by Marc Jedel
I heard Meghan’s footsteps approaching and shut down the computer. I popped out of the chair and hustled into the break room to meet her. She carried a Victoria’s Secret shopping bag that looked heavy.
I gestured to the bag with a puzzled expression on my face and Meghan responded, “They’re the results from the initial environmental survey, which found the Dorymyrmex insanus ants under the planned construction site. I want to take these to the state board or the newspaper. Maybe both.”
“How will we get it out past Ernie?”
Meghan gave me a devious grin. “Ernie will be too embarrassed to look inside.”
I had to admire the trick even if I couldn’t use it myself. “Not the first time you’ve done this, is it?”
“No. Not exactly.” Meghan didn’t elaborate.
As we turned to leave the break room, a ding echoed from the elevator bank. Someone else had returned to the office.
Meghan seized my arm. “In here.” She opened the louvered door to a large supply closet and tugged me inside with her. As she pulled the door closed, I heard people getting off the elevator. Meghan looked at me and raised her finger to her lips.
Sure. Even I was smart enough to realize we didn’t want to explain why we were taking a Victoria’s Secret bag full of forbidden papers off the floor without permission and after hours.
I briefly glanced around me in the closet. The louvers let in enough light that we could see each other and the shelves in the dim light. The shelves around us contained typical office break room supplies, including coffee cups, paper plates, napkins, plastic silverware, aluminum foil and plastic wrap, a few boxes of pens, birthday candles, and a small lighter, spare ping-pong paddles and balls, and a case of twelve extra boxes of foosballs. That made me pause. I understand having a spare foosball or two around in case one gets lost, but who plays such an aggressive match of foosball in an office game room that they need twelve boxes of spares?
I thought perhaps two men had gotten off the elevator. The steps sounded heavy and without the clip-clack of women’s heels. They stopped after a few steps, probably outside the executive suite.
I heard a man’s voice with a slight Southern twang from the hallway. “I’ve got some work to finish.”
Meghan let out a small gasp. “That’s Billy Bob. He can’t find me here with this,” she whispered as she pointed to the Victoria’s Secret bag.
Billy Bob continued in a condescending tone. “You sit in there and figure out how you’re going to go back and fix your screw-up. I’m going to see if there’s any new gossip coming out of Sacramento.”
“What’s he doing here now?” I whispered back, worried that they’d hear us.
A second man in the hall with a gravelly voice answered Billy Bob. “Boss, I don’t think I can get in.”
“Who’s that?” I asked her.
“It sounds like Spike. He’s the security goon who bothered me on the elevator.”
“He can’t get in where?” I asked her.
Meghan again raised her finger to her lips to shush me.
More steps echoed down the hallway as they must have walked into the executive suite.
“Hey. I think someone used my computer.” Billy Bob’s voice sounded upset. It echoed through the quiet of the floor.
“Probably the cleaners again,” answered Spike.
“Don’t be stupid. They wouldn’t do that again, not after the last time.” Billy Bob didn’t seem likely to win any boss of the year awards.
I could practically see the sneer on his face from around the corner and behind the closet door.
Then it hit me.
A bolt of fear ran through me. “I think he was talking about Laney.”
Meghan gestured more vigorously for me to be quiet.
“Want me to check the video recording?” Spike yelled back to his boss.
Billy Bob hadn’t crashed the drone on Laney. He couldn’t have. But Laney would have told him about her car. She told everyone she met about Sunshine. In his obsession with the news, he must have seen the report about the crash and her hospitalization and then sent Spike to murder her.
But, why?
Billy Bob answered Spike, “Yeah. Go see who’s been in here tonight.”
Panicked, Meghan whipped her head around to stare at me. “We’ve got to get out of here.”
“I think he did it,” I said. Why would the CEO of the NorCal Water Agency want to kill Laney?
I had to stop him.
Them.
I reached for the doorknob.
Meghan yanked back on my arm and whispered in my ear, “No. You can’t go out there. It’s too dangerous.”
Today is a good day to die. Yet, she was right. Following Star Trek quotes probably wasn’t the smartest way to make decisions. I whispered back, “We need to call the police.”
The hallway went silent. Spike might have gone into the conference room. Maybe he’d even closed the door and had his back to the hallway. But, we couldn’t risk going back to the elevators and Spike seeing us.
I fretted. “We can’t just wait here. We need to get out of here before Spike checks the recording.” I pulled out my phone. “I know a cop. I’ll call him and talk quietly.”
Meghan put her hand over my phone. “No. They might hear you talking. I’ve got another idea.” She grabbed a pen and the lighter from the shelf. Pointing behind me, she said, “Hand me the ping-pong balls.”
“Are we going to challenge them to a game?” I handed her the balls. Even I didn’t think my comment was funny.
Meghan poked the pen into a ping-pong ball. She pulled a long piece of aluminum foil from a package and wrapped it carefully, and quietly, around the ball and formed a tube of aluminum foil around the pen. Then she pulled the pen out of the ball leaving just the aluminum foil tube extending out from the foil-wrapped ball.
I watched with fascination. I’d seen all the old episodes of MacGyver and then MythBusters when I was growing up, but I’d never seen any of them use aluminum foil and a ping-pong ball to beat up the bad guys. We weren’t trapped in a locked room and her contraption didn’t seem all that useful as a makeshift lock-pick anyway. I was mystified and kept watching.
Next, Meghan knelt and held the lighter to the outside of the ping-pong ball wrapped in aluminum foil. After a few seconds, it burst into flame and she backed away. A few seconds later, acrid white smoke gushed out the tube formed by the aluminum foil.
Tendrils of smoke rose up, enough to trip the smoke detector set in the ceiling of the small supply closet. The red light on the detector started flashing faster. The flames disappeared, but, improbably, more smoke poured out the tube. It stunk. I pinched my nose to keep myself from gagging on the burnt plastic smell. Who knew smoke from a burning ping-pong ball would be this noxious?
There was more than enough smoke to activate the building’s fire alarm system. This wasn’t a timid home alarm with low battery strength that might not get heard through closed bedroom doors. No, the NorCal Water Agency had an industrial-strength alarm, maintained in the prime of its life, sounding a full-bodied warning that everyone needed to escape now or risk death by ping-pong ball.
“Hey! What’s that?” Billy Bob’s voice sounded frightened. Panic must have confused him because fire alarms have a distinctive sound. “Do you see a fire?” he shouted to Spike.
Spike didn’t answer. Running footsteps pounded down the hallway. Billy Bob’s voice again sounded over the blaring alarms. “Spike! Get back here. These paintings are worth more than you are. Grab the other Pollock! I don’t want these damaged.”
The smoke and the smell from the burning ping-pong ball had nearly overpowered Meghan and me. I nudged open the closet door and tried not to cough or draw attention to us as I stepped out into break room. I shouldn’t have worried. Billy Bob and Spike weren’t in sight.
I took a quick peek out the opening into the hallway. Billy Bob had flung open the fire door to the staircase, past the executive offices
and the elevators. His left hand grasped the tiny Pollock drawing as his body disappeared through the door. The courageous CEO had left the big painting for Spike to carry down four flights of stairs. Billy Bob didn’t even stick around to hold the heavy fire door for Spike. Spike, a heavyset, wide man, had close-cropped hair on the side of his head and spikes of thinning, light brown hair jutting out in all directions from the top of his head. He trotted with his arms spread wide as he hurried after Billy Bob, holding the heavy, two by three foot frame. I ducked back into the break room so he wouldn’t see me.
The fire alarm’s volume ramped up to eleven as if it worried that we might not have noticed its earlier efforts. It was hard to hear myself think. Between the klaxons in the DroneTech control room and tonight’s fire alarm, I’d probably caused permanent hearing damage.
“They’re going down the staircase past the elevators,” I shouted to Meghan from just a few feet away.
“Let’s go to the other staircase. We need to get out of here before the fire trucks come.” Meghan grabbed her Victoria’s Secret bag. Then she turned back, leaned over and picked up the burnt-out ping-pong ball by a corner of the aluminum foil. She closed the closet door behind her and put the aluminum foil in her bag. Unlike the fictional MacGyver, environmental analysts don’t leave messes behind. Plus, she avoided leaving evidence of attempted arson.
At that moment, the sprinklers in the break room erupted with a surge of water spray all over us and the break room. We leaped out of the room right as the sprinklers in the hallway turned on. Unable to avoid a drenching, we hustled, squishing and splattering wet footsteps past the cubicle farm to the other end of the building and into the staircase.
In the stairway, we shook off what water we could and checked the plastic bag to make sure Meghan’s papers were dry. Four floors down, I paused before opening the emergency exit to the outside. “Was your car on this street or the other side of the building?”
Meghan swept past me without hesitation. “It’s here.” She pushed open the door and we were outside. The alarms sounded quieter outside the building, but still loud enough to disturb the otherwise calm evening. In the distance, I could hear a fire truck siren approaching. Meghan had parked her car only a few steps away. We jumped in and she pulled away before even putting on her seatbelt.
We were drenched and smelled like burnt plastic. A few blocks away, she pulled over and stopped the car. In a shaky voice, Meghan asked, “Now what?”
I caught my breath too. “I think you should meet Sergeant Jackson. He’s from the San Jose Police and is looking into Laney’s case.”
Emotions roiled across her face as she considered her options. Then, she shrugged. “Well, I don’t know what else to do. And the police will see us leaving the floor on the security cameras anyway.”
Security cameras! “Oh crap. I forgot.”
Ever the logical scientist, Meghan said, “Well, we’re caught either way. Ernie also knew we were on the floor.”
I took out my phone and called Mace. Might need to add him to my phone’s favorites list if this kept up.
Mace answered with a grumble. “What do you want now?”
At least he still answered my calls. I dispensed with the pleasantries as well. “Something happened that you need to know about.”
“This better not be another Amber Alert.”
“No. It’s about my sister. I think we know who’s trying to kill her.”
Mace focused on the wrong word. “We?”
“A friend of mine who works at the NorCal Water Agency.”
“Didn’t I just hear a call from dispatch for a fire at the Water Agency?” Mace’s voice took on a suspicious edge, a tone I knew well.
“Yeah, but don’t worry. There’s no fire.”
“How would you know? Don’t tell you’re involved in that too?” Mace’s voice rose as his questions started evolving into an angry interrogation.
“Look. I’ll explain everything but you need to meet Meghan.”
“Your niece? I told you no more missing kid reports.”
“No, this is an adult Meghan. Can we just meet you wherever you are now?” I was tired and scared and needed his help to protect Laney.
Mace heard it all in my voice. “Ok. This better be worth it. I’m almost done with my shift. I’m finishing up some paperwork at a Starbucks.”
Naturally, it was my new home away from home. I told Mace that I knew how to find him and that we’d be there soon.
After I hung up, I turned to Megan. “He’s in that Starbucks where we first met. I’ve been in that place three times this week already. Boy, I miss the days when cops went to donut shops.”
“Lots of people go to Starbucks every day. It’s healthier than a donut place.”
“Not all their stuff.” I didn’t explain further.
Meghan started the car and headed to the Starbucks for our meeting with Mace.
I glanced over as she drove. “That was pretty quick thinking in there. Where did you learn that trick with the ping-pong ball?”
Meghan relaxed a little as a small smile broke out on her lips. “I’ve always been interested in science. Not just what we learned in class. Besides, I had three older brothers growing up. With all the crap they pulled on me, I had to find ways to get back at them.”
“I think Skye would like you. You know about two of her favorite things — ants and science tricks.”
29
Friday Late Night
We squished our way into my now-favorite Starbucks. This time I smelled of burnt plastic rather than fish. I was starting to understand the Starbucks founder’s idea that his shops could become the ‘third place between work and home’. They certainly kept coming between my home and work, although he probably didn’t intend it that way.
Some fascinating customers must walk through Starbucks on a regular basis because no one noticed, or at least they pretended not to notice, when Meghan and I made our entrance to the coffee shop dripping wet, stinky and bedraggled.
Brody had his back to us, but his distinctive spiked blonde hair with orange tips made his presence obvious. Mace looked different from how I’d ever seen him. His face looked relaxed as he sat at a table, laughing at something that Brody had said. Brody turned to check who’d entered the coffee shop. He took a few steps toward us and greeted us with his usual upbeat manner, without any hint of surprise of our condition or time of day. “Aloha, John! Hanging ten? Your order will be right up. And a green tea for the lady, right?”
Meghan smiled and nodded appreciatively to him.
“Right on, dude. Coming up.” Brody walked past us to the coffee machines.
Meghan asked me, “When are you going to tell him your name isn’t John?”
“I don’t know. I hate to make him feel bad. He’s so friendly all the time.”
We squished over to the table where Mace sat. He straightened and reverted back to the stern cop who I’d imagined as a movie action hero in my daydreams.
“Did he just call you John?” Sergeant Jackson’s voice growled low, all signs of his good humor evaporated.
“It’s an odd story,” I said.
“I’m starting to think that everything about you is more than a little odd.” His eyes taking on that familiar glare as he shook his head in annoyance.
I overlooked this and introduced Meghan. Mace stuck out his hand, but she didn’t take it. Without speaking, she cocked her head to the side and considered Mace with a long, searching look.
After an awkward silence that lasted too long, I started my introduction again, hoping that Meghan merely needed a redo.
As I said his name again, she burst into laughter. “Wait, you aren’t … Are you?” She paused as if that were an actual question that could be answered.
Mace lowered his hand and looked down at his papers without commenting on Meghan’s reaction. His neck flushed.
Meghan giggled. “No, really. Are you … that Mace Jackson?”
I looked b
ack at Mace. He busied himself with organizing his papers on the table, fumbling through them as he pretended to ignore us, and mumbled to himself again. I could feel the heat of his embarrassment radiating off him.
I didn’t know which Mace worried me more — the normally cool, tough cop who thought I couldn’t get my act together, or this fumbling fool who couldn’t face a giggly Meghan. I tried to add my own value to the conversation, “Huh? What?”
Meghan tittered as she tried to suppress her laughter. She fumbled in her purse, all school-girl jittery, and pulled out her phone. She thrust it toward Mace. “Would you? I mean —”
Mace’s low rumble interrupted her. “I don’t … I mean, I no longer.” He slumped in his chair, his posture all wrong for a movie star.
“Really? Please?” Meghan wheedled, outstretched arms holding her phone ready to take a selfie in an appeal to Mace.
As they froze, silently staring each other down, I broke in. “Could someone tell me what on earth is going on?”
“You didn’t know?” Meghan turned her attention back to me after spending the last few moments staring at Mace.
“Please.” Mace pleaded.
I’d seen Mace as the action hero cop in control of the situation and as the annoyed cop at his fumbling, amateur assistant, but never as the supplicant begging Meghan not to spill the beans.
“Know what?” I looked to Meghan in confusion.
Gesturing to Mace, Meghan replied, “You didn’t know this was Mace Jackson, the model?”
“Which model?” I asked. Robots, like R2-D2, had model designations. I didn’t realize cops had them as well.
“The famous underwear model.” Meghan waggled her eyebrows at me.
My mouth dropped open as her explanation sunk in. I turned and gawked at Mace, reassessing him for the first time since I met him on Monday.
“That was a long time ago,” Mace said in a soft voice.
“No more than ten years,” responded Meghan.
I couldn’t remember people’s names who I saw every day at work. Meghan’s ability to recall a model’s face and name from ten years ago stunned me.
