Innocent Conspiracy_A Sam Prichard Mystery

by David Archer

  He hit button one on his phone and Jenna answered immediately. “Yes, sir?”

  “I need Darren Beecher, please,” Sam said.

  “Yes, sir,” the secretary said. The line went dead, and Darren tapped on the door less than two minutes later.

  “Come on in,” Sam said. “Darren, my gut tells me that somebody inside Web Wide Awards was involved in this, somehow. The shooter knew exactly where the winner would be coming out of the curtain, and the placement of the rifle indicates he had that knowledge for some time before the program. I know you and Summer were going over the employees looking for those that might be disgruntled, but did you happen to notice any particular individuals who might be susceptible to blackmail?”

  “Actually, I did,” Darren said, taking a notepad from his pocket and consulting it. “There are three that I can name off the top of my head, and probably several more. I ran basic background checks on each employee as we were going through them, and some of these people aren’t exactly who you would think they are. I’d need a little more information to really compile a list, but we can start with the ones I noticed already.”

  Sam got up and moved to the conference table, the three of them sitting together at one end. Sam took a notepad and pen off a side table and laid it in front of him.

  “Okay, who’s first?” Sam asked.

  “The first one I noticed was a guy named Charles Barr. He’s their senior video producer, and he seems to be very good at his job, but he’s got some things in his past that he’d probably like to keep quiet. First off, he’s got some experience that he doesn’t list on his resume. About eight years ago, he got his start doing video work in the porn industry. Back then, he was known as ‘Goodie Barr,’ and he produced videos involving just about every kind of not quite illegal fetish you can imagine. Web Wide Awards has a reputation as a wholesome, family-friendly company; somehow I doubt they’d be pleased if that information were to come to light. Just having him in a senior staff position could make them look pretty bad.”

  Sam was making notes as Darren spoke. “Okay, I’d say that definitely makes him vulnerable. It could do some pretty serious damage to the company’s reputation, I’m sure. Did you see any indication that the owners know about his past history?”

  “I can’t tell for sure,” Darren said, “but I’d say they probably don’t. I really don’t think they’d mention him publicly as often as they do if they were really aware of where his experience came from.”

  “Okay,” Sam said. “Who’s next?”

  “That would be Patricia LeClair. She’s their spokesperson; she appears in their TV commercials, and she presents the awards they give out each quarter. Unfortunately, the background check revealed that she didn’t exist until four years ago, just before she got hired. I did a little deeper digging, ran her drivers license photo through facial recognition against the database in the state where it was issued, and found out that she was originally known as Angela Stubblefield. Ms. Stubblefield spent four years in state prison for being an accessory to murder. Apparently her boyfriend at the time tried to rob a drug dealer and ended up killing the guy, and she tried to give him an alibi. She was still on parole when she changed her name, quite unofficially, but I checked with the state parole board there and they don’t want to pursue any additional charges against her.”

  “Then, as long as she stays out of trouble,” Sam said, “she should probably be all right. Still, this is something that could hurt the company if it ever came out. That’s enough to put her on a suspect list, as far as I’m concerned.”

  “Yeah, I’ll say,” Karen said. “She skipped out on parole and they don’t want to do anything about it?”

  “We’re talking about Illinois,” Darren said. “Her parole would be over by now, anyway, and she hasn’t gotten in any more trouble, so they’re willing to just let it go. I guess they have a lot more people on parole than they have parole officers to handle.”

  Karen shook her head.

  “Okay, and who else?” Sam asked.

  “This last one may not be that big a deal,” Darren said. “Judy Lowery is the woman who gets the award winners all dressed up and presentable for the annual show. She does a complete makeover on them, everything from clothes to hair to makeup or whatever else she thinks they need to make them look their best. The issue is that she has something of a secret life; two or three times a month, she puts on leather and spends an evening with men or women who have a fetish for humiliation. She tells them how disgusting they are, makes them do things that humiliate them, that sort of stuff, and they actually pay her for this. She has a website where she calls herself a humiliatrix, and I didn’t even think that was a word until I googled it. There’s nothing illegal about what she’s doing, but I’m not sure it would sit well with the company’s advertisers and fans if it were to get out.”

  “I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t,” Sam said. “As you pointed out, they promote themselves as being family-friendly. Something like this could potentially impact their reputation, but I’m not sure how much. The real question is whether she would be willing to cooperate with the shooter in order to keep it secret.”

  “She might not,” Karen said. “After all, she’s just in the background. How many people do you think ever even hear about her? And a lot of people in that lifestyle don’t consider it any kind of big deal, anyway.”

  “That’s what I’m thinking,” Sam said. “The other two are pretty prominent, and the secrets they have hidden away would be potentially damaging. This woman, nobody knows who she is except the people she works with; if it came out that she has this secret life, most people would just consider her some random employee of the company who wasn’t even important. It might make some people laugh at them, for not knowing what she was into, but I don’t think it would really hurt the company that much.”

  Darren nodded. “That’s why I said it might not be that big a deal. I mean, after Fifty Shades of Gray came out, I don’t know that too many people are all that shocked about the weird little fetishes people get into.” He shook his head. “What a world, huh?”

  “Isn’t it, though?” Sam asked. “On the first two, Charlie Barr and Patricia LeClair, let’s see what we can find out on their financial situations and personal communications. We need to see if there are any strange phone numbers or emails that have cropped up in the last few months, or if they’ve either paid out or received unusual amounts of money. Once we get that information, I’ll pay them each a visit.”

  “I can do that,” Darren said. He glanced at Karen. “Should we run it through the police and go for warrants?”

  “Hey, I know good and well you guys don’t bother with that kind of thing,” Karen said. “That’s probably why you solve cases faster and better than we do. Do your thing, and if you find anything that we need to use in court, then I’ll get a warrant so we can uncover it properly.”

  Darren grinned. “Okay, just checking.” He got up and left the room, and Sam and Karen grinned at one another.

  “I’m surprised you didn’t put Indie on that,” Karen said. “She could dig out that information faster than anybody.”

  “I’ve already got her working on scanning the security video,” Sam said. “Herman can do it a lot faster than any human possibly could.”

  “Yeah, no kidding. I’m half surprised you don’t have her in an office right down the hall.”

  “We’ve actually been talking about that,” Sam said. “Now that Bo is getting bigger, she’s thought a bit about actually coming to work here. Right now, they got her set up as a consultant, though, and that might work better for her. Lets her work from home, so she’s there for the kids.”

  “Yeah, I can see where that would be nice. I missed out on an awful lot of my own kids growing up, with the hours we put in back in the day. I guess those were the dues we had to pay to get to where we are today, right?”

  “I don’t know,” Sam said. “If I hadn’t gotten shot when I did, I’d
probably still be on the force today.”

  “Yeah, and you’d probably still be single, too. Getting married did you a world of good, Sam. You were always a good guy, but Indie has definitely made some improvements.”

  Sam smiled. “You think I don’t know it?”

  *

  Summer Raines was sitting in her cubicle, going over the list of potential suspects that she and Darren had put together. Each of them, based on items found in their personnel records, seemed to fit the description of disgruntled employee. Disgruntled employees were known to take revenge against their employers, or to perpetrate horrific acts to make the company or particular individuals suffer. Summer was planning to find out if any of these people were likely to have taken things to that extreme.

  Walter’s discovery of the remote control rifle had already made its way throughout Windlass. Because of the technical skills involved in constructing it, Summer focused first on two of the names on her list. This is because both were employed in the company’s electronics maintenance department, where they repaired computers, video cameras, and other complicated electronic equipment. Constructing a Bluetooth enabled remote control device didn’t seem like it would be all that difficult a task for either of them.

  First up was Tom Linden. Tom had been with the company for almost six years, and Summer found that just slightly amazing. The reason she was so surprised was because Tom had spent at least two months out of every twelve in one drug rehab program or another. Most companies won’t put up with repeated trips to rehab, but Tom was still there. In fact, he had worked in almost every department in the company at one time or another.

  That didn’t mean he was some kind of favorite or pet, however. He’d been written up repeatedly by various superiors, including his own department manager, the HR manager, the bookkeeping department (for trying to bill personal purchases to the company), and even by both John Morton and Annie Porter. It was when Summer was examining all the complaints that she figured out just how Tom managed to stay put.

  Tom Linden was Annie Porter’s half brother, three years younger than she was.

  Annie’s father had died in an auto accident when she was only two years old, and she had no memory of him whatsoever. Her mother had raised her alone for a couple of years, then met and married Thomas James Linden, and a year later had given birth to a son, whom she named Thomas Raymond Linden. He grew up being called Little Tom, and was adored by his big sister.

  His father was quite an athlete and outdoorsman, while Little Tom was anything but. He was extremely intelligent, and had incredible hand to eye coordination, but he couldn’t hit a baseball with a bat to save his life. Fishing and hunting made him cry, he was too short for basketball, too skinny for football and just too darn chicken for hockey. By the time he was ten years old, his father had abandoned the family and run off with a younger woman. Big Tom hadn’t been seen in years, and Little Tom blamed himself.

  His drug problems had mostly been related to prescription medications that he was given to help with anxiety and depression, but he appeared to have a tendency to abuse them rather severely. The symptoms would become obvious pretty quickly, and big sister Annie would stage yet another intervention. Tom would go into rehab, do his twenty-eight days and come out determined not to ever let it happen again. A few months later, the cycle would repeat.

  To Summer, Tom seemed like a likely candidate for the starring role in a workplace shooting. Every time he was written up for being late, or being obviously stoned on the job, he would write a response that basically said everybody else was wrong, the world was out to get him and nobody really understood him at all. It was the typical “poor little me” act that people used to avoid accepting responsibility for their own failures and actions.

  Summer took out her cell phone and dialed Tom’s personal number. It rang a few times, but finally he answered it cautiously.

  “Hello? Who’s this?”

  “Hi,” Summer said brightly. “Is this Tom Linden?”

  “Um, who’s calling?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, how silly of me. Tom, my name is Candy Simmons, and I got your name and number from a mutual friend of ours who thinks you and I might be quite a good match. I was just calling to see if maybe you might like to get together for dinner tonight.”

  “I—wait a minute, you’re who?”

  “Candy Simmons,” Summer said. “You remember Dave Newman? He met you back when you were both in, well, you were both in a bad place and working on getting better. Remember him? He told me all about you and said he thought maybe you were just the kind of guy I’ve been looking for, and since I’m free tonight, I thought maybe you might like to have dinner with me. You know, just to see if maybe we might really like each other. Pretty please?”

  “Dave Newman? Was that the guy they called sweaty Dave? Yeah, I think I remember him. So, what, this is like some sort of blind date thing?”

  Summer giggled. “Well, not exactly,” she said. “I mean, it’s not the kind of blind date where you don’t get to know who the other person is until it’s too late. Hang on, let me send you a picture of myself. It’ll just take a second.” She held the phone away from her ear and turned on its camera, snapped a quick selfie and sent it to his number. “There. Did you get it?”

  “Um, yeah,” Tom said. “Just a sec, let me look.” She could hear him take the phone away from his ear, and then she heard a couple of beeps as he pressed the buttons that would let him see the incoming image. She also heard the sharp intake of breath when he got a look at her picture.

  5

  He was off the line for almost 30 seconds, and had a smile in his voice when he came back. “So, yeah, I’m not busy tonight either,” he said. “Do I, like, need to send you a picture of me now?”

  “No, that’s fine,” she replied. “Dave showed me a picture of you, and I think you’re pretty cute. That isn’t too forward, is it? Sometimes people tell me I’m just a little too forward.”

  “No, no, that’s fine,” Tom said. “So, do you want to meet up somewhere, or would you like me to pick you up for dinner?”

  “Well, since this is the first time we ever met,” she said, “I think maybe we should just meet up somewhere. What kind of food do you like?”

  “Oh, I can go for just about anything. You just pick a place, and say what time. I’ll be there, and I’m buying.”

  “Oh, you don’t have to pay for dinner,” Summer said. “I was planning on paying for it, since I’m the one inviting you.”

  “No, we can’t have that, now,” Tom said. There was a chuckle in his voice as he went on. “Besides, what would people think if somebody who knows either of us very well saw me letting you pay for dinner? Maybe I’m a little bit old-fashioned, but I still believe the man is supposed to be the one to pay for the date.”

  Summer giggled. “Well, okay,” she said. “I guess this is a date, sort of. Maybe just our first date, right?”

  “The first of many,” Tom said. “Now, come on, you were going to tell me where and when.”

  She let out a sigh. “Okay, okay, I’ve got it. How about if we go to,” she paused for dramatic effect, “Shanahan’s? Would that be okay?”

  Shanahan’s was a wonderful place to eat, but it was not for someone on a budget. Summer almost giggled when she heard the split second of hesitation in Tom’s voice, but then he recovered himself and agreed enthusiastically.

  “Sure, Shanahan’s sounds great. What time is good for you?”

  “Well, I’m at work right now,” she said. “I need to run home and get a bath and do my hair and makeup, all that girly stuff. Why don’t we say about six thirty? Is that okay, or is that too early for you?”

  “Six thirty is great,” Tom said. “I can’t wait to meet you face to face.”

  “Oh, me, too,” Summer said. “After everything Dave told me about you, I really am looking forward to this.” She giggled again. “Maybe this simple dinner will turn into something even more exciting,” sh
e said. “Like, maybe, breakfast? I’ll see you at six thirty. Bye bye.” She cut off the call before he could say anything else, then let herself collapse into a fit of laughter.

  A moment later, after she had composed herself, Summer stopped at Sam’s office and smiled at Jenna. “Is he in?”

  “Yep,” Jenna said with a grin. “Just a second.” She picked up the handset and pressed a button on her phone and then said, “Summer is here to see you.” She waited another couple of seconds, then said, “Yes, sir,” and motioned for Summer to go in.

  Summer stepped inside the office and found Sam and Karen sitting at the conference table. They were looking at the employee list on Karen’s computer and making notes.

  “That’s exactly what I came to talk to you about,” Summer said. “Tom Linden, who happens to be Annie Porter’s half brother, has had more complaints and write ups than anybody else in the company. Every time he gets written up, even if it’s by his sister, he writes a nasty response that is so full of suppressed anger that I’m surprised he hasn’t gone postal yet. If he was anybody else, he would’ve been fired a long time ago. If I had to pick a prime suspect for the shooter, that would be him.”

  Sam looked at her, his eyes slightly narrowed. “Do you have some reason to believe he was actually behind this shooting?”

  “No, not really,” Summer said. “I just feel like there’s enough anger and animosity in him that we can’t dismiss it out of hand.” She grinned. “That’s why I called him up and asked him for a date tonight.”

  Karen’s eyebrows shot upward. “You did what?”

  “I called him up and gave him some line about how a mutual friend thought we were ideal for each other, then I sent him a selfie. He’s buying me dinner at Shanahan’s, tonight. By the time I leave him tonight, I’ll know whether he’s capable of murder, or even attempted murder. At the very least, I’ll be able to scratch him off the potential suspects list.”

  Sam was grinning. “Just don’t get too carried away,” he said. “Unless you come up with something that indicates guilt, don’t push him too hard. He’s still the client’s brother, so without any evidence, it would be easy to alienate Ms. Porter.”