Murder In Her Dreams (25 page)

Ian hadn’t gotten anything more out of Bert
than he had out of Justin. He wanted something. Just one little
thing.

Confronting them had revealed nothing. Both
had played innocent. Could Cassie be wrong? Maybe Bradford Harrison
was someone else, but how could he tell? He had no idea, but he
leaned just a little toward Justin. Maybe if he searched their
desks he might find something, something to identify one of them as
Bradford Harrison.

“Do you need anything else before I go?”
MaryLou stood at his open door as she did before leaving every
evening. “I switched the phones over already.”

“Thanks. No, I have a few things to clear up
here. Have the others gone yet?”

“Jim left ten minutes ago. Justin and Bert
are still here. I think they’re going to the Y to lift
weights.”

“I know. Bert said he’s getting ready for a
contest.”

“It’s all he talks about these days.” MaryLou
grinned. “I’ve heard Arnold this and Arnold that.”

Ian sighed. “I guess I shouldn’t complain. He
doesn’t smoke or drink and always shows up to work on time. Those
two certainly believe in keeping fit.”

The gunman had looked fit, too. Ian still had
a sore spot on his scalp. He touched it gingerly.

“I’ll see you tomorrow. Good night, Ian,”
MaryLou called as she headed out the door.

Leaning back in his chair, Ian pondered the
evening ahead. MaryLou had a family and always left by five-fifteen
unless some rush work kept her. The last few times Justin and Bert
had gone to the Y on a Monday they had left around five-thirty.

Ian glanced at his watch. It read
five-fifteen. With Jim and MaryLou gone, he had roughly fifteen
minutes before the others would leave and he could begin his
search. He didn’t like the idea of going through their desks, but
what else could he do? Their responses when he called them Brad had
been inconclusive.

The gunman’s threats still rankled. The man
had invaded his office and attacked him. Ian clenched his fists,
wanting to hit back. If Cassie’s hunch was right, Bradford Harrison
had to be either Bert Hansen or Justin Lord. Cassie favored Bert
because of his initials, but Ian found it hard to see either as the
would-be killer. All their references checked out. Neither he nor
MaryLou had discovered any loose ends. There was always the chance
that neither of them was Bradford.

If it had only been Cassie’s dreams and that
load of bricks, he could still dismiss them as coincidence. The
gunman changed everything. Ian’s new feelings for Cassie added
weight to her words.

In his mind, he played and replayed the scene
with the killer. If he could find one characteristic, accent, or
tone of voice he could identify, it would help, but he had come up
with nothing. Thinking about Justin and Bert didn’t help. They
looked enough alike in height and size to be twins — only their
hair differed. One had blond hair, the other black, but the ski
mask had hidden the gunman’s hair.

They both had brown eyes. Either of them
could have been the would-be killer. He hadn’t said anything to the
police about Bradford Harrison. Maybe he should. The police had the
resources to locate Harrison. Ian opened his desk drawer and pulled
out Officer Jackson’s card. He punched the number and waited.

“Officer Jackson is unavailable. After the
tone, you may leave a message. If this is an emergency or you need
to speak to someone now, punch 1 and wait for an operator.”

What he had to tell Officer Jackson was
important, but not urgent. Ian waited for the tone. “This is Ian
McLeod. You responded to a 9-1-1 call on Saturday at McLeod
Enterprises. I have reason to believe my assailant was Bradford
Harrison. I have no address or other information on him.”

Ian left his phone number and hung up. Now
the police could help hunt for Brad Harrison.

A stirring in the outer office drew his
attention, and he glimpsed Justin and Bert through the open
door.

“Night, Ian,” Bert called.

“Night, Mr. McLeod,” Justin added. They both
waved as they left.

“Good evening. Enjoy yourselves.”

When the outer door closed behind them, Ian
rose and locked it. He usually kept the door to the office suite
locked if he worked late and the others had gone. Anyone unlocking
it to enter would warn him by the noise they made.

He waited until five forty-five. Time enough
for Bert or Justin to come back for anything they might have
forgotten. He should have plenty of time to search without
interruption before the cleaners arrived at seven.

Justin’s desk sat cater corner across the
main office from MaryLou’s. In the far right corner, next to the
door into the inner offices, it provided quick access to the files
and copier. While MaryLou faced the main entrance, he had his back
to it.

Because Justin sat in the main reception
area, MaryLou made sure he kept his desk neat and his personal
items out of view. Justin had only a desk and a chair. No bookcase,
no files, no personal mementos. The blank expanse of the empty desk
revealed nothing. Only vacant twin In/Out trays occupied the desk
surface. No help there at all, or was there? Did the emptiness mean
Brad masqueraded as Justin Lord? No, he could blame the emptiness
on MaryLou. Ian sighed.

As he walked around Justin’s desk, his
conscience tugged at him. He had never gone through another
person’s desk before. He felt like a sneak, but he squared his
shoulders and pulled open the top drawer. It held a jumble of items
— a ceramic mug, several plastic forks and spoons, a few packets of
dried soup, a gold earring, and two Skor candy bars. He pushed the
items aside, but saw only the bottom of the metal drawer.

He picked up the earring and turned it over.
It still bothered him to see otherwise normal young men sporting
earrings. It said punk to him, but Justin wasn’t a punk. So why the
earring? Unsatisfied, Ian shoved the drawer shut.

He had no idea what he had expected to find.
He hoped for some clue that would make it obvious Justin or Bert
had another identity, but for the life of him, he could not imagine
what that clue might be.

He sighed and pulled open the second drawer.
It held paper, pens, paper clips, rubber stamps, and elastic bands.
The bottom drawer had a procedures manual, Justin’s employee file,
and the three-inch thick American Institute of Certified Public
Accountants’ AICPA Uniform CPA Exam.

Flipping through the file, he found only
copies of Justin’s application and last performance review. Ian and
MaryLou had given him high marks. Nothing unusual, nothing special,
and, except for the earring, nothing personal.

Ian pushed the drawers shut. Disappointment
knifed through him. He had learned nothing. He sighed and stood.
Bert’s office remained next. He didn’t expect he would find
anything there either, but he had to look.

He crossed to the door in front of Justin’s
desk and walked though to the workroom. As he passed Jim’s empty
office, his footsteps echoed on the tile floor. Something creaked.
Ian looked behind him, but saw nothing except the files. He entered
Bert’s office and circled around behind the desk.

Bert had a picture of Arnold Schwarzenegger
sitting front and center. A copy of the
AICPA Uniform CPA
Exam
sat on the right corner of the desk. Neatly stacked files
waited for MaryLou in the Out tray. In the adjacent bookcase, a
pile of weightlifting and fitness magazines filled one shelf.

Ian decided to tackle the desk first. He
started with Bert’s desk drawers. The top one had supplies —
stationary, pens, staples. The middle drawer had multiple column
forms, although they were primarily used as worksheets. Like many
of their clients, McLeod Enterprises kept most records on computers
now. The bottom drawer held working files related to the customer
accounts that Bert handled. Ian thumbed through them, but observed
nothing out of place.

He leaned back and surveyed the office again.
Everything looked innocuous. Nothing jumped at him as being
unusual. He tapped his fingers on the desktop. So far, his search
had yielded nothing and had only made him feel like a nosy
busybody.

He had wasted his time. There was nothing to
find. He was a fool to think Bradford Harrison would leave anything
incriminating around. Unless. Unless Harrison had been in a hurry
or had forgotten about something, but where? In a file? A book?

Ian lifted each of the accounting textbooks
from the shelf and fanned the pages. A few old slips of paper fell
out. Two were credit card slips, another three were receipts, but
all looked ordinary. He riffled the pages of the weightlifting
magazines, but turned up nothing else.

He surveyed the office again. He tried the
file cabinet, but it was locked. Damn. He would have to ask MaryLou
about duplicate keys for the files. Either there was nothing to
find or it had been well hidden.

He looked at the desk again. A large blotter
occupied the center of the desk. He lifted a right corner of the
blotter. Beneath it, he saw a wrinkled piece of white paper,
roughly 3” x 5”.

Ian started. He stared more closely at the
paper. It looked familiar.

The note Cassie Blake had sent him. He
vaguely remembered having thrown it away. So how did it get here,
and why had Bert kept it? To the best of his recollection, he had
crumpled it up and tossed it in the trash. That would explain the
wrinkles.

The cleaning crew emptied the wastebaskets
every evening except Friday and Saturday. He couldn’t remember when
he had received the note, but he thought it had been during the
week. Someone must either have taken it from his office before the
cleaning crew arrived or gone through the building trash later.
Going through the building trash made no sense. The chances of
anyone finding the crumpled ball and opening it out would be too
astronomical to be realistic.

If someone had taken the note from his
office, then whoever had taken it must have gained access when he
wasn’t there. During the day, he didn’t lock the office, but he did
when he left in the evening.

MaryLou sat right outside his office during
business hours and would certainly have noticed if someone had been
in there for any length of time. Yet would she have thought it
strange if Justin or Bert had been in his office for a while? That
would probably depend on what they had told her. It was
possible.

He had asked for tangible evidence and now he
held it in his hand. Bert? He had an obsession with weightlifting,
but in Ian’s view, they had always gotten along. Bert had never
shown any dislike or anger toward him.

His gut twisted as Ian sank onto Bert’s
chair. Cassie had been right, Bert must be Bradford Harrison. So
why hadn’t he reacted to the name Brad?

Why would Bert save the note? Had it
frightened him? Did he think someone else knew he was Bradford
Harrison? That made sense. Had he saved the note to identify the
sender? Brad Harrison already knew who Cassie was. He had called
her.

Who had been in the office the day Cassie
Blake had come to warn him? Ian tried to remember that day. He saw
again Cassie spilling the coffee on the carpet. Only MaryLou,
Cassie, and he were present. Jim and Bert had been with clients and
MaryLou had said something about Justin doing some errand for her.
Other than MaryLou and Sharon, he hadn’t said anything to anyone
else. Several weeks had passed since. It would be hard to learn
anything now.

He crumpled the note. The crunch of the paper
drew his eyes down. A noise in the reception area startled him.
Someone was in the office. Maybe Bert had come back. Ian hurried to
smooth out the note and replace it under the blotter.

He walked quickly through the workroom. At
the door to the reception area, he paused and peered around the end
of the open door.

Charlie, the cleaner, pulled his vacuum into
the reception area and reached for the cleaning cart blocking the
entry door. Ian let out a pent up breath. Just Charlie.

“Hi, Mr. McLeod, don’t see much of you
anymore.”

“Hi, Charlie, I’m just leaving, don’t want to
get in your way.” Ian strode into his office and pulled his suit
coat from the back of the door.

“I can clean in here later,” Charlie
called.

Ian shrugged on his jacket as he walked
through the reception area. “No need. Good night.”

He left the office and walked toward his car,
head down. He had trusted Bert. His betrayal burned Ian’s gut, a
bitter acid eating his insides. After James Harrison, he had
promised himself he would never let anyone be that close to him
again. He had liked Bert. Only he wasn’t Bert. He was Bradford
Harrison.

For a moment, Ian considered confronting Bert
with the note. He could go to the Y or to Bert’s home later. He
wanted this business over.

He had already alerted the police about
Bradford Harrison. Now he could tell them about Bert. However,
other than the note, he had no evidence. He wanted to put this
twisted man behind bars. Ian wanted to make sure he could never
hurt anyone ever again.

Bradford Harrison had been clever, very
clever, to create a new identity. If Ian confronted him, he might
deny the whole thing or just disappear again and try something
else. No, the more Ian considered it, confronting Bert might be
satisfying, but it would solve nothing. He had time. He didn’t need
to be rash or bullheaded about this.

Now his enemy had a face, he could guard
himself and Cassie. Bert would not catch him unaware again.

Chapter
Nineteen

Cassie avoided downtown Columbus, especially
in the afternoon — too many people, too much traffic. As the
capital of Ohio, Columbus contained a plethora of state and federal
offices. Unfortunately, most of them had chosen downtown sites to
be near the governor and legislators. The Bureau of Vital
Statistics closed at 4:30 so she had roughly two hours.