E is for Evidence (4 page)

Much of the interior had been reduced to ashes. The load-bearing walls remained, as black and brittle as cinder. Gingerly, I picked my way through the char-broiled junk, making a detailed map of the ruins, noting the degree of burning, general appearance, and carbonization of burned objects. Every surface I encountered had been painted with the black and ashen pallor of extreme heat. The stench was familiar: scorched wood, soot, the sodden odor of drenched insulation, the lingering chemical aroma of ordinary materials reduced to their elements. There was some other odor as well, which I noted, but couldn't identify. It was probably connected to materials stored there. When I'd called Lance Wood the day before, I'd requested a copy of the inventory sheets. I'd review those to see if I could pinpoint the source of the smell. I wasn't crazy about having to inspect the fire scene before I'd had a chance to interview him, but I didn't seem to have much choice, now
that he'd disappeared. Maybe he'd be back for the office Christmas party and I could pin him down then about an appointment first thing Monday morning.

At 2:00
P.M.
, I packed my sketch pad away and brushed off my jeans. My tennis shoes were nearly white with ash, and I suspected that my face was smudged. Still, I was reasonably content with the job I'd done. Wood/Warren was going to have to get several contractors' estimates, and those would be submitted to CFI along with my recommendation regarding payment of the claim. Using the standard rule, I was guessing five hundred thousand dollars replacement cost, with additional payment for the inventory loss.

The Christmas party was indeed in progress. The festivities were centered in the inner offices where a punch bowl had been set up on a drafting table. Desks had been cleared and were covered with platters of cold cuts, cheeses, and crackers, along with slices of fruitcake and homemade cookies. The company employees numbered about sixty, so the noise level was substantial, the general atmosphere getting looser and livelier as the champagne punch went down. Some sort of Reggae version of Christmas carols was being blasted through the intercom system.

There was still no sign of Lance Wood, but I spotted Heather on the far side of the room, her cheeks rosy with wassail. Terry Kohler caught my eye and
shouldered his way in my direction. When he reached me, he leaned down close to my ear.

“We better get your handbag before this gets out of control,” he said. I nodded vigorously and inched my way behind him through the reception area to Lance's office. The door was standing open and his desk was being used as a bar. Liquor bottles, ice, and plastic glasses were arranged across the surface, with several people helping themselves to both the booze and the comfort of the boss's furniture. My handbag had been tucked into a narrow slot between a file cabinet and a bookcase jammed with technical manuals. I put away my camera and sketch pad, hefting the bag onto my right shoulder. Terry offered to fetch me some punch, and after a moment of hesitation, I agreed. Hey, why not?

My first impulse was to leave as soon as I could gracefully extricate myself. I don't generally do well in group situations, and in this instance I didn't know a soul. What kept me was the sure knowledge that I had nowhere else to go. This might be the extent of my holiday celebration, and I thought I might as well enjoy it. I accepted some punch, helped myself to cheese and crackers, ate some cookies with pink and green sugar on top, smiled pleasantly, and generally made myself amenable to anyone within range. By 3:00, when the party was really getting under way, I excused myself and headed out the door. I had just
reached the curb when I heard someone call my name. I turned. Heather was moving down the walk behind me, holding out an envelope embossed with the Wood/Warren logo.

“I'm glad I caught you,” she said. “I think Mr. Wood wanted you to have this before you left. He was called away unexpectedly. This was in my out box.”

“Thanks.” I opened the flap and peered at the contents: inventory sheets. “Oh great,” I said, amazed that he'd remembered in the midst of his vanishing act. “I'll call on Monday and set up a time to talk to him.”

“Sorry about today,” she said. “Merry Christmas!” She waved and then moved back to the party. The door was now propped open, cigarette smoke and noise spilling out in equal parts. Ava Daugherty was watching us, her gaze fixed with curiosity on the envelope Heather'd given me, which I was just tucking into my handbag. I returned to my car and drove back into town.

When I stopped by the office, I passed the darkened glass doors of California Fidelity. Like many other businesses, CFI had shut down early for Christmas Eve. I unlocked my door, tossed the file on my desk, and checked for messages. I put a call through to the fire chief for a quick verification of the information
I had, but he, too, was gone. I left my number and was told he probably wouldn't return the call until Monday.

By 4:00, I was back in my apartment with the drawbridge pulled up. And that's where I stayed for the entire weekend.

Christmas Day I spent alone, but not unhappily.

The day after that was Sunday. I tidied my apartment, shopped for groceries, made pots of hot tea, and read.

Monday, December 27, I was back in harness again, sitting at my desk in a poinky mood, trying to wrestle the fire-scene inspection into a coherent narrative.

The phone rang. I was hoping it was Mrs. Brunswick at the bank, calling back to tell me the five-thousand-dollar snafu had been cleared up. “Millhone Investigations,” I said.

“Oh hi, Kinsey. This is Darcy, next door. I just wondered when I could pop over and pick up that file.”

“Darcy, it's only ten-fifteen! I'm working on it, okay?” Please note: I did not use the “F” word, as I know she takes offense.

“Well, you don't have to take that tone,” she said. “I told Mac the report wouldn't be ready yet, but he says he wants to review the file first anyway.”

“Review the file before what?”

“I don't know, Kinsey. How am I supposed to know? I called because there's a note in the action file on my desk.”

“Oh, your ‘action' file. You should have said so before. Come pick the damn thing up.”

Ill temper and intuition are not a good mix. Whatever inconsistency was nagging at me, I could hardly get a fix on it with Darcy breathing down my neck. My first act that morning had been to fill out a form for the Insurance Crime Prevention Unit, asking for a computer check on Lance Wood. Maybe at some point in the past I'd come across a previous fire claim and that's what was bugging me. The computer check wouldn't come back for ten days, but at least I'd have covered my bases. I adjusted the tabs on my machine, typed in the name of the insured, the location, date, and time of loss.

When Darcy arrived to pick up the file, I spoke without looking up. “I dropped the film off at Speedee-Foto on my way in. They'll have prints for me by noon. I haven't had a chance to talk to Lance Wood or the fire chief yet.”

“I'll tell Mac,” she said, her tone cool.

Oh well, I thought. She's never been a pal of mine anyway.

As there was no slot or box where unspecified hunches could be typed in, I kept my report completely
neutral. When I finished, I rolled it out of the machine, signed it, dated it, and set it aside. I had an hour before I could pick up the photographs, so I cleaned up the sketch of the warehouse layout and attached that to the report with a paper clip.

The phone rang. This time it was Andy. “Could you step into Mac's office for a few minutes?”

I quelled my irritation, thinking it best not to sass the CFI claims manager. “Sure, but I won't have the pictures for another hour yet.”

“We understand that. Just bring what you've got.”

I hung up, gathered up the report and the sketch, locked the office behind me, and went next door. What's this “we” shit? I thought.

The minute I stepped into Mac's office, I knew something was wrong. I've known Maclin Voorhies since I started working for California Fidelity nearly ten years ago. He's in his sixties now, with a lean, dour face. He has sparse gray hair that stands out around his head like dandelion fuzz, big ears with drooping lobes, a bulbous nose, and small black eyes under unruly white brows. His body seems misshapen: long legs, short waist, narrow shoulders, arms too long for the average sleeve length. He's smart, capable, stingy with praise, humorless, and devoutly Catholic, which translates out to a thirty-five-year marriage and eight kids, all grown. I've never seen him smoke a cigar, but
he's usually chewing on a stub, the resultant tobacco stains tarnishing his teeth to the color of old toilet bowls.

I took my cue not so much from his expression, which was no darker than usual, but from Andy's, standing just to his left. Andy and I don't get along that well under the best of circumstances. At forty-two, he's an ass-kisser, always trying to maneuver situations so that he can look good. He has a moonshaped face and his collar looks too tight and everything else about him annoys me, too. Some people just affect me that way. At that moment he seemed both restless and smug, studiously avoiding eye contact.

Mac was leafing through the file. He glanced over at Andy with impatience. “Don't you have some work to do?”

“What? Oh sure. I thought you wanted me in this meeting.”

“I'll take care of it. I'm sure you're overloaded as it is.”

Andy murmured something that made it sound like leaving was his big idea. Mac shook his head and sighed slightly as the door closed. I watched him roll the cigar stub from one corner of his mouth to the other. He looked up with surprise, as if he'd just realized I was standing there. “You want to fill me in on this?”

I told him what had transpired to date, sidestepping the fact that the file had sat on Darcy's desk for three days before it came to me. I wasn't necessarily protecting her. In business, it's smarter not to badmouth the help. I told him I had two rolls of film coming in, that there weren't any estimates yet, but the claim looked routine as far as I could see. I debated mention of my uneasiness, but discarded the idea even as I was speaking. I hadn't identified what was bothering me and I felt it was wiser to stick to the facts.

The frown on Mac's face formed about thirty seconds into my recital, but what alarmed me was the silence that fell when I was done. Mac is a man who fires questions. Mac gives pop quizzes. He seldom sits and stares as he was doing in this case.

“You want to tell me what this is about?” I asked.

“Did you see the note attached to the front of this file?”

“What note? There wasn't any note,” I said.

He held out a California Fidelity memo form, maybe three inches by five, covered with Jewel's curlicue script. “Kinsey . . . this one looks like a stinker. Sorry I don't have time to fill you in, but the fire chief's report spells it out. He said to call if he can give you any help. J.”

“This wasn't attached to the file when it came to me.”

“What about the fire department report? Wasn't that in there?”

“Of course it was. That's the first thing I read.”

Mac's expression was aggrieved. He handed me the file, open to the fire-department report. I looked down at the familiar STFD form. The incidental information was just as I remembered. The narrative account I'd never seen before. The fire chief, John Dudley, had summed up his investigation with a nononsense statement of suspected arson. The newspaper clipping now attached to the file ended with a line to the same effect.

I could feel my face heat, the icy itch of fear beginning to assert itself. I said, “This isn't the report I saw.” My voice had dropped into a range I scarcely recognized. He held his hand out and I returned the file.

“I got a phone call this morning,” he said. “Somebody says you're on the take.”

I stared. “What?”

“You got anything to say?”

“That's absurd. Who called?”

“Let's not worry about that for the moment.”

“Mac, come on. Somebody's accusing me of a criminal act and I want to know who it is.”

He said nothing, but his face shut down in that stubborn way of his.

“All right, skip that,” I said, yielding the point. I
thought it was better to get the story out before I worried about the characters. “What did this unidentified caller say?”

He leaned back in his chair, studying the cold coin of ash on the end of his cigar. “Somebody saw you accept an envelope from Lance Wood's secretary,” he said.

“Bullshit. When?”

“Last Friday.”

I had a quick flash of Heather calling to me as I left the plant. “Those were inventory sheets. I asked Lance Wood to have them ready for me and he left 'em in his out box.”

“What inventory sheets?”

“Right there in the file.”

He shook his head, leafing through. From where I stood, I could see there were only two or three loose papers clipped in on one side. There was nothing resembling the inventory sheets I'd punched and inserted. He looked up at me. “What about the interview with Wood?”

“I haven't done that yet. An emergency came up and he disappeared. I'm supposed to set up an appointment with him for today.”

“What time?”

“Well, I don't know. I haven't called him yet. I was trying to get the report typed up first.” I couldn't seem to avoid the defensiveness in my tone.

“This the envelope?” Mac was holding the familiar envelope with the Wood/Warren logo, only now there was a message jotted on the front. “Hope this will suffice for now. Balance to follow as agreed.”

“Goddamn it, Mac. You can't be serious! If I were taking a payoff, why would I leave that in the file?”

No answer. I tried again. “You really think Lance Wood paid me off?”

“I don't think anything except we better look into it. For your sake as well as ours . . .”