by Linda Seals
* * *
Getting to The Four Seasons was easy, and the walk up 14th St. to the corner of Arapahoe revealed the scenic view west to the stepped, blue-grey ridges of the mountains. I took a deep breath of the crisp November air. I was nervous. But all was well—that was my mantra.
The Four Seasons is luxurious. Of course. It is what luxe is all about. Walls of windows in the lobby divulged spectacular views to the mountains, and panels of blonde wood rose above small groups of modern, low furniture in tones of taupe and café au lait. There was a huge open glass-railed staircase with mammoth lemon-yellow square cylinder glass chandeliers hanging in the hallway beyond. I felt urbanely chic myself just being there.
I was early enough to catch the breakfast crowd, so I picked a spot in the lobby to settle behind my newspaper in one of the posh chairs that had a good view of the elevators, and waited for Andrea Brubaker. On my tour through the lobby and foyers I’d seen a “No Cell Phone Zone” sign posted by the room listed for the IEREA breakfast, and it had given me an idea of how to be able to get her alone, without her usual entourage, so she’d perhaps talk to me.
Andrea Brubaker and her followers disgorged from the sleek elevator right on time, with Andrea leading the pack, a frown on her face. One of the group was trying to get her to look at a sheet of paper in his hand, and she ignored him with a disdainful turn of her head. They headed toward the breakfast banquet room, and I waited about five minutes before I placed the call from my cell to the front desk.
I identified myself as an employee of Brubaker Distinctive Properties, and requested that Andrea Brubaker be paged, and asked to call her office immediately. I spoke of the urgency of the matter and reminded him how Very Important she was; I could tell from the poor assistant concierge’s voice that he had probably gotten a dose of Andrea’s condescension himself. Then I hustled over to a side corridor outside of the banquet room, and waited for Andrea Brubaker to come out to use her cell phone.
She brusquely pushed through the double doors, punching at her phone. “Andrea?” I asked as I approached her. “Could I talk with you?”
She looked at me, looked confused, looked at her phone again, and then glared at me. “You? What are you doing here? I have to call my office. I can’t talk to you right now,” she growled, striding past me down the hallway.
Might as well tell the truth, I thought. “No, that was me, I placed the call. I wanted you to come out so I could talk with you.”
“Why you little sneak!” Andrea spat out as she whirled to face me. “I know who you are now, you know! You fooled me in Santa Fe, but you’re not fooling me now!”
“I wanted to talk to you about Shannon’s murder,” I said. How did that word slip out?
Andrea Brubaker stepped in close and narrowed her eyes. “What are you talking about? You’re crazy. I’m calling security to get you thrown out of here!” she said in a low menacing voice. Her moist breath spewed the sour smell of milked coffee in my face.
“Shannon didn’t commit suicide. Please, Andrea, could we talk? I just want to clear Shannon’s name—” I interjected.
Andrea grabbed my arm and hissed, “I don’t know anything, and you’re getting thrown out of here, now!”
“Please, please, Mrs. Brubaker, if you could just—” I made my voice a lot louder and whinier. Two guys walking down the hallway turned around to stare at us, just as I hoped.
Andrea saw them looking at us, and jerked me in the opposite direction, looking for privacy; her hand in a painful grip on my arm. She breathed into my ear, “If I talk with you, you will go away and never approach me again. Or should I just call security right now? I give you five minutes, then I never want to see you again. Got it?”
I pulled away from her and straightened my jacket. “Yes,” I lied. But no matter what, she wasn’t going to be grabbing me again, that much I knew. We walked in silence along several hallways filled with chatting groups of people that all knew Andrea Brubaker, before she turned to me and said, “I can’t talk down here. We’re going up to my suite, but you still only have five minutes, and then you’re out. You got it?”
We walked toward the elevator and rode to the 14th floor in silence. We entered an elegant room with a huge entry way accented by floor to ceiling stacked shabui stone with the rest of the suite outfitted in the same warm earth tones as the lobby. Through a large wall of windows, I could see north to Coors Field glinting in the sun. Andrea Brubaker vaguely gestured towards a chair, I guessed for me, and walked to the bar, clinked some ice in a glass, and poured a drink for herself.
Andrea swirled it around in the glass, staring out the windows for a minute before downing it in a gulp. She pursed her lips in thought, and nodded to herself, before turning back to me. “I’m not involved in any of this! What do you want?”
She returned to stand in front of me, her hands on her hips. “Why do you think you can just waltz in here and start asking me questions? Why are you talking to me? What business is it of yours? Why are you trying to make this my problem?”
I stood up, walked over to the windows, and looked out at the empty baseball field below. I was not going to be pulled into defending myself on a side issue, as I would have been in the past. But I decided that honey might work better than vinegar. “Andrea, I know you’re not involved in anything. You were Shannon’s mentor, you helped her in New Mexico, you got her a job here.” She nodded, and I continued, “I know you’ll want to help. I just have a few questions.”
She walked over to the bar again, and as she picked up the bottle she asked me if I wanted a shot of something. I declined, and she poured another generous drink for herself. She brought the glass and the bottle back into the living room and set them down on the end table with a clink. She kicked off her soft boots, curled up in a leather chair, and took a sip of Scotch, by the smell of it.
“I have five minutes. Then you’ll leave, either on your own accord, or—” She glared at me meaningfully over the rim of her glass.
Not wanting to prolong the visit any longer than I had to, I plunged right in. “I think Shannon was murdered—”
“Don’t be so dramatic! I don’t know what you’re talking about, a murder. Shannon killed herself; get over it.”
Why was I giving away my hand? I needed to make this less threatening, and I knew just the thing to say to make her focus on herself again. “Yes, of course you’re right. You know more than I do. But Shannon was bothered by something. Did it make her kill herself? I think it started about the time of the last IEREA meeting in Santa Fe in July. Shannon, Barry, the Binders, and yourself, were all there, weren’t you?” I lied about being sure about everyone’s whereabouts. But Andrea nodded, forgetting that she had previously told me that she hadn’t seen Shannon since her move to Colorado.
I continued, “Did something happen at that meeting? What did you and Shannon talk about?” I thought I’d act like I knew more than I did.
“Oh, nothing much,” Andrea said, taking a drink. “We really didn’t see that much of each other at the meeting; so many people needing my time, you know,” she preened. “But Ernesto was giving a key presentation, and I wanted Shannon to hear it. Afterwards, Shannon insisted that she talk to me about Nueva Oportunidad, for god’s sake, and I wanted to hear about Binder! Shit, Nueva Oportunidad is small fry compared to what I could do with Binder!” Her tone was getting heated.
Playing along I said, “Did you ever get the information on Binder? What did Shannon say about Nueva Oportunidad?”
“Nothing on Binder, dammit! Shannon said she’d found something weird—in the books— at Nueva Oportunidad, and you know, what should she do about it. She gave me an envelope with the information, and I told her I’d give it to my accountant, and have him sort it out. He knows all about that kind of accounting, and it was probably something she was misunderstanding. He could explain it. No big deal.”
“What could she tell you about Binder Enterprises?”
Andrea Brubaker narrowe
d her eyes at me as she took a long sip at her drink. “What the hell? Who are you going to tell? Who are you anyway?” she asked, looking disdainfully at my plain outfit. It obviously did not pass the test. “Oh yeah, I know about you—Chloë reminded me of who you really are! I don’t know what kind of stunt you were trying to pull in Santa Fe, but don’t waste my time now!” she sneered. “Anyway, I don’t care what you think. Heard you were just a drunk.”
“Yeah, also called a souse, rummy, sot, lush, and dipsomaniac.”
Andrea looked at me blankly. “Bah! Need a drink? Let me fix you one.” She rose and returned to the bar.
“No, thanks.”
“How about just one? Nobody’ll know.” She dropped ice into a glass, poured in four fingers of Jack Daniels, walked over, and sat it on a table next to me. “There you go. You could probably use it.”
She picked up her own glass and raised it at me. “Cheers! Come on, cheers!”
I stood silently by the windows.
She sat down, and knocked her glass on the side table with a loud thwack. “What’s the big deal? I asked Shannon to help me out with information about Binder. So what? I’d helped her with a lot of money, and all I wanted in return was something on that asshole Cowboy Binder!
“It was my due! He tried to ruin me!” she spit out as she jumped up. “I’ll see him burn in hell before I let him get away with that! I knew I could get something on the bastard! I could be patient, I could wait. Shannon … was … was …” She looked out the wall of windows to the northwest and the dark grey line of the foothills, lost in Scotchy thought.
“Shannon was your spy at Binder?” I asked. Andrea Brubaker looked startled at my voice.
“The little ingrate said she wouldn’t do it! She said she’d pay me back any money if that was why I’d given it to her. Oh, her innocence was pathetic!” she sneered as she sat down again. “I could have made her a lot of money, and she wasn’t going to get caught, for god’s sake! But no! She had those naïve ideas. No wonder she was poor.”
Andrea continued with a slight hint of a smile. “But Barry said he could change her mind, and I expected that he could, so I told her to not worry about it. I knew I could wait,” she said. What was Barry changing Shannon’s mind about? “Barry had a lot of power over Shannon, but I never thought he’d murder her,” she said as if it was an afterthought.
“You know for sure that Barry killed Shannon?” I asked incredulously.
“Well, I don’t know that he killed her, but he could have.” She nodded a couple of times as if a storyline was becoming clear in her mind. “Yes, he was very jealous, and he’d just found out that Shannon was playing around with someone at work, and that Shannon and this other guy were going to implicate him in some bad accounts, and get him out of the way. I could see Barry killing her in a rage.”
Where was this coming from? Henry Wade hadn’t mentioned anything about it. “Who told you this?”
“Ernesto!” she told me freely, the drink helping us become good, chatty friends. She curled up in her cozy chair again. “Ernesto knows everything! Barry told Ernesto all about it when he and Shannon were in Santa Fe for IEREA.” She smiled and hoisted a toast in the air, but her voice, now slurred a bit, made the acronym like urea.
“That night after the conference, we had dinner with them at Geronimo. Shannon had been acting weird all night, and I found it tiresome. So when we walked up to El Farol after dinner, I pulled her aside and told her to talk to Ernesto about Nueva Oportunidad, but she refused, and said she had information for only the accountant. I don’t know why she wouldn’t talk to Ernesto.” Andrea stretched her legs in the chair and crossed them on the coffee table in front of her, and looked very satisfied to be so comfortable in the luxurious room.
“He and Barry were in front of us on the street, and I guess that’s when Barry told Ernesto of this affair of Shannon’s. She didn’t say anything about it to me, of course! When I told Ernesto later that night about her Nueva Oportunidad concerns, he told me about Shannon’s affair. He thought that information about Shannon’s behavior was pretty good evidence that she was having real problems; and had probably imagined the irregularities with Nueva Oportunidad, as well. Even so, Ernesto told me he’d look into it, and that he’d give the envelope to the accountant himself. He’s so helpful!” she said, with some insincerity in her voice. Three minutes before she was toasting him.
“You told Ernesto about Shannon’s suspicions even though she asked you not to?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
“What suspicions? She was a ninny. What did she know about anything? I knew better than she did. It was probably over her head anyway; or imagined, like Ernesto said. Besides, Ernesto was very much involved with Nueva Oportunidad. He was very interested in Shannon’s information. He said he’d deal with it.”
“Did you know that Shannon disappeared soon after she was down here and talked with you?” I asked. Shut up! My mind was screaming at me.
Andrea Brubaker looked startled, and then peeved. “Well, uh, no! How was I supposed to know that? Ernesto told me later that she fell apart when Barry confronted her, you know, about the affair. Ernesto said it was between them, that Barry would look after her. How was I to know that she’d kill herself? Look, none of this involves me. Brubaker Distinctive Properties is not involved! But I don’t know what kind of mess Cowboy has gotten Binder into, but …” She looked pleased with herself. “Yes, I think that’s it, I think there’re real problems at Binder Enterprises—caused all of this in the first place. Shannon’s problems started after she left me, and started working at Binder!” Andrea Brubaker was all over the territory with her blame.
“Were Barry and Ernesto good friends? How did they meet?” I asked to get back on the subject.
Andrea gave a bored sigh. “Ernesto recruited Barry to work at Brubaker Distinctive Properties; he was our top salesman, and as you might know, we’ve been the Agency of the Year, oh, I’ve forgotten how many times,” she said with false modesty. I guessed that she knew exactly how many times.
“They spent a lot of time together dealing with our large estate properties. Ernesto was fond of Barry, and was shocked when he heard of his death in the car accident. They always kidded each other a lot. Called him Mojito all the time. Speaking of which …” Andrea said as she rose a bit unsteadily to get more ice at the bar.
I needed to think, so I asked if I could use the bathroom; anything for a break. She directed me down a hallway with three doors, and I tried the last one, next to a wide door at the end of the hall. Success. Smaller than a master bathroom, it looked like a guest bath, and from the looks of a toiletries bag on the marble counter, there was a guest present.
I ran a little water in the underlit basin and cupped some on my face. As I reached for a thick white towel, I noticed a large jumble of pill bottles peaking out of the half-zipped toiletries bag. Curious, and knowing full well I shouldn’t be snooping, I stuck a fingertip into the bag and moved some the plastic containers around to read the labels. They all had brand names for oxycodone, the narcotic of Rush Limbaugh fame. The distributing pharmacies were different, and the patient names were different, too. Lots of prescriptions from Florida. Looked like someone was obtaining illegal prescription drugs. Then I stopped when I saw a name I recognized: Chloë Austin.
I quickly dried my face. Behind me I heard the grating voice I never wanted to hear again. “What the hell are you doing?” It was her.
I turned around, and her mouth dropped open.
“Andrea?” Chloë screeched into the other room, “What the fuck is going on?”
She motioned for me to leave the bathroom, and then tried to push me down the hall and out into the living room. I sidestepped her attempt, and swiftly walked into the room where Andrea was standing by the sofa. I didn’t know if Chloë had seen me snooping, but I wanted to get out of there as quickly as I could.
Chloë Austin looked much like the last time I’d seen her at Stedmans in Sant
a Fe, complete with hennaed hair and thick foundation that still did not hide her bumpy complexion. Much like last time except for the addition of the gun she was pointing at me.
“Oh, hi, Chloë. Didn’t know you were awake,” Andrea Brubaker said nonchalantly, as if we were all good friends. “She was just leaving. I was just telling her … Is that a gun?”
“Keep your friggin’ mouth shut, Andrea! Didn’t the lawyer tell us that we had nothing to tell, nothing to talk about?” She pointed the gun at me and said in disdain, “Why would you be talking to her anyway?” as if I was too stupid to exist. Sensing she had a captive audience, she wound up and let it fly.
She raised the gun, and pointed it at my face. “I know all about you, you pathetic fat hag. I recognized you scurrying out of that AO function in Santa Fe! And now you show up here. Whadya doin’, being a troublemaker, as always? I told Andrea then that you were a fake. Where would someone like you get the money to be a donor? You are such a loser. Sticking your big nose where it doesn’t belong.”
She took the glass offered by Andrea and took a careless drink. I watched the gun wobble in her other hand. “God! At Stedmans I was so glad to get rid of you! You were such a friggin’ loser, but you always thought you were so smart, so creative. You wanted everybody to like you, and you were the laughing stock, you know that?” It was good to hear that Chloë Austin was her old familiar self.
“And what are you now? A gardener? Made it big, huh?” she sniggered so hard I thought Scotch would come out her nose. “Yeah, I know all about you! We had you investigated after you illegally gained entrance onto Andrea’s property—you’re not even worth pursuing charges against.” She moved around the sofa, and motioned with the gun for me to sit down.
“You really wanted to be a big fish, didn’t you? Poor Lily! You don’t have what it takes. I was glad to get rid of you, you drunk!” I could see spit spewing out of her mouth at each consonant.
“I know you filed a complaint against me at Stedmans,” she sneered. “You always had to be the victim, didn’t you? Luckily for me, everyone knew you were a drunk and Jim in HR was ready to throw you under the bus, but there was still enough trouble to make my life hell, you bitch. And now I get payback.” She punched the gun towards me, and joggled it up and down.
“Who cared about you anyway? I make Stedmans millions of dollars!” she whinnied, holding her head up in self-admiration.
“Oh, shut up, Chloë. You’re getting tiresome,” Andrea Brubaker interrupted wearily.
“Oh, yeah? Well, you’re not so perfect and innocent yourself, bitch!” Chloë Austin shot back and vaguely waved the gun toward Andrea, and then back at me. “What is she doing here anyway?” she demanded with another glare at me.
“Put that gun down, you idiot! Where did you get that thing? You don’t know what you’re doing, and you don’t know what you’re talking about!” Andrea exclaimed as she stood up and walked over to the bar. “She is the problem, not me!” she said as she glowered at me, too.
Chloë followed, and awkwardly tried to keep the gun pointing at me as she sidestepped across the room. They talked in low tones that I couldn’t clearly hear, and Chloë Austin slowly paced around, holding the gun with both hands in front of her like a precious object. I remembered her parading that way through Stedmans, as if she was the queen leading a procession with her sacred scepter, except there it was with a stained coffee cup that stated “World’s Best Boss.” I imagined that she had bought it for herself, or, more likely, just stolen it off someone’s desk.
“I say we call security, say she broke in here,” I heard Chloë chortle, as she looked from me to Andrea. “Yeah, maybe we could plant something on her, and they could get her for possession, too,” she smirked. “Who are they going to believe? Us or a … gardener?”
Chloë Austin and Andrea Brubaker put their heads together, and tittered at each other as if that was an original joke only meant for them. In their drab, out-of-context Southwestern garb, they looked like faded, wooden dolls, their wind-up heads bobbing at each nod and strut.
“I’m calling Ernesto,” Chloë said loudly enough for me to hear. “He told me to call if, you know—” She looked at Andrea, and jerked her head towards me, the gun still wobbling in her hand.
I suspected—I didn’t know for sure—but I suspected that Chloë Austin would not fire a gun in the hotel room. Chloë Austin was a coward. Too many people would hear it, and she wouldn’t get away with it; and Chloë felt entitled to always get away with whatever she wanted to do. She was a coward, but she wasn’t stupid. I got up and walked toward the door.
Chloë yelled, “Stop! I’ll use this gun! I’m calling security, you bitch!”
I stopped right at the door, turned, and said, “Betcha they’ll be real interested that you have a gun, don’t you think?” I gave them a big smile. “Thanks, Andrea, for all the information you gave me on Chloë. And I thought you were such good friends—”
“Bitch!” I heard Chloë Austin scream off key as I escaped down the corridor.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
