You Have the Right to Remain Silent

by Barbara Paul

  “I want to talk to Sherman Bigelow’s secretary again,” Marian said. “She may know more than she told me. And I thought I’d ask Edgar Quinn what he knew about this Evan Christopher.”

  “Divide ’em up however you like, but get started on it now.” DiFalco went back to his office, leaving them to it.

  Marian remembered the way Gloria Sanchez had gotten a quick fix on Candy Bigelow and asked her to interview Universal Laser’s vice president in charge of production, Elizabeth Tanner. “What am I looking for?” Sanchez wanted to know.

  “See if you can figure out what she’s after. Try to pin her down as to what she thinks is behind the murders. She hinted to me that the killers are probably Universal Laser people, but she wouldn’t go any further. Get her to go further.”

  “Oh joy,” Sanchez said.

  Marian asked Foley to interview O’Neill’s, Vickers’s, and Webb’s secretaries. “Find out what their new jobs are. Concentrate on Conrad Webb’s secretary. He was very tense when I talked to him. Make friends with him if you can, take him out for a drink, get him to relax.”

  Foley snorted. “What’s a man doing working as a secretary?”

  Marian sighed. “On second thought—”

  “I’ll do it, I’ll do it! Jesus, relax, willya?”

  The three of them set out, not planning to return to the stationhouse that day.

  Marian ran into a roadblock on her first try: Edgar Quinn had gone home after his three-hour business lunch instead of coming back to the office. Sherman Bigelow’s secretary first, then. Marian looked through her notebook and discovered she didn’t have Ms North’s first name. She asked one of the other secretaries and found out it was Rachel.

  Rachel North was wearing ordinary flats instead of espadrilles this time, and her chubbiness was better concealed this time by a loose jacket she wore over her slacks. She still looked comfortable. When Marian walked in, a maintenance man was unloading a set of wooden file cabinets from the same sort of platform truck that had been used to move Elizabeth Tanner’s computer equipment into Conrad Webb’s old office. The workman pulled the protective mats from around the files, and the secretary ran a hand appreciatively over the wood surface of the nearest file.

  “Nice file cabinets,” Marian said, making them both jump.

  “Oh, hello, Sergeant, ah …”

  “Larch.”

  “Sergeant Larch. Yes, they are nice, aren’t they? Mr. Emory ordered all new cabinets for the office.”

  “Mr. Emory? Is he Mr. Bigelow’s replacement?”

  “That’s right. He’s been promoted to head of the Legal Department.”

  “Is he also taking Mr. Bigelow’s place on the Washington liaison group?”

  The secretary said yes. “In fact, he’s in Washington right now. But he’ll be returning tomorrow if you want to come back then.”

  “No, you’re the one I came to see. Is Elizabeth Tanner heading up the group?”

  “Temporarily, except that it’s only a ‘group’ of two so far. No one from Research has been appointed to replace Herb Vickers yet.”

  And no young “comer” singled out to take Jason O’Neill’s place. The maintenance man had finished unloading the file cabinets and placed them where Rachel North indicated. He piled the protective mats on the platform truck and pushed it out of the office.

  Rachel North waited until he was gone and asked, “What did you want to see me about, Sergeant? I’ve already told you everything I know.”

  “Well, that’s just it. I don’t think you did. I think something was going on here before those four men were killed and you know about it … and you’re keeping it to yourself.”

  North’s face closed; even her voice changed. “I asked you once before not to bully me, Sergeant.”

  “You call that bullying? I haven’t even got started yet. This is a murder investigation, Ms North! What could possibly be more important than that? Some company secret that’ll be obsolete and forgotten by this time next year? If you’re deliberately withholding something that might help me find the killers, then you’re condoning the killings.”

  “Condoning the killings!” The secretary was horrified.

  “That’s what it amounts to,” Marian pushed on. “You’re helping the killers when you should be helping the police. There’s no way to rationalize your way out of that.” North was near tears; this was one of the times Marian hated her job. “When I spoke to you before, you blurted out something about not talking of business matters outside the office. Is that what happened? Did somebody give away company secrets? Was it your boss?”

  “Mr. Bigelow would never do that!” the woman gasped, stricken. “He was probably the most dependable man in the company!”

  “Then why did he end up dead?”

  That did it; that’s what made the woman crack. North sank down into a chair and buried her face in her hands, sobbing quietly. Sometimes Marian really hated her job. In a choked voice, the secretary said, “He shouldn’t have died. He shouldn’t have died!”

  Captain DiFalco had instructed Marian and the other detectives not to back off when they found something, to keep pushing. Marian looked at the woman huddled on the chair before her; Rachel North was no hardboiled secretary standing like an armed guard between her boss and the rest of the world. She was a woman under great stress, not knowing what to do and wanting only for it all to end. DiFalco would say she was ripe for the kill. “Come on,” Marian said with a sigh. “Let’s go to the rest room and wash your face—you’ll feel better. Come on, Rachel.”

  They went to the ladies’ room and the secretary bathed her face with cold water. Marian asked if Universal Laser had an employee cafeteria or a snack room or some such place they could go. Rachel led her to a room filled with comfortable chairs and low tables; the walls were lined with food and drink machines. One coffee machine was lying on its side on a platform truck, while two men worked busily at installing a new one; the room was otherwise empty. “Do you want coffee or something cold?” Marian asked.

  “Diet Coke, please,” the secretary said; she filled two glasses at the ice machine while Marian got them both Cokes. They sat and sipped at their soft drinks, waiting for the men to finish their job. Marian stared at the discarded coffee machine lying on its side. It appeared shrunken, somehow, now that its days of usefulness were ended; or maybe the platform truck that held it was just an extra large one.

  The service men completed their installation and wheeled out the dead coffee machine. Immediately Rachel North said, “I don’t know anything about the murder of Mr. Bigelow and the others.”

  “I know you don’t,” Marian replied. “It’s what came before that that I’m trying to find out about. There was a leak of some sort, wasn’t there?”

  “I’m pretty sure there was. The whole company was buzzing with the rumor. But I’m even more sure that Mr. Bigelow didn’t have anything to do with it.” She was firm about that.

  Marian wondered about something. “You were fond of Mr. Bigelow, were you?”

  “Fond of him?” The secretary considered. “No, not really. Mr. Bigelow wasn’t a very open man. He liked things kept formal in the office.” She smiled sadly. “He couldn’t stand the casual way Mr. Quinn ran the company. But I did come to respect Mr. Bigelow—I respected him enormously. He was a good man, and I’m sorry he’s gone.”

  “Then help me find his killers. Tell me about the leak.”

  “But I don’t know anything definite! Only that something got out and all the top brass were extremely agitated about it.”

  “Including the Washington liaison team?”

  “Yes! Those four knew … and then those four are murdered? That’s no coincidence.”

  “No. I’d think the Defense Department would send someone to investigate, but they seem to be depending on the FBI.”

  “The Defense Department? Oh no, the leak had nothing to do with Project Soundbender, I’m sure of that.” Rachel North misinterpreted Marian’s loo
k of surprise and hastened to add, “It’s all right, Sergeant Larch, I have security clearance. I have to type all Mr. Bigelow’s papers for him. Had to, I mean.”

  Project Soundbender. “How can you be sure it has nothing to do with Soundbender?” Marian asked, trying to appear as if she knew all about it.

  “Because business was proceeding as usual. For the last week or so Mr. Bigelow was preoccupied with this … this other thing that was going on, and he treated Soundbender in an almost offhand manner. No, whatever was leaked had to do with some new product or process in development, not the Defense Department project. And I honestly don’t know what it was.”

  Marian believed her. All along she’d been going on the assumption that the cause of the trouble was connected to the Defense Department project—which now had a name, thank goodness. But evidently they’d all been following the wrong trail. Something new in development, Rachel North had said, something kept secret even within the company? “Who would know about this new development? Quinn, Tanner, who else?”

  The secretary shrugged. “The people in Research working on it, certainly. The other vice presidents? I don’t know.”

  Marian couldn’t resist the temptation; North had evidently assumed Marian had security clearance too since she was investigating the case. “You say it’s been business as usual with Project Soundbender—that’s good to hear. It’s my understanding they’ve finally licked the problem that’s been holding them up so long.”

  “The earth-curvature limitation? Yes, that was the last big obstacle. They’re working on refining the final version now.”

  Earth curvature? “Well, I want to thank you for your help.” She stood up to leave. “Are you going back to your office?”

  “No, I think I’ll stay here a few more minutes. Sergeant Larch?”

  “Yes?”

  “In no way do I condone those murders.”

  Marian smiled at her. “I never thought you did. You did the right thing, talking to me.” The secretary returned her smile weakly, still not sure.

  Marian set out to find the elevators but got turned around somehow; she walked down a corridor she didn’t remember seeing before. Then she spotted the arrow pointing toward the Legal Department and knew where she was. Her route took her past Elizabeth Tanner’s new office.

  “Sergeant Larch! Would you come in here please!”

  Immediately, your highness. Tanner had glimpsed her through two open doors; Marian walked through the reception area into Conrad Webb’s former office. Gloria Sanchez sat relaxed in a chair in front of Elizabeth Tanner’s desk; she rolled her eyes at Marian.

  Tanner herself was steaming. “Sergeant, I want you to confirm something Detective Sanchez has just told me. It seems that this company was virtually without security last Saturday. Is that true?”

  “During a certain time period, yes. Only one guard on the monitors instead of two, and that one was sick. He had to run to the men’s room a lot.”

  “Leaving us unprotected while he was throwing up?”

  “Other end, I think, but yes. He did the best he could. He says he tried to get someone to come in and replace him but he couldn’t get hold of your chief of security.”

  Tanner’s eyes were fiery. “And I have to learn this from the police! Anyone could have just walked in here last Saturday?”

  “Someone did, Mrs. Tanner.”

  She pressed her lips together. “Thank you, Sergeant.”

  Marian was dismissed. She winked at Gloria Sanchez and started out, but stopped when she heard a phone being picked up.

  “Get Emmett Yellin in here,” Tanner said. “Immediately.”

  Marian turned in the doorway. “Who’s Emmett Yellin?”

  “Our chief of security. I’m going to fire him.”

  Marian nodded and went on out. She took the elevator down to the lobby where she used a pay phone to call Captain DiFalco. Marian asked him to get a warrant to have all of Universal Laser’s truck platforms and protective mats checked for bloodstains.

  15

  The same manservant who’d let her in before answered the door of Edgar Quinn’s apartment. But this time he was more affable, not having just been routed from bed at six in the morning. “Mr. Quinn’s taking a shower right now, Sergeant. If you’ll have a seat, he’ll be with you shortly.”

  “Thank you.” Marian followed him into the same room where she and Foley had talked to Quinn before. She decided to try one of the sofas this time.

  The manservant surprised her by getting down on his knees at the other end of the sofa. “If you’ll excuse me, I’d like to get this finished before Mr. Quinn comes down, and wine stains are so hard to get out.” He squirted a foam on the spot on the rug.

  “Impossible, I’d heard.”

  “Well, the label on the can promises miracles. When this dries, I’ll brush the residue away and then we’ll see. I do wish people would be more careful in other people’s homes.”

  “Then Mr. Quinn didn’t spill it?”

  “No, it was Mr. Page. Neither Mr. nor Mrs. Quinn drinks wine.”

  “Trevor Page? FBI?”

  “The same. He’s never spilled anything before, but somehow he managed to dump half a glass of claret on the carpet.”

  “Are you English?”

  “How did you know? I thought I sounded very American.”

  “You do. But you said claret instead of Bordeaux.”

  “Ah. I’ll remember.” He gave her a friendly smile and left just as Edgar Quinn came in.

  Quinn was wearing loose gray trousers and an open-necked white shirt. His hair was still wet from the shower, and he had it slicked back against his skull, making Marian think of a 1920s ballroom dancer. He offered her a drink and then sat on a chair facing the sofa when she declined. “Do you have some news for me?”

  “Possibly. Do you know a man named Evan Christopher?”

  “Christopher? I’ve met him—once, I think. He’s a client. Why?”

  “He purchased laser weapons from you?”

  “Yes, but I don’t remember off the top of my head what. Never a big consignment, as I recall.”

  “Do you know he resold the weapons to terrorist organizations?”

  Quinn blinked. “No, I did not know that. Are you certain?”

  “The FBI is. Evan Christopher has even dealt with the PLO. And you knew nothing about it?”

  “Of course not!” He jumped from his chair and started to pace. “Good lord, that’s all I need! The Defense Department could cancel our contract!”

  “For Project Soundbender? When you’re so close to completion? Not very likely.”

  “Maybe not. They’ll take Soundbender first and then put me in jail. Evan Christopher! Does he admit it?”

  “He’s dead.” Marian told him about the accident that broke the arms dealer’s neck. “The FBI were on their way to arrest him.”

  “Wonderful. That’s just wonderful.”

  “Surely the Defense Department won’t hold you accountable for what Evan Christopher did.”

  “You don’t know the Defense Department.” Quinn ran his fingers through his wet hair. “Hoo. Defense is so damned prickly, Normally I’d send Conrad Webb to Washington to straighten it out, but now …” Abruptly he sat back down. “You think I’m overreacting, don’t you? I hope to god you’re right. So. Page told you about Soundbender, did he?”

  Marian tried to look innocent. “To tell you the truth, I didn’t really understand that part about the earth-curvature limitations.”

  “Oh, it’s simple enough when you consider Soundbender’s just an extension of current technology. Information-gathering agencies use lasers to amplify window glass vibrations and convert them into audible sounds. But the Defense Department got it into its collective head that depending on spy satellites alone was too risky, so they want to operate the lasers from regular aircraft—much closer to the ground, you see. The idea is to keep the planes safely in American air space but still have them listen in
all over the world. But the surface of the earth curves, and lasers travel in a straight line. The problem is obvious.”

  “So an airplane flying over Tucson can eavesdrop on a conversation in Beijing? No privacy at all left in the world, is there? Anyone with the right computer knowledge can enter a bank account and help himself, and now no conversation anywhere will be safe from being overheard. The next thing you know, even our thoughts will no longer be private.”

  “Yes. That’s coming.” Quinn didn’t seem the least bit perturbed by the idea.

  “And as important and earthshaking and all-consuming as Soundbender is,” Marian said casually, “it still doesn’t have doodleysquat to do with the East River Park murders.”

  “What?”

  Marian uttered a silent prayer that Rachel North knew what she was talking about. “Nobody sold any Soundbender secrets, Mr. Quinn. The leak had to do with an entirely different project. And you must have known that all along.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “You know what I’m saying. Universal Laser has something else on the burner, something even more dangerous than a supereavesdropping system. Why don’t you tell me about it?”

  Quinn spread his hands. “We have a dozen projects in development.”

  “But only one of them significant enough to get four men murdered. Which one, Mr. Quinn? And how did you find out about the leak?”

  “You’re mistaken, Sergeant Larch. Nothing like that is—”

  “Stop it!” Marian commanded angrily. “Stop lying! Your whole company knows that leak led to the killings, and it’s got them scared to death. But only key personnel know what the connection is. One of you is going to talk eventually—we’re going to find out, one way or another. It would be better if it came from you.”

  Tiny beads of sweat had appeared on Quinn’s upper lip. “I repeat, you are mistaken. And I don’t take kindly to being called a liar, Sergeant. The biggest project we have going is Soundbender and—”