Dead Men's Tales (Olivia Grant Mysteries Book 2) (11 page)

The next morning, I had another surprise. Brad was already in his office when I arrived. He looked unusually pale, and my concern instincts clicked in. "Are you okay?"

"As you can probably tell by my newly decorated leg, I've got a little problem." He swiveled his chair around so I could see the cast that adorned his foot. "It's only sprained, but it hurts like hell, and the doctor told me to stay off of it for a few days. After I send you on your way, I'm going to the drugstore to get a prescription filled."

"How did you manage to sprain it?"

"Just lucky, I guess. Or else that gate and the two steps in front of it I tripped over had it in for me."

I tapped myself on the chest. "I nearly did that too. I wish I could have warned you."

"Some people are idiots."

I only nodded. "Sending me? Where are you sending me?"

"Are you up for a trip to L.A.?"

Los Angeles? What could he want me to do down there? Of course, the reason came to me almost at once: to snoop into Harry Hammond's activities in La-La Land the previous week. But, wait a minute. Brad had said he was going to go to L.A. to do that.

"I thought you wanted to go."

While I removed my coat, he explained. "I need to talk to John Ziegler. Novotny seemed to think the man has ulterior motives, and within hours of telling me, Novotny's in the hospital."

"So, you think there's a connection? And Harry's murder might be linked to someone or something down there?"

"It's possible. In addition," he said, "I owe it to Rose to follow every lead."

"So, while you're questioning Ziegler again, I'm going to L.A. to sniff out other angles."

"Plus, that should be done before the trail—if there is one—gets too cold. I'd like to check it out myself, just in case it's tied in, but I can't be in two places at the same time. Even if I could hobble onto an airplane, I don't think I'd be very effective down there today."

"Well, in that case, why don't I go to Los Angeles for you?"

Brad grinned. "So, why don't you go to Los Angeles for me?"

"What a good idea," I said, sounding like I'd never heard of it before. That kind of sequence was another game we played occasionally. It's great to have a brother who catches on fast.

Brad grinned, then looked solemn. "However, I've been sitting here thinking perhaps I shouldn't send my own sister."

"Besides being a relative, I'm a modern woman. I live in my own home, manage my finances, and even do a little charity work. I don't require meals-on-wheels. I
deliver
them. And I'm younger than Sandra Bullock or Jennifer Aniston. Would you think
they're
too old?"

"Okay. Okay. But it could be dangerous. Didn't last night teach you this is no game for amateurs?"

"Amateurs? I know how to interview people. I did a lot of suspect-questioning in England recently. Besides, I've been working for you since I returned. You trust me. Anyway, this time I'll be talking to businessmen in their offices, not gangsters."

I hoped I conveyed my confidence to him. Although finding Carl's wounded body had shaken me a bit, morning brought my spirits up again. Sunshine did that to me. I smiled and made myself look taller, if not formidable. "What can happen?"

"Look what happened last night."

"It's daytime now." I'd been feeling guilty about not telling Brad that Carl and I had dinner together, so now I did, adding that I ended up bringing the briefcase to his house.

"What did you talk about at dinner? Anything important?"

"I found out where he picked up the briefcase." I filled him in on everything I'd learned but skipped our final conversation, the one in which Novotny found me attractive. I couldn't see how withholding that would impede the investigation.

"Then we forgot to swap the briefcases after all, so I drove to his house, which turned out to be a good thing, since I must have found him soon after he was attacked."

Brad thought for a while. "You okay now?"

"I'm fine."

"You didn't look very good last night."

"Well, just for a moment, I felt a little queasy. I'm recovered now. It's not like he was really dead."

"Yet, it sure looks like someone wanted Novotny out of the way." He shrugged, then reached into his desk drawer. "By the way, here's the list Amanda gave me of the people Hammond visited in L.A. Also the hotel he stayed at. You need anything else?"

"Well, there's the matter of getting people to talk to me. I need some official-looking ID."

"Right." He cleared his throat, checked a different desk drawer, and handed me a small stack of business cards. They all looked like his, but my name appeared in one corner. Plus, the word
Associate
. The result of a computer program and his watching
The Rockford Files
on television when he was a child. He also gave me a four-by-six photo of Harry. "I don't think you'll need this, but take it just in case."

"Do you think the police have already been down there talking to these people?"

"Tom says the cops are concentrating their attention up here, at least for now, so the answer is probably no. With too few detectives and even less time, they aren't keen to spread it out more than necessary. Good luck."

He made a big deal of getting out of his chair carefully and headed for the door. I could tell he was in pain and hoped the trip to the drugstore would take care of that.

Thank goodness he hadn't mentioned his briefcase, because it was still at Novotny's house, and Harry's lay in the trunk of my car. I knew if I told that to Brad, he'd have insisted on giving it to Amanda, even though that wouldn't get his own back. I still didn't want to do anything to help Amanda. Call me stubborn. Before falling asleep the night before, I got to wondering why Brad hadn't picked up his phone right away when I called from Carl's house, and I decided he and Amanda were making out or whatever they called it these days.

"I'll be back tonight. Harry's funeral is tomorrow, and I want to be here for that."

Brad gave me that universal, I'll-never-understand-some-people look. "Be sure that you are. I'll wait up for you."

I liked the idea that he worried about me, would sit up all night waiting, even though I knew his concern was unjustified.

"I'll take the recorder this time and get everything. I'll be fine." I gave him a high five and closed his door behind me as I left.

In the receptionist's office, I cancelled Brad's reservation and made my own on one of United's commuter flights. Then, I phoned the hospital and asked about Carl. They'd only say he was doing well, but I didn't necessarily believe them. I often read the front pages of the tabloids at the supermarket. According to their statistics, lots of people died from infections they got in hospitals, instead of the minor problem they came in with.

*  *   *

I had a friend who, every time she went to San Francisco, headed first for Union Square and from there to her destination. If she had two errands, she went back to Union Square in between them or she got lost. That was her point of reference.

We laughed about this, but I was the same way in Los Angeles. Except my point of reference was the airport. Imagine trying to get across that city if you had to go back and forth to LAX! So I didn't bother renting a car but simply took a taxi everywhere. After all, we were on an expense account, and as was pretty obvious by now, I didn't like driving anyway.

My interviews went according to plan. Brad had, of course, telephoned ahead to the people Harry visited the previous week, cutting my waiting-in-lobbies time to a minimum. However, they didn't say anything the least bit suspicious. Their business with him had been straightforward, just about some new showroom furniture he intended to purchase, and they seemed genuinely shocked about his murder.

I struck pay dirt on my last stop. At least eventually. At the Commodore Plaza Hotel, the manager, a Mr. Clamper, who had hair so hard and stiff it could be a weapon, glanced at the business card I handed him and then told me Harry had checked out Friday, as scheduled, not Saturday. He got this information from a computer, but when I asked who had done the actual checking out, he frowned, and his face told me he didn't think he ought to give me that information. Nevertheless, he disappeared into a back room.

A young woman who identified herself as Wendy, the assistant manager, came out. She was young and slim, wore large, red-framed eyeglasses and didn't seem to know what I wanted. Apparently Clamper hadn't told her.

I held out one of the business cards Brad made up for me and intended to repeat my question when I had a flash of intuition. So I listened to that instead and put the card back in my purse.

"I'm Mrs. Harry Hammond," I told her. "My husband stayed in your hotel last week, and he's, er, disappeared." I'd done some acting in college plays, so I sounded distressed and on the verge of tears. I begged her to help me find out what happened to him.

Giving me a sympathetic look, she assured me she had no reason to doubt Harry took a taxi back to the airport on Friday to catch his flight to San Francisco. Since I knew he had
not
gone back on Friday, I asked to speak to the doorman who might have procured the taxi. He, too, was on duty, but even though I showed him Harry's picture, it didn't ring any bells with him. He said he couldn't remember one out of the dozens of people he ushered into cabs that day. It looked like a dead end.

Unwillingly, my mind digressed into another direction. I wondered if Harry really had a girlfriend, someone he spent the night with when he came to L.A., in spite of Amanda's assurances to the contrary.

Then I had another idea. Did he receive or make a telephone call that caused him to stay in town the extra day? Once more, Wendy took pity on me. Incoming calls couldn't be traced, but every outgoing call from his room showed up on a computer printout. I compared the numbers with the list Amanda had given Brad and hit the jackpot.

One of the numbers on the hotel list was different. After writing it down and thanking Wendy profusely, faking the possibility of more tears, I moved over to a comfortable chair in the lobby, pressed the ten digits on my cell phone, and waited.

"Mr. McDonald's office."

McDonald, McDonald. Where had I heard that name recently? My memory didn't cooperate.

"Is he in, please?"

"I'm sorry. He's out of town at the moment."

"When will he return?"

"On Friday. Would you like to leave a message?"

Thinking it wouldn't hurt to talk to the man later, even if I didn't know how he fit in, I said "yes" and gave her Brad's name and office phone number. And then I had another idea. "Oh, one more thing. Did Mr. Hammond visit Mr. McDonald last Friday afternoon at four o'clock? Or was it five?"

"May I ask who's calling, please?"

I hesitated. To say I was Mrs. Grant from Featherstone's would only confuse the poor girl. So I lied. "I'm Mr. Hammond's secretary. His calendar is such a mess." I inserted a little you-know-how-that-is laugh. "I can never read his handwriting."

"Just a minute." A pause. Then, "Five o'clock."

I thanked her and hung up. I felt a little ambivalent over my fiddling with the truth that way. I'd added another white lie to my growing list—getting to be just like Kinsey Millhone, the private eye in Sue Grafton's mysteries—and I hoped the end justified the means.

Yet, it wasn't until I relaxed on the plane flying back to SFO that I remembered where I'd heard McDonald's name. Carl Novotny had mentioned Kevin McDonald the day before. He was a rival jewelry store owner. Harry's former partner, whom he later, supposedly, hated. Why would he call him? And visit him? Did they argue, and had McDonald followed Harry back to San Francisco the next day and killed him? His secretary said he'd gone out of town. Maybe he was in the Bay Area right that minute. Suddenly I wished I'd asked her a lot more questions.

I pounded my fist on the armrest, frustrated at still being clueless with this interrogation stuff. Well, I'd ask the questions later. I had the number, so I could call back. Maybe I'd even return to Los Angeles. I wanted very much to see Kevin McDonald in person. Even if he was the person who killed Hammond. Actually, especially if he was.

Although it was almost seven by the time I returned to the office, Brad sat there in his chair, the bandaged foot propped on his desk, reading what appeared to be legal documents. He put them aside when he saw me and smiled. "You're back."

"Feeling better?" I asked.

"Amazing what six hours in bed plus some chicken soup can do for you."

"You're still pale, and I sincerely doubt sleep and soup were the miracle cure you tried."

"No. I visited Ziegler, reread everything in the Hammond file, and then came here to wait. I was worried about you."

I let that sink in for a moment, feeling a little smug, although I suspected his concern stemmed not so much for my well-being as that I'm a woman. Try as I might, I hadn't completely erased his peers' chauvinistic attitudes that had rubbed off on him, probably in the locker room after football games. He once joked that the real reason the captain always went down with his ship was the fear that, at the last minute, his wife would take the helm.

"I told you I'd be okay, and I found out something." I took my time coming in and sitting down in the facing chair, keeping him in suspense.

"Okay, what did you find out?"

"Remember Carl Novotny telling us about a man named McDonald?"

"What about him?"

"I discovered that, instead of flying home last Friday afternoon, Harry visited him."

"Aha!" He leaned forward across the desk. "What did they talk about?"

"McDonald wasn't there, so I don't know. I left a message with his secretary for him to call."

Looking disappointed, Brad leaned back in his chair again. Without more details, he apparently lost interest in the subject and merely nodded.

"Type up all your notes for me when you can. I left the recording of my talk with Ziegler on your desk, and you can do that one too. No rush, though. I think I'll do what the doctor suggested and take two more days off."

I rose from the chair and picked up my coat and purse again. After a disgusted sigh, I remembered what we'd been talking about and returned to my seat in front of the desk. At the moment, my curiosity was apparently greater than his.

"What did you learn from Ziegler? Is he still a suspect?"

Brad frowned. "I don't think so. He may be a greedy devil, but I don't think he has the nerve to kill people or have them killed. Or need to."

"Did he admit to trying to buy company stock from other employees?"

"Yes, and he's not a bit guilty over it either. It's not illegal or even necessarily immoral. That's why he didn't need to kill anyone."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, first of all, it seems to be an accepted fact in the company that Amanda would take charge in Hammond's place. He hates Amanda, so why kill the boss—?"

"—and bring about that which he most fears?" I finished.

"Right. Anyway, the point is, if this bozo wants to take over Hammond Jewelry, like Novotny suggested, he didn't need to bump off Hammond
or
Novotny to do it."

Nevertheless, I persisted. "But with Harry out of the way, it might be easier to persuade the widow to sell him her shares. You can't have a widow without a dead husband."

"I still say it doesn't make sense. Now killing
Amanda
would make sense. At least," he added hastily, "from
his
viewpoint."

"Is that why you spent so much time with her last week, to protect her?"

Brad looked a little embarrassed. "Who says I'm spending a lot of time with her? A lunch, a dinner, that's all."

A dinner? So he
had
been with her the previous evening. My speculative instincts were still in good working order. I forced my mind back to the present puzzle.

"If Ziegler didn't need to kill Harry for control of the company, why might he try to kill Amanda? Doesn't the same logic apply?"

"Sure. Unless he thought Amanda might fire him and convince Rose Hammond he couldn't be trusted."

"Since Rose doesn't trust Amanda, that seems improbable."

"I think things are moving that way. When I called Amanda today, she told me she's making Carl Novotny
her
executive assistant, putting him ahead of Ziegler."

I brightened. "Well then, that gives him a motive for trying to kill Novotny."

"But Novotny's attack occurred last night, and the announcement wasn't made until today. I've already checked that out." He anticipated my next question. "Amanda assures me no one knew in advance that she'd make that appointment."

I slumped down in my chair but didn't give up the idea. "Maybe Ziegler knew ahead of time anyway. Maybe—"

"Maybe he did, and maybe he didn't. The important thing right now is"—he stood up, dropped his pencil onto the pad, and looked at his watch—"I have a date."

I straightened. "With Amanda?"

He avoided my question with one of his own. "Are you ready? I'll walk you to your car."

He turned off the office lights. I locked the door, and together we headed for the elevator. Then I remembered the pouring rain outside and that I hadn't taken my raincoat with me that morning.

"Wait a minute. Why don't we go down the back way? The parking lot is closer, and we won't get drenched."

"What back way?"

"Through the art gallery. Parry Williams always leaves her back door unlocked."

"That's a stupid thing to do." Leaning on a cane, he bypassed the stairs, and we chose the elevator after all.

"I know," I said as we descended, "but whenever I see her, I forget to ask her why she does that. Anyway, only other building occupants can get to the back door, and who would steal that crazy stuff she calls art?"

Much as I liked Parry, I loathed most of the art she put in her gallery. She knew that, of course, because of my penchant for speaking my mind—even at inappropriate times (
especially
at inappropriate times)—having told her so long before. Since we preferred to remain friends, it was something we never discussed.

Spared having to trudge down the fire stairs for four floors, we landed at the ground level and then went through the back door into the gallery. It smelled like air freshener, no doubt to disguise the concrete odor that escaped from the stairway nearby. Next, accompanied by the tapping of Brad's cane, we wound our way through various dimly-lit rooms. Brad stopped for a moment in the sculpture room to rest, and the night lights made the weird metal and wooden things that passed for sculpture look even spookier. He asked if I knew where I was going.

"Of course. One more room and we'll be at her receiving doors." We reached them and went through. They locked automatically behind us, and I scampered across the parking lot to my car.

"Don't forget Harry's funeral is tomorrow," I called to Brad.

He waved. "I won't."

After Brad drove off, I sat behind the wheel, wondering what Amanda Dillon saw in my brother. Although well-preserved, perhaps by the chemical industry, perhaps a plastic surgeon, and undoubtedly a gym, she was probably older than Brad. On the other hand, I was older than Lamar Grant, my second husband, and it wasn't the difference in ages that caused our split. I looked for something else.

Pure sexual attraction? Brad was very good-looking, but not in the pretty-boy sense. Tall and broad-shouldered, he had a more rugged but younger Hugh Jackman quality. Amanda may have been brilliant at her job—everyone commented on how smart she was—but I knew Brad could compete in any intelligence contest.

Amanda was powerful and resourceful and conniving and… I stopped at
bitchy
and sighed. Brad would have to figure those things out for himself. If he was infatuated with her, I just hoped it wouldn't affect his judgment in pursuing the murder investigation.

I started the car and watched the windshield wipers swoosh across my view, wondering if it would rain again the next day. In films, it always rains at funerals. It was one of those absurd Hollywood clichés, like the hero finding a parking place in front of his building and a helicopter always exploding with a fireball the size of Alaska. Only in the movies does metal burn and fire produce no smoke.