2 Pane of Death

by Sarah Atwell

  He held up one finger, indicating he was in the middle of something, and I heard my printer whine. When it was done, he came over and sat at the table, a sheaf of papers in his hand. He looked very pleased with himself.

  I poured coffee and scrounged up a stale bagel, stuffing it in the toaster. “So, you going to tell me what you’ve got?”

  “Get some coffee into you first—I know how your mind works. Or doesn’t. And when did you get back? Allison said you disappeared with Maddy about five last night.”

  Dutifully I sipped coffee and waited for my head to clear. It was a slow process. “So you talked to Allison before you hit the town with Nat?”

  He had the grace to look sheepish. “I told her it was business. It was. Anyway, what did Maddy want?”

  “She said she wanted to apologize, which she did about six times. And then she wanted to tell me her entire life history, particularly the part where she and Peter were passionately involved.” I snorted.

  “You don’t believe that?”

  “Not for a minute. Peter tolerated her, no more. He gave her the commission as a favor to his mother, and then he called me in as backup.”

  “He told you that?”

  “He did. I admit I wondered why he had picked such a no-talent for an important job.”

  Cam grinned. “Don’t hold back.”

  “You know very well that I have never liked Maddy or respected her work, even before she accused me of murder. And now, apparently, I’m her new best friend.”

  “What did you two find to talk about?”

  “Maddy, mostly. She is just devastated by Peter’s death, because they were soulmates, blah blah blah. I get the feeling she doesn’t have anyone else to talk to—not that I’m surprised. I’ve seldom met anyone so completely self-absorbed, with so little justification.”

  “That’s right, Em, let it all out. So, you think she just wanted to vent, or did she want something else from you?”

  “My question exactly. I think she hoped to find out how the murder investigation was going, and she was disappointed when she found out that Matt had shut me out—which was her fault in the first place. I didn’t say anything about the FBI part of it—I think. Things got a little fuzzy toward the end there.” I swallowed some more coffee. “So what did you come up with? Or, wait—how did you end up going out with Nat?”

  “Well, she came by yesterday as promised to check on my progress. She said she didn’t know much about Tucson, so I volunteered to show her a few places, and then we ate dinner.”

  Oh, shoot—I had completely forgotten our vague dinner plans when Maddy showed up. Poor, innocent Cam. I didn’t for a moment believe that Nat was a lonely, vulnerable tourist. “What did you two talk about?”

  “Let’s back up a bit. Don’t you want to know what’s on Peter’s computer?”

  I sat up straighter. “Of course I do. Just explain it in English, will you?”

  “I’ll give you the junior version. Access wasn’t hard, probably because he didn’t have a whole lot of top-secret stuff on there, and not a lot from PrismCo. I don’t know whether he had some other place to stash that or he really was out of the business. Still, he used reasonable protection—he didn’t count on someone like me digging into them.” Cam allowed himself a moment of glory, looking quite pleased with himself. Then he went on. “The files I found fall into a few main categories.” He ticked them off on his fingers. “One, files pertaining to the company PrismCo—personnel, finances, reports. From what little I’ve read of them, everything looks kosher, but I’ll let you take a look at all that—it’s probably more your speed. Two, files relating to his personal finances—bank accounts, taxes, and so on. Three, items relating to his collections. Here’s where it gets interesting.”

  “Really? How?”

  Cam sat back in his chair and prepared to expound on his discovery. “There are nice tidy records of what he bought, where he bought it. Also insurance information. That should be a big help to Nat. There’s a lot more stuff here, and I need some time to work through it. But I do have one observation.”

  “Which is?”

  “There’s one name that keeps popping up in the company files and also in the press: Peter’s CFO, Andrew Foster, the guy who was the most outspoken about Peter’s decision to dissolve the company. And he wasn’t shy about talking to anyone who would listen.”

  “Well, if he was pretty high up the food chain, he might have felt he had a lot to gain financially if the company went public. Did Peter keep any correspondence or anything?”

  Cam shook his head. “Not here. Which doesn’t mean there isn’t any, just that it’s not on this computer. It looks like this was a secondary one—something he kept on hand at the house, with the basic files he wanted to have quick access to, but not the whole array. Or maybe he had those stored off-site. Or, heaven forbid, in hard copy.”

  “So you can’t tell me anything about Foster?”

  “Nope, just what’s in the press. Although it looks like he and Peter go way back. He was with the company for quite a while.” Cam handed me a printout. “Here—this pretty much summarizes the situation. If you read between the lines, Foster was mad as hell—felt that Peter had cut his legs out from under him, and gone behind his back to do it.”

  “Cam, you’re muddling your metaphors, but I get the idea. He was not a happy camper. So here’s something else that’s interesting: Matt said that Foster had arrived in Tucson just before Peter died, and then he fell off the map.”

  “I thought Matt wasn’t sharing information with you.” Cam’s tone was incredulous.

  “Actually, he told Nat, and I happened to be in the room.” I looked at the page Cam had handed me: a printout from the Wall Street Journal with a small and grainy studio photo of Andrew Foster, looking very preppy, far more than Peter had. At least, the Peter I had seen. Maybe Peter had undergone some sort of epiphany—or a psychotic break—when he decided to dissolve the company. Maybe up until that point he had been as starchy as Andrew looked.

  Maybe I was fantasizing far ahead of my sparse data. “I wonder if Matt’s tracked him down yet? Not that he’d tell me. Can you tell where he lives now?”

  Cam clicked a few keys. “Colorado. You want a phone number?”

  “No. As Matt delights in pointing out, it’s really none of my business. Let him and his crowd take care of the obvious leads. If Foster’s been that vocal about his complaints, I’m sure he’s high on their suspect list. Anyone else at the company have a known gripe?”

  “Not that I’ve seen. You know, I think I had the wrong impression. It looks as if Foster was really the only one to make noise publicly. But he wouldn’t let it go, and he’d talk to anyone in the press that would listen, at least until they lost interest. From what I’ve seen here, Peter did a decent job of shutting things down gracefully. The rest of his staff walked away in good shape, and most of them landed somewhere else pretty fast.”

  “So as far as you know, Peter didn’t loot the coffers and sneak away, letting the whole organization self-destruct.”

  “No, not even close. From what I can tell, the company was in good shape—I can print out the most recent financials if you want to take a look at them. It looks as though PrismCo could have kept going fine. The story Peter gave out for public consumption was that he thought he’d taken it as far as he could. Read: He was getting bored. Sometimes computer types, even the good ones, just burn out.”

  I was obscurely pleased that there was no hint of illegality or bad management, although I probably shared with Cam an unspoken question about why a vital, intelligent man like Peter would have withdrawn from the company he had founded and steered so ably, without a particularly convincing explanation. But knowing Cam as I did, I admitted freely that I didn’t understand the mind of computer geniuses, and Peter obviously fell into that category.

  I sighed. “We should give this to Matt.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, you’
ve got information on that laptop that may suggest a motive for killing Peter. Former employees—maybe Foster’s not the only one who was unhappy, although he was the most vocal about it. Who holds the patents, if there is such a thing? What about the former Mrs. Ferguson—did you see anything about her? Did she think she was getting stiffed when Peter sold the company? And that’s just off the top of my head. This is stuff that Matt needs to know.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that.” Poor Cam looked deflated. “But Nat’s not going to like that, since the machine is her territory.”

  “I’m not sure it is ‘her territory.’ ” This was really murky: Nat had appointed Cam an FBI consultant in this area, not me, so it was technically his decision what to do with whatever he found. But the information on the laptop could be important to the murder investigation, and Matt certainly wouldn’t like that Cam was digging around in it. “Nat’s area of expertise is art theft, not homicide.”

  Cam nodded.

  I went on. “Maybe she didn’t think it through, or maybe she didn’t expect me to find anything relevant to the murder. Or maybe she is just trying to grab all the glory—she’s the newest member of this FBI special team, and she wants to make her mark.”

  I sighed. Sticky situation all around. “How much of this did you share with her last night?” I asked after a moment.

  “Sister of mine, I do have some decent instincts now and then. She asked about what was on there about his art collection, and I told her. I didn’t mention most of the other stuff. I figured Matt should have a crack at it first.”

  “Good boy!” I beamed at him. “So what are we going to do about it?”

  “No clue,” he replied. “You’re the one with the relationship with Matt. I’ll let you figure that one out.”

  “Gee, thanks. Matt and I aren’t talking, apparently, until this murder is cleared up.” I didn’t bother to mention I had sort of hung up on him last night. “Kind of a Catch-22, isn’t it? I have evidence that might help solve this murder, but he won’t let me share it with him until he solves the murder.”

  “Em, from what you’ve said, I think you have to tell him.”

  He was right, and I was happy that he recognized the necessity. I sighed. “I know. I just don’t know how to do it. What’s your schedule?”

  “You mean, am I going to be around to help you explain to your boyfriend that you and I are running circles around him in the investigation he wants you to stay out of?”

  “Yeah, that.”

  “Sorry, but I have a project at work this week that I can’t blow off, so I’ve got to go back tonight.”

  “And this afternoon?”

  “Allison and I have plans.”

  I really did want his support when I talked to Matt, particularly in explaining the technical side of things, but I knew that Cam needed to spend some quality time with Allison, if he was to depart for home on good terms with her. I would just have to bite the bullet and deal with Matt on my own. But I wasn’t looking forward to it.

  “Okay, baby brother, you go off and frolic with your lady love, and I’ll try and patch up relations with the local constabulary. Where did you and Nat leave things?”

  “She said something about getting together again today, once she’d had a chance to digest what I told her. I plan to be conveniently somewhere else, and my cell phone is about to die mysteriously.”

  “Then you’d better hit the road, pal. Are those printouts for me?” I pointed to the pile of papers on the table.

  “Yes. I’ve annotated the list, so you know which ones are important.”

  “And where are we keeping this precious computer?”

  “Nat gave it to me, and that makes it my responsibility. But I can’t go wandering around Tucson with the thing in my trunk. You hang on to it for now, and I can take it with me when I leave. Or not, if you need a bargaining chip. I’ve got what I need from it, anyway.”

  I assumed he meant he’d copied the files to his own computer or stashed them somewhere in cyberspace. “Boy, we’ve really landed right in the thick of it, haven’t we? Nat’s going to be pissed if we turn the computer over to Matt; Matt’s going to be pissed that we didn’t tell him about the contents ASAP. A real lose-lose situation, eh?”

  “That it is. But I have infinite faith in your ability to arrive at the best possible decision. Oops, gotta go!” He stood up and disappeared into the guest room, leaving me alone at the table with my quandary.

  I’ll admit up front that I’m a chicken, and I particularly hate personal confrontations. I persuaded myself that I really should take care of some business before devoting any more time and energy to solving Peter’s murder. That meant heading for the studio and working with some glass, which always calmed me.

  It took me until three o’clock in the afternoon to work up the nerve to call Matt. I made excuses to myself: The shop was busy, and I needed to make some basic trade pieces to restock my own inventory (and working in the shop where sidewalk strollers could watch was always a good draw). But I knew I couldn’t put it off much longer, and finally I marched upstairs and punched in Matt’s work number. I was surprised to find that he wasn’t in his office. I left an innocuous message, along the lines of “we have to talk” and heaved a sigh of relief. The ball was back in his court.

  Chapter 16

  I tried Cam on his cell phone, to let him know that I had done my duty, but true to his word, it wasn’t on. I didn’t leave a message. It was approaching six when I left the shop and made my way upstairs. Cam had left a note saying that he had fed and walked Fred and Gloria, and he had left the “object of interest” in my underwear drawer. Men. I wasn’t sure whose property it was at this point, officially. The FBI’s? Or could Matt confiscate it as evidence? I really didn’t want to find myself in the middle of that argument, but I was afraid I wouldn’t have a choice. In the end I stuffed it in the linen closet under my towels.

  I found myself bored—and hungry. I checked my fridge, but nothing looked appealing. Heck, most of it didn’t even look edible. I decided I should treat myself to a decent meal, and Sunday nights were pretty quiet in this neighborhood, so I wouldn’t have to fight for a table. I gave the pups a quick turn around the block, and after I brought them back I meandered through the neighborhood, not so much reading menus as sniffing the good smells wafting from the various small restaurants that were open. Finally I stopped in front of one that smelled particularly yummy, then plunged into the dark interior, where the smells only got better. I found a table against the wall and settled in with a beer and a platter of nachos, drooling in anticipation of more food to come. So focused was I on eating that it was a couple of minutes before I sat back and checked out the room to see if I knew anyone. I wouldn’t mind having someone to talk to while I ate.

  There were no familiar faces, but I wasn’t surprised—it was getting late, and tomorrow was a workday. My eyes lit on a guy slouched against the bar. I could see his face from the side, but he was concentrating hard on the drink in front of him. Not his first, by the looks of it.

  And then I looked again. He didn’t much resemble the fuzzy newspaper picture Cam had showed me—that guy had been buttoned down in a suit, his hair neatly combed. The man at the bar was a wreck—and getting more wrecked, judging from the line of glasses in front of him on the bar. Still, to my tired eyes, he looked a heck of a lot like Andrew Foster.

  One way to find out. My bottle was still half full, but I stood up and made my way to the bar, signaling the bartender. “Hi, Jorge. Can I have another?”

  Jorge smiled and reached for a fresh bottle. I sneaked a glance at the guy next to me, and damned if he didn’t still look a lot like Andrew Foster, up close. Now what? Absurd and outdated pickup lines rambled through my head. Come here often? What’s your sign? Where have you been all my life? Well, there was always the direct approach. “Aren’t you Andrew Foster?”

  The man responded slowly, as if he was having difficulty processing my sentence. His head
turned toward me, and his eyes focused, more or less. “Yuh. Why?”

  Wow. Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world . . . “I was a friend of Peter Ferguson’s,” I said quietly.

  To my dismay, Andrew’s eyes filled with tears. “Peter’s dead.”

  “I know. Listen, why don’t we go sit down at my table, maybe eat something, and we can talk?”

  Another long pause while he processed that request. While I waited, I noticed Jorge watching us, and I nodded to him—I could handle this. Jorge shrugged and went to fill another order. Andrew managed to haul himself upright, and I took one arm and guided him to my table, where he fell heavily in the chair, sighing. I almost reeled from the blast of alcohol fumes.

  “Have you had anything to eat lately?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “Dunno.”

  “Then you need to eat something. Here.” I pushed the half-finished platter of nachos toward him and watched while he stared at it for a long while before picking up a chip. Miracle of miracles, he managed to find his mouth.

  When he had almost finished chewing, he mumbled, “I need a drink.”

  “No you don’t, Andrew. You’ve had plenty. What are you doing here?”

  He peered through the dim light, trying to find my place. “Where’s here?”

  I pondered how to answer that. “A bar in Tucson.”

  He nodded as though that meant something. “Good, that’s what I thought.” He took another chip and ate it. After a long pause, he said, “You knew Peter?”

  I nodded, trying to gauge his tone. Was the fact that I knew Peter good or bad, in his fuzzy mind?

  “Damn, he’s dead. I didn’t even know. I mean, I just saw him.” The tears welled again.

  My radar went on high alert. He had seen Peter? Of course, the real question was, when? Followed closely by, had Peter been alive at that point? “Were you close?”

  “Yes. No. Yes.” Andrew looked confused. “Used to be, then I did something stupid and we weren’t, but then we were again. Or coulda been, maybe.”