Death on Covert Circle

by Patricia McLinn

  “You do? That’s great, Kit. Can you find out about Birchall? And about the guy who’s now the acting CEO, Foster Utton. Apparently he was hand-picked by Birchall.”

  “If you keep me up to date on what you’re finding out. In other words, I want in on this murder.”

  “When have I ever kept you out?” Even if I’d tried, I wouldn’t have succeeded. Besides, she was a great resource.

  “More. I want more. Deal?”

  “Deal.”

  “Start with the suspects.”

  “Most of the suspects are local — the assistant store manager, a few customers, a rival store owner. But I’m, especially, curious about Foster Utton. Both Clara and I took him for a low-level assistant.”

  I described what had happened from the moment I spotted the SUV/limo in front of the Roger.

  It took a considerable amount of time because I had to fill her in on North Bend County details as background and because she asked a million questions, with 99.9 percent of them insightful and useful.

  “You’ve wrung me dry,” I said at the end. “I’m exhausted.”

  “First, admit you really called to mine my sources and connections about the CEO and this successor.”

  “We greatly appreciate you doing that — and I speak for Clara, even though she doesn’t know I’m asking you. But it’s not the primary reason I called. The primary reason is I didn’t want to be brow-beaten by you — again — for not contacting you.”

  She cackled appreciatively. “No promises. Remember, I’m in on this one.”

  DAY TWO

  TUESDAY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Clara had class this morning for her virtual author assistant course before our regular lunchtime yoga class.

  That made this my time to write.

  I was not writing.

  Murder wasn’t the culprit.

  Neither was investigating a murder.

  The culprit was me. For not prioritizing writing first. For not sticking to it. For being a when-I-have-some-free-time would-be writer. I’ve been around real writers enough to know they got the writing done by writing no matter what. Nothing stood in their way. And here I was letting everything stand in my way.

  I was a failure. I’d never be a real writer. I’d never tell the stories in my head.

  Slumping forward, with my elbows to either side of the keyboard, I dropped my head to my hands.

  After maybe a minute a couple phrases started repeating in my head.

  The first was Woe is me.

  It sure matched my mood. And my posture. But there’s something about the phrase that, repeated over and over in my head, sounded silly.

  The second was Nothing stood in their way.

  Not true. Not about Kit. And not about her friends. All sorts of things stood in their way. Parties, sickness, holidays, family gatherings, conferences, computer breakdowns, reader events, visiting friends in crisis, gardening, story problems … the list was endless. When they included me in their get-togethers — thinking I was a real writer — I’d heard all about those and many more obstacles that got between them and their writing time.

  The difference between them and me was they kept going. They didn’t clear away all the obstacles — not sure how that could be accomplished without joining the writer’s equivalent of a contemplative monastery, where only writing was allowed, but then what would you write about? No, they simply continued on the other side of the obstacle.

  That’s what I needed to do.

  I raised my head.

  The cursor blinked at me.

  I scrolled back to see what I’d written. My stomach sank.

  Never before had I understood Kit’s statement that some days the only thing she wanted to write was: And then a bus hit them and they all died.

  Trouble was, this romance was set in the backcountry of the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. How many buses got there? And could they get up enough speed on the narrow winding roads to do the job?

  Clearly, I’d have to write with my stomach around my knees.

  I put my hands on the keyboard.

  * * * *

  I’d been at it almost two hours when the phone rang.

  Rumor has it that when a writer’s deeply engrossed s/he will not even hear a phone, much less let it interrupt the flow and concentration.

  I answered it.

  “Millie came through. Phyllis Ezzard.”

  I might have been deeper into the writing than I’d thought, because the names meant nothing to me. Heck, I barely recognized Clara’s voice.

  “She was a principal, but of a middle school, not the elementary school.”

  Oh. Right. The woman with the upswept hair.

  “I have her email, street address, and phone number. But that for later, because even better, I have an in for us to talk to Foster Utton at the Jolly Roger corporate headquarters. Also through Millie.”

  “When?”

  “We’ll leave right from yoga. Not even time to stop at the café after.”

  That made it serious.

  After the call, it made no sense to try to get back to writing.

  I could do research in the limited time.

  Besides, I had to figure out what clothes I could change into at the yoga studio that would fit in at a corporate headquarters. Good thing yin wouldn’t get us sweaty.

  * * * *

  Yin didn’t get us sweaty, but Berrie going on and on about the agility area rules had me hot under the collar.

  Especially since it cut into my time to expand on the headline I’d given Clara in the drive to class — Birchall’s food allergy was widely known. It was in multiple articles written around the time he changed the company’s labeling policy to be less complete for items made in-store.

  I swear Berrie arrived early to harangue us. Mostly Clara, since I closed my eyes and settled back on my mat with a cloth over my eyes when she started. Clara was too polite for that. Instead, she patiently repeated what she and Donna already told Berrie.

  That was fair, since Berrie kept repeating herself.

  Fern chimed in, “You know that’s the definition of insanity, don’t you, Berrie? Doing — or saying — the same thing over and over but expecting a different outcome.” Her distinctive blend of country accent and Southern drawl softened the words sufficiently to make their sting a surprise.

  Clara splurted a sound beside me.

  Berrie sucked in a breath, which delayed any response. By the time she would have spoken, it was too late.

  Beyond my eye-covering the lights dimmed and, in the next instant, I heard Liz enter the studio.

  * * * *

  We shook off a more relaxed Berrie after class, changed, and headed toward Cincinnati.

  In less than twenty minutes, we rounded a curve in the Interstate to see the city’s skyline ahead and below us as we descended through what’s known as the Cut in the Hill, taking us from the Kentucky heights to bridge level over the Ohio River.

  As we went, Clara tried to call Phyllis Ezzard. No answer, and we decided not to leave a message.

  I gave Clara the rest of the details I’d learned about Birchall’s allergy — to all forms of sesame — and his corporate background.

  Even reading between the lines of the Jolly Roger website, which, predictably, presented the sunny side of his career, Rod Birchall had been associated with a high percentage of failures, starting with taking his father’s trucking firm through bankruptcy when Rod was a teenager. Two other enterprises closed under his leadership, two were subject to hostile takeovers, three more bankruptcies, including the PFFT chain. Yet Birchall came out of each with an even better job.

  “If he’d been captain of the Titanic, it wouldn’t have made it out of port,” Clara said. “Do you think he was blackmailing people to keep getting jobs?”

  “We’ll wait to hear what Kit says. So, who’s your contact in the executive suite at the Jolly Roger building … and does the building resemble a pirate sh
ip?”

  “When I said I had an in, I meant a way into the building.”

  I groaned. “There’ll probably be all sorts of security around the CEO’s office, considering what happened. Nobody will let us near Foster Utton.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  I was wrong.

  Partly.

  Security did swarm around Birchall’s office on the top floor, which is where we tried first, upon entering a building that did not in the least resemble a pirate ship, but did resemble a cubist’s vision of a part of male anatomy. In other words, it was a boring high rise.

  The reception area outside Birchall’s office, which had not received the memo about CEO’s quarters paring down from lavish to merely plush, sported more than half a dozen men in black hard at work on files. They did not appear to me to be law enforcement. Corporate lawyers? Security?

  As if they needed any security around with the firm-jawed assistant behind a bronze nameplate: “Ms. DesJames.”

  We slid right past the men in black. But there was no sliding past her, even though our footsteps were silent on the uber thick carpeting.

  “May I help you?”

  “Oh, you must be Ms. DesJames,” I said with wide-eyed awe.

  “That,” she said with no hint of humor, “is what the name plate says. You have no appointment with this office today.”

  I glanced toward the closed double doors past her sofa-sized desk. “We’re looking for a couple of people whom—”

  “No one is here whom you can see.”

  Our dueling whoms ended in a draw.

  “—we’d like to talk to. Foster Utton and Isaac, the limo driver.” Better to plow ahead than try to argue.

  “That driver is no longer in our employ.” Her intonation on our turned it into the royal we, with her on the throne. Who’d taken the trouble to fire him so quickly? Couldn’t imagine that was one of Foster Utton’s first acts.

  “Rod Birchall’s preference for him was odd,” I said. “They seemed to get along well.”

  “I never underst—”

  Her face went rigid as she cut that off. Yup, Ms. DesJames brought down the ax on Isaac. But she’d also had no doubt he and Birchall suited each other.

  “Do you know where we’d find him?”

  “I have no idea.” She thought she had herself back under control, but she’d slipped a bit there, letting her satisfaction leak through. “Nor is it my responsibility to—”

  “The other places Mr. Birchall visited yesterday—”

  “—know. He was here until leaving for Haines Tavern. Now, if you will please—”

  “What about Foster?” Clara asked. “You must know where he is.”

  At that moment, one side of the double doors to the inner sanctum opened, a man in black appeared and called to one of the men in black where we were, “Black. Come here.”

  I swear. That’s what he said. Would I fib?

  Besides, I was too busy craning my neck to see around Man in Black I in the doorway to expend energy on making anything up.

  Man in Black 2 responded too quickly for me to get more than an impression of a continuation of the outer office’s would-be old-world grandeur overlaid by a probably stupid-expensive modern look. It was as off-putting as Birchall had been.

  All satisfaction gone, Ms. DesJames said, “I am not at liberty to divulge such information. You are to leave immediately, before—”

  “But—”

  Clara tugged my arm. I acquiesced. We weren’t making progress with Ms. DesJames.

  But as we descended in the elevator to a floor I believed she’d hit at random, Clara said, “I spotted a note with what looked like an office number on her desk. Let’s see if it’s Foster Utton’s.”

  It was, though it wasn’t easy to get to.

  Not because of men in black. No one felt it necessary to post security around a cubbyhole with a door under a stairwell. Oliver Twist would have considered the quarters cramped.

  Foster Utton resembled a golf umbrella folded to fit in a breast pocket.

  His huddled form looked the way I’d felt when I’d sat at the computer this morning. Before my triumph of writing.

  We saw that huddled form through the open office door, before Clara breezed in with me on her tail.

  Half a second inside and we realized his open-door policy was the result of the stuffiest room I’d ever been in.

  Clara didn’t let it stop her. She reached across the desk and pressed Utton’s forearm while he stared at us, his surprise the only light in his dull face.

  “Foster, you poor thing. The day after is always worse than right after a … an event like yesterday’s. Somehow the first day you don’t take it all in. You don’t truly realize all that’s happened and the impact it will have on you. Did the sheriff’s department keep you there forever yesterday?”

  “Yeah.” He paused and we both waited for something important to follow. “They fed us.”

  “Thank heavens for that. But, still, such a difficult day. I suppose the investigators kept Isaac, the driver, too?”

  “Yeah.” This time nothing more followed.

  “We are so hoping to talk to him. For background, you know. Do you have his business number?”

  He looked around. No phone numbers jumped up off the desk or walls, so it didn’t take long.

  “Uh, no. I think… I think the business is his name.”

  “That’s helpful. That’s so helpful, Foster. Thank you. Do you know his last name?”

  “No. Isaac was all Birchall called him.”

  Better than you.

  “That’s fine, that’s fine. We’ll talk to him, too.”

  “Nobody’s talking to me,” he said. “I mean people didn’t used to see me anyway, but it’s different today. They’re pretending they’re not seeing me now even though they do. Afraid I might be the murderer. Or might not be.”

  Not stupid. Definitely not stupid.

  “In the meantime,” he continued, “Ms. DesJames said not to talk to anybody except the lawyers and her—”

  Ah, she was hedging her bets, making sure she could be the power behind the throne if he survived.

  “—and the lawyers said not to talk to law enforcement.”

  “We’re not law enforcement, Foster,” Clara said gently. “We were right there with you during those horrible hours.”

  “Customers. Complaining,” he muttered.

  He considered that the horrible part? Not his boss being murdered and his being a suspect?

  “We didn’t complain, Foster.”

  He blinked at her gentle voice. Glanced at me, then hurried his eyes back to Clara. “You didn’t, did you?”

  “No, we didn’t. And I’ll tell you something, Foster. I think it’s good you were there from the start yesterday. You’re important — in fact, you’re vital — because you can give the definitive account of what happened when you arrived at the store.”

  I thought Clara’s approach was great. Assuming he’d cooperate, easing him into the discussion, not hitting him with questions about the murder right off, and, at the same time, appealing to his vanity by setting him up as the expert.

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “When the car carrying you and Rod Birchall pulled up in front of the store and stopped,” Clara patiently clarified. “Did something happen with a store employee? In the parking lot?”

  “The driver put down his window and the employee said CEO or no CEO, the car wasn’t going to park there. That throwback driver threatened this poor man, who didn’t seem to understand what was happening. We do have a program for hiring the mentally challenged. Also the old. And he was very old. I got out of the car and explained the CEO was there for a surprise visit and we needed to park in front of the doors.

  “He still didn’t seem to grasp the situation. The driver threatened to run him over and then nearly did. Almost ran me over, because he started moving the car before I was actually seated again.”

/>   “And then?”

  “Then we went inside. As if the trouble in the parking lot wasn’t enough to set Rod off, then that girl said the store manager wasn’t there. Nothing more than an assistant manager to meet the CEO and his second in command. Not adequate at all.”

  He made a scoffing sound, which Clara echoed, though I suspected hers was for his referring to himself as in command. Even as a second.

  “Then it got even worse with those people complaining. The stores know better — the experienced store managers — know better than to let complainers ambush the CEO. I couldn’t believe when she actually joined in, taking the part of the complainers against him.

  “I knew it was going to be rocky — rockier — after that. And then the woman with the girl … Nightmare.”

  “Did you get a photo of him with the girl?”

  His mouth dropped open. “I have no idea. I haven’t looked.”

  He made it sound like he’d be committing a solecism of the first order to do such a thing.

  “You must have been so very busy. That makes sense. Now would be a good time to check.”

  Still open-mouthed, he stared at Clara. She smiled back brightly. Then gave him an encouraging nod.

  “Well, uh, I suppose…”

  “Where’s your phone?”

  “Right here.”

  “Great. We can do this right now.”

  She made it sound reasonable. And her encouraging smile clearly had him wanting to please her. How had this guy gotten so far up the corporate ladder?

  He pulled his phone out, turned it on, then fumbled almost as ineptly as he had in trying to take the video.

  “May I help?” Clara took the phone from his hands, gently, but firmly. “My husband’s phone is like this. Sometimes it’s finicky. But if I get it just right… Ah, yes. Here it is.”

  She clicked a button, then turned the screen, not toward him, but toward the space between her and me.

  A dizzying pan of the Jolly Roger produce section came on, like a ship plunging down into the trough of a wave, then climbing so straight up it seemed it would fall over backward. Jumbles of voices even harder to sort than during the original event exacerbated the disorientation.