by Cassie Page
One of the firemen who had given Tuesday a ride onto the site found her, wanting to know how she was holding up. Olivia left them chatting. She needed to get away from the chaos of the site. She slipped behind the fence again so she could think clearly without the press screaming for photo ops, the police giving orders or Victoria’s sobs clouding the air.
The police wouldn’t let the widow near her husband, and Olivia was glad of that. A few minutes ago she was exasperated that Victoria had intruded on her morning with a problem she couldn’t solve. Now, after holding her sweet baby and making awkward efforts to console the widow, she began to feel a bond. One that could not possibly lead to a friendship, she realized, but one that elicited great compassion.
She tried to take stock. What was needed of her now? Out of habit, she pulled out her phone and checked for messages. Mrs. Fredericks had called to confirm their meeting for this afternoon. Olivia had completely forgotten about it. She was not interested in the outside world at the moment. Her clients’ problems would have to wait.
While she was ruminating on Jed Fisher’s death, she heard voices on the other side of the fence. Male voices, two of them, grumbling. She leaned closer and caught snippets of the conversation.
“That sonofabitch had it coming if you ask me.”
“Yeah. That bro was trying to take down the project.” A Latino accent. “Who cares about a bunch of old pottery? It’s not like anyone lives here now. This place was a dump before they picked it for the museum. It gives us work. And man, can I use it? And the museum, it’s good for the town.”
“Yeah, that crazy dude must have opened his mouth to the wrong person.”
“Yeah, man. No way any of these honchos are going to let the State shut their project down.”
“No way, man.”
“And now we got the police looking into us. Like we had anything to do with it.”
“You legal, man?”
“No way, man. You?”
Olivia remained still as a stone. The men must not know she had overheard them. Then Olivia heard another voice, the foreman.
“Hey guys. In the back. Now. Scott’s called a meeting for everybody. By the trailer. Pronto.”
In the back? She was in the back, exposed to Scott’s trailer. Time to scram. She couldn’t go out the way she came or the men would realize she’d eavesdropped. Instead, she ran along the fence toward the street, her heels sinking into the rain-soaked ground. She stopped to take them off, then managed to work her way through shrubbery until she was behind the trailer, where she put her muddy feet back into her shoes, along with pebbles that made her limp.
She could hear the men assembling as she made her way to the front door, calling, “Scott? Are you in there? Scott, it’s Olivia,” pretending she didn’t know Pierce was still talking to the police. But she had a cover now for the workman beginning to congregate.
“Has anyone seen Scott? I’m Olivia Granville and I need to speak with him.”
Most of the men ignored her, too involved in whispered conversations to worry about her concerns. One man wearing a sheepskin jacket over his coveralls turned to her and said, “Scott’s coming, man. If you need to talk to him just wait here for a few minutes.”
“Thanks,” she said, “I’ll see if I can find him.”
She brushed off his calling her man, and walked back to the podium thinking, oh, my god, Scott killed him. Jed had found Indian artifacts and reported them to Scott. It was mandatory. But Scott needed to avoid an environmental shutdown. After all, he had just admitted he had no business interruption insurance. That’s why he was so out of sorts today. He had Jed Fisher on his conscience. He must have been terrified as the groundbreaking started that the body would be discovered.
Scott was coming toward her on his way to the meeting at the trailer. She could barely look at him, but she had to say something in case one of the crew told him she was looking for him.
“Oh Scott?”
He turned, grim-faced and distracted. Was it the face of a killer?
“Yeah, Olivia? I’m on the run.”
“I just wanted to offer my condolences for the loss of one of your guys. It must be hard.”
He said, “Yeah, thanks,” and continued on his way with no show of emotion.
Chapter Three: The Usual Suspects
3:1
Still Monday
“Olivia.”
“Olivia Granville.”
“Olivia. What do you know about the murder? Over here.”
The discovery of the body was less than half an hour old. Olivia took a deep breath, swiveling her head around to the crush of paparazzi calling out to her. A stray thought went through her brain, I’d rather be meditating.”
By now Charles, the design team, various public officials and the press were vying for her attention, demanding to know what had happened and why. The police had sent most of the guests home, but a few stray attendees who’d been in the rear seats without a view to the lurid discovery were leaning in to any conversation that might give a hint as to what they had missed.
Olivia crossed her arms to the press, which she thought was a zombie signal to stay away. She couldn’t remember, but turned her back to indicate that at any rate, she’d make no statements. Yet. She knew she’d have to at some point.
She spotted Matt on the podium surrounded by the team examining Jed’s remains. He was supervising the construction of a tent over the body to keep it hidden and give forensics some room in which to work, Tuesday’s parasol tagged and resting on the podium with the other evidence piling up. He caught her eye and waved, jumped down and joined her, nodding grimly.
“Do you have time to give me a statement? I need to know what you know about this.”
Other than their few words a few minutes earlier about Jed and Victoria Fisher, they had not talked since Matt asked if she would ever make a commitment to him. She had no more answers to that question now than she’d had that night. But that was not issue on the table.
“I don’t know much, Matt.”
Saying his name gave her the jitters. She was having a hard time separating their personal relationship from what was now their professional one. Her reactions to him had always been gut-level, emotional, and they were even now in the midst of this chaos. She certainly didn’t have romance on her mind, but how could she not be aware of her feelings in the presence of the man she loved. Yes, she had admitted that to herself, though not to Matt. She loved him. If only it were that simple.
She thought of TV cop shows with main characters who were also lovers. They never seemed to let their feelings interfere with a crime scene. Trouble was, this wasn’t television. No one was writing a convenient script with a happy ending. This was real life.
Attempting to keep her voice businesslike, she said, “But I do need to report a conversation I just overheard. It may give you a motive. I say motive, but I don’t even know how the guy died.”
Olivia noticed Matt’s thick, dark hair, escaping from his DVPD cap. He needed a haircut. He was fussy about his grooming, so he must be very busy not to take time out for a trim. Brilliant, Sherlock, she said to herself. Anyone could figure that out. DVPD was short staffed and Matt was in charge of homicide, among other things. When wasn’t he busy?
He interrupted her reverie with, “Oh, we’re pretty sure he was murdered. The coroner arrived a few minutes ago and found a blow to the head with a sharp object. Screw driver or something, but an accident hasn’t been completely ruled out. It’s still too early to be sure about much of anything here.”
Olivia cringed. “Then you need to know something. He apparently found some artifacts on the property. Something that might have shut down the project.”
Matt jerked his head back in surprise. “There’s a motive if I ever heard one. Who told you this?”
He had a slight burr in his speech. Though born in Illinois and Harvard educated, Matt had absorbed some of his Punjabi parents’ accent. She explained how she happe
ned to overhear the two men talking on the other side of the banner.
“So you can’t identify them?” Matt said, disappointed. “That’s not helpful.”
“Sorry, Matt, it’s the best I can do. I wonder if his wife knew about this.”
Olivia hated the thought of the police grilling Victoria about her husband at a time like this, however gentle Johnson, Matt’s partner and the most likely person to question her, would be. But this was the kind of information that would help track down the killer.
Matt said, “We have to be careful about questioning her and give her time to get over the shock. But we need to know everything that’s relevant before she shuts down. We’re checking into other family and friends, anyone who might have seen the guy after he called home last night. Let me know if you hear anything, Olivia.”
“I will.”
Should she give him her suspicions about Scott Pierce? She didn’t want to step on Matt’s toes and tell him how to do his job, but, given the new information, wasn’t Scott’s need to have the project go smoothly relevant, especially the fact that he didn’t have business interruption insurance? That was a huge gaff. Also, Scott was behind schedule, so having archeologists or environmental teams from the State crawling up his pants leg would not be good news.
She had read someplace that there were only two motives for murder. Love and money. And love was a distant second to money.
But suppose she was wrong about Scott? Then, after accusing him, and this was all cleared up, she’d have to go back to working with him. Not a pretty sight. She decided to say nothing for now.
Matt scratched his chin, which he did when he was thinking. “Who’s the guy’s boss? Do you know the crew that well?”
Olivia shook her head. “Not really. He would have had two of them. Pete Higgins is the foreman. The crew answers to him on a day-to-day basis. But Scott Pierce is the CEO of the construction firm. He’s always onsite. He’s really the guy who runs things.”
Matt seemed pleased with that tidbit. “Okay, I’ll jump the chain of command and go right to the top. Where will I find this Pierce?”
Olivia wondered why she doubted that Detective Gurmeet Richards, aka Matt to his friends and enemies, needed any help from her in figuring out how to conduct a murder investigation.
“Behind that fence,” she said. “You’ll see his trailer.”
Matt looked puzzled. “You mean behind all that frippery?”
If only he knew how many glitches she had to work out to get the printing of that frippery just right. From picking out the colors that would show in media videos and photos, to a fabric that wouldn’t tear easily on the fencing or fade in the bright sun. And then get the competing interests on the design committee to approve it. One of the many headaches, large and small, she had tackled to pull off this failed groundbreaking.
But this was not the time to nitpick with him. “Yeah, you’ll find him on the other side.”
Again and again, the question roiled around in her mind. Who could have committed this terrible crime? Apart from their professional qualifications, Olivia knew very little about the people working on the site. Russ Bowers, the architect, came to mind. His most distinctive characteristic was his outsized ego. Though he wore a wedding ring, he encouraged the adoration of his associates. The one with him today was named Amanda. Though the invitation to submit a proposal went out to the design community throughout the state, Olivia wanted a firm based in northern California. No way was she going to have Brooks Baker trying to get his hands on this project. Brooks was Olivia’s former plus one, an architect known for creating forward-looking museums.
She had influence with the committee and she used it. She saw to it that the new San Francisco firm of Bowers, Jennings and Birmingham got the plum assignment. She had looked forward to working with the innovative Kris Birmingham, the architect who had made the presentation. But after the award was made public, Russ Bowers announced he would head the team.
He had the bona fides she admired but a personality that grated. Olivia guessed that as soon as the photo ops were over, he would send his grunts to the wearying design and construction meetings. The museum was Russ’s first big job since he and his partners went solo, but Olivia couldn’t imagine why he would harm a worker.
Scott Pierce was the boss on the project. He’d been an executive of Towers International, one of the largest construction firms in the world, responsible for huge projects in Dubai and Hong Kong. Somehow he had convinced Towers to back him, and he formed Darling Construction and Engineering International, Ltd. He’d gotten family members involved. At least Olivia knew of one case of nepotism. It didn’t bother her. What’s the point of being the boss if you can’t turn an annoying nephew into your personal gopher?
Olivia guessed that if the museum was a success, meaning it came in on time and below budget, he would become a major player in international building construction.
Olivia found Scott hard to read. He answered her calls on the first ring, which was a big plus in her book, but he was remote and sometimes distracted when they spoke. Today he showed his short-tempered side. But none of this would account for him killing one of his own men.
Landing Pierre Ballard as curator was a major coup. Top in his field, he was responsible for the acquisition of fine art for the museum, and later installation of the automobiles. He had come up with the idea to position The Bacon-Paatz Museum as an important center for art and not just elite collectible automobiles.
Before the date for the groundbreaking had been confirmed, Pierre had accepted an invitation to deliver the keynote address at a conference in Paris on art fraud. Olivia had been very disappointed that Pierre could not participate in the ceremony today, even more so when she met his annoying assistant who would represent him, Alistair Marsh. Alistair seemed to think the museum would not exist without him.
“After all, this building is about ART,” he had announced to Olivia when they met. He was telling her the purpose of the museum? Did he think she was the janitor?
She couldn’t see how any of these people could possibly wish a murder on the property. They each had too much at stake in seeing a successful completion, slated for twelve months from now. That left the workers as suspects, and she had no idea what kind of frictions might exist amongst them.
But, wait. She was getting ahead of herself. No one has said the man was murdered, she reminded herself. Perhaps, as Matt suggested, it was the result of a mishap, a run in with one of the earthmovers or cranes. She’d heard of stories of a person being accidentally knocked into a pit with no witnesses and the body disappearing.
Or, perhaps he’d had a fight with a co-worker, or some teasing or horsing around had gone horribly wrong, She could imagine two men in a friendly jostle, Jed falling and hitting his head. People were known to make stupid mistakes and panic in situations like that, rather than just acknowledge the accident and get help.
There were no handbooks on how to cover up an accidental death. The guilty party might have hidden the body instead of calling 911, not realizing it was the spot for the groundbreaking, that Jed would be easily discovered.
Why would anyone want to kill that young man, anyway? Judging from his sweet baby girl and winsome wife, Jed Fisher must have been a lovely person to win the totally adorable family lottery. His death had to have been an accident. Olivia refused to believe otherwise.
Olivia went looking for Charles.
Next to the widow and baby, he had the most to lose and was probably more frantic about the murder than anyone else. The museum had his name on it, was funded by him and would house a collection of antique autos The Wall Street Journal had called the finest in the world. This one-time New Jersey train dispatcher had moved into a rarified world. Not only had he acquired the most wealth by any lottery winner in history, almost three-quarters of a billion in two jackpots, but also by virtue of his interest in fine automobiles he was suddenly accepted in rarified philanthropic, art and financial ci
rcles. The Economist had done a focus piece about him, Vanity Fair had done a cover spread and at charity events the titans of Silicon Valley asked his advice on subjects he knew nothing about.
Once his dark good looks hit the newsstands, modeling offers came in from Armani and Vogue. Unfortunately, once he opened his mouth and his tongue tripped over the dentalized syllables of his New Jersey neighborhood, TV commercial opportunities dried up. He might have done voice overs for The Sopranos, but not Ralph Lauren.
A horrible thought crossed Olivia’s mind as she made her way to the platform where he was fussing over his cars. Even more than Scott Pierce, Charles had just as much to lose if the museum were shut down or seriously compromised because of environmental concerns.
Immediately, she flogged herself for it. The man’s your friend, she reminded herself. You’ve been in financial and contractual negotiations with him for months. Never has there been a whisper of wrongdoing on his part. He wouldn’t turn into a murderer overnight. Wo?uld he
Olivia realized that was not possible as soon as Charles looked up from the car and saw her, anxiety and something else she could not name written all over his face. He waved her over and she picked up her pace.
“Charles, what is it? How are you doing?”
“Oh my god, Olivia? Have you talked to that woman?”
“What woman?” Olivia looked around. The female guests had been questioned and released by Matt’s crew. They were gathering up purses, air kissing their friends goodbye and heading for their cars. Which one did he mean?
“The wife. I mean the widow. Is anyone looking after her? What a horrible thing to happen and she has to witness it.”
Charles sounded frantic and all of sudden Olivia understood his expression. It was grief. He was putting himself in the shoes of Victoria, the loss of his own spouse coming back to him. The Vanity Fair article had dug up all the gossip on Charles. And the news was, there wasn’t any gossip. His wife had died suddenly and early in their marriage and he’d never really gotten over the loss.