by Janet Dawson
“He’s not my Mr. Yale Rittlestone. I wouldn’t have him on a platter. Do you mean you’ve seen him since last week, when we were together?”
“I certainly have.” She twirled around to face me, laughing. She was playing with me, and enjoying it.
“Come on, Darcy, this is serious. Tell me when and where you saw him.”
“Is this just corporate intrigue?” she asked. “I mean, Dad’s in the computer business, and you should hear what those people do to each other.”
“It’s more than that.”
“You mean, there’s a murder involved?” I didn’t answer right away, and a shadow passed over her face. I knew she was thinking of the events that brought us together last summer. “I thought so. I thought it must be something big for you to be working undercover at that place. Is Mr. Rittlestone a suspect?”
“I’m not sure,” I told her. “Let’s just say I think there’s more underneath that glittery smiling facade that bears looking at. Tell me when you saw him.”
“Friday afternoon, about three, maybe a little after.”
That was indeed interesting. According to Jeff Bates, Rittlestone and his assistant showed up at the company around two o’clock to conduct the Friday afternoon massacre. I’d assumed that Rittlestone stayed after Jeff departed. But evidently he’d fired his predecessor and then left the building. But that didn’t necessarily mean anything.
“Did you see him here in the neighborhood?”
“He was at the Lake Merritt BART station,” Darcy said, mentioning the nearest stop, located about seven or eight blocks from the Produce District. “What was he doing there? Guys like that don’t do mass transit. They get driven around in fancy cars like the one we just saw.” She jerked her head back toward the Bates building.
She had a point, but I could think of some instances where Yale Rittlestone would get on a bus or a train. “He might ride BART from San Francisco to Oakland, and back again. Aside from the ferry, that’s actually the easiest way to get from this part of town to the city. What good is a Mercedes if it’s stuck in traffic on the Bay Bridge?”
“But he wasn’t getting on a San Francisco train,” Darcy argued, playing her trump card. “He got on a Fremont train. I was heading that way myself, so when I recognized him as the man I saw a few days earlier, I got onto the same car. He got off in San Leandro.”
“Did he indeed?” I said, more to myself than to her. All I could think about was the short walk from the San Leandro station to Clarke Street.
“Sure did. Why would a big-deal corporate raider go to San Leandro? The article I read in the newspaper says Bates has some plants there, but do you really think a guy like that goes down to the plant to watch ’em can tomatoes?”
“No, I don’t.”
An idea was taking shape in my head, and I wanted to process it for awhile. Besides, we’d reached the deli, and I thought it wise to delay any further discussion until we were alone again. For the sake of variety I ordered tuna salad on whole wheat and a cream soda. Darcy chose a pasta salad and a bottle of flavored water. We carried our lunches down to a bench that faces the estuary, and I asked her about her living situation.
“I really have to find a place of my own.” She twisted the cap off her bottle of water and took a swallow. “Mom’s trying.” She grinned. “In both senses of the word. Well, she’s making the effort. I give her credit for that.”
“That’s the most grown-up thing I’ve heard you say this week,” I said, only half joking. I unwrapped my sandwich and took a bite.
She pulled the lid off the container of salad and poked at its contents with a plastic fork. “You told me once you didn’t get along with your mother, either.”
“We’ve had our problems. It’s gotten better over the past year.” But we’d had a very unpleasant fight the last time I’d gone down to Monterey to visit her. It was only in the aftermath of those harsh words that we’d flung at each other that relations had slowly started to improve. “What does your father say?”
“He doesn’t want me living by myself,” Darcy told me. “He says if I got a roommate, it would be okay. But I looked into that, and I don’t think it would work. I can just see me living with someone like Heather, my friend from high school. We always egged each other on. We’d be three times as much trouble as we are individually.”
“What about renting a room in someone’s house?”
Darcy washed down a mouthful of salad with some water. “I’ve investigated that, too. In fact, that’s why I was on BART Friday afternoon. This woman I work with lives down in Castro Valley and rents out rooms in her house. I went down there to look at the place, but I decided it wasn’t for me. Too far out. I think I’d like to narrow it down to Alameda, Oakland, or Berkeley. You live over by Lake Merritt, don’t you? How is that neighborhood?”
“I won’t be living there much longer. I’m buying a house.”
I started telling Darcy about the house on Chabot Road in Rockridge, and how wonderful it was going to be when I closed the deal and moved in. When I told her about the studio apartment above the garage, her eyes lit up.
“Jeri, that would be perfect.”
Omigod, I thought. I can’t believe I mentioned the studio. Now I’m in trouble. I could even be a landlord.
“You said it’s just off College Avenue. Walking distance to the Rockridge BART station, right? I could look after your cats and everything when you’re out of town,” she crowed. “And you could look after me.”
“You take a lot of looking after.” I looked at the hopeful glow on Darcy’s face and asked myself just what I was planning to do with that studio apartment anyway. But did I want a precocious eighteen-year-old living over my garage?
“I’m not as high maintenance as I used to be,” she said with a grin. Then she dug an elbow into my side. “Besides, didn’t I just give you an important clue?”
“Just what I need, a sidekick.” I heaved a sigh. “I’m not promising anything. I suppose we could at least discuss it with your parents. But I’m telling you right now, no wild parties.”
Thirty-seven
WHEN I GOT BACK TO THE BATES BUILDING, Yale Rittlestone, his entourage, and the media had long since departed. I stepped into the empty elevator and pressed the button for the fourth floor. The doors began to close. Then a gray-clad arm snaked in between them, and the doors opened again. The arm was followed by a lanky body in a well-cut gray suit as David Vanitzky stepped in beside me. He didn’t say a word, just gave me a once-over with his chilly eyes. When the car started its ascent, he looked up, as all elevator passengers do, at the indicator that marked the passage of each floor.
“Where were you Friday?” he asked abruptly.
“Out sick,” I told him.
He looked at me as though he didn’t quite believe me. “Meet me after work. At the bookstore. I’ll be in the biography section.”
I favored him with an enigmatic smile, but didn’t say anything. Let him wonder whether I’d show up or not. The elevator doors opened onto the fourth floor. He gestured with his right hand, polite to a fault, and waited while I stepped out and walked toward Cube City.
Just as I rounded the corner, Hank stepped out of the office that had been his and was now, presumably, going to be occupied by Tonya Russell. “Jeri,” he said, “I’ve got a project for you.” His words sounded more like an order than a request, and his smile was a little less ingratiating than it had been when he was just one of the attorneys instead of the new Bates general counsel.
“Sure thing. What is it?” I pasted on my best eager-to-please expression and waited for him to elaborate further.
“I need you to move my files.” He gestured toward the corner office. “Get some boxes from the mail room guys and load the files in them. Make sure to keep them in order. Then have the guys move them to that office. Don’t want you to hurt your back or anything,” he added, twinkling his blue eyes at me. “Then you can put them in the cabinets in there. Shouldn’t
take you more than a couple of hours.”
“I’ll get right on it,” I told him.
Nancy and Gladys were at their workstations in Cube City. I told them where I’d be for the next few hours as I stashed my purse in the bottom drawer. Nancy didn’t say anything, but a curious look passed over her face. Gladys glanced at me as she picked another tape out of the rush box.
“Better you than me,” she said, with a hint of venom. “Mr. Irvin’s been full of himself all day. I might be tempted to tell him just what I think of this whole damn El Paso move, since I heard on the grapevine he’s been in on the thing up to his big blue eyes.”
Gladys had a point. Why had I been blessed with moving Hank’s files? Didn’t Hank trust either of the secretaries who’d been working in the legal department for a long time? He had reason not to, in Nancy’s case. She’d been Alex’s right arm for over fifteen years, and it was obvious she mourned his loss. As for Gladys, she might just damn the torpedoes and give him an earful he didn’t want to hear.
Whatever the reason, he was handing this private investigator the opportunity I’d sought for more than a week. I was going to get a crack at that Project Rio file.
I went downstairs and got a half-dozen flattened storage boxes, similar to those I’d seen earlier in Ann Twomey’s office, from the mail room. Back on the fourth floor, in Hank’s old office, I put them together and pulled open the top drawer of the filing cabinet that had previously been locked. Quickly, I rifled through the file folders, looking for the Project Rio label. It wasn’t there. Nor was it in the other file drawers. It looked as though the folder I sought was already on Hank’s new desk. If that was the case, maybe I could get a look at it when I unloaded the boxes.
But first, I had to fill them. I set to work, taking eare to keep the folders in alphabetical order. I had just finished emptying the second drawer of the lateral filing cabinet when the door opened. I looked up, expecting to see Nancy or Gladys. Instead, it was Tonya Russell’s round fair face, wearing a perturbed expression as she surveyed the office that was going to be hers.
“Well,” she said. “He’s not wasting any time, is he?”
I shrugged. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Moving into the corner office.” She walked into the room, the skirt of her green suit swishing around her legs. Her fingers drummed a little tattoo on Hank’s desk as she glanced at the papers arrayed on it.
I stuck the lid on the box I’d just filled, then picked up another empty. “Why shouldn’t he move into the corner office? He’s the general counsel now, isn’t he? I guess that’s what they call a done deal.”
Tonya’s only comment on this was a frown and what sounded like a low and speculative hum. I got the feeling Tonya wanted to look at Hank’s files as much as I did. I maintained my noncommittal expression until she’d departed. If Tonya seemed surprised, or even somewhat resentful, of the fact that Hank had been made general counsel, something wasn’t exactly right. She was an R&W import, just like Hank. Was it possible that the right hand at Rittlestone and Weper didn’t know what the left hand was up to?
I quickly finished packing up all of Hank’s files, as well as the contents of his desk, which included some personal belongings. Then I called the guys in the mail room. Two of them rode up to the fourth floor in the freight elevator, bringing with them a hand truck. They loaded the boxes, and I led the way to the corner office.
“Quick work, Jeri,” Hank said, as the mail room guys trundled in their handcart and stopped, looking around.
You bet, I thought. Now leave, so I can search the place. But he gave no indication that he had any intention of leaving. He was seated at the desk that faced the door, reading through the documents in a file folder.
“Just tell me where you want these.”
“That first filing cabinet,” he said, indicating the one closest to the desk. The two mail clerks unloaded the boxes in front of that cabinet and left.
I positioned myself so that I could watch Hank from the corner of my eye, and pulled the lid off the first box, checking my watch as I did so. It was a quarter after three. If I had to complete my chore while Hank was there, putting file folders into drawers was all I’d be able to do. And I wasn’t sure I could risk hanging around after work on the chance of getting in here. These file drawers had locks, too, and besides, I was supposed to meet David after work.
I started pulling folders from the boxes and placing them in the filing cabinet. A few moments later, I heard an electronic buzz to my left and glanced up to see Hank feeding several sheets into a shredder. Destroying the evidence? I thought. Of what? I was itching to get my hands on the materials he was reading. Somewhere on that desk, I was sure I’d find the Project Rio file. I hoped it wasn’t the file he was purging.
Like an answer to prayer, the phone rang. Hank hit the button on the speakerphone and barked an impatient, “Hank Irvin.”
It was David Vanitzky’s voice I heard through the speaker. “Yale wants you and me in his office, right now.”
“Be right there,” Hank said, then he disconnected the call. I saw him gather up the papers he’d been reading and stick them into an accordion folder. He leaned down and opened a desk drawer, one with a small metal key sticking from a keyhole. He dropped the folder inside, shut the drawer, and turned the key. Then he stuck the key in his pants pocket and stood up. He left the office without a word to me.
Well, why not? Secretaries are part of the furniture.
I quickly lifted the box I’d been unloading onto the surface of the desk, so that it would obscure the view from the office door and look as though I’d set it there to empty it. I grabbed a stray paper clip from one of the documents in the nearest file, and squatted on my haunches, unbending the clip.
I’d picked my share of locks, large and small. This one was no challenge. It took me all of five seconds to open the drawer. There were several items inside, but the folder I’d been looking for was on top. I picked it up and looked at the label. It was indeed the Project Rio file.
Now if Hank would just stay closeted with Yale and David. I left the drawer open, in case it might lock if I closed it. Then I straightened, set the file inside the half-empty box I’d been unloading, and pulled out the inch-thick stack of papers on the El Paso move. What was it about this deal that Hank Irvin didn’t want anyone to see? Had he already shredded all the incriminating stuff?
I skimmed through the papers. Mostly they were copies of letters and memos, at least in the first half of the stack. In the back of the file I found some drawings and specifications of the planned remodel of the six Sheffield Foods plants in El Paso. Then I came upon a few pages of notes, written on yellow lined papers, in what I recognized as Hank’s handwriting.
Before I had a chance to read the notes, I sensed danger. Maybe it was the shadow of someone near the opaque glass of the door, or the rattle of the knob as someone’s hand touched it. I shoved the notes into the file and the Project Rio folder back in the drawer. By the time the door swung open, I was back at work, at the more mundane task I was supposed to be doing.
I looked up. Buck Tarcher stared at me with a pair of suspicious eyes. “What are you doing in here?”
I shrugged as though the answer to his question was quite obvious. “What does it look like?” I waved a hand at the boxes and the open file drawers. “Mr. Irvin asked me to move his files into these cabinets.”
“Where is he?” Tarcher demanded.
“In a meeting with Mr. Rittlestone.”
I gazed at Tarcher, waiting for him to speak, but he didn’t say anything. Instead he turned on his heel and stalked out of the office. I waited for a count of fifty, barely breathing, wondering if Tarcher would come back, accompanied by Hank, to accuse me of spying.
But he didn’t. Then I knelt again and stuck my hand into the still-open drawer. There were some other files underneath the Project Rio folder, and I wanted a look at those, too. The pages I glanced through were a grab bag of
information, and I couldn’t determine whether any of it was relevant. The one exception was a handwritten note I found in a folder containing information on Hank’s employee benefits. The note was on letterhead that looked familiar. In fact, I’d seen it when I was filing some employee benefits correspondence. I folded it and stuck it into my pocket.
I glanced at my watch again. Ten minutes to four. I’d been pushing my luck so hard it was a wonder I hadn’t been caught. I shut the drawer and went back to putting files in drawers, working as quickly as I could. My timing was impeccable. Hank returned from his meeting not long after I’d finished examining the contents of the drawer.
“Still at it?” he asked, as though he’d expected me to be finished and gone.
“I’ve been taking my time,” I told him., “I want to make sure I get all these files back in order. But I’m almost done.”
He seemed impatient for me to leave, so I finished quickly, gathering the boxes and carrying them to the entrance of the freight elevator. That done, I detoured to the restroom.
“Oh, there you are, Jeri,” Nancy said when I returned to Cube City. I’d seen Gladys just before I walked through the door, entering Patricia’s office. So Nancy and I were alone. “I checked with Hank, but he said you’d finished a little while ago.”
“I was in the restroom,” I told her. “What’s up?”
“Mr. Tarcher wants to see you in his office. As soon as possible, he said.”
“Really?” I hoped my face didn’t show what I was feeling. Busted, I was sure of it.
I sat down at my workstation and took my purse from the drawer where I’d stashed it. Unzipping the handbag, I removed a small tube of hand lotion, which I uncapped. I squeezed out some of the cream and rubbed it into my skin.
“Did he say what it was about?” I asked as I put the cap back on the tube and stuffed it into my purse. I kept the purse on my lap.
“No, he didn’t.” Nancy looked at me as though she knew perfectly well what it was about. “You’d better go down there now. His office is on the first floor, past office services and the mail room.”