Death at the Wheel (15 page)

"A banana and an orange. You want 'em?"

Sarah gestured at me. "Thea does."

Bobby glanced nervously at the three of us and hurried off to get the fruit. He stuffed it unceremoniously into my hands. "Don't let her quit," he said, "I just couldn't take that right now."

Usually I'm the wade-in-and-sort-it-out type, but I wasn't feeling up to it today. The delayed effects of my encounter with Duncan Donahue and too little sleep and a long drive. "Thanks, Bobby," I said. "I'm going back to work." I retreated to my office, leaving Suzanne to figure out what was going on with Sarah.

An hour later, I was up to my elbows in papers, putting together ideas for Northbrook, when Sarah leaned in the door. "Don't take it personally," she said. "It's my husband again. Sometimes I get so mad at that jerk I'd like to rip his head off and I take it out on the people around me."

"I thought you were going to use that stairclimber he got you until you had thighs like Wonder Woman and then you were going to crack his head like a nut?"

"I said that?" She shook her head. "Well, it worked out like everything else around our place does. I finally get the kids to bed and the dishes done and get everything cleaned up and then I'll be changing into some workout clothes. The minute he sees me doing it, he makes a beeline for the machine and starts working out. Then he complains that I don't use it enough. If that man had a personality half as nice as his thighs, I'd be a happy woman. I'll buy some granola bars tonight. I'm going grocery shopping anyway."

"You don't have to."

When she smiled, Sarah was awfully pretty. "That's why I'm going to do it. Because you and Suzanne worry about offending me... you worry about asking me to do too much and you're willing to let me know that I'm valued here. And Bobby... he's sweet! He was so worried that I might quit, he sneaked out and got me flowers. Now I'll go away and let you work."

"Thanks, Sarah. And hold my calls, will you? I've got to get some work done."

She did, but half an hour later she buzzed me on the intercom. "Sorry to disturb you. There's a guy named Eliot Ramsay on the line. He says it's urgent. You want to take it?"

"I'll take it." Half curious and half annoyed that everyone in the world seemed to think their business was urgent today, I pressed the button and said, "Hello?"

"I believe you have something that belongs to me," he said brusquely.

"Excuse me?"

"The papers. The ones you took from Bass's house. They're mine and I want them. If you don't turn them over to me immediately, I'm notifying the police."

I didn't like his tone one bit and I had no idea what he was talking about. All I had were three of Julie's letters and some outdated junk. But even if I had had something valuable, Eliot Ramsay was about the last person on earth I would have admitted it to, the way he was behaving. "Mr. Ramsay, I don't know what you're talking about. Julie Bass didn't give me anything."

"You're lying," he said. "If I don't have those papers back in my office by tomorrow morning, I'm calling the police."

"You can call anyone you want, Mr. Ramsay," I said. "The police. The F.B.I. The Pope. It won't help."

"I know you were there," he said. "A cop told me."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Sure you do. Don't bullshit me, lady. You were in the house. You took 'em," he said.

"Of course I was in the house. Julie asked me to check on it. Did your cop also tell you they searched my car?" I said. I waited for an answer.

"Bullshit," he said. A tiresome man with a tiresome vocabulary.

"And that they didn't find anything? Ask your cop buddy. I'm not a magician, you know. I can't make things vanish into thin air. I haven't got your papers, Mr. Ramsay." I did have some intimate letters. But they were none of his business. Maybe the old financial crap was his, but it wasn't worth a threatening phone call and the ruder he got, the less cooperative I felt.

"We'll see about that," he said.

"Fine," I said. We both hung up in a huff.

I tried to go back to work but my concentration had been destroyed. I scraped the papers into a pile. They'd have to wait until tomorrow. At dawn. It was the only time I had. I like to claim I'm only a type B+ personality, but no one believes me except my mother, and she thinks I'm an easygoing B-.

On impulse, I called Rita, Calvin Bass's former secretary, and asked if we could meet for a drink after work. I'd expected her to be suspicious, but she agreed with surprising alacrity.

I left work a few minutes early and, despite my bandages and bruises, submitted myself to an hour of Aaron's torturous routine. I had a lot of poison to work out of my system. The little twit who stands in front of me stared with avid curiosity at my bruised shoulder and knees and bandaged hands. They all hurt and made me extremely disagreeable. I thought about using the bicycle excuse again, but then she might ask me if I'd like to go for a ride some time, she seemed like that kind of person. "My husband," I said. "Sometimes he just loses control. But he's a good man, really." She turned quickly away and after that avoided meeting my eyes.

An hour later, pumped with endorphins and soothed with Advil, having sweated Duncan Donahue out of my system and worked up an appetite for my mother's cooking, I hit the road.

 

 

 

Chapter 12

 

Whatever her other qualifications were, Rita hadn't gotten her job because of her experience. She was young, no more than early twenties, and seemed even younger because of her naive, confiding style. She was sitting where she'd said she would be, at a table near the door, in the bar of the Grantham Inn, wearing a skimpy two-piece pink knit outfit that on someone fuller figured or older would have been cheap. On her it was rather sweet. She had long, dark hair, elaborately styled with elastics and a bow, demure, glossy lips, pink cheeks, and a round face and upturned nose that, despite my dislike of the word, had to be called cute. The only thing that detracted from youthful perfection was the sawing of her jaw as she worked her gum.

I'd chosen the inn because it was a place a woman could go alone and not be bothered. A respectable bar, if that's not an oxymoron. When I introduced myself, she waved me into a seat across from her and waited expectantly. Obviously, no one had ever taught her that you don't discuss your employer's business with strangers.

When the waiter arrived, I asked if she'd like a drink and she ordered a ghastly combination of liqueur and ice cream, beaming like a kid with an ice cream soda. "It's very good of you to be willing to talk to me," I said. "I'm not trying to be nosy. I just want to help my friend Julie."

She nodded, a vigorous bob of bow and curls. "I feel real bad about that," she said. "I don't think she could have done it, do you?"

"No, I don't. But convincing the police of that is another story. I'm trying to find other suspects, starting with people who didn't like Mr. Bass—"

She interrupted before I could finish. "But that's everyone. Nobody liked him at the bank. I mean, respected, maybe, but not liked. Except me. People were afraid of him."

This was like taking candy from a baby. "When we talked the other day, you'd just had an upsetting call from Mr. Ramsay. Have things calmed down about the missing papers?" She nodded. "Did they find them?"

She shook her head. "Mr. Ramsay apologized for yelling at me. He says Cal... Mr. Bass... must have taken them."

"Why would he have done that?"

She shrugged. Shrugs and nods seemed to be her primary methods of communicating. "Because Ramsay... Mr. Ramsay had made some changes that Mr. Bass didn't like."

"What makes you think Mr. Ramsay changed them?"

"I heard them arguing about it."

"You heard the argument?"

Another shrug. "Not the words. The door was closed. But I could see their faces." She snapped her gum for emphasis.

"Angry faces?"

She nodded, tasted her drink, and cast a disparaging look at my Stoli and tonic. "You ought to try one of these."

"It looks good," I agreed, "but too filling, and I have to go to my mother's for dinner."

The curls bobbed. "Yeah, I know how that is. They can be real crabby if you don't eat, huh?"

Now I was the one who was nodding. "If you couldn't hear them talking, how do you know Ramsay wanted them changed?"

She snapped her gum thoughtfully. "Oh, I heard that before they shut the door. Like, Ramsay... Mr. Ramsay... goes 'it's no big deal, you just add a couple lines of explanation here and there,' and then Cal... Mr. Bass... goes, 'Eliot, that's illegal and you know it,' and Mr. Ramsay goes, 'who'd ever know? You'd rather have us accused of discrimination?' and Cal starts to say something about decisions being perfectly defensible and notices the door's open. He comes over, asks me to get him a Coke, and then closes it. So that's like all I heard."

"Do you know what the papers were?"

"Some kind of mortgage forms."

"Did you ever actually see them?"

She shrugged. "I see so many papers every day. I don't know if I saw those papers."

"Do you think Calvin Bass took them?"

She shrugged.

"Can you think of any reason why he would have taken them?"

"Keep 'em away from Ramsay... Mr. Ramsay?" she suggested. "Keep him from changing 'em?" But she was only guessing. "I know Mr. Ramsay went ape... uh... crazy when he couldn't find 'em."

"Did you see the story in the paper today? The one suggesting Mr. Bass might have been involved in some mortgage irregularities?"

"Irregularities?"

She was genuinely puzzled. Probably she'd only heard the word used in connection with laxatives. "Done something wrong," I explained.

"When it came to his work, Cal... Mr. Bass... was like arrow straight. I mean, that's why people didn't like him. He never cut no one... anyone... any slack. It was like done right or it was done over."

"Was he a hard person to work for?"

"Everyone thought so. He was nice to me, though. Tried hard not to get impatient."

It was hard to imagine being cruel to Rita, except maybe about her gum. It would have been like kicking a baby. "Besides Ramsay, can you think of anyone else who might have taken the papers?"

"Rachel Kaplan, maybe?"

"Who's she?"

"Cal's assistant," she said, surprised I didn't know.

"Why would she take them?"

She grinned and snapped her gum. "To get him in trouble. She wanted his job." She hesitated. "I would have, like, had to quit. Still might, if they promote her. I couldn't work for her. She's a bitch."

"How so?" I didn't like it when women called each other bitches, even when it was true.

She drank some more while she considered my question, then set her glass down and stared sadly at the pink froth in the bottom. "Would you like another?" She nodded and I signaled for the waiter.

"The guys... the men... just come right out and tell you if they don't like something. You know, like, they'll say, 'Rita, this isn't right, you'll have to do it over.' And I can handle that, 'cuz, like, I'm still learning and I know that. But with Rachel... Ms. Kaplan, she doesn't like to be called by her first name. It's unprofessional, she says. She's like your best friend one minute, wants to hear all about your weekend or your boyfriend, telling you your work is fine and all, and then it's like she's stabbing you in the back, saying to Mr. Bass, 'that Rita is really hopeless, she can't get anything right.' I mean, I don't mind being told I did it wrong, 'cuz I know I'm just learning and I want to get it right, but she'd never say it was wrong to my face. So I wouldn't want to work for her, see. Besides, she's sneaky." She announced this last with a decisive nod. Her bow, peeking up from behind her head, reminded me of a Scottie's ears.

"Sneaky?"

"I've seen her going through the files—not her files but like other people's—when she thinks no one's looking. And sometimes taking things out."

"What's her relationship with Mr. Ramsay? Did he question her about the missing papers?"

She shook her head. "They didn't used to get along that well. Ramsay... Mr. Ramsay's really one of those men who think a woman's place is horizontal, if you know what I mean. And Ms. Kaplan's real ambitious and she's not too good at hiding it. But lately they've been pretty tight."

"Do you think they're sleeping together?"

A man passing stopped at our table, staring down at me. "I haven't seen you around here before, have I?" he said.

"No," I said, impatient at the interruption.

"I'm Jerry," he said, "and you're—"

"Busy," I said.

"Not too busy for a drink, I hope?" He included Rita in his predatory smile.

"Afraid so," I said, turning back to Rita. "We were talking about Rachel Kaplan," I reminded her. "About whether she was sleeping with Mr. Ramsay...."

Jerry spun angrily on his heel and strode out of the bar. I guess things in Grantham were changing. I used to be able to come to the inn with my friends and carry on uninterrupted conversations. Some people just don't realize that the whole world isn't a dating bar. You can hardly buy cereal these days without an approach.