“Was Mr. Kedge a friend of Mr. Nye’s?”
“Not really. Mr. Kedge is”—Tasha lifted her hand over her head, palm down, and again spoke with awe—“a managing partner. He is also the nephew of Mr. Wellborn, who is retired. I could see his compliment made Mr. Nye sure he would be made a partner very soon.”
“How about Mr. Shaker—he’s a partner—did he get along with Mr. Kedge?”
Tasha shrugged. “That is far outside my area.”
“I understand,” said Betsy. “I’m not asking you to make an official report. Nor am I a police investigator or even a licensed private eye who will make an official report. I’m asking as a private citizen, as a friend of Mr. Nye’s very dear friend, who is innocent of murder yet sits in jail, his future in the balance. Please, won’t you help me find out who really murdered your boss?”
She wavered, but then stiffened her spine and said, “I don’t want to repeat gossip. I don’t know, myself, if those two might have been friends or not.” She unbent enough to add, “Of course I want to know who murdered Mr. Nye. I want the murderer caught and sent to prison. But I still think it is the responsibility of the police to discover that.”
“Well, I want to help the police, if I can,” said Betsy, closing her notebook. “Thank you for taking the time to talk with me.”
“You are quite welcome.”
Tasha led Betsy out into the hall and started for the lobby.
“Betsy!” called a voice. They both turned. Susan Lavery, tall and slim in something pale green, her improbably-red hair a flame on top, waved at her.
“Why, Susan!” said Betsy. “I didn’t know you worked here!”
“Ms. Lavery,” said Tasha in greeting.
“Tasha,” replied Susan. Which meant Susan was not a fellow secretary.
“Are you an attorney?” asked Betsy.
“Yes, ma’am,” said Susan. “I don’t suppose I mentioned that when I came into your place for stitching materials.”
“Probably not,” said Betsy.
“Are you here seeking legal advice?”
“No, I’m investigating the murder of John Nye, helping Godwin’s defense, I hope.”
“She’s doing private investigator work for Marvin Lebowski,” noted Tasha.
“Hiring the big gun, I see,” said Susan in her dry drawl.
“I want the best for Godwin,” said Betsy.
“Yes, I was startled to hear he’d been charged with the murder. I know you think the world of him. Are you on your way in, or out?”
“She was just leaving,” said Tasha.
“Would you like a cup of coffee before you go?”
“Thank you, I would love a cup of coffee.”
Susan made a detour to a break room for two mugs of coffee. Betsy picked the decaf variety and doctored it with almond-flavored creamer and Splenda sweetener. Out of Tasha’s hearing, Susan said, “What’s up?”
“I’m trying to learn more about John. Tasha was his secretary, but she isn’t much of a gossip.”
Susan looked at Betsy out of large eyes the exact green color of her suit. “I am. Follow me.”
They stopped in Susan’s cluttered office, where they found her officemate tapping at his computer. “Just passing through,” said Susan. She sat at her own computer and clicked through several screens. “Here we go. I’ll be in Conference J, Chris.”
“Uh huh,” he said absently.
When they were comfortably seated in a very small conference room furnished entirely in shades of garnet except for the table, Betsy said, “What do you know about Tasha?”
“Not a whole lot. She’s polite, correct in her dealings—she’s kind of class-conscious, did you notice that?”
“Yes. I suppose that’s a question to be asked: How rigid is the caste system in this place?”
“If I tell you that Tasha is completely in her element here, does that answer your question?”
Betsy laughed and opened her notebook. Susan had fetched their coffee herself; she evidently was not a supporter of the caste system. Betsy said, “Tasha used words like ‘polite’ and ‘correct’ and ‘professional’ to describe the relationship between John and David Shaker—was he John’s boss?”
“Boss is not the right term. Superior, supervisor, those are closer. And only until John made partner.”
“Anyway, she didn’t say ‘friendly’ once. Is that significant?”
“Oh, yes. There was bad blood between John and David. What did Tasha tell you about David?”
“Nothing, really. Except that he’s a partner.”
“She didn’t mention the big fight they had in John’s office the day before he was found dead?”
Betsy hauled her sagging jaw back into place. “No, she didn’t.” Then she recalled the silence of John’s office and asked, “How did you come to overhear it?”
“Overhear? I didn’t overhear anything!” Susan laughed. “I just saw things I’ve seen before. David Shaker is the company pit bull. He can be obsequious, sweet, or enraged, depending on the situation, and what you see of him depends on where you stand in the upper echelon’s opinion. They send David out to do their dirty work. He is really good at lighting fires under attorneys, and he doesn’t mind if people don’t like him. He’s not the best attorney in the world, and there are people who think he’s a partner because he has the goods on several other partners.” She paused to take a drink of her coffee and look out the window. “Is it as warm out as it looks?”
“Yes, a beautiful day out there.”
“I’ll have to take Liam for a walk when I get home. They grow up so fast—he’s going to be eight in just another month.” She blinked and returned her attention to Betsy. “Where was I?”
“Telling me how you know Mr. Shaker and Mr. Nye had a fight.”
“Oh, yes. Well, for one thing, when David’s been reaming someone out, he walks like . . . like Popeye the Sailor.” Susan lifted her arms straight out from her shoulders, then bent her elbows so her hands hung straight down. She moved her upper torso back and forth and smiled with only one side of her mouth.
Betsy laughed. “Come on, he does not!”
Susan laughed, too, and brought her arms down. “All right, not as obvious as that. But he does have this cocky walk he does after he’s laid into someone. Sometimes he even whistles. And last Thursday morning, he came out of John’s office just like that. Whistling ‘Mexican Hat Dance,’ I think—did you know John went on vacation to Mexico a couple of weeks ago?”
“Yes. Goddy took him. They had a great time.”
Susan twinkled at her. “That’s what you think.”
Betsy frowned. “What do you mean? Godwin told me in so many words, they had a great time. And John’s brother, Charlie, told me John raved about the Museum of Anthropology they toured down there.”
“John whined to Dick Kennison—those two went to college together and came to Hanson Wellborn at the same time and they’re good friends. But Dick is a gossip, and he said John whined to him that he didn’t like Mexico City. It’s too big, it’s too dirty, the air is thin and smells funny, there’s no ocean . . .” Susan was counting on her fingers. She paused to think, bending one long, white finger back until Betsy feared it would come out of its socket. “Oh, the hotel was third-rate, and full of school children who ran wild while their teachers danced in the lobby.”
Betsy, writing frantically, said, “Teachers dancing in the lobby? Godwin never mentioned any of this.”
“No? Maybe he was having too much fun trying to learn the steps. Bill said John said something to that effect. Oh, and also that Godwin took to flirting with the native guide he hired.”
“Native guide? Oh, that must be the taxi driver. Godwin said he was a hoot, and really knew the city well, took them everywhere.”
Susan closed her eyes and shook her head, evidently imitating Bill imitating John. “Tacky, the man was tacky. He was short and pudgy, he wore double-knit fabrics, and his cab smelled of cigarette sm
oke.”
Betsy was surprised into laughter. “That does sound like John, even third-hand!” Then she sobered. “Sorry. After all, he’s dead.”
But Susan was smiling, too. “That’s one reason I repeated it to you; it sounds exactly like John.”
“How well did you know him?”
“Not all that well, but well enough. He treated me like a paralegal, giving me scut work to do. Not that he wasn’t a very busy man.” Susan frowned, trying to decide whether to continue. She nodded abruptly and said, “It’s my never-humble opinion that he was being seriously overworked. David was trying to spoil his chances of getting that partnership. Wanted to push him out of the firm entirely, if he could.”
“Are you sure?”
“Well . . . pretty sure.”
“Why? Was it David’s idea? Or someone else’s? After all, you said he was the company pit bull. Who sicced him on John?”
Susan sat back in her chair and tapped the side of her nose while she considered that.
“I think getting rid of John was David’s own idea. I heard this story a month ago about a conference John was called into with a client of Mr. Kedge. David was there. Some kind of problem had come up before the conference, and Mr. Kedge had asked David to work on it. I don’t know what the problem was, exactly, but it involved setting up a contingency compensation plan for a CEO. David did what he’s done before, palmed it off onto John. John came up with a very complicated solution that, I believe, involved foreign investments. And when David tried to present the solution as his own, Mr. Kedge seemed to think something about it didn’t make sense. So David said something on the order of, ‘I don’t understand it, either; it’s something John Nye dreamed up.’ Mr. Kedge said, ‘Get Mr. Nye in here.’ John came in and explained his idea, and Mr. Kedge said, ‘Oh, is that what you meant?’ and the two of them explained it to the client, who was very happy to implement it. Mr. Kedge sent John off laden with trophies, medals, and rose garlands. David tried to say John explained it to him poorly, but then said something that showed he still didn’t understand it. He would have it that John deliberately didn’t make it clear, but Mr. Kedge knew better. The thing was over David’s head.”
Betsy had been taking notes. Now she asked, “How sure are you that what you’re telling me is really what happened?”
“Well, it’s a funny thing, but some of the research done into that little problem of Mr. Kedge’s”—she raised an eyebrow—“I did myself. Now I am willing to admit I don’t understand what John was getting at myself. And neither does his little Russian secretary, who typed up the thirty-page memo on it. But John did—and so did Mr. Kedge.”
“And David Shaker didn’t.”
“That’s right—or that’s what I understand. David won’t lose his position over this. He’s a partner, after all. And he’s damn useful to Hanson Wellborn. But he hates John’s guts for showing him up like that, especially in front of a client. Well, that is, he hated John’s guts. And he had some kind of confrontation with him the day before John died.”
Nineteen
BETSY looked back at all the information she’d gotten from Susan and said, “I would like to know if you’d do me a really big favor.”
“You want me to poke around and see what else I can learn,” said Susan promptly.
The offer took Betsy’s breath away. She hadn’t dared ask so great a favor. On the other hand, she grabbed it quickly now that it was offered. “But if it will get you in trouble—” she began.
“Oh, I’m in pretty deep already. In fact, I updated my resumé a few weeks ago and put it into circulation. I’m not cut out for corporate law. I’m going to try for the county prosecutor’s office. Failing that, public defender. Or maybe I’ll get out of law entirely. It’s a heartbreaker of a profession.”
“With your attitude and nose for information, you’d be great in any kind of investigative business, newspaper reporting, maybe, or private investigations,” said Betsy. “Or anything you’d care to turn your hand to.”
“Why, thank you, ma’am,” said Susan—Betsy understood by now that “ma’am” was just a kind of nickname Susan used. Like men used to say “pal.” “Meanwhile, I’ll be your mole.”
“Keep track of your hours,” said Betsy. “I can pay you for this.”
“I ought to say, no, thank you, I’ll do it for the love of it—but thank you. Because if they catch me, I’ll be out on my ear with no references, and I’ve got a child to support.” They negotiated a bit, and finally agreed on an hourly fee that both could live with.
“Now,” said Betsy, “I’ll ask another favor that, I hope, is less difficult.”
“Name it.”
“Can I meet David Shaker? Even just for a minute?”
“I think I can arrange that.” She stood. “Come on, follow me.”
She led Betsy up one corridor and down another, finally stopping at a door like many, of red-brown wood, with a name printed in black on an ivory board that slid into a holder—a reminder, perhaps, that while the door was to last, the occupant of the office might not.
They went in, to find a lovely little outer office furnished in deep green leather and richly grained oak. The secretary behind her desk was a well-groomed fiftyish woman of slender build and a cool, competent gaze.
“Hi, Stormy,” said Susan. Betsy blinked in surprise. Stormy? People who name their babies ought to realize that one day they’ll be middle-aged. This sedate, middle-aged Stormy seemed more like clear and mild.
“H’lo, Ms. Lavery,” said Stormy. “Have you brought a client to see Mr. Shaker?”
“Not exactly. This is Ms. Devonshire, who is working for Mr. Marvin Lebowski. She has a couple of questions for Mr. Shaker, if he has a minute.”
Stormy did not so much as raise a speculative eyebrow as she rose from her chair. “I’ll just see, all right?” She opened the door to an inner office, and came back less than a minute later to say, “Will you step this way?”
Betsy could not have said beforehand what she expected to see in David Shaker—but she was surprised to see the tall, slim young man with dark hair, blue eyes, and sensitive features. He put out a large, thin hand to greet her, and she took it, noting how warm and firm it was. “Ms. Devonshire?” he said, peering deep into her eyes. “Do I know you?”
“No, sir. I’m Godwin DuLac’s employer, and I’m working with Marvin Lebowski on his defense.”
His hand abruptly released hers. “I see. And you think I might be of help in your quest?” His tone indicated grave doubt.
“I’m interested in the character of John Nye. You probably saw a great deal of him at work, and I’d like your opinion.”
He smiled. “Certainly. He was an excellent attorney, his knowledge of the law was comprehensive, and he had a subtle intelligence that left many of us in the dust.” He gestured, elbows in, hands wide with palms up, helpless against such an intellect. “His death leaves Hanson Wellborn much the poorer.”
“Did you consider him a friend?”
He took a breath to reply, then his eye was caught by something behind Betsy—Susan Lavery. For the merest instant his nostrils were pinched white and his brows lowered, then he was all sweetness again. “I suppose not,” he said, speaking slowly. “He kept to himself a great deal—I suppose now because he was gay, and didn’t want anyone to get too near for fear they might ask about his family or something.”
“You didn’t know?”
“No.” He shrugged. “It just never occurred to me. It should have, I suppose, no picture of the wife and kiddies on his desk, his never coming to the annual picnic given for families. But you know how it is, hindsight is always twenty-twenty.”
“Was there anyone here at the company who’d quarreled with him recently?”
“You mean a really serious quarrel? No. I had words with him a day or two before he was killed, but ask around, you’ll find I have words with just about everyone, sooner or later.” He smiled, a very boyish and charming smile.
“Well, that’s all I can think of for now. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” He extended his hand again. Betsy took it and was surprised to find it chilly and damp.
Outside in the hall again, Betsy said, “Now there’s an interesting personality.”
“Did you catch his glance of death at me?”
“Yes, I did. Is he going to come around to shout at you?”
“Not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But before the week is out, yes.” She frowned. “Or maybe not. He doesn’t want to become a suspect in a murder case.”
“Too late,” said Betsy, and Susan laughed.
“Anything else I can do before you head out?”
“Could I meet Mr. Kedge?”
“You plunge right in and fly high,” said Susan, mixing metaphors in her surprise. “But all right, let’s see if we can get a minute of the old man’s time.”
They went into a fancier district of the company, where doors were farther apart and of a better grade of wood, and the carpet in the hallway more plush. Mr. Kedge’s private secretary was frankly beautiful, her black suit costly, the solitaire diamond on her hand at least a carat and a half in size.
“Hello, Karen,” said Susan. “This is Ms. Betsy Devonshire, who is looking into the death of John Nye for Marvin Lebowski. She would like just to meet Mr. Kedge, if that would be possible.”
“Oh, I don’t think so. He’s with Mr. D’Agnosto. Though, if she could wait for just a few minutes, I think they’re almost finished.”
“I can wait,” said Betsy. She turned to Susan. “But I’ve kept you from your work long enough. Thank you so much, you’ve been a great help to me.”
“You’re most entirely welcome. I’ll call you this evening, all right?”
“Yes, thanks.”
With a wave of her long-fingered hand, Susan left. Betsy looked around and chose a settee with what looked like antique brocade upholstery. She opened her notebook and went back over what she’d written in haste, making the writing less scribbly, occasionally putting the next of a consecutive series of numbers beside a sentence or phrase, then going to a blank page and expanding on the note.
Embroidered Truths Page 16
