by J. C. Eaton
Whoever was a few feet from me on the floor let out a moan I thought would never end. And when it did, it was followed by softer groans and a few expletives.
Judging from the huffing and puffing emanating from the corridor, the person belonging to the second voice was fast approaching.
“It’s a gang!” Roxanne shouted. “Let loose with your Screamer, Harriet!”
CHAPTER 20
Thank God my mother never got the opportunity to push that Screamer button or we’d all be lining up for hearing aids. While I struggled to locate my phone, the man who tripped over me tried to stand and, in doing so, stumbled into me again. It felt like a giant beach ball rolling over my back, and that was when it dawned on me. I only knew one person with a stomach like that—my mother’s neighbor, Herb. I hoped I was right.
Without wasting another second trying to find my phone, I stood up and gave the man a light shove. “Is that you, Herb?”
“Of course it’s me. Couldn’t you hear me yelling? Kenny too.”
Hmm, that explains the other familiar voice. It’s Kenny.
“What the heck are you doing here?” I swear, my voice all but bounced off the corridor walls. “And whatever you do, don’t make a move or you’ll step on my phone.”
“Herb?” my mother asked. “I can’t see you in the dark. For crying out loud, why are you stalking us? It’s okay, Roxanne. It’s only Herb and his pinochle buddy Kenny.”
My eyes were slowly getting adjusted to the dim light from the “EXIT” sign. Enough for me to bend down again and locate my phone. “We thought you were someone else.”
“Killers,” Roxanne said. “You took ten years off my life. And why did you cut the power to this place?”
“Cut the power? Kenny and I nearly fell down a staircase when the power first went out. Damn backup power doesn’t boot up right away.”
“You can say that again.” Kenny had finally made his way to where we were standing. He was taking deep breaths, as if he’d recently emerged from an underground spelunking expedition and not a stroll through a storage facility. “And this is the last time I’m doing a favor for you, Herb. It’s bad enough I’m going to have hell to pay with my wife for bolting out of the house.”
“Will someone please tell me what’s going on?” The tone in my mother’s voice was sharp and shrill.
“Um, maybe we can do that once we get out of here. Come on, I’ve got my phone and the flashlight’s working. It’s only a few feet to the exit door.”
One would think that under the circumstances the four of them would have been more than happy to exit the building and continue the conversation outside. But oh no. Not this crew. My mother accused Herb of being snoopy and he accused her of not recognizing the heroic gesture he’d made by entering the building in the first place.
“What on earth are you talking about?” she asked.
To which Herb replied, “Ask your friend Cecilia. This is all her doing. She remembered reading somewhere about people being attacked in parking garages and figured the storage facility might belong in the same category. So she called me to go check on you. I told her I didn’t have a key to the place, so I couldn’t check on you if I wanted to. Then she insisted I call all the pinochle guys in case one of them had stuff stored in here.”
“Yeah. And lucky me,” Kenny said. “We’ve got my mother-in-law’s old dining room set on permanent storage because the wife couldn’t bear to part with it but didn’t want it in the house.”
I wondered how many people purchased storage units for the same purpose and cringed. It seemed like an awful waste of money, but then again, who could put a price on sentiment?
For some reason I caught a second wind and tried to usher all of them out of there. “We can talk outside. In the parking lot. Under the parking lot lights.”
I edged past my mom and Roxanne and opened the exit door. Complete darkness. Not a single parking lot light in view. “This is a side door. Maybe the lights are on out front.”
My mother, Roxanne, Herb, and Kenny stepped outside. I heard the loud thud of the door closing behind them. “Uh, look at Bell Road. And the little strip mall. No lights there either. Or at Sam’s Club, too, for that matter.”
“Oh my God!” my mother shrieked. “Look to your left. Down the road. Blue and red flashers. Lots of them. Must be at least four or five police cars. It could be a manhunt for all we know.”
I stared at the distant flashing lights. “A manhunt? Since when does the power go off for a manhunt? Probably a bad traffic accident. We’re right by the three oh three. Lots of rollovers involving speeders. Hold on. I can pull up a news app on my phone.”
Before anyone could say a word, I tapped the breaking news app for channel 15. “Someone hit a pole and knocked out the transformer. Power is out from the three oh three past Sunrise Boulevard to our east. West of the three oh three is fine. Must be a different transformer.”
“West of the three oh three has power?” my mother asked.
“Uh-huh.”
“Good. We can all go to Wendy’s. They stay open until midnight. It’s the least I can do for poor Streetman. He won’t be as upset when I come home late if I bring him a nice, juicy hamburger.”
Then Kenny chirped in, “A nice, juicy hamburger sounds good. Count me in. Come on, Herb. Your car’s around front. It’s not that dark, and the way I see it, you owe me.”
Herb groaned. “Hmm. Seems Harriet owes us both.”
My mother stomped her foot. “I didn’t ask you to sneak into the storage facility to spy on us.”
“Spy on you? More like providing you with a security presence.”
“Some presence. I nearly had heart failure back there.”
“Enough!” I shouted. “No one owes anything. Let’s get hamburgers and get this over with.”
“Someone’s a little testy tonight,” my mother whispered.
“That’s an understatement,” I replied.
Herb and Kenny walked around front to where Herb had parked his car while my mother, Roxanne, and I walked back to the little dessert shop for our cars. A few minutes later we were sharing one of those large, six-person booths at Wendy’s.
Looking out the window, I saw the westbound traffic was moving smoothly, but the eastbound lanes on Bell Road were creeping at a snail’s pace. I prayed the situation would improve by the time we were done with our burgers.
“I can’t believe you ordered the Baconator,” my mother said to Herb. “I don’t know how you can get that thing in your mouth.”
He gave her a look and took a giant bite. “That’s how it’s done,” he replied when he finished chewing. Then he leaned across the table to Roxanne, who was seated directly in front of him, next to my mother. “Did you find what you needed, or will we be visiting you in the Perryville Women’s Prison? Looks like someone already sent you the uniform.”
“Herb!” my mother snapped. “Can’t you see Roxanne’s beside herself already? And it’s a disguise, if you must know. You don’t need to make things worse.”
“Geez, it’s just a little gallows humor.”
“I liked it better when you were biting into that burger.”
“It’s okay, Harriet,” Roxanne said. “I know what a horrible situation I’m in. Maybe there’s something in those folders that can help, but I don’t want to take them home with me. If the sheriff’s deputies show up again, I don’t want them to get their hands on them. Not until I know what information Wilbur was keeping. Maybe Phee can take them with her.”
The last thing I needed was to be in possession of evidence that could either incriminate or exonerate someone that my boss and my fiancé were investigating, along with the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office. Then again, Nate and Marshall were in Tucson and not expected back for at least a day.
“I’m off work tomorrow,” I said. “That should give me plenty of time to peruse these files. How about I drop them off at my mom’s when I’m done? I really shouldn’t have them in my possession either.”<
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My mother took a sip of her Coke and nodded. “How about Phee drops them off on Sunday and you can stop by to see what she’s discovered? Let’s say around three thirty. I’m doing brunch with some of the ladies from mah-jongg. Three thirty should work for you, too, Phee. Won’t it? You’ll be back in plenty of time for dinner with Marshall.”
“Aren’t you jumping the gun? It’s not ‘what I discover, ’ it’s ‘if I discover.’ Big difference. For all we know, those files could be Wilbur’s model train set inventories. We didn’t have time to take a close look.”
“Ain’t nothing stopping you now,” Kenny said in between bites of his double cheeseburger.
I looked around the restaurant and, other than a table with two teenagers in the back of the dining area and one with a young couple and a baby, the place was pretty empty. “Fine. But only a quick look.”
The clasp on the satchel was tight, and it took me a second to open the bag. I pulled out one of the numbered file folders and opened it. “Uh-oh. This looks like a copy of an official company letter of reprimand for someone dating back three decades.”
“Read it,” Herb said. “I want to hear the juicy details.”
I shoved the letter back in the folder and put it in the satchel. “I most certainly will not. Whatever this information is, it’s personal and only of use to Roxanne if it relates to her situation. And before you even ask, I’m not mentioning the name of the company.”
“Out of state, huh?” Herb asked, but it sounded more like a statement than a question.
Roxanne took a swallow of her drink and fiddled with her earrings. “Please don’t tell me those folders are all letters of reprimand for company employees. What if Wilbur was blackmailing them?”
“Then it would give one of them a darn good motive to kill him.” Kenny’s voice was loud, but fortunately no one from the other tables seemed to notice.
I shook my head. “If those people already received letters of reprimand from their employer, blackmailing them wouldn’t do any good. It doesn’t make sense.” Without wasting a second, I shoved the folder back in the satchel and leaned over to put it on the floor.
“That’s all you found?” Kenny asked. “Those folders?”
“There were a few old photos in there,” Roxanne said, “but I doubt they’ll amount to anything.”
Herb propped an elbow on the table and leaned in. “Old photos as in boring old photos, or old photos as in something more speculative?”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” I groaned. “Old office photos. Are you satisfied?”
“Might as well show Herb and Kenny the photo of Wilbur when he had hair,” Roxanne said. “It can’t possibly do any harm.”
I opened the satchel again and looked inside. The photo we had seen earlier was adjacent to the side of the satchel and easy for me to grab. “Here. See for yourself.”
Herb took the faded photo and squinted. “You’re right. Boring as hell. And no names written on the back. It’s just four men sitting at a conference table full of paperwork. Hmm, no wonder they all look so miserable. Especially the guy with the suspenders. Who wears suspenders anymore?”
“That photo was taken a long time ago and lots of men wear suspenders. It’s now considered hip and stylish,” I said.
Herb took another look at the photo. “And uncomfortable. I’m all about comfort. Are all the photos this dull?”
There were only three or four more, and I fanned them out on the table. “See for yourselves. Same room, same men, but at different angles. Oh look, there’s a sign hanging over the watercooler behind the table. It says, ‘Happy Birthday, Mavis Gear!’ It must have been a birthday party.”
“More like a funeral, if you ask me,” Herb said. “And who’s Mavis Gear? I don’t see any women in those pictures.”
Roxanne picked up the photo with the birthday sign and chuckled. “Mavis Gear is a specialized gear that Sherrington Manufacturing developed while Wilbur worked there. It was way ahead of its time, according to Wilbur. Goodness. That was so long ago. At least thirty years, and the patent expired after twenty. I imagine Sherrington’s developed much more efficient gears by now.”
“Roxanne,” I asked, “was Wilbur one of the engineers who developed that gear?”
“He was part of the team; why?”
“Duh!” Kenny exclaimed. “Because your late husband might have been privy to some trade secrets that cost him his life.”
CHAPTER 21
Roxanne gathered her food wrappers, cup, and napkins into a neat pile. “That was a long, long time ago, and I hardly think it had anything to do with Wilbur’s demise. I’m no expert on homicide, but it seems to me blunt force trauma isn’t a means that someone would use to extort trade secrets. Anyway, I’m exhausted and need to get home. Thanks, Harriet. And you, too, Phee, for coming here tonight. I’ll see you Sunday afternoon.”
Just then, Herb’s annoying, dry cough reemerged, and Roxanne looked directly at him. “Thank you, too, Herb. And Kenny. It was very valiant of you to give up your evening to check on our welfare.”
Herb puffed out his chest and leaned back. “Any time.”
When we left Wendy’s the eastbound traffic was moving slowly, but moving. All of us cut through Sun City Grand on Sunrise Boulevard and crossed over Route 60 into Sun City West. Roxanne continued down R H Johnson Boulevard, with Herb and Kenny in the car behind her. I figured Herb had to drop Kenny off before returning to his house across the street from my mother’s.
“Would you like to come inside and give Streetman his hamburger treat?” my mother asked when I pulled into her driveway.
As much as I would enjoy feeding hyenas at the zoo. “Um, no. It’s really late. Maybe tomorrow. If there’s any left.”
She unlocked the front door and flashed the porch light twice. A signal we had used since I was a kid. Then I drove directly home, my mind spinning with all sorts of possible motives for Wilbur’s death.
It was eleven fifteen when I got inside and tossed my clothing into the laundry bin. I took a peek at the landline blinker in case Marshall had decided to phone home instead of calling my cell, but the blinker was unlit. His earlier text did say he’d call me in the morning, but I had hoped to hear his voice, even if it was brief.
In spite of what he and Nate told me about the precautions they took when they were working a case, I still worried like crazy. Especially when that case involved a possible matter of national security.
Too tired to concentrate on any real work and too wired to sleep, I took a hot shower and curled up in bed with a V. M. Burns dog-themed mystery. Cute dogs. Normal dogs. Nothing at all like Streetman, but then again, she wrote fiction.
At some point I must have fallen asleep, because the ringtone on my cell phone jolted me awake and I had to untangle myself from the sheets to reach for the phone.
“Hey, hon. Did I wake you? I know it’s early, but Nate and I have to hit the road in a few minutes.”
“You have no idea how good it is to hear your voice. Is everything okay?”
“We’re still standing, if that’s what you mean. Hey, don’t worry. It’s a complicated case. I’ll text you when I can. Don’t expect me home until late tomorrow. If anything changes, I’ll call. Miss you like mad. Did you have a nice evening yesterday?”
If by “nice” you mean did I enjoy rooting through old storage lockers and nearly mangling Herb and Kenny in a dark corridor? Then the answer is yes. “It was fine. We can catch up when you get home. Be careful.”
“You too. Love you, hon.”
There was no sense getting into all the minuscule details from last night’s escapade. They’d hear enough once they got back from Tucson. Meantime, it gave me the morning to look over those folders to see if I could glean anything pertinent from them.
When Marshall said it was early he wasn’t kidding. It was six fifty-three, according to my phone. That usually meant another hour of shut-eye on weekends, but I was too energized to get back to sleep.
I made myself a cup of coffee and popped a bagel into the toaster. Then I scanned my news apps to see if there was any breaking news out of Tucson, but none as far as the media was concerned. Good.
Once I rinsed out my coffee cup I removed the linens from the bed and tossed them in the wash. Usually Marshall and I dealt with laundry on Sundays, but I wanted to get this over with. An hour later, with the house picked up and fresh sheets on the bed, I sat down to review Wilbur’s folders.
There were eleven of them in all and, like the first folder with the letter of reprimand, these all contained similar epistles. A few folders had more than one letter. Some were counseling memos, others were clearly letters of reprimand, and one was a letter of termination. I felt as if I had intruded on someone’s most personal, most private correspondence, and frankly, that was precisely what I’d done. Even though these letters were written decades ago, they still carried the same weight and tone as if they’d been penned yesterday.
The question that immediately sprang to mind was obvious: What on earth was Wilbur Maines doing with them? According to Roxanne, he was an engineer and later promoted to manager, not a Human Resources director. I couldn’t help but wonder if he used those letters for his own nefarious reasons. Kenny thought Wilbur might have been sitting on some valuable intel regarding the company’s Mavis Gear, but I was banking my money on something much worse. Extortion.
For simplicity’s sake, I pulled up a spreadsheet on my computer and listed the people’s names and reasons for the correspondence. It read like a who’s who of high school infractions. The only thing missing was smoking in the boys’ room. And with the exception of one name, no one else on the list had been terminated.
Albus, G., continued tardiness
Betsley, V., inappropriate comments to coworkers
Dennison, C., sloppy work performance
Elitsky, F., excessive absenteeism without valid reason
Hammermeyer, A., poor attitude
Jenko, J., insubordination
Norton, C., insubordination
Ortiz, A., unauthorized use of company equipment
