by Dale Mayer
“Will that do any good?”
“Yes,” he said. “It will.”
She shook her head. “But why? The cops are there now. They’ll take over, and this person can either hide or disappear in the chaos.”
“Which is exactly what the murderer would do, but the guys have got the security cameras back up.”
She stopped staring, and a slow smile filled her face. “Well now, that makes sense,” she said. “What they need to do is find a central location and stand in place, until they see who is moving through the building.”
“They’re already on it.”
She nodded. “Of course Johan didn’t tell me any of that.”
“Of course not,” Kai said. “But then you two seemed to be at odds.”
“I don’t know what we’re at,” she said, frowning, because she wished she was at the building with him. There was just something very comforting and solid about him. It’s not like any of this chaos in her life would happen if he was here full-time. And yet she had no way to know if that were even true and less reason to believe it. It was foolish to even think such a thing, but that was how she felt. It had likely come from that quiet sense of power he exuded. That competency and that sense of having everything under control. It felt like nothing in her life had been under control since she had moved here. She’d been totally okay for the adventure of planning to relocate, expecting everything to go her way, but, when she’d had such trouble finding a decent job, panic had set in, and she had ended up at Westgroup. It wasn’t what she wanted to do; it wasn’t what she expected, and, now that she was here, it seemed like it would be even harder to find another position. She sagged into place.
Kai walked over, gave her a quick hug, and said, “They’ll be okay, you know?”
“There’s a killer in the building,” Joy said. “I don’t know that anybody’s safe.”
“Well, he won’t stick around,” Tyson said. “That you can count on.”
“I hear you,” she said. “It just feels like everything took a giant leap backward. This isn’t what I wanted when I signed up for this job. And, when I contacted you, all I was concerned about was the fact that drugs could be on the street that could be dangerous.”
“There are drugs on the street that are dangerous,” Kai said quietly. “Even more now. But I suspect what we have here is a very sophisticated system of moving drugs through the company in a way that nobody knows about, except for a few select people.”
“And you think Barlow could have been one of them?”
“As the founder, he certainly could have been the one to set it up,” Tyson said, “but we don’t know that for sure.”
“Right,” she said. “Well, he’s dead now, so there’ll be a lot of changes at the company.”
“And again you have to consider the fact that you may not necessarily have a job.”
“Right. Although what does any of that have to do with me?”
“You’re the low man on the totem pole,” Tyson said. “If the board cuts the budget, that’ll be the first place where they’ll start—with the new hires—leaving the old-timers with seniority in place.”
“Great,” she said. “That doesn’t seem fair.” She stared grimly out the window. “I should be okay for a few months,” she said, “but I’ll have to get another job right away.”
*
“There,” Galen said. “Looks like somebody just went through one of the doors to the shipping yards.”
Johan walked to the laptop and took a closer look. “I’ll go down there,” he said. “Stay connected to my cell phone. You keep tracking our suspect and let me know when I’m getting close.”
“Will do,” Galen said. “We’ll have to tell the cops too.”
“We’ll tell the cops if and when we find something,” he said.
He stepped out of their small dingy office and headed in the direction of the door that had just opened and closed. It meant somebody was here, was still inside the building, and Johan wanted to know who it was and why they were here. If it was one of the cops, then the cops would have said something. Most likely anyway. But then again, it shouldn’t have been just one cop, and Galen or Johan should have seen somebody in uniform on the security feed. Instead, it was just a momentary blip on their security screen, noting the door had opened, and that was it. No chance to catch sight of anybody in the area. But then, as he remembered, not many cameras were down there.
He raced down the stairway and down to the hallway, going the long way around past the three locked doors and out to the small extra stairway that led up to the shipping dock. As he stopped there, he quickly texted Galen. I’m outside the shipping bays, coming from the B3 stairwell up to B2. Any sign?
No. But check out the east side of the building. Seems to be one of the side doors into the shipping bay. Yet looks like maybe it leads to an office.
I’ll check.
He pulled open the door and stepped inside. The shipping bay was in darkness, and it took a moment for his eyes to adjust. He studied the layout, still seeing all the heavy equipment. The big bay doors were closed and locked, so the main part of the floor was empty, except for a tiny sliver of light on the far side.
He raced across and headed toward the office. He could see the light coming from the inside, and, with an ear against the door, he could hear a voice. But only one, so it was likely he was talking on the phone. He quickly sent a text message to Galen about it and got a quick reply.
You going in?
I am.
He turned the doorknob and stepped inside.
The shipping foreman looked up at him in shock and then anger. “What are you doing here again?” he snapped.
“I told you that we would be here this weekend,” he said mildly.
The foreman stood, his hands on his hips. “Everything’s fucking changed now,” he said.
“Why is that?”
“I’m sure you know about the dead guy here.”
“You mean the owner of the company? And how did you know about him so soon?”
“The police scanned my truck’s license plates, sitting out on the lot here. The cop called me, demanding to know what I’m doing here. Telling me to sit tight and how a uniform will be down to interrogate me.”
“So who do you think did this? Someone who wanted the penthouse suite?”
“Hell no. Barlow’s only a figurehead,” he snapped. “He hasn’t had enough shares to make a vote go his way in a very long time.”
“Not a lot of people liked him apparently.”
“What’s to like? He was scum.”
“You feel pretty strongly about it.”
The foreman shrugged and stared at the door behind him. “How many other people are here?”
“The place is teeming with cops,” Johan said. “To be expected when a murderer is still on the premises.”
The foreman sat down with a heavy thud. “Of all the damn days to come in to get caught up on the paperwork.”
“Yeah, it would be much better if you were at home with an alibi,” Johan said.
“What about you?” he asked. “How come you’re not at home with an alibi?”
“Me and my partner found the body,” Johan said. “That changes things for us too.”
The foreman snorted. “Of course,” he said. “It doesn’t mean you’re not guilty. Maybe you two killed him and then called the cops?”
“Maybe,” Johan said, “but nope.”
“Chances are none of us will have a job now,” the foreman said.
“Why is that?”
“Because the board wants to sell the company. They’ve had a couple offers over the past few years, and Barlow was always against it.”
“But he didn’t have enough votes to stop it, you said.”
“No, but he had some friends on the board. Still doesn’t mean with him gone that anybody’ll give a shit.”
“And does selling the company really make a difference?” Johan asked. “When
you think about it, often sales or takeovers are good for a company.”
“Sure, but it also means shuffling a lot of the staff around, so chances are I won’t have a job.”
“That’s pretty defeatist thinking,” Johan said quietly, as he looked around. “Do you know of anything criminal going on here?”
“No,” he said. “Why would I?”
“I don’t know that you would,” he said. “I’m just wondering. Something crazy had to be going on because, for that murder to have happened, there’s got to be a motive. If something was going on, it’s possible that Barlow found out and approached the person.”
“Barlow didn’t approach anybody,” he said. “He didn’t give a shit. And, if you paid him in scotch, he’d turned a blind eye. You could have stolen this place blind, and he wouldn’t have cared.”
At that, Johan pulled a seat up and said, “Tell me more.”
The foreman glared at him. “Why should I?”
“To save your job,” he said.
“And maybe it’s time to leave.” His shoulders sagged. “My wife’s been on me to retire anyway.”
“Do you like working here that much?”
“No,” he said, “but I’m bored stiff at home, so having a job of some kind makes me feel like I’m not quite so old.”
Johan had heard that before from other men. “Got it,” he said. “But, in situations like this one, it can get ugly.”
“It can, indeed,” he said frowning. “Look. I’ve known Barlow for over twenty years. The guy’s an asshole, free and clear. When the board of directors took over, they pretty well left him as a figurehead because he started the company, and it’s his face everywhere. But he never did. At least not since he became successful.”
“What does he do with his days then?”
“I think he played video games and went golfing, for all I know. I don’t care,” he said. “The company operated just fine without him, and, with any luck, it will now too.”
“You just said everything would change.”
“And I’m hoping maybe I’ll be wrong,” he said.
“Anything else you can tell me?”
The foreman sat back and crossed his arms over his chest. “It doesn’t matter what I say. Anything I say will sound like it’s just sour grapes at this point.”
“Unless you know about the theft that’s been going on here.”
“Is there any going on?”
“Not only is there but it’s also coming through your area here. So either you’re heavily involved or somebody’s using you as a patsy.”
The foreman’s eyebrows shot up. “Hell no,” he said. “I’ve worked for the company since forever. There hasn’t been any theft that I know of in all that time.”
“So either you’re being duped, or you’re really foolish and don’t want to see what’s right before your eyes.”
“I don’t like what you’re implying,” the foreman said, standing now. “I don’t have anything to do with any theft here, and neither do any of my guys.”
“What’s with the three rooms full of stored goods just around the corner?” Johan pointed the direction of the rooms to him.
The foreman looked in that direction and frowned. “That shit’s been there since forever,” he said. “It was part of the other company.”
“What other company?”
“That was Barlow’s deal too. He was struggling to get some of the stock he needed, so he bought a company that would allow him to import larger amounts of it at one time. But he couldn’t get credit, overextended himself, and ended up going broke. And most of the stock that he had here, for whatever bloody reason, he didn’t even ship out.”
“So it’s all just wasted old merchandise?”
“And that happens more than you think,” he said. “I got a buddy who did something similar. He started a business and had a ton of stock stored. He didn’t have room, so he moved the stuff off the premises, couldn’t pay his bills, and ended up losing everything. The lenders came in, taking what they could, selling it for pennies on the dollar. When he turned around a few years later, he remembered he’d put a truckload of stuff in a couple storage lockers that he’d paid for with cash because he needed another place back then. Yet now it had all gone past its expiration dates.”
“And why did he do that?”
“Because he got in over his head and didn’t think about it. He was just looking for short-term answers. It went to pot, and he figured that for sure the contents of the storage lockers would be taken too. He was just so angry, he let the creditors do whatever they would do and signed the papers to be done with it. He got the bills later for the two storage lockers, that he’d paid upfront for three years, cash money, and it had come due again. He went over there, took one look, and found all that shit was still there.”
“Damn. Did he sell it?”
“He did, and then he got in trouble because, according to the paperwork he’d signed, he hadn’t declared the contents of those storage lockers.”
“So it’s possible that the stuff is sitting here because nobody knows what to do with it?”
“Makes sense to me,” he said. “And, depending on how much theft you’re talking about, it’d be pretty easy to move a bunch of boxes in and out of those rooms, and nobody would know because really nobody has any idea what’s in there to begin with.”
“So somebody could have completely switched out those boxes, and nobody would have known?”
He shrugged. “Yep. But it’s got nothing to do with me.”
“Unless the boxes come in here through you.”
He frowned at that. “If they come in through here, then it’s just straight inventory that’s either coming here for additional storage—because we have a warehouse already for the research center—and then they’re being shipped back out again.”
“Ah, so you do ship to the research center?”
“Yes,” he said. “We have most of our product come here because we don’t have enough space at the other place to hold everything.”
“That makes sense. But didn’t you tell me earlier, if it comes in on a truck, it might as well go to the intended destination?”
“Sure, for this company, in this building, but the research center is under a different company name. It’s typical. They have an umbrella company, and they have companies under it,” he said. “I just get the orders in and put the shit where it belongs per the address on the shipping label.”
“Does this building have different sections by company?”
“For bookkeeping purposes and deducting the utilities, yes,” he said. “But, as far as we’re concerned, it’s not a big issue. I keep everything over here for the research center.” He pointed behind him. “Off to the side is stuff for this company.”
“How many other companies are there?”
“Two more, but one is a property management company, and I don’t get stuff for them delivered here,” he said. “I don’t even know what the other company does. Again I don’t deal with that.”
“So you have rooms and rooms of stuff for the research center?”
“Sure. Come on. I’ll show you.” He got up and headed to the office door.
Chapter 9
Joy looked over at Kai. “Is there anything constructive we can do while Johan and Galen are at the office?”
“Like what?” Kai asked curiously.
Joy bounced to her feet and paced back and forth in her small living room. “I don’t know,” she said, “but it feels wrong to have started the whole ball rolling and now be completely cut out and not effective at doing anything.”
“Well, the guys are doing something,” she said, “and that’s what happens. You initiate something like this, and people who are pros step in and take over.”
Kai’s voice was calm and practiced, as if she’d spoken to many an irate woman before. Joy looked at her with a lopsided grin. “You’re very good at what you do.”
“What is it that
I do anyway?” Kai asked, concern in her voice. “It seems like I’m split between my own company—inventing and designing military-grade training equipment—and Levi’s outfit.”
“I guess because you’re with Tyson that it’s hard to not go on some missions, or at least want to go on some, yet still be pulled in the other direction.”
“Exactly,” she said. “Some of the stuff the guys are coming up with depends on us, and we’re really excited about developing it. And, while I’m sitting here, I’m looking at designs, and a couple more of them have been emailed to me that I hadn’t had a chance to even go over yet.” She looked at Tyson, his face buried in the laptop. “He, on the other hand, is probably digging up dirt on everybody who works at your company.”
Tyson didn’t respond, but the corners of his mouth kicked up.
Joy took that as a yes. “I need more coffee,” she said.
“You need less caffeine,” Kai said in a dry tone.
She looked at her friend and asked, “You want to go for a walk then? I’m bouncing around this small space, and I can’t do anything.”
“Absolutely,” she said. “How about we do a loop around the park? Do you have any shopping you need to do?”
She shrugged, looked around, and said, “We don’t have anything for dinner.”
“We can go out,” Tyson said. “Or order in.”
“Or we could buy groceries,” Joy said. “I don’t mind cooking.”
“It might give you something else to think about,” Kai said. “Come on. Let’s go.” The women quickly had shoes and sweaters on. Kai turned to look at Tyson, who stared at them steadily. She shrugged and said, “We’ll just go together, if you’re okay with that.”
He gave a slow nod. “Stay in touch.”
Kai walked over, bent down, and kissed him thoroughly.
Joy watched with envy because, not only did Kai have that well-loved look on her face all the time but, by the time she stepped back, Tyson did too. Kai sighed happily as they stepped out.
“It’s really good to see you two guys so happy like that.”
