by Kim Smith
Old Mr. Fine’s Cadillac was parked near the building. There were only a few other cars, mostly belonging to shop workers who had to punch in at seven in the morning. I pulled next to the Caddy, went in through the front entrance, and punched the buzzer on the intercom.
“Mr. Fine? It’s me, Shannon. May I come up?”
“Certainly.”
I rode the elevator to the top floor where it opened into the plush executive offices. Soft carpet silenced my footsteps as I worked my way around the circular glass receptionist desk.
He met me on the other side.
“Shannon,” he said, walking toward me, holding out his hand.
I took it and squeezed. “How are you, sir?”
He smiled sadly, “Ah. Well, you know how it is.”
I nodded. I knew. I really knew. “I’m ready to get into that computer, if you’re still willing to let me.”
He motioned ahead of us. “Okay, let’s get to it.”
Rick’s office door was closed, so Mr. Fine inserted a key to let us in. Opening the door with one hand, he flipped the light switch on the wall with the other. “Here you go, my dear.”
“Thank you.”
“You’ll be done before we open at eight this morning, right?”
“I’ll be sure to be.” I would need to hurry.
“Good, wouldn’t want anyone asking questions. Best if no one knows about this. The police are still involved with the information here.”
I watched his disappearing form. There was nothing wrong with snooping, as long as no one knew about it? That struck me as odd. Then I remembered Charlie. Maybe he was coming in today, and Mr. Fine didn’t want his eldest son to know he was letting someone into Rick’s office. Or maybe he was just indulging me and didn’t want me here when the business day began. I was an ex-employee even if I was his son’s girlfriend.
I gave up trying to understand and booted up the computer.
The machine whirred and beeped going through its paces as it came to life. I got to the log on screen and froze. What was his password? I remembered it had been some special date. I typed in his birthday and hit enter. Password incorrect.
I tried my birthday, but got the same response. I panicked. If I typed his password wrong three times, the computer would lock me out. I knew this because the network administrator had given me a hard time when I had done it a few times just after I started working at the company. What numbers did he use to use for his security codes? Was it his employee id number? His address? City, state, zip? I sat back puzzled. This was not good.
What did he tell me about passwords?
“Keep it simple but secure, Shannon,” he’d said. “No one knows your mother’s birth date but you, right?”
That was it! It was his deceased mother’s birthday. I typed the numbers carefully making sure I used zeroes and all.
Bingo.
The deep blue background of the ocean appeared on the screen. I set to work going through all his documents and files. He was a pack-rat and never deleted much, but I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. The last database he used showed in the documents list, and I opened it to find files on every company who did business with Fine, including contact names. I hunted around for a flash drive, finally finding one in the middle desk drawer. I began downloading the files hoping against hope that the Straw Hat Company would be in there.
While I waited, I rifled through Rick’s desk for a little black book filled with other women’s names but found nothing. It gave me a warm feeling to know that while he was seeing me he wasn’t gathering other women’s numbers. My aunt Tillie might be onto something with the idea he was protecting me from someone. Given recent events, he had damn good reasons.
I cataloged the contents of his desk. Five blue pens, four black pens, three red pens, several adhesive pads, paper clips, and miscellaneous files filled with papers. He’d also put his receipts for items to be entered into the computer in his desk until he had time to enter them.
There were several. One was for the industrial company who provided non-skid rugs for the entry doors from the shop into the showroom. One for the Pure Water containers in the office, and one for the film company, Green Screen Productions who had done the commercials.
I examined the receipts and compared them to the ledger on the desk. From the look of them, these companies hadn’t been paid yet. I set them aside to tell Mr. Fine.
The files finished copying, and I ejected the flash drive, dropping it into my bag. Carefully watching the doorway for Mr. Fine or anyone else, I logged off Rick’s sign-on and logged back on with mine to see if they’d had time to delete my account yet. With a smile, I watched as my computer desktop flashed before me.
I was in.
Immediately opening my email account, I found dozens of messages. Because the company didn’t have any spam filtering software at the server level, everyone from A to Z sent spam, and everyone in the company received it. By the look of my inbox, I was the lucky recipient of more than my share.
I scanned down the list deleting as I went. One at the bottom caught my eye.
The sender’s name was simple. Killer. The subject line was not so simple. It read: You’re Dead. I clicked on the message. There was nothing in the body. I sat staring at the screen trying to understand. How had he gotten my work email address?
Calm down, Shannon. It could be a virus or something.
Great, now that I’ve clicked on it, I think of that.
A more insidious thought came to mind, quickly. I might be jumping to conclusions, but…
Cold shivers ran down my spine. Charles Fine would know all the addresses at his father’s company. He could send such a thing and no one would know. Especially to my email box. He could even do it from inside the offices.
I checked the return address but it was some alpha-numeric garbage that came right back when I sent a reply. The sender obviously covered his trail well. I checked the time the email had been sent. This morning? Had he followed me?
Terror rippled over me. What if he was in the building? I logged off, then back on as Rick, and shut down so that it would appear that he was the last one to sign on. Not that it mattered now. Whoever sent the email probably had the “Notify when email is received” option turned on and knew it had been opened.
I collected my purse and the receipts and hunted for the old man. He stood by the filing cabinets in the large open area near the computer network room. I cleared my throat softly to signal my approach.
He turned to face me and lifted his eyebrows in question.
“Yes and no,” I explained. “There was really nothing in there to clue us about what happened, but there were these.” I handed him the receipts. “Looks like a few folks need to be paid. You’re seriously past due with Green Screen.”
He flipped through them. “Yes, I suppose we should hurry up and get Accounting on these. I’ve been waiting on an explanation of charges. Rick always handled this stuff. I saw Mr. Green at the funeral and he promised he would be coming by soon. Maybe his billing will wait a day more.”
He frowned and muttered at the papers. My mind scrambled back and forth as to whether to tell him about the email. What could he do anyway? I didn’t want to alarm him.
Instead, I tried a different route. “Is Charlie here today?”
“No, not that I know of. I don’t expect him.”
“Did he know I was coming?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” He paused and thought about it. “I may have mentioned it.”
“Okay. Just wondered.” He could have followed me, and he could be working from anywhere. I envisioned him sitting in his car in the office parking lot sending nasty grams to me while stealing Internet access from his own father’s business. That would be so like him.
“Are you holding up okay?” He pinioned me with his cerulean stare, and I realized that while I had lapsed into thought I’d been ignoring him.
I didn’t see any reason to lie. “No. I’
m afraid not.”
He put his arm around me and walked with me toward the elevator. “With good reason, my dear. Just know that you are not alone. I am there too,” he admitted. “To take your mind off of things, do what I do and drape yourself in work. I’d like to offer you your job back if you still want it. Rick was overwrought. He told me of his intention to fire you, and I told him he was being silly.”
“Why?” I blurted out, stopping mid-stride. “Why did he do it? I thought we had something. I wasn’t that bad a typist was I?”
He smiled and shook his head. “I was going to talk to you about this at the funeral but I never got time. Rick didn’t explain the motives behind your termination?”
“No. He acted like a jerk, a total a--” I couldn’t finish. I was talking to Rick’s dad, after all.
He shook his head, indignant. “Stuffing for brains. I told the silly fool — well, he was worried about you, and he thought you would be better off if you were out of the picture. You know, out of his house, out of his life.”
“Worried? Why?”
“Someone was stalking him.”
The fluorescent lighting seemed to dim, and my vision blurred. My Aunt Tillie had been right.
“Are you okay?” Mr. Fine asked. His face swam before me. “I should have used more diplomacy with that retelling.”
“S-s-stalker?”
“Yes. They kept following him and making threatening calls. He thought it was a case of mistaken identity at first. He talked to Charlie and I about it over lunch. He decided to get you out of harm’s way and try to get the cops to help him. He didn’t get to tell the cops his plan though, before he, ah, oh.” His face softened and he looked as though he might cry.
My mind grappled with the new information and I remembered calls received at the office where Rick slammed the phone down. I’d accused the receptionist of sending him solicitation calls. “He got a call the day he fired me that seemed to annoy him.”
Mr. Fine frowned. “Did you tell the cops about this?”
“No. I just remembered it. At the time it didn’t mean anything to me. Do you think I should call them?”
He shrugged. “Charlie relayed to them about the supposed stalker. I expected them to contact me, but Charlie might have asked them not to, hoping to spare me.”
Or to keep the news all to himself to save his neck.
“I think I’ll let Detective Ramirez know anyway, sir. It could be important.”
“I would trade everything I have to have my son back.” He stopped, struggling to contain his emotion. I patted his arm. No need to complete the thought. I gave him a few moments to get under control.
Finally, I spoke. “Speaking of trading things, I have some belongings I would like to get back. You know, still at Rick’s apartment.”
“Absolutely. I have no problem with that at all.”
“Would you happen to have a key?”
He pulled his keys out and talked while flipping through them to find the one he sought. “As a matter of fact, I do. Ricky always wanted me to feel free to pop in whenever I wanted to. He tried to get me to give him the key when he found out about the stalker, but I refused. I figured he might need me at some point. But, that was foolish to think, wasn’t it? I didn’t help at all in the end.”
He took one off his key ring. “Don’t be in a hurry to return it. I have a spare the apartment manager gave me.” He dropped it into my hand.
I thanked him and added it to my own ring. Before he could inquire about which belongings of mine still remained in the apartment, I commented on the grounds outside the building. “Do you happen to know the company who tends the lawn around the furniture store? I wanted to call them.”
He shook his head. “Oh no, gosh, they’ve been doing it forever. I think Charlie hired them years ago. Can’t remember the name of the company though. You could get it from Belinda in payables I imagine.” His brows furrowed in the middle as he tried to remember.
“Does Straw Hat sound familiar?”
He thought for a moment. “I just don’t recall it.”
“That’s okay, sir. I’ll try to get in touch with Belinda.”
When the elevator arrived, he patted my shoulder in a fatherly gesture. “You watch out for yourself, Shannon. The security in this building has been beefed up significantly,” he said. “Nothing to fear here. But it’s not so out there where Rick’s killer still walks around. Call me if you have any trouble. Anything at all. And let me know if you want to come back to work, okay?”
“I don’t know about the job, Mr. Fine. I’ll give it some thought. But thank you, so much. For today, and well, everything.”
He smiled. “No problem at all. You take as much time as you need. We’ll always have a spot for you here. And you get whatever you want from Rick’s things. He would want you to have it, I’m sure.”
No arguments from me.
He returned to his filing, and I entered the elevator, my mind trying to assess the new information. This changed everything. Rick might have known his killer! I had to find a computer somewhere and look at the files on the flash drive.
I considered calling Sal. I didn’t want to, but he really should hear this news. I strolled out of the elevator and into the foyer, looking around carefully. When it seemed no one was lurking around, I exited through the glass doors, walked straight to my car, plopped my tote down on the hood, and pulled my cell phone out.
I punched the number to the South Lake Police Department. The dispatcher patched me through to Sal.
“Ramirez,” he answered.
“It’s me, Shannon. I need to talk to you.”
“Everything okay?”
“Yes. I just left Fine, Fine, Fine Furnishings. I spoke to Rick’s father. He told me some stuff I think you ought to know.”
“Like what?”
“Did you know Rick was getting threatening calls? He thought his life was in danger. That was why he fired me. He was afraid.”
“Did anyone tell us?” He sounded defensive.
“According to Rick’s father, his other son, Charlie, was supposed to have contacted the PD. I sure hope you’re watching that one.”
He drawled, “Thank you, Miss Wallace, for your suggestions. They’re always welcome.”
“Don’t be snippy with me, Ramirez. I have some information for you that you will want, and I might decide not to share, if you get too big for your britches.”
“Like?”
“Well, for starters, Rick got a phone call the day he fired me, and well, you might want to investigate that. He was pretty annoyed. Maybe it was one of the threatening ones? I thought at the time it was a girlfriend, because he told them his address and agreed to meet them, but now-”
He broke in. “He gave them his address?”
“Yes. I remember that well enough.”
“Go on,” he muttered. I detected the tapping of keys on a keyboard. He was probably making notes.
“I also got something this morning in my email box at the furniture store. Yes, I checked it, and yes, that is probably not allowed, but it said ‘You’re Dead.’”
“Nice.”
“Um. No. You’re not listening,” I told him. The tapping stopped.
“What are you saying?”
“Think hard, Ramirez. I’m no longer employed there. Who knew I would even be around to receive it? No one except Rick’s father, or his brother, if Mr. Fine even told him I was coming in. When I asked, he couldn’t remember if he did or not.”
“Who was the sender?”
“Someone called Killer.”
“Did you think to check the return address?” he asked.
“Yes, I did. I even replied. It came back undeliverable.”
“Okay. So who do you think sent it?” He made the question sound like he already had the answer.
“I think it was someone inside the company or someone who knew I was there this morning.”
“Like Thomas Fine?”
“
I don’t think Mr. Fine even knows how to operate a computer.” I didn’t think he even had a PC in his office.
He took a deep breath. “Now we’re getting somewhere. You think it was Charles Fine.”
“Well, yeah. No one else would have known my email address.”
“No? How about someone who used to work there? What is your email address? Is it your name and the company name like Shannon dot Wallace at Fine Furnishings dot com? How common is that in business?”
I closed my eyes. That was my email address exactly. “I’m sure it’s a common business practice, but I’m still putting my money on Rick’s brother.”
“Well, you’d lose it. He’s clean. He didn’t kill his brother,” he said, lowering his voice.
My blood boiled. “You don’t know that. Damn it, does he even have an alibi?”
“Not that you have a right to know, but yes, he does.”
Now I opened my eyes and stared at the blue sky. “Who?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
Probably Charlotte Dillon. “Was it a ‘she’ who substantiated his alibi? Come on, Sal. His girlfriend would lie for him, don’t you think.”
I heard people talking around him. He lowered his voice. “I’m not really able to discuss this now. Care to meet me for lunch?”
“I’ll do better. I need a computer to look at some files I took from Rick’s computer. Yeah, yeah, I know I’m interfering in your case, but I’m bringing them to you. The only catch is you have to let me see what I saved.” I answered, giving up all pretense.
“Sure.” His voice didn’t sound angry over the fact that I was sticking my nose in.
“Okay. I’m on my way.”
Later in Sal’s office, it was apparent he’d cleared his desk for our meeting. Neat stacks of paper were situated on a side table and he’d made room for a laptop.
“Just why were you saving files from Mr. Fine’s computer?” he asked, as soon as I sat down. He leaned against the wall, arms crossed. His voice sounded easy-going, curious. His body language said something else.