorstep last night you said- ”
Lamper gaped at him. “What are you talking about?”
Now it was Flaxx’s turn to stare, his expression equal parts astonishment, disbelief, and anger. “You mean you deny coming to my house last night?”
If Lamper had been a dog, Cole reflected, he would have been cringing, ears and head down, tail tucked tight between his legs. “Donald…I–I was home all evening. I never left.”
Irah peered at him, then at Flaxx. Cole wished he could read minds, because while her face went deadpan, a gleam in her eyes said her brain had gone into overdrive.
“Ask Irah if I wasn’t sitting at the computer when she sneaked into my house.”
While Irah’s brain cooked on all cylinders, Cole gleefully watched Flaxx’s trip and fall flat. Gears screamed almost audibly as he floundered through shifting. The Mister Rogers theme parodied itself in Cole’s head. It’s a beautiful mess in the neighborhood…
Flaxx almost sputtered. “Irah, you- ”
“I wasn’t going to say anything,” Lamper said, “but you said get everything in the open… and I want back the rook she stole off my trophy.”
Irah arched her brows. “What makes you think I was there?”
Lamper’s mouth thinned. “Besides the fact that you came back later and admitted you had the rook? I recognized your voice through my computer room door. ‘Don’t have a cow, Earl,’ you said. ‘I’m just making a social call.’” He looked up at Flaxx. “But when I opened the door, she’d gone. Just like you and your washroom, Donald.”
Flaxx frowned thoughtfully at Irah.
She was eyeing Lamper and her baby blues had turned to ice. She opened her mouth to say something.
Flaxx cut her off. “I don’t give a shit if you were there or not or took a piece of trophy.”
Lamper stiffened.
A glare from Flaxx deflated him. “I don’t even give a shit who was outside the washroom…unless you can tell me, Irah, that it was someone outside of us three.”
“No,” she said.
“Then I just want all this crap stopped!” Flaxx glared at both Irah and Lamper. “We have a business to run. A profitable business…if we keep our minds on it. Let’s make money, not war. Remember the old line about hanging together or hanging separately? Remember it! Now, let’s get back to work.”
Rah rah, go team go.
The two of them started to stand.
Flaxx pointed at Irah. “I need you to stay a few more minutes…to go over details of the manager meetings.”
Her brows rose but she settled back in her chair.
If the request surprised her, Cole wanted to know what Flaxx really had to say. He leaned against the desk to wait.
After Flaxx walked Lamper out, he closed the door. “I don’t understand why Earl denies he came over last night. If it is like chess strategy, the way you were saying earlier, I don’t see where it can possibly go.”
“The way I- ” Irah’s eyes narrowed speculatively. “Tell me. How many people sa
w Earl at your place?”
Flaxx looked surprised by the question. “Just me. I happened to answer the door. Why?”
“Oh, I was thinking that it might be worth asking anyone else who talked to him what their impression was of his demeanor.”
The frown deepened. “No one else talked to him. It wasn’t a social occasion. Did you break into Earl’s place last night?”
She hesitated a moment, then shrugged. “I wanted to look around…see if there was anything that might tell me what he’s up to. I didn’t. But I was there just once. I didn’t go back.”
Cole hurried out and up the hallway to Bookkeeping. With her away from monitoring her spy cameras, this was a good time to work on Lamper. Briefly. Not much energy remained.
After making sure no one was looking his direction, he materialized in the doorway as Irah. Eyes in the main office turned briefly his direction, but none with the start of someone registering the fact that he appeared out of nowhere. He stepped into Lamper’s office.
Lamper eyed him warily. “Yes?”
Cole gave Irah’s face a conciliatory smile. “I owe you an apology. I was wrong about you and the washroom.” He was wrong, too, about how much energy he had. He gritted his teeth to hang on to the materialization.
Lamper’s expression went skeptical. “You changed your mind in a hurry.”
“I had the truth thrust on me. Meet me by the elevators in fifteen minutes and I’ll explain.”
Of course Lamper wanted to know. That showed in his face. So did suspicion. “Why not tell me here, now?”
Cole thought fast. “You’re in a fish bowl.” He tipped his head toward the office windows. How much longer before Irah returned to her office? “And I don’t want to risk being overheard.”
“You’re the one with- ” Lamper caught himself just in time.
Cole smiled inwardly. Good thing I’m not Irah; you almost gave away knowing about the spy camera. He edged toward the door. “Meet me. You need to hear this.”
After a moment of hesitation, his expression still suspicious, Lamper nodded.
As soon as he made it to the hallway, Cole let go with relief and zipped to the Embarcadero.
Watching the clock on the Ferry Building tower, he worked through traffic the whole fifteen minutes. The materialization might not need this much energy, but he had to be sure he had enough.
From a zip back to the reception area, he walked around to the elevators…checked to be sure he was alone, and materialized as Irah. Now if only Lamper were prompt.
He was…coming out of the office doors just seconds later.
“So who was outside the washroom that’s going to shock me so much?” Lamper asked. Still skeptical, Cole noticed…and looking around as worrying this was some kind of trap.
The elevator doors opened, letting off a couple who stood studying the floor directory.
Cole strolled down the corridor away from them and the Flaxx offices and lowered his voice. “The person outside the washroom was the same one Donald talked to at home last night. If you’re telling the truth about not going to the house- ”
“I am!”
“Then he hallucinated you being there. I think he hallucinated the washroom thing, too.”
Lamper gaped at him. “Hallucinated! That’s ridiculous.” He wheeled away.
“Who did he talk to, then?” Cole said. “You know it wasn’t you. It wasn’t me. I’m good at voices and disguises, but I’d have to be a shape-shifter to pull off looking like you.”
Lamper halted and slowly came back. “Maybe he made up the story to see how you’d react…thinking you’d incriminate yourself about the washroom.”
Cole arched his brows. “Did he look like someone making up a story? He believes you were there. And that isn’t his only conversation with someone who wasn’t there. When he came in this morning, I saw him standing by his office seeming to be talking to Farrell…only Farrell was at the reception desk the whole time.”
“So you say.” Lamper’s frown clearly said he did not believe a word.
“Ask Farrell if he followed Donald back from the reception desk. I think Donald’s cracking up.”
Lamper snorted. “Bullshit!”
Cole heaved a deep sigh. “I’m afraid not. He’s- ” He pretended to struggle internally, then lowered his voice almost to a whisper. “Wednesday evening I got a frantic call from him asking me to come in, that there’d been an accident. When I got here Benay was lying dead on his office floor.”
Lamper choked. “What!”
“It seems he came back to the office a little after eight for something and saw Benay working late, and he noticed, maybe for the first time, that she’s attractive, and invited her into his office for a coffee break. During chit-chatting she flirted with him and one thing led to another and- ”
“With Donald?” Lamper said in disbelief.
“Why not with Donald? He isn’t so obsessed with making money that he’s forgotten he’s a man.” Cole smirked. “A little sexual conquest now and then is good for the ego. And Benay liked entertaining alpha males.” Sorry for the cheap shot, Sara. But…it’s true, isn’t it? “Only Donald got overeager and tore her blouse. That apparently killed the fun and made her mad, because she started fighting him. The next thing he knew she’d tripped and hit her head on the corner of the desk and stopped breathing.”
The shock in Lamper’s face faded. His mouth went grim. “Why call you? Why not his lawyer? It was an accident.”
Cole nodded. “That’s what I told him…but he was in a screaming panic and wouldn’t listen. He just kept saying, ‘Do something. Get rid of her.’ Because of her torn clothes and bruises, he didn’t think the police would believe it was an accident, and he was afraid how Miss Mint Julep would react.” Having no idea of Maitland’s views on sexcapades, Cole happily assigned her one. “Boys can be boys but they’re supposed to keep their affairs out of the headlines.”
“So you were the loyal sister and took away the body.”
Cole grinned inwardly in satisfaction at the acid tone. “Wouldn’t you have helped if he called you?”
For a moment Lamper hesitated, then nodded. “Of course…if something like that happened.”
“If? Think about it. Doesn’t that explain her not telling someone where she was going? I left that message for Gao, so people wouldn’t miss her. Sometime this week I’m going to leave another message, quitting her job.”
The beginnings of belief flickered in his eyes. But that should not last long.
Cole lowered his voice still more. “Unfortunately the trouble didn’t stop with Benay. We’d taken the body down to my car on a dolly, folded up in a toilet paper carton from the supply room, and were about to cram the box in my trunk when who drives in but Dunavan. Of all the fucking bad luck!” He shook his head. “I suppose he and Benay were going to meet. He spotted us and when he parked he came over and made a wisecrack about us hauling away incriminating records. He reached out like he was going to open the box. Donald went white. I didn’t realize he picked up the folding shovel I keep in my trunk. The next thing I know, he’s swung it like an axe, straight down on Dunavan’s head. It killed him instantly.”
Lamper’s eyes ballooned behind his glasses.
“God, the blood!” Cole shuddered. “Donald totally lost it! I had to slap him to snap him out of it before someone came to investigate the noise, so he could help me put both bodies in Dunavan’s trunk.”
Lamper’s belief snuffed out. “Bullshit.” His jaw set. “I don’t know why you’re trying to feed me this crap, but I don’t believe a word of it! Donald is cracking up?” He snorted. “Ridiculous. He’s been acting perfectly normal.”
Cole frowned at him. “You realize if he falls apart, he’ll take us down with him. And no way in hell am I going to jail. I think we need to head off trouble. The two of us can run things without Donald if necessary.”
Lamper went stone-faced. “Is that what this is about? I won’t help you s
teal this company.”
Cole narrowed his eyes. “True-blue Earl. Donald doesn’t deserve so much loyalty, you know. That rescue in high school? It was a setup so he could use your gratitude to write papers for him and- ”
Lamper’s eyes flashed. “That’s a lie!”
Cole shrugged. “Okay…stay blind if you want. Just don’t get in my way.”
He could hold the materialization a little longer, but this felt like the place to quit. He walked away. Around a corner and out of Lamper’s sight, he let go. And hoped that this time he had played Lamper right.
25
Lamper returned to his office, his forehead furrowed in the expression of someone holding a troubling mental debate. Lamper eyed his phone from the office doorway for a long minute before closing the door and picking it up. He punched an outside number.
“Hello, Maitland,” Lamper said. “This is Earl Lamper.”
Cole sidled close enough to hear the other end of the conversation.
“Why, good morning, Earl. What can I do for you?”
“This may sound like a strange question, but…did Donald come back here to the office last Wednesday evening?”
Cole hoped Lamper was checking whether Irah’s story was a lie.
Maitland laughed. “I’m sure he wished he had. I dragged him to an evening of Stravinsky at the Civic Center. Why do you ask?”
“Oh…I’m just straightening out some questions about computer access times.”
That satisfied her. Hanging up, Lamper wore a satisfied expression, too. For about a minute, then he began looking even more troubled.
Cole cheered him on. Worry, Earl, worry.
After more indecisive hovering over the phone buttons, he punched Flaxx’s extension number.
Flaxx answered. “Yes?” A terse greeting that was followed by a noticeably impatient sigh when Lamper announced himself. “What do you need? I have a group of store managers arriving here any minute.”
On his end on the phone, Lamper grimaced in apology. “I’m sorry to bother you, but…Irah was just talking to me and- ”