by Peg Herring
“So you think Talbert was selling away?”
“I believe we caught him just in time. A client called when Talbert was busy on the phone with someone else. The woman left a message with one of the PAs, saying she had decided against buying a certain product. Erica knew we don’t offer that option, so she mentioned it to me. None of the brokers knew anything about the proposed purchase. It appears Daryl planned to forge the necessary signatures.”
“Whose?” When Pollard’s eyes blazed again, Madison added assertively, “You must have suspected he’d found a weak link to exploit.”
“James Falk.” Pollard’s voice reflected disappointment. “James’ health has declined of late, and to be candid, it has affected his work. We thought providing him with an intern would be helpful. However, he let Daryl handle client accounts without supervision. It was almost a disaster.”
“Falk failed to keep tabs on his intern.”
“His responsibility.” Pollard looked rueful. “It isn’t just the situation with Daryl. Falk’s numbers have diminished alarmingly. When he decided to retire after the heart attack here at work, we didn’t try to dissuade him.”
“Falk had a heart attack at the office?”
“Yes,” Pollard replied. “Fortunately Miss Van Camp called 9-1-1, and he was transported almost immediately. She probably saved his life.”
So Falk, whose health was faltering, had been used by an unscrupulous intern. Pollard’s obvious infirmity might have made Daryl Talbert even bolder. Talbert became more and more interesting. “How was the firing of this Daryl handled?”
“I take care of such things. Less traumatic for Falk that way and for Talbert too, I suppose.”
Madison nodded politely but doubted Daryl had cared who fired him. The ax is the ax.
“Afterward I had a serious talk with James, pointing out the repercussions of his neglect.” He slapped the desk with his fingertips to accentuate the last word, as if reliving the event. “I was hard on him, but he had no right letting that young man have as much freedom as he did. Very poor judgment on his part.” Pollard softened a little. “Of course when he had the heart attack only a month after Daryl left, I realized he had probably been feeling ill for some time.” He shrugged slightly. “Believe me, I know it’s hard to stay on top of this game when one’s health is compromised. It’s understandable that James shared the burdens of his job, but investment counselors must be above reproach, more so in today’s distrustful climate.”
“Do you have a picture of Talbert?”
Pollard considered for a moment, and then pointed over Madison’s shoulder. “They gave me that after an office party I was too ill to attend.”
Madison moved to examine a group photo on the oak-paneled wall. Come back soon! was written in gold ink in the lower right-hand corner. In it, he recognized several people he had met. Between Yvonne and Jennise stood a young man who had enclosed them both in an embrace, pulling them toward him so that they were slightly unbalanced. His face was handsome, his expression impudent. Jennise was laughing, Yvonne looked irritated. To one side, with enough separation between her and the next person to reveal she didn’t feel part of the group, was Carmon Calley, posture stiff and smile forced. Madison imagined that as soon as the photo for her boss was taken, she’d excused herself and left. Not a people person, for sure.
He returned his gaze to the clowning intern at the center. “Did this Daryl make a fuss when he was fired?”
“No, he went quietly, which was a relief. No firm enjoys having such matters made public.” The fact that the whole incident was behind them obviously pleased the firm’s controlling partner.
Pollard turned the conversation back to Judd Simms, asking if the identity of Tori’s murderer would be announced after the inquest. Madison could see that although Pollard appeared truly sorry for the girl’s death, there was also the hope that this incident, too, would soon be in the past, a regrettable but forgotten bump in the road to profit for PLK Investments.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Make the World Go Away
Once again Tori had to accustom herself to the mental shorthand of another person’s mind, but this time it was easier due to her familiarity with Carmon. Her friend attempted to operate in her usual efficient manner, but her thoughts were frequently interrupted. I never told her—was squelched with —think about it later, as Carmon struggled to finish the work before her.
On the desk planner, a date two weeks away was circled with the note: Help T. w/Falk’s ret. Tori remembered there was to be a party, and that she had made the arrangements. Now who would pick up the cake, decorate the tables, and make sure everyone signed the card? Odd to think she’d never see it.
It was Falk they’d thought might not make it to retirement. Tori recalled the day at work that frightened them all. Falk had been working in his office when she heard the thud of his laptop as it hit the carpeted floor. Looking in, she’d seen him kneading his chest, eyes rolling and breath coming in tortured gasps. Shouting for someone to call 9-1-1, she went to his aid, doing things vaguely recalled from high school biology and feeling completely inadequate. Luckily, the hospital was nearby, and paramedics arrived promptly and took over. She remembered her relief at the sound of their approach, the quiet but firm command that she step back and let them work. She also recalled the fear on the broker’s face. Never out of control, and distrustful of everyone, Falk had for once been totally helpless and completely dependent on the care of others.
Within minutes, the incident had faded like a bad dream, but Falk’s laptop on the floor and the papers strewn around the office testified to the reality. Tori had gone to work cleaning up the mess. Miraculously, the laptop was fine, and when she touched the keys, it came to life. She saved his work on a thumb drive he kept in the drawer. Something about that day bothered her now, but Carmon’s restless mind moved forward with daily tasks, and Tori promised herself she’d focus on it at night, while Carmon slept.
Under Pollard’s orders, the receptionist, Yvonne, who came in as Madison was leaving, found Talbert’s last known address for him, hurriedly setting down her coat and purse to move directly to the proper file cabinet. Her nails, displaying tiny blue flowers on a pink background, ticked efficiently though the alphabet to “T,” where she pulled the file, found the address, and wrote it on a small memo pad. She handed the whole tablet to Madison with a friendly smile. “A little present for you, good advertising for us.” Each page said, PLK Investments: a half-century of trust, and gave contact information.
Madison grinned. “When I make my first million, I’ll call.” Yvonne swatted him playfully on the arm, making today’s three-inch earrings swing wildly.
As he left PLK, he noticed that, although it wasn’t yet 8:00 a.m., the employee parking lot was almost full. Evidently stockbrokers, like police detectives, started early. He didn’t see the Ferrari. He would catch up with Abe later.
Tossing his notepad on the seat beside him, Madison entered the steady stream of purposeful morning traffic, automatically avoiding the more congested streets with their noise and accompanying frustration. Madison felt a little better, still weird, but like he had turned the corner on whatever bug had affected or infected him. He considered the firing of Daryl Talbert. The address Yvonne had provided was only a few blocks east, and he decided to head there before going to the station. It would be interesting to see what Talbert had to say in his own defense.
The once-dignified brick home had lost its luster over the years. Wooden trim on the eaves was in need of paint, at the side entrance was a pile of trash that looked like it had been there a while, and the concrete driveway had cracks where dandelions and crabgrass flourished. The neighboring homes and yards varied widely in upkeep, and Madison imagined the remaining residents trying to maintain the area’s dignity as their neighbors defaulted on their loans, leaving empty hulks the banks could not resell. A woman in the yard next door eyed him suspiciously as she troweled dirt into a pot. When he
met her gaze she didn’t smile, but she did return to her potting.
A knock on the front door brought a frail, elderly woman who, although very deaf, managed to get the name into her head and shout, “Upstairs, in the apartment. There’s a stairway around back.” Her lack of bottom teeth made her speech slurred and her visual impression less than pleasant. “He might be sick or gone away because I haven’t seen him for a while.” She backed away. “I don’t climb those stairs, but he could call if he needed anything.”
Madison found the stairway, an addition to accommodate division of house into home and apartment. Climbing the gray-painted steps, he came to a fairly new-looking door that had probably been a window when the house was a single-family dwelling. He rapped on it smartly, but there was no answer. Knocking again, he called out, “Daryl Talbert? Police.”
Still no answer. Madison turned to go, but as he did, he noticed a key in the lock. There was a plastic disk on the ring that said, You look hot enough to cook with, Momma.
He had done it a few times himself, come home from work with an armload of stuff, unlocked the door, and walked in, forgetting the key was still in the door. But didn’t that mean the guy was home? Madison knocked again, louder this time. When there was no answer, he turned the key in the knob softly and pulled his service revolver. “Police, Mr. Talbert. I’m coming in.”
The room Madison entered was a small kitchen, not spotless but neater than his own. A leather briefcase sat beside a small wooden table to his right. Beyond it was a living area, but that was as far as his interest in the layout went. In the doorway between the two rooms lay a corpse, probably Daryl Talbert but impossible for even his mother to tell from the mess where his face used to be.
A new round of shockwaves hit the PLK staff only a few minutes after Madison left. Someone at Jennise Bowdlin’s condo called to let the firm know why she wasn’t at work.
“She’s dead,” Yvonne reported with dismay to a small group that had gathered around her desk in response to her “Oh, my god! No!” She put her hands on her ears, as if to shut out what she’d heard. “A car accident.”
Tori had to think for a moment about who Jennise was. The office manager. No face came to mind, but she got an image of long, bright fingernails.
The general reaction matched Yvonne’s. They’d all known Jennise. If it had been hard to like her, it was equally hard to imagine her dead.
“It’ll be in the paper.” Yvonne went to find one as most of the staff waited. She returned shortly, waving the morning edition before setting it on her desk and searching out the article titled, “Motorist Dies on Freeway.”
“Here.” Running her finger down the column, Yvonne read, “‘A single-car accident last night claimed the life of Jennise Bowdlin, a 43-year-old woman from Grandville. Bowdlin apparently lost control of her 2009 Lexus while attempting to merge into traffic on I-196 near the Pearl Street exit. Although details are sketchy, a motorist who stopped to help reports smelling alcohol on the victim’s breath, and it has been determined she was a customer at a local bar just before the accident. Ms. Bowdlin hadn’t fastened her seat belt. We will follow this story with more details as they become available.’” Yvonne shook her head sadly. “Poor Jennise.”
“Yeah,” said Pardike. “You always hope you won’t be the ‘alcohol was a factor’ accident. It’s so embarrassing.”
“Well, she can’t be embarrassed,” Yvonne reminded him grimly. “She’s dead.”
Don’t be so sure death ends awareness, Tori thought as she tried again to picture Jennise. Cinda’s face kept appearing in her mind. Giving up, she focused on the buzz of conversation in the office.
What little they knew was dissected in the manner that often accompanies shocking news. “I’m always careful there. It’s such a dangerous spot,” Erica said. “People coming up the entrance ramp while others exit just a short way down.” The others agreed, apparently recalling their own experiences at the location.
“She should have been wearing her seat belt,” Kellerman said. Conversation went on, irritating Tori for the undercurrent of smugness from the living whose own carelessness had not, so far, resulted in tragedy. After a while, Carmon retreated to her cubicle, looking to escape the ghoulish recounting of similar incidents.
Tori listened to her friend’s thoughts, felt her dread of a second funeral when she hadn’t made it through Tori’s yet, and sensed distress over something she wouldn’t let herself consider. She couldn’t help but wonder what thoughts Carmon so determinedly put aside. All that came through was None of them can be trusted.
A few minutes before ten, the appearance of Abe Gougeon in her doorway caused Carmon’s pulse to quicken. He carried a soft-sided briefcase that Tori remembered held his laptop, an accordion folder filled with current work and, most days, a ham and cheese Lunch-Mate with two Twinkies for dessert. She smiled to herself, recalling a day when he had stopped at her desk in the afternoon with white cream filling on his chin. Looking at him now, Tori felt nothing. Had she liked Abe? Memory said yes, but only a vague sense of it remained.
“Would you like to go somewhere for lunch? Get away from here for a while?” His tone was casual, but there was a deeper question beneath.
Carmon felt it too, and her hand went to her mouth as if to stop too hasty an answer. The snarled sequence of words that flew through her mind revealed the subject she had been avoiding all morning. Tori liked—dinner nice—can’t hurt now. “Yes,” Tori heard Carmon say, “I’d like that.”
Abe’s reaction was odd, as if he had half-hoped Carmon would say no, but after a moment he smiled. “Great. Shall we walk down by the Grand? It’s supposed to warm up.”
“That sounds good.” Tori sensed relief he hadn’t suggested Martin’s, where someone might take note of a second meeting. None of their business, was Carmon’s silent assertion.
“Okay, then. Come and find me whenever you’re free. I can go anytime.”
“All right.” Carmon was already thinking, Get lunch—call deli—what kind? Abe left with a casual wave, but it took a long time for her to settle back to her work. Tori felt a vague sense of satisfaction. Something she had wanted to happen was about to, but she was a little fuzzy on exactly what it was, or why.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Bad Blood
Madison finished at Talbert’s apartment and left the clean-up crew to their work, wishing Jaime wasn’t tied up with the court case. The two of them should be concentrating on this matter now, which undoubtedly centered on PLK.
As he drove the short distance to the station house, the death of Daryl Talbert made him uneasy. The externals pointed to suicide. They had found a note saying he could no longer live with his crimes. Why had he left his key in the door? Distraction maybe, but it could have been an outside distraction as easily as a disturbed mind. Why had guilt driven Talbert to kill himself at this moment in time?
Madison rolled down the window, and a gust of warm, moist air assailed him. April was humid enough to be July. He needed to talk to Yates in Muskegon again and also to look carefully at what was happening at PLK Investments. His instincts told him someone was determined that his—or her—secrets would not come to light.
Abe texted Carmon a few minutes after his invitation to let her know he had ordered a picnic lunch from a nearby deli. “Btr thn ½ my sndwch.” He seemed to Tori more at ease from a distance, drawn to Carmon but a little in awe of her. With half-formed thoughts from which the phrase not owe anything was pertinent, Carmon slipped out to a bakery and picked up two turnovers, one apple, one blueberry.
At a few minutes before noon, with some trepidation, Carmon went to find Abe. He was in his cubicle, his tall body bent toward his computer in a pose that might be used as the “Wrong Way” example in a pamphlet on repetitive stress injury. Hunched over, face close to the screen, he frowned into the glare and tapped at the keys with dogged, two-finger precision. Carmon stopped in the doorway, where he didn’t see her for a few seconds.
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br /> As she waited, James Falk called from his office, “Did you reach Mrs. Coulston, Abe?”
Abe glared even harder at his keyboard. “Uh, no, not yet. I’m doing those reports.” It sounded like an excuse.
A frosty pause followed, but Abe ignored it as he looked up and saw Carmon. Standing, he motioned with his head and moved with her down the corridor, apparently so Falk wouldn’t see them together. Why, Tori wondered. Lunch didn’t qualify as an office romance, and why would Falk care, anyway?
“I’m free until one if you still want to go.” Carmon seemed tentative, uneasy.
“Great!” Abe exclaimed. “I’ll just let Scrooge know we’re leaving.” He returned in only a few seconds and gave a comical Nazi salute in the direction of Falk’s office. At Carmon’s weak smile, his face sobered. “Shouldn’t you take a few days off?”
“I’m taking all of tomorrow.” Apparently not trusting herself to mention the reason, Tori’s funeral, Carmon changed the subject. “You don’t seem too happy with your boss.”