It told Milo something. Whether he liked it or not, his father was behind this. Tim Shoemaker had robbed this man, but still Farnon felt he owed the Shoemakers something. That was the kind of principled boss Milo would have.
It was closer to four than three when they got back to the plant. Farnon let him out at the front doors, and Milo thanked him again. As he turned to go inside a flicker of movement overhead caught his eye. In the third-floor window of the stairwell, a familiar fall of coppery hair caught the afternoon sun.
Milo waved. But Ellie frowned past him to where her father was nosing the little red car into its original spot. A man had come out from around the far end of Assembly Plant #1 and was heading toward Farnon, but Milo didn’t wait to see who it was. He hurried inside and took the stairs two at a time. The expression on Ellie’s face was the same brooding, intent look Jenny might wear to cut off chunks of Joey’s hair with the nail scissors.
He reached the third floor landing in seconds. No one was there.
In Payroll, Leslie was fussing. Mr. Pearce wanted a special report for all employee withholdings for the last quarter, she had printed it right before lunch, and now she couldn’t find it and his secretary had already called down twice.
“Print it again?” Milo suggested.
“I didn’t save it! It’s not one we usually run, and it took me an hour!” Leslie wailed. “It was right here,” she patted a stack of papers, “in a file folder with a black clip. I was going to let you run it up there when you got back.” She couldn’t keep the faint note of accusation out of her voice. “And now it’s gone.”
Well, he was late. Across the room Amber and J’azzmin studied their screens as though struck deaf. This had nothing to do with them, they hadn’t lost any important reports. Milo wondered, for the hundredth time, what they did do.
“Well, nobody stole it, it’s probably fallen somewhere. Let me look.”
Leslie wheeled out of the way, still fretting, and Milo got down on his hands and knees to see if any files had slipped to the floor, or down the sides of Leslie’s huge and cluttered desk. This had been known to happen.
He spotted a black clip holding papers and was sliding his hand between the desk and the wall when a harsh voice spoke above him.
“Mrs. Underhill, when my secretary says something is urgent, she means it. I shouldn’t have to come down here to do your work.”
They hadn’t heard Pearce approach. From behind the desk, Milo heard Leslie’s flustered intake of breath.
“I know that, sir, and I pulled that report as soon as—”
“It’s not the Special Olympics here. We compete with the best. If you can’t handle the demands of the job then I’ll find someone who can.”
Milo got to his feet noisily, brushing off his knees. He held out the missing file. “It’s my fault, sir. I used this desk earlier and I must have knocked this to the floor. I’m really sorry.”
Pearce took the file without looking at it. His black eyes bored into Milo’s. “What I said goes for everyone, Shoemaker. Legacy hires included.”
He strode away in a silence even Amber and J’azzmin could hear.
Milo watched him go. Where were you during the funeral, you bullying son of a bitch? And what were you driving?
***
Chapter 11
The matches from the ashtray, Ellie’s odd behavior, and most of all, Alf Farnon’s astonishing offer to help Milo combine college with a paid internship—it needed going over. With Zaffer.
That night after dinner Milo asked his mother if she’d be all right on her own.
Gloria gave him a tender if absent-minded smile. She was always more relaxed when school was out. Though she still grumbled occasionally about Milo delaying college, his paycheck every two weeks had smoothed a few lines from her face.
“Of course! Go out with people your age. You deserve it, Milo T. And anyway, I’m working on something new.” She patted her computer, placed in the dining room so she could watch the twins in the backyard.
“Oh, yeah? Finished with Bonnie and Bing?” These were her badger characters.
“Finished with badgers, period.” When Milo failed to exclaim, she said in exasperation, “I’m doing wolverines! Did you know there are hardly any picture books about wolverines? Pigs and bears out the wazoo, but no wolverines. A fresh angle, get it? This is the Wolverine State, you know.”
“You don’t say,” he marveled. Where did she think he worked? “Er—aren’t wolverines kind of nasty? Sharp claws, bad tempers? Extinct?”
“Not mine. It’s a series—like Frog and Toad, only these will be Wendy and Will. Wendy’s spunky and Will’s more of a scaredy cat, and they have adventures from A to Z. And these will sell.” Her chin set with steely determination. “‘Lacks freshness,’ that last rejection said. ‘Too similar to other titles on our list.’ I’ll give them fresh!”
“You go, Mom.” Milo made his escape. Wendy and Will Cook the Books. Wendy and Will and the Great Funeral Robbery. The Wolverine adventures he was chasing weren’t the kind you sold to kids.
A block off Monroe’s main street, Zaffer’s Jewelry and Pawn reflected its neighborhood—the paint starting to flake, but every neon letter in the sign glowing strong. The effect was shabby but not seedy, reassuring to buyers and sellers from all income levels. Milo pushed open the door and a bell jingled.
“Wonderful! Another pair of hands!” Mr. Zaffer beamed at him from behind the counter. He was a short, solid man with the same tight curls as his son, though Mr. Zaffer’s were gray, as were the bushy eyebrows that rose now in welcome. “Look, Sid, my youngest boy brings me help!” The assistant manager waved from over in Jewelry, and Zaffer emerged from the back room. “Milo, I’ll make you a deal—you help Benny get those things up on eBay and you can pick out anything in the store for yourself. Twenty-five dollars or less. You won’t get a better offer than that.”
“That’s for sure.” Zaffer ducked to avoid his father’s swat.
“You don’t have to pay me, Mr. Zaffer, I don’t mind helping out,” Milo said, embarrassed.
“I insist. With you here, I might get some real work out of this kid, instead of ‘Dad, I gotta go, I’ll finish up later.’ Go on, do some work, then you choose.”
The bell over the door jingled again. Mr. Zaffer greeted an elderly woman clutching a Meijer bag as though it was a baby, and Zaffer led Milo away.
“So Benny boy, you’re on eBay?” Milo followed him through aisles crammed with guitars, saxophones, jewelry, and sporting equipment. Pawn shops were really just recycling, he decided. Very earth-friendly.
“Yeah, it’s great for stuff we’d never move otherwise.” They went through a swinging door into the back room. Here was Titan’s dog bed, hard against shelves of yet more merchandise. Milo could see Titan out the window, a bandana in Michigan maize and blue tied around her neck, prowling the fenced-in run in the alley.
One wall of shelves was labeled “To Photo.” Milo was immediately drawn to a handheld GPS. Perfect for hunting.
“That’s nothing!” Zaffer said. From the back corner of the top shelf, he took down a large carton marked “Ben’s Stuff—DO NOT THROW AWAY.”
“Check this out. A Spy Pen.” Reverently, Zaffer handed Milo what appeared to be an ordinary fountain pen.
“Someone around here pawned this? What, are they outsourcing CIA work now?”
“Nah. This I bought online.”
“Is it a camera?” Milo held it up to his eye, but didn’t see any viewing window.
“Better.” From the front of the store the doorbell sounded. Zaffer spoke into an intercom. “I’ll get it, Dad.” To Milo he said, “Watch.”
He fixed a headset onto Milo’s ears and stuffed a small black box into his hands. He clipped the pen portion to his own shirt and hurried out, while Milo peered through the window in the door.
At the counter a man in a faded Hawaiian shirt was studying a glass case of calculators by the register. Milo was startled
to recognize the thinning hair of Professor Keyes, his accounting instructor. Instinctively he ducked out of sight. Pawning things might feel like recycling to him, but he suspected that to the pawners it felt like failure. Professor Keyes didn’t need to see a former student here.
“How can I help you?” Zaffer’s voice blasted Milo’s ears. He turned down the volume control on the little box.
“I wondered what you could give me for this.” Professor Keyes came in almost as clearly.
Zaffer examined the gold watch Keyes handed him. “Very nice. I want to say seventy-five dollars, but I’ll need a consult on this.” He called across the store to the jewelry section. “Dad?”
Professor Keyes shifted his weight anxiously while Mr. Zaffer held the watch up to the light. “Seventy dollars,” Mr. Zaffer said.
Professor Keyes didn’t even try to bargain. He gave a resigned sigh, pocketed his cash and pawn ticket, and left, the bell tinkling.
Zaffer strode back to Milo. “Cool or what?” He pressed a button on the box Milo held. Faint static, then Zaffer’s voice was saying, “How can I help you?”
“That was my accounting teacher!” Milo said. “I didn’t know he was that broke.”
Broke customers were nothing new to Zaffer. “Yeah. But what about this?” He took the earphones and pen from Milo, admired them one last time, and carefully packed them away.
“That’s awesome. I want one.”
“Cough up $265, then. First-class intelligence equipment does not come cheap.”
“You paid $265?”
“No, but most people do. I got it refurbished.”
Mr. Zaffer’s voice outside the door sent them scurrying for the camera. When he stuck his head in they were industriously photographing a sewing machine. He harrumphed, then withdrew. While Milo helped his friend photograph in turn a guitar, a set of wrenches, and a Louisville Slugger baseball bat, he related how he’d spent the afternoon. The railcars. Lunch. An internship offer from the great Alf Farnon.
“When you hear him talk, he’s got so much…” Milo struggled to find the right word. “I don’t know. Vision, I guess. It’s like he can see the big picture other people never imagine. It’s really something.”
“What’s an EA?”
“Executive Assistant.” He’d Googled it.
“Executive Assistant to Alf Farnon. For college credit, yet. Holy shit, Shoemaker. You are one hell of a data entry clerk. I guess this corporate gig wasn’t a bad move after all.”
This reaction affected Milo like pure oxygen. It did more than make him feel lucky—it reassured him. This offer was believable. It wasn’t too good to be true.
Zaffer glanced slyly over his camera. “Guess you’ll see a lot of his daughter, then. What with one thing and another.”
“Oh. Speaking of her.” Milo described Ellie’s expression in the stairwell window. “When I got up there she was gone. Like she was pissed about something.”
“Hmm, now let’s think,” Zaffer said. “She sees you coming back with her father, in her car, from a little party to which she was not invited. And she looks pissed. Now I’m not FBI but let me hazard a guess. She’s jealous? A little to the left, please.”
Milo shifted a wooden tree of dumbbells. “Jealous! You’re nuts. She can see me whenever she wants—”
“Not of her dad, bozo; of you. Because of her dad. You’re too busy staring at her legs to notice, but the guy’s never home. She’s stuck in that big house with a cat and nobody else. And I’ve been there twice.”
“To her house? When were you at her house?”
“Easy, pal. No one got naked. She lent me a CD, that’s all. I listened to it and took it back, she gave me a Dr Pepper. I got the feeling she was glad to see anyone, let alone yours truly.”
“Hell, yes, she must be desperate if that’s a treat.” Milo eyed his friend suspiciously. What had they talked about? Did Ellie offer Zaffer words of consolation, of advice, the way she had with Milo? But no. Zaffer wasn’t some deluded victim of—what was it again? Survivor’s guilt? With Zaffer there would be jokes and flirting.
Zaffer was posing a pair of plaster garden gnomes on the table. “Where’d you run into your hero, anyway? You stalking him now?”
Milo was glad to leave the topic of Ellie. “Not him. Pearce.” He pulled the casino matches out of his pocket. “Look what I found in his secretary’s ashtray.”
Zaffer took them, whistled, then handed them back. “Like the robbers dropped?”
“Yep.”
“So are they the secretary’s, or his?”
“Don’t know. Pearce stinks like a wet campfire, so I know he smokes. It’s another link, see?” From his back pocket Milo took out a small notebook full of the tiny, precise printing so like his father’s. “Here’s what we know for sure: Pearce had a Wolverine van signed out the week of the robbery; he didn’t go to the funeral of one of his direct reports; and either he or his secretary keeps Motor City Casino matches on her desk.” He looked up. “I think Gordon Pearce robbed my house.”
“Whoa. Why would he?”
That was the million-dollar question. “I don’t know—yet. But it’s got to do with gambling.” He tossed the matches on the table, where the glossy script shimmered seductively in the camera spotlight.
“Shoe…there’s a connection you’re forgetting, besides the matches.” Zaffer used the next item, a long, ugly umbrella, to slide the matches out of the way. “Pearce and your dad both worked in finance for Wolverine Motors. What if Pearce went to your house to get the company’s money back?”
Milo instantly hated this theory; it didn’t reflect badly on Pearce. “Farnon didn’t know about the robbery until I told him.”
“Of course he didn’t. Pearce wouldn’t ask permission, he’d want to give Farnon deniability. Get used to that, Executive Assistant. Breaking and entering’s a crime even if you’re stealing back your company’s money.” Zaffer opened the umbrella. “Tell me again what they took.”
Milo flipped a few pages in his notebook. “Computer; printer; hard drive; silverware and chest; all the files from the filing cabinet; the TV in living room.”
“Money? Jewelry?”
“No. My mom had pearls out on her dresser, and I had cash in a jar in my closet, but they didn’t touch them.”
“So either he was in a rush,” Zaffer said, “or he found what he wanted on the first floor.”
He stared solemnly over the umbrella at Milo. Outside the window children were playing. Inside the back room the mood suddenly turned tense.
“Maybe they took the other stuff to make it look like a normal robbery,” Zaffer continued. “Maybe all Pearce really wanted was proof of the embezzlement.”
“He didn’t need proof, he had my dad’s restitution schedule. You don’t offer to pay money back you didn’t steal in the first place,” Milo said.
“You did.”
“That’s different, that was—” Milo stopped. He had offered restitution out of honor; because it felt like what the pre-gambling Tim Shoemaker would have done. The father Milo thought he’d known.
Maybe he had known him. Better than Alf Farnon did.
“Unless you didn’t steal it in the first place,” Milo said, tentatively, thinking his way. “But caught someone else stealing it. Zaffer!”
He dropped onto a stool. A wild hope made him swallow hard before he could go on. “What if it was Pearce who embezzled the million, and just told Alf Farnon it was my dad?”
Those hidden accounting books could have just as easily been helping Tim catch a crook—not be one. “That could explain a robbery—if my dad had something on him, had been keeping a log or something, Pearce would want it. He wouldn’t want the family to find it and go asking Alf Farnon questions.”
Zaffer twirled the umbrella and gave a long, two-note whistle. “You know what you’re saying.”
Milo opened his mouth, then closed it. He thought he’d known.
“What are the odds the thief’
s victim—someone the thief works with, not some random name from the obituaries—is conveniently at his own funeral? If you really think Pearce was trying to remove incriminating stuff, you’re saying he might be a killer.” Zaffer’s manner was elaborately casual, as though he would be okay with this, if it was indeed what Milo meant.
“What? No! I’m just trying to figure out….” Milo trailed off. “Well, hell. Maybe I am.”
From the front room came the tinkle of the bell as a late customer entered. In the alley behind them Titan raced along the fence, barking at the children who shouted to each other as they rode past on bikes. Those kids should be in bed, Milo thought, then realized it was still light out on a warm summer evening. For a moment he’d felt the chill touch of fog in the dark.
“Anyway,” Zaffer said matter-of-factly, breaking the mood, “your dad confessed.”
“That’s just what Pearce told Farnon. My dad never told Farnon he stole anything.”
“But that restitution schedule. You saw it.”
Milo slumped back against the table. “Maybe Pearce faked it,” he said sullenly, hearing how lame he sounded. It had been his father’s printing; he’d known it at once. Still, the notion that his father had been cleverly framed was too attractive to abandon without a pang. Milo felt, irrationally, as though Zaffer was trying to cheat him.
“And if it was really Pearce doing the embezzling and your dad found out, why wouldn’t he—your dad, I mean—go straight to Farnon and tell him?” Zaffer asked.
Yes, why wouldn’t he? Tim had seen Farnon at the Christmas party, they’d talked. Lots of opportunity, yet Tim had not brought up the embezzlement. To gain time—and face—Milo held up his hand, as though Zaffer were browbeating him instead of standing quietly watching him with a quizzical, pitying expression. “Let me think,” he growled.
His mind flashed back to his own meeting with Farnon in March. “I didn’t want to believe it,” Farnon had said. “Neither did Gordon. But the evidence was there, the money was gone, and only your dad could have signed off on it.” Then he’d produced the restitution schedule.
Unaccounted For Page 10
