by S. J. Lewis
The hotel was set back from the road just far enough to permit a lane to drive up to the main entrance. There was a large canopy over the spot and some sort of hotel functionary waiting there in the shade, next to a sign that read: ‘Valet Parking’. He came briskly over to her door as she stopped and opened it for her.
“Good afternoon, Miss,” he smiled. He looked to be somewhere in his sixties, still lean and trim, if a bit leathery. He wore jeans, cowboy boots and a red vest over a blindingly white shirt. “Checking in?”
“Yes, thank you.” Claudia smiled back. He offered his hand to help her out of her car. She took it with a smile, trying to remember the last time she’d been offered such a courtesy.
“Your bags?”
“In the trunk.”
He held out his hand again, still smiling.
“Oh! Sorry. Here.” Claudia handed him her keys.
“Thank you, ma’am,” he nodded to her. “I’ll have your bags brought up to your room.” As if on cue, a gangly teenage boy came scurrying out of the entrance. He was dressed much like the doorman. She hoped he would be lugging the bags instead of parking her car.
Well, what did it matter? The car was a rental. She started towards the entrance.
***
Showered, changed and fed, she pulled up in front of the building housing the Simonds office an hour later. It was still early afternoon here, but it felt like it should be later. The Sun should be much lower in the sky. She used the street parking. There might be a lot around somewhere, but she didn’t want to go looking for it, and she wasn’t planning on spending a lot of time here anyway. She got out, locked the car, and stepped onto the sidewalk.
“Excuse me, ma’am.”
Claudia turned. He was tall, wide-shouldered, square-jawed and slim-hipped. He looked like some kind of trooper in his khaki uniform and Stetson hat. He was wearing mirrored sunglasses, so she couldn’t see his eyes. He was also smiling, but it wasn’t a convincing smile. As he came closer, she could read his badge and his name tag: T. Pipes, of the County Police. He looked oddly bulky in the chest. Claudia took another look. He was wearing body armor under his uniform. In this heat?
“Yes, officer?” Was there some law against parking on the street? No, there couldn’t be. There were other cars parked there.
“Might you be the investigator that bonding company sent out here?” He nodded towards the office building.
“I might,” Claudia shrugged. “Why?”
“You’re supposed to check in with the local authorities, ma’am,” he replied. “Why don’t I just give you a quick ride over there, get it out of the way?” His smile got wider, which made it even less convincing.
“I wouldn’t want to put you to any trouble, officer,” she smiled sweetly. She wasn’t going anywhere with this character. Something about him reeked.
“I’m afraid I’m going to have to insist…” he began.
“Why, Timmy Pipes! Are you trying to hit on this pretty lady?”
Officer Pipes whirled at the voice. Claudia took a step sideways. She knew who it was already, but she had to see. Sam was ambling towards them, hands thrust into the pockets of his faded jeans, grinning. He wore a hat much like the officer’s, but no mirrored sunglasses.
“This is none of your business, Pender.” Was it a trick of her ears or did Officer Pipes suddenly sound a little bit scared?
“Ain’t none of yours either, Timmy,” Sam drawled. He stopped about a yard away, looking completely at ease, as if he were passing the time of day with a friend. He kept his hands thrust into his pockets. Officer Pipes looked anything but relaxed. “You’re county. This here’s city police jurisdiction. Shouldn’t you be out writin’ speedin’ tickets somewheres?”
Officer Pipes just stood there for a moment. Then he looked back over his shoulder at Claudia and stalked off, making a wide detour around Sam.
“What was that all about?” Claudia asked.
“Pleased to meet you, ma’am,” Sam nodded. He took his hands out of his pockets and came closer. He went on, in a very low voice: “We don’t know each other. Act like you’re a little annoyed at me.”
“That won’t be hard,” Claudia replied. She was annoyed with him for manipulating her into coming to this hot, dry place. And yet…just seeing him again had her heart beating faster.
“I was just on my way in here, Ma’am,” Sam went on in his normal voice. He nodded towards the office building. “May I get the door for you?”
“You didn’t answer my question,” she said as they started for the door. She kept her voice low, as Sam had. Sam opened the door for her.
“What question?”
“What was that all about?”
“Oh. That.” Sam shrugged. He spoke quietly after looking to see if there was anyone else in the lobby. There wasn’t. “Nothin’ much to worry about. Timmy’s just muscle for some of the bigshots here. I think he was just tryin’ to find out about you, maybe scare you a little.” He spoke in a low voice.
Claudia had come across more than her share of bad cops. She nodded. “Who do you think sent him?” Sam led the way towards the elevator. She followed.
“Think he came all by himself. See, Timmy’s just muscle to those guys, but Timmy’s got a problem. He’s a muscle with aspirations. He thinks if he can show them how valuable he can be they’ll cut him in on some of the goodies.”
“What are you talking about?” The elevator opened. Sam gestured for her to enter and she did.
He punched the button for the third floor. The door slid shut.
“This town’s a cesspool, Red,” he turned towards her, grim and serious. “Too much development too soon, too much money comin’ in too fast, nobody payin’ much attention. The city fathers are busy stuffing their pockets while they can. One of ‘em even owns the only paper in town, so they ain’t much worried about bein’ exposed. Somebody like you might make them a little nervous. They might’ve mentioned it in Timmy’s earshot.”
“Is he dangerous at all?”
“He’s a bully at heart, Red. He’s only dangerous if you let him be. Stand up to him and he backs down.”
“If he’s county police, what was he doing in town?”
“He’s muscle. He pretty much goes where he wants.” Sam chuckled. “Except for the reservation.”
“The what?”
“There’s a Navajo reservation up north, just on the county line. Timmy used to go up there, catch anyone coming into the county, write tickets for any little thing he could find. Made such a pain of himself some of the tribal police had a little talk with him. He won’t go within twenty miles of it now. All they did was talk to him.”
“Really.”
A chime rang. The elevator stopped with a tiny jolt and the door slid open. As it did, Sam shook her hand, simultaneously pressing something into it.
“This is my floor, ma’am,” Sam smiled. “You want the next floor up. Nice meetin’ you.” He ambled out. Claudia watched him until the door shut. She pressed the button for the fourth floor. It was only then that she realized she’d missed a chance to hold him, kiss him, feel his body against hers again. She’d also missed a chance to give him a piece of her mind and a hard slap. What did he mean by ‘we don’t know each other’? It had sounded like a warning…and did he really have business on the third floor? She looked at the small cell phone Sam had passed to her with the handshake.
The elevator came to a stop again. The door opened. She slid the cell phone into her shirt pocket and stepped out.
***
When she entered the office, there were two women and one man waiting. One of the women, middle-aged and plump, sat behind a small desk. She was taking notes on a small yellow pad. The man looked to be about the same age, tall, thin and stooped. He was almost bald. What straggling gray hair he had left circled his head like a wreath just above his ears. He looked at her over antique-looking reading glasses.
The other woman was perhaps a year or two younger than
Claudia. She was about the same height with long, straight black hair framing a face with a little too much space between her cheekbones and chin. As the black-haired woman met her gaze, Claudia saw her stand a bit straighter and pull her shoulders back a bit. She’d seen that sort of reaction to her before, from other women, and she always thought of it as a female threat display, ‘Fear me! My tits are bigger than yours’!
Well, they were, Claudia noted sourly. Her hips were bigger as well, but not so much bigger as to make her look hefty. What was the right word to describe her build? Voluptuous might fit. She was the only one of the three not dressed for the office. While the man and the woman wore what could be described as generic office wear, this other woman was clad in a tan blouse above a long skirt woven in a bright Southwestern pattern. She also wore serviceable-looking boots instead of highly-polished shoes.
“Ma’am?” the older woman cleared her throat. “May I help you?”
“I suppose you can. I’m Claudia Cole. You were expecting me?”
“Ah, Ms. Cole!” The man smiled. It looked as if it put a strain on his face. He came over towards her, holding out one big, skinny hand. “Yes, indeed! We were expecting you, but not for a little while yet! I’m very pleased to finally meet you!”
Claudia let him take her hand and shake it briefly. “I’m Paul Morrison,” he said, letting go of her hand and stepping back a little. “This is Esther Green.” He nodded towards the older woman, who smiled wanly up at Claudia. “We’re here to assist you in any way we can while you’re here.”
“Thank you,” Claudia nodded. She looked over at the black-haired woman. Before Paul Morrison could say anything, the woman came towards her, smiling and holding out her hand. “I am Anna Turco,” she introduced herself. “I was Mr. Andersen’s assistant. I am very pleased to meet you.”
She pronounced her name very precisely, ‘AH-nah TOOR-co’. She also used more pressure than was necessary when she shook Claudia’s hand. Claudia did not much care for Anna Turco and it was apparent that Anna Turco did not care for her. Claudia shrugged mentally. It happened sometimes, hate at first sight. She disengaged her hand from Anna’s deftly. Anna had dark brown eyes, so dark as to seem almost black, and a complexion not quite dark enough to be called swarthy. Up close, Claudia could see that Anna’s nose had made a valiant effort to cover the cheekbone-to-chin span of her face. In doing so, it had flattened itself out a bit.
“Very nice to meet you all,” Claudia smiled at them.
“Ms. Turco is helping us,” Mr. Morrison said.
“Is she indeed?” Claudia arched an eyebrow at her. “I was given to understand that she wasn’t there that night.”
“I wasn’t,” Anna shook her head. She offered nothing more.
“Then how can you possibly help?” Claudia inquired mildly. They locked eyes.
“Ah…Ms. Turco was describing the security arrangements, the layout of the pay office and so on,” Mr. Morrison interjected. “Background material, nothing more.”
“Don’t the police already have all that?”
“Perhaps,” Mr. Morrison nodded. The way he did that, his head looked almost too heavy for his thin neck. “But it never hurts to review things. It’s always possible that some previously overlooked detail will come to light.”
Claudia looked away from Anna as if dismissing her and smiled at him. “Very good,” she said. “Did anything come to light?”
“Ah…” Mr. Morrison’s answering smile faded. “I’m afraid not.”
“Well, it was worth a try. Is Ms. Turco finished now?”
“Yes, I think so,” Anna spoke up. She sounded irritated. Good.
“All right,” Claudia nodded. “I don’t have much time, so if there’s nothing new to go over here, I’d like to have a look at the payroll office. I’d like to poke around there a little for myself.”
“There’s not much to see,” Anna said. “The police have been all over it anyway. I’d be happy to show you around the place though.”
Oh, great. There was no plausible way to turn down that offer. “Why, thank you!” Claudia smiled.
***
“I saw that you’ve already met our Mr. Pender,” Anna spoke up as they drove out to the site. There had been no plausible way to insist that they take separate cars either.
“How did you know that?” Claudia kept her voice even and concentrated on driving. They were heading north out of the city and there seemed to be a lot more traffic out this way.
“I happened to see you through the window,” Anna lounged back in the seat. She turned her head to watch the scenery go by. “I saw that you also met Officer Pipes.”
“Not a very pleasant guy,” Claudia replied.
“Officer Pipes, no…but that Mr. Pender…” Anna gestured with one hand as if she was shaking water off of her fingertips. “That one is muy hombre. I wouldn’t mind putting the spurs to him some time.”
Inwardly, Claudia snickered. Anna obviously had no idea what Mr. Pender was like, which came as a relief. “How do you happen to know them?” she asked.
“Ah,” Anna chuckled. “I think every woman in the county knows of Mr. Pender. His engineering company has done some work in this area. As for the officer,” her voice turned sour, “I think every pretty woman in the county knows of him too. He thinks he’s God’s special gift to women. If he finds one attractive, he’ll pull her over for the slightest reason, then suggest alternative ways to settle the ticket.”
“He did that to you?”
“Yes. I turned him down. After that, he began pulling me over and giving me a ticket any time he could. He is a vicious little boy.” Anna almost spat the last word.
They rode for a little while in silence. A large construction site began to loom into view, but there was no sign of activity.
“You turn off to the right just ahead,” Anna spoke up, pointing. She had been absolutely still until then. “There’s a guard at the gate, but I can get us through.”
“Thanks,” Claudia said. She had some ID from Simonds Assurance, but she wasn’t sure how far that would get her on its own.
“Say…” Anna went on.
“Yes?”
“I’m afraid we got off on the wrong foot earlier. I’d like to see this terrible mess resolved as much as anybody. If there’s anything I can do to help you, please let me know.”
“Now that you mention it…” Claudia slowed down and signaled for the turn. She’d spotted a police cruiser in her rear-view mirror. It was too far away to make out the department it belonged to, but it just might be Timmy Pipes tailing them. No point in giving him a free shot. “How long did you work with Mr. Andersen?”
“About six months. I came here shortly after the construction began and he asked for an assistant.”
“So you both worked for the same company? Pierce, Howell and Jones?”
“Yes. I’ve been with them for three years now. Nothing like this has ever happened to them before.”
“There was something else I was wondering about.”
“What?”
“Who carries such a large payroll in cash any more? It almost seems that they were asking for something like this to happen.”
“I don’t know that for sure, but I think I know why,” Anna shrugged.
“Oh? What do you think?”
“There’s a lot of unskilled and semi-skilled labor on the site. The supervisors are all paid by check or electronically, but the laborers…well, they’re mostly Mexican guest workers. I think they don’t trust Yankee banks.”
“Why guest workers?” Claudia asked.
Anna shrugged again. “I’ve heard that there isn’t enough labor available locally. It might be true. I know they’ve had some trouble with labor unions over it.”
Chapter Eleven
Claudia returned to her hotel room in a foul mood. Part of it might be due to the fact that she still felt three hours out of focus with everything, but the undeniable bulk of it was attributable to the fact
that she had no leads at all. The visit to the pay office had turned up nothing new. The safe had been a massive, ancient thing. A close inspection of it had revealed no signs of tampering. Whoever had opened it had used the combination.
Anna Turco had done her best to be helpful. That hadn’t helped at all. In spite of her change of attitude, Claudia still did not care for her. It had been a constant strain to have the other woman so close and so solicitous, so eager to answer any questions and to offer information on her own. The last straw had been when she’d casually mentioned she was getting hungry. Anna had quickly suggested a restaurant she knew that had great food.
Since they’d driven out to the site together, she had to give Anna a ride back. The restaurant happened to be not too far from where Anna’s car was parked. Since Anna had claimed to be hungry as well, there had been no good way to just drop her off and go to the restaurant alone.
“You’ll love this place,” Anna smiled over her shoulder as they entered. “It has really great food.”
The exterior of the restaurant was unremarkable, but the interior had gone overboard on the southwestern motif with fake adobe walls, red-brown tiled floor, thick, loosely-woven white tablecloths and heavy wooden furniture. The service was good, though. They were seated promptly and white-jacketed waiters quickly brought menus. They also set a pitcher of ice water in front of each woman. Claudia noted it, but said nothing. If she did say anything, Anna would no doubt tell her why they did that. She was getting weary of Anna’s bottomless fountain of information.
A quick scan of the menu told her anyway. Except for a couple of seafood dishes, everything on the menu seemed to feature chili peppers as a main seasoning. Little red flames printed next to each item suggested how spicy it was. It came as no surprise to Claudia that Anna picked one of the hottest available, smiling sweetly at Claudia as she gave the waiter her order.
