“I thank you for your time,” I murmured without inflection, backing out. “Perhaps our computer gurus can locate the file in her hard drive.”
That was cruel. Hagan’s face sagged to his desk as I turned and walked out. I hope that gave him a few sleepless nights.
I had an urgent need to call Nick and ask him about Mindy’s computer, but there weren’t any public phones here. If there had been a cell phone office nearby, I would have bought a blamed phone right then. I don’t like constant contact with people, but I could see that if family became a part of my life, I’d need it.
Outside, I debated heading in the direction of the Smithsonian in search of a public phone or in search of the consignment shop with hopes of finding a phone in the process. I chose the shop and found it before the phone. Hidden from the blazing concrete of blocks of government offices in a shadowy nook beneath one of the many walls, the shop clearly bought and sold office wear to low paid government employees on a budget. The pinstriped suits—male and female—in the display window were a giveaway.
I checked my watch. I’d have to hurry if I wanted to meet EG at school. Surely there would be a phone over by the school where I could call Nick.
Operating on a desire to nail the killer of a woman with enough courage to go after an unscrupulous textbook monopoly, I entered the shop and located the shoe department.
The lone clerk headed my way when I lifted a pair of Ferragamo’s. “May I help you?”
“Mindy told me this was the best place to buy shoes,” I murmured sorrowfully. “We were supposed to meet here the day she died.”
The young woman looked disturbed. “I’m so sorry. Is that why she was in here that day? The police never came to see me, so I didn’t know.”
Bells of triumph clamored in my head. You’d think the female detective who’d commented on the Blahniks would have known to talk to secretaries and shop clerks, but maybe she only did forensics or something. I knew nothing about police procedures. I didn’t even watch TV to catch CSI. So, yeah, maybe I was ignorant.
“I was delayed,” I said, trying to look distressed. “Who knows? If I’d been here, she might never have been killed.” I set the open-toed shoe down. “Wrong size.”
“Oh, I thought she died that night, not after she’d been in here at noon. How awful.” She looked thoroughly shocked. “I should read the papers more, but I have a three-year-old. There aren’t enough hours in the day.” She lifted a similar pair of heels. “What size do you wear?”
“Six.” I took the pair she handed me and checked the designer. No one I knew. “I hear you on the toddler. Kids are so time-consuming.” Setting down her choice, I picked up a blue high-heeled slide that would look good with denim. “Mindy never returned to the office after lunch. They didn’t find her until evening, but the police think she died in mid-afternoon. I always wondered if she went to lunch with someone else.”
“Oh, maybe with the gentleman she ran into outside!” Remembering, the clerk looked wide-eyed. “They seemed to know each other. He was kind of old, but I just thought he was one of the people she worked with. She seemed to know him and the Asian gentleman with him.”
I almost dropped the shoe at this piece of knowledge I hadn’t found in the police reports. D.C. police were way too overworked if they hadn’t uncovered this. I managed to hold the shoe out to indicate I wished to buy the pair. “That was probably Mr. Hagan,” I said casually, using the first name coming to mind. “I don’t know the Asian gentleman though.”
“Is Mr. Hagan a big fellow with gray hair and a limp?” She took the pair back to the cash register, not noticing the shock I must have broadcast at hearing my casual reference confirmed.
“That’s him,” I managed to say without stuttering. Hagan had met Mindy outside the office. In the company of an “Asian” fellow. Evidence, I needed evidence.
“That’s all right then, if she knew him,” the clerk said casually. “I was afraid I’d have to call the police or something, and I so hate to have that kind of publicity. I can’t believe the senator did it, though. He seems such a nice family man.”
“What about the Asian fellow?” I suggested as if this were a good mystery story we were gossiping about. “Are you sure she knew him?”
Her head came up and her eyes grew wide. “You think? He wasn’t much bigger than you, and let’s face it, Mindy was pretty hefty.”
“Martial arts,” I suggested. “Maybe you’ll get a reward if you call the police.”
I paid for my shoes and left her thinking about it. My heart was pounding too wildly for my brain to register anything more than picking up EG and hiding out until I could put all this together.
Chapter Twenty-two
EG calls a bomb scare and gets kidnapped.
While the other students diligently worked on their internet assignment, EG set her instant messaging system up to see if Tudor was online. Her older half brother lived in England. He never slept and seldom went to class. After a brief exchange of messages, she sent him the school busy-work and settled down to more important fare.
Why had Mr. Hagan blown her off? She thought her e-mail on the textbook situation had been maturely discussed. He could have at least sent a polite thank you. What she really wanted was an interview with him, though. Of course, if he had nothing to do with textbooks, he’d probably just passed on her information. This detective business was tougher than she’d realized.
If she was as good with computers as Tudor, she could send e-mail that would sound like it came from her father’s Senate office, but she wasn’t that good. So she set up an account called “interested citizen” and e-mailed Mr. Hagan from there. She just needed answers to some questions, like how well did he know Tex, but she wouldn’t tell him that in an e-mail. Maybe if she asked for the name of someone who dealt with textbooks, she could persuade him to call. She gave him Nick’s cell phone number and e-mailed Nick at Tex’s office with her questions. Nick wouldn’t give her a hard time. He might not do it, though, so she had to think of something else.
She had considered accepting Magda’s offer of a school in Switzerland. It had been tempting thinking of Tex teaching her to ski if he got out of this mess. But she didn’t want to learn to ski. What she really wanted was for Tex and Magda to get back together again. It might be impossible, but she didn’t see any harm in creating the opportunity. She’d like to see that little cow Elise on the outside looking in for a change.
She just had to help Ana and Nick find the real murderer, then arrange it to look as if Magda had done it so Tex would be grateful. That was the ideal solution. She’d accept variations.
“Whatcha doin’?” The bespectacled kid next to her leaned around the cubicle to stare at her computer screen.
EG reduced the window so he couldn’t read it and opened a website that looked remotely like something she ought to be studying. “Working,” she replied dulcetly. No more getting called to the office for her. Not yet anyway.
“I’m bored,” her new-found friend complained. “Want to see some excitement?”
With a little more interest, EG looked up. “What kind of excitement?”
He grinned and shoved his glasses up his nose. “It’s Friday. Let’s get out of school early. I’m going on the web to my father’s account and e-mail a bomb threat to Apple-bum.”
“Your father will be blamed,” she pointed out, although a new idea had bloomed at the thought of getting out before Ana arrived. All those security guards at the door were a serious obstacle to her freedom.
“Nah. My father works for Paul Rose. They’ll say his account was hacked. He has a big party tonight, so he won’t even know if I get home late.”
“Bomb threats are pretty crude. I’ll think of a better way next time,” she said as indifferently as she could while her idea blossomed and grew.
“There’s an arcade on the next street. I’ll meet you there after the alarm goes off.” Removing his glasses and rubbing his nose, he returned to
typing at his keyboard.
Thoroughly amused that it wasn’t her mischief about to empty the school, EG returned to her messaging. If the threat went through in time, she might have a chance to catch the Metro to Tex’s office. If she could just talk with her dad alone for a few minutes…
Efficiently, she sent messages to both Tex’s home and office addresses asking for a minute of his time.
~
I climbed off the Metro at the station nearest EG’s school, my head spinning with all the things I needed to do to nail Mindy’s murderer. I was trying hard not to believe the same person might have murdered Max, but the textbook connection looked grim.
The facts as I knew them sounded bad but led nowhere: (1) A number of senators and corporate moguls owned Edu-Pub and had a stranglehold on the textbook publishing industry. (2) A woman who had discovered that association had died, and so had a man who had tried to help her. (3) One of the senators in a position to expose the monopoly was now being threatened with jail or worse. This sounded uglier than a drug cartel with just as little evidence to nail anyone.
I had no proof that Hagan and Pao had been the men who had met Mindy a few hours before she died, but the description was close enough to suggest the meeting wasn’t coincidence.
I prayed the shop clerk called the police as I suggested. Investigating suspects was their job. All a virtual assistant like me could do was to research and provide leads. Just leaving the confines of my computer was way above my pay grade.
The police knew about Tex’s connection with Edu-Pub, but they wouldn’t know the bigger association with the publishers yet. I bet Hagan did. I didn’t fully grasp that as a motive for murder, though. I needed the advance report Mindy must have sent to the committee chairman, the one making Hagan so nervous. I was afraid the police would have her computer, or if there really was something in that report, the villains would have wiped it. But I had to call Nick and meet him at Tex’s office to see if the report was around somewhere.
First, I had to pick up EG. I worried whether to take her back to the mansion or to Tex’s office. I hadn’t made a decision either way when I shoved off the crowded Metro at EG’s stop only to land in an even thicker throng of disgruntled passengers and police. The cops shouted commands at commuters trying to leave the cars, but we weren’t listening. There were more of us than them, and the men in blue finally gave way to let us pass, hurrying the departees toward the exit and ushering the rest into the waiting train whether they wanted to go or not.
They were clearing the station.
My heart lodged in my throat and stayed there as the mob carried me up the stairs to the street.
Police were cordoning off the entrance, preventing commuters from going down. Even as our trainload emptied into the street, they shut down the station and began backing people off the main thoroughfare and down a side one.
The normally busy four-lane highway at the Metro exit looked like a parking lot. Trucks, buses, taxis, limos, all idled or had their engines off. One carload of teenagers had turned up their CD player, and the teens were boogying in between a bus and a BMW. Other drivers responded less coolly, cursing and honking in a foolish attempt to reach their destination, which they couldn’t because of a barricade several blocks away—in the direction of the school.
Barricades on busy streets meant danger.
I’d learned the uselessness of panic at an early age. Instead, my adrenaline pumps, I get angry, and I get obnoxious, but I do not have hysterics. Or so I told myself as I shoved my way through the crowd with both elbows. I bit a jerk wearing a muscle T-shirt who tried to push me back. Just because I’m small doesn’t mean I’m not mean, especially when it comes to my family. All thoughts of murderers and Tex dissipated with my need to find EG, right now.
I clawed my way to the front of the crowd and saw with relief that the students from the school were arranged in an orderly fashion behind the barricade under the supervision of the teachers. I wouldn’t have to maim anyone after all.
I zoomed in on Appleby. “What’s happening?” I demanded as I stepped on the toe of the teacher to whom he was talking so she had to shift out of my way.
Recognizing me, he frowned and scanned the crowd. “Standard procedure for a bomb threat. We usually don’t have them until spring when the students are restless and want to go home early. Given the political situation lately, we thought it ought to be taken seriously.”
I’d recently seen a warehouse blow up under the hands of a couple of teenagers and a can of gas, probably combined with a little fertilizer. I didn’t think this crowd was back nearly far enough if there was a bomb in the school. “I’m taking EG home with me. Where is she?”
I’d been scanning the crowd, too. And not seeing her. She’s small, but she’s usually right in the thick of things. I’d break her neck if she’d chosen this moment to skip. I’d have to go back to the house to find her, and without the Metro, it could take me who knew how long to get there. I didn’t have that kind of time.
“I’m sure she’s here somewhere. The teachers are supposed to stay with the group they led out. I don’t suppose you know her schedule?” He seemed to be worriedly taking a head count of his teachers.
I checked my watch. School should be out now. “Her last class was social studies.”
He nodded. “Miss Millard. Over there.” He nodded at a tall, gray-haired woman who towered over everyone. She had her hand on the head of one child and was keeping an eagle eye on the others. I still didn’t see EG, but I could assume she’d ducked down to tie her shoe or something. There were a lot of adults who could block my view. I had to push closer.
I tried to be more polite in my assault now that I knew EG should be safe. I mumbled pardons and excuse me’s as I worked my way down the side street. I was aware of policemen standing behind the barricades, keeping traffic and crowds back, but my gaze focused entirely on the well-dressed children with the tall teacher.
This was one of the many, many reasons I left Magda and my siblings ten years ago. It’s impossible to keep up with a tribe of intelligent, curious kids on safe streets. In some of the places we lived, I existed in a state of constant terror that I would lose one of them. I’d had some foolish hope that my departure would prompt Magda to take them out of harm’s way.
No one ever said I was the family’s brightest light.
My heart cracked and fell apart in fear as I saw Nick shoving through the crowd from the opposite direction. His expression was so grim and un-Nick-like that I knew the news was bad before I reached him.
I reached the teacher first. “Miss Millard, I’m Elizabeth Maximillian’s sister. Where is she?”
The teacher looked around wildly. “She was here when we came out. I made certain she was with me when we left because she’s so small, and I didn’t want to lose her.”
Her lips moved, and I could see her rapidly counting heads as Nick approached from her opposite side, waving a cell phone in my direction.
“They’ve kidnapped Eezhee,” he shouted over the low roar of the crowd. “They called me at the office. Graham wants to talk to you.”
I tried not to trip over any munchkins as I dived past their heads to grab the phone from his hand. “Who has her?” I shouted into the phone.
“Since they request your passports, three plane tickets to London, and Max’s millions, I might assume it’s Magda,” Graham’s dry voice said into my ear.
“No!” I screamed at him. “Magda is nuts, but she’d never do that to me.” That was a head trip I’d analyze later, but not now.
This time, he sounded a little less unruffled. “Whoever it is wants you to take the items to the reception this evening where you’ll be given further instructions. I’ll be more than happy to provide the plane tickets.”
His black humor didn’t amuse me. I clung to Nick’s arm and kept a constant scan of the crowd, hoping I’d see EG reading a book in a doorway. “Whoever it is had a means of inciting a riot to get at her. Can y
ou call your school connections and find out more?”
“Riot?”
I might not panic, but Graham’s alarm nearly sent me over the edge. I’d known something he didn’t, and he didn’t like it. I could hear him clacking at his keyboard, fiddling with his computers. It took him a few minutes to catch up with the news. I winced at his sharp whistle.
“Bomb threat,” I explained, assuming he was seeing the crowd. “They’ve shut down the streets and the Metro, and the bomb squad is inside scouring the school.”
His silence was thunderous. I remembered why I admired him from the first—his expressive silences. Other men cursed and shouted and lost control. Graham shut up and acted. I clenched my teeth to keep them from chattering. It must have been a hundred and ten in the shade, and I was shivering. His silence had that kind of power.
“I’m buying three plane tickets and sending you to the airport. Get back here, collect your passports, and I’ll have a limo waiting.” He hung up.
I needed to find EG, and he hung up on me.
I started to heave the damned phone into the street, but Nick caught my arm and jerked his baby out of my hands.
“What?” he yelled. His designer silk tie was crooked, and his perfect blond hair had fallen into his wild eyes. EG would be impressed.
Hit by a tidal wave of terror, I bit back a lump in my throat and tried not to wonder where EG might be right now. EG was quite capable of staging a kidnapping to get her own way, but I didn’t think she’d willingly put me through hell any more than Magda would.
“Graham wants to put us on a plane to London and get us out of his hair. Or out of D.C.” I wasn’t trusting him to find EG on his own. A sudden, horrible thought struck me.
“Call Graham back,” I shouted over the honking, tugging Nick down the nearest side street. The traffic was still thick, but the crowd of onlookers dwindled as we moved farther away. “Tell him Bob Hagan on the education committee and someone of Asian origin who might be Pao may have had a motive to murder Mindy Carstairs.”
Evil Genius Page 26