The Professional Corpse (The Departed Book 1)

by Sean Arthur Cox

  “She can be,” I said, “but you don’t strike me as the kind of person to be ashamed by something like that.”

  “No,” he said. “I suppose I’m not.”

  “So why are you?”

  Another pause long enough to read Russian literature.

  “She was Hanson’s daughter,” he finally admitted. “I didn’t know it at the time. I mean, her name was Edgerton for crying out loud. Some illegitimate kid he had back in high school or college. I can’t remember.”

  “Hanson?” I asked.

  “Tyler Hanson, my head of marketing,” he said. “I swear I didn’t know they were related.”

  “Why do you think she came to you?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “We never really talked, not about anything personal. Just movies and music and stuff. Maybe she wanted a father figure.”

  “Some father figure,” I said before I could stop myself.

  Bill ignored me. “Maybe she wanted to spite her old man. Maybe she wanted my money, but finally saw she wasn’t going to get it. For all I know, the two are working together to blackmail me or pump me for info. I don’t know. Who knows what daddy issues do to a girl?”

  “Does Hanson know?”

  “About daddy issues?”

  “About your affair with Valerie.”

  “I sure hope not.”

  “Hopes don’t stop bullets.” I said. “Does he know, or doesn’t he?”

  “I don’t think so, but then who knows how close those two are? I wouldn’t have thought so, but then this whole killer thing has me rethinking everything. At this point, I’d be willing to consider a case against my own mother.”

  “Good,” I said. “Better we don’t leave any stones unturned.”

  I waited for some kind of response, but got none, so I hung up. I figured I should be looking into who might want Bill Thompson dead anyway. I could really use the bonus money.

  From his lusty reputation, Bill seemed to have been quite the red apricot blossom peeking over the fence. I started my search into his sordid past with his wife. It sounded like there might be some bad blood there. A quick internet search said there wasn’t. She had died of a respiratory infection three years ago. I found a journal file on Bill’s computer and pulled up the day of her death. A little more digging because being thorough pays, and my research said technically there was bad blood. She had AIDS. Being a relationship that started in the seventies, they had an open marriage that would come back to haunt her. It seemed she caught it in the 1980s “back when everyone thought it was only for homosexuals.” Once they found out, he got tested and somehow came back clean. Their relationship remained open, he with clean people and she with newly discovered groups of infected people who wanted sex without the fear, all very discreet. Of course, for all the public knew, she was a just a health nut and a saint for putting up with all her husband’s affairs. She died of pneumonia, which was sad but not unreasonable for a woman her age. End of story, the sordid truth buried with her.

  “One down, several to go.”

  I didn’t want to leave the office, but I needed to get up close with my suspects. Jenna Donaldson in sales, consensus had it, was a huge gossip who often started up rumors not to be malicious but to appear “in the loop.” She might start a rumor that threatened the integrity of the company just to look like a vital part of said business, but she wouldn’t have someone killed. The mailroom kid just loved shooting off his mouth because that’s what kids his age do. The IT rumor made no sense at all when one had the facts. That pretty much left me with Nick Presario and Tyler Hanson within the company and probably Valerie What’s-Her-Name. Valerie wasn’t in the building, at least I hoped not, so I focused on the other two. I figured I could hit up Presario’s office first since he was on the same floor as me, and then ride the elevator down to whatever floor Marketing was on.

  It wasn’t difficult to find Presario without asking. As vice-president, his office wasn’t far from mine, and it was particularly large and ostentatious to boot. The man had a golden eagle statue on his desk. To be clear, I do not refer to the species, the golden eagle Aquila chrysaetos. It was a statue of an eagle made of or at least plated with gold, talons out, wings spread. The pose conveys a sense of composed majesty but of a hunter a heartbeat away from the kill. I had the nagging suspicion if I sent a private investigator to his house, I would find him masturbating to DVDs of Wall Street and Glengarry Glen Ross. Specifically, the parts with Gordon Gecko and Alec Baldwin’s unnamed characters, waxing poetic about the unbridled quest for more money. The Marquis’s favorite bits.

  He turned to me, all sleaze and charm, and while I have been broke for too long to know much of anything about suits, I knew his was valuable because I had seen the Marquis wear something similar two years prior. He offered his hand to me, which I took like a proper co-worker. He was a squeezer, a bone cruncher. I couldn’t tell if it was the power of his grip or simply Bill’s tired old body, but it hurt like the dickens and took a decent bit of control not to wince.

  “Bill, how are ya?” he asked, sliding behind his desk as smooth as so much oil.

  “Good,” I said. “Missing my vacation, but when someone is drilling holes in your boat, you have to rush to plug them.”

  “That’s an interesting analogy from someone who hates the water,” he said.

  Damn. This was the sort of thing I had hoped to avoid. I thought desperately of how I might back pedal. Maybe something about hearing the line in a movie or reading it in a book, but what if Bill didn’t read or didn’t go to the pictures? I decided to avoid it by taking a tangent instead.

  “Actually, it’s an interesting metaphor. Similes use the words ‘like’ or ‘as,’ and analogies tend to use an A is to B as X is to Y sort of format.” I held my breath.

  He looked like he wanted to say something, to come in with a well-timed “Well actually…” He didn’t, thankfully. Instead he pinched his lips ever so slightly, cast me a sizing stare, then offered me a seat.

  “What can I do for you, Bill?”

  “Trying to get a sense for how the rumor is affecting everyone,” I said. “Who is updating their resumes and things like that. What fires need to be put out first.”

  “Triage?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Triage.”

  He nodded sagely, but said nothing.

  “So, what’s your take?” I asked.

  “On what? Priorities? Well, what I would do in this situation-”

  “No, what’s your take on the rumor going around?”

  “Which one?” he asked. “The takeover? The health troubles? The illicit tryst?”

  “In general,” I said.

  “I know there’s not a merger in the works, and I know we’re not going public either,” he said. “I’ve worked here beside you for how long now?”

  He paused, waiting for me to answer. Damn it. Again. “Long time,” I said. “A real long time.”

  “Yeah, but how long?”

  My mind went blank. I froze like a thief who just knocked over a platter. I sweated, my eyes darting about as though there might be some clue on the walls. His eyes seemed to twinkle with sadistic delight, seeing me squirming on the hook he baited for me. My mind went blank like a new apartment wall, and without thinking, I blurted out, “Must be twelve years this August.”

  He blinked, stunned. “Yeah,” he stammered. “Yeah, that’s right.”

  I did my best to hide my surprise at my lucky guess. He seemed too caught up in his own thoughts to notice.

  “So, like I was saying, in all that time, if there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s that you’re never going to sell out and you’re never going to let someone buy you out. Bill Thompson is Thompson’s, and Thompson’s is Bill Thompson. Anyone who thinks you’re about to step away is a fool.”

  I nodded. “What about the rest?”

  “I don’t know much about your health,” he said. “You seem well enough, but who knows what it’s like at your age. Th
ere’s cholesterol, cancer, Alzheimer’s, heart conditions. There are a thousand things that will grab a guy like you out of the blue.

  “As for the possibility of a sex scandal, I wouldn’t dare to propose you would be involved in anything like that.”

  He gave me a wink that made me feel like no amount of scrubbing would make me clean again.

  I wanted to press the issue, but couldn’t figure out the most Bill way to pry apart his comment, and the longer I mulled over my approach, the more awkward it came to do so. Thankfully, a knock at the door gave me a reason to keep on not talking.

  It was a mail kid in a nice shirt and tie, so not that mail kid. He had a few envelopes and a small box, perhaps three inches wide and ten inches long. New business cards, normally nothing of interest. What caught my eye, however, was the text on the sample card stapled to the outside of the box. It read, “Nick Presario, President, Thompson’s.”

  “New business cards,” I said, trying not to seem too intrigued. “May I take a look?”

  Nick hesitated for a moment, then opened the box and offered me one. I took a moment to pretend to be reading it for the first time.

  “President?” I asked, masking my concern. I wondered how he would play it. Would he cower behind a typo? It didn’t seem his style, but what else could he do?

  “Successful people visualize their goals and bring them into reality through strength of will,” he said. “I won’t apologize for wanting to run this company someday. These help me focus my efforts, like a totem. I’ve made business cards in advance of every position I ever held.”

  He smiled at me, the type of smile that made me want to check my wallet or look under the hood of a car that was all polish and no gears. Then he laughed and broke the chilling moment. “Don’t take it personally, Bill. Hell, I still have a box somewhere that says I’m Secretary of State left over from the one semester I was a political science major.”

  “It’s just a little strange is all, seeing someone else with a business card for your job.”

  “I get that,” he said and put a hand on my shoulder. “Let’s not kid ourselves though. Nobody lives forever.”

  I laughed. Despite my best efforts, I couldn’t help but cackle madly. Here I was, effectively immortal standing in for someone so he wouldn’t die, and I was being told that no one lives forever. It couldn’t have been better if I had planned it.

  “Or they retire or move on do one of a hundred different things,” Nick said, suddenly uneasy. No doubt, my laugh unsettled him the way his smile unsettled me. “The point is, one day you won’t be running this company, and I intend to be there to fill that awfully big void you’ll leave at Thompson’s. It’s what vice presidents do. I’ve put a lot of thought into what will happen to Thompson’s if anything should happen to you.”

  He wasn’t wrong. He was creepy, sleazy, conniving, sure. All those things and more, but he wasn’t wrong. I nodded. “As they say, ‘the general who wins the battle makes many calculations in his mind before the battle is fought,’ right?”

  Nick gave me a solid glare and spoke slowly. “You don’t strike me as the type to quote Sun Tzu.”

  Crap. He was right. Bill didn’t seem like the Sun Tzu type to me either. I would have to be more cautious of what I said if I were to continue this masquerade. I scrambled to cover but came up with nothing but a child’s “Sun who?”

  “Tzu,” he said easing off the suspicion just a touch. “He wrote The Art of War. You’ve heard of it, right?”

  “Oh,” I said, trying to cover my gaff. Of course I had heard of it. I fought under generals who swore by it centuries before this country was discovered. Not that that meant Bill was a fan. “Yeah, I’ve heard of it, but can’t say as I’ve read it. Is that what that line’s from? I got it in a fortune cookie once. I think I might still have it in a desk drawer somewhere.”

  Really? his eyebrows seemed to ask.

  “Anyway, I’m sure you’ll take good care of her.” I gave a folksy shrug and hoped that would end it.

  “Of course,” he said. “Now, is there anything else I can do for you?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Can you get Hanson on the phone. Tell him I’m heading down to talk to him about something important.”

  “Yeah, sure.” Nick picked up the phone and began to dial as I left his office.

  Something in his tone left me unconvinced he was innocent, but I would have to deal with that later. I had other leads to follow.

  I bid him good morning and hurried to the elevator, hoping to catch Hanson before he went to lunch. I didn’t think Bill could run, and people would probably think it strange if he couldn’t and I did, so instead I walked quickly like I had some important meeting to attend. No one seemed to notice or care. With my cancelled sabbatical, I’m sure they expected me to look bothered by every urgent thing I had to do and would do their best to stay out of my way. Good.

  I pulled out my phone and dialed up Bill to keep him apprised of the situation. He picked up moments later.

  “Bill,” I said and hoped no one thought it odd, me speaking to myself. Rationally, I knew they shouldn’t. Bill isn’t exactly an uncommon name. Still I felt paranoid, like someone would instinctively know something was up if I spoke to someone also called Bill.

  “It’s so weird hearing my own voice over the phone,” he said.

  “Really?” I asked. “I mean, I’m sure that it would be, but I don’t even recognize my voice when I hear it played back to me. It sounds different in my head.”

  “You aren’t the head of a multinational corporation. You don’t hear your speeches and press conferences played back to you on the evening news at least once a week. Believe me. I am well aware what my voice actually sounds like.”

  “You have a point, but it’s not why I called. I just spoke with Presario. He gave me the creeps.”

  “Me too,” said Bill. “He’s like a shark who smells blood all the time.”

  “And he already has business cards made up for your job.”

  Silence.

  “Does that mean you knew or…?”

  “I don’t know,” said Bill. “Did he say why?”

  “Some wish-fulfillment sounding nonsense about totems and visualizing your goals. Making business cards for the job you want to keep you focused or something. Does that seem like something he would genuinely do?”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. Who knows? I mean, someone is out to kill me. Everything looks suspicious. Why is he having Jell-O for dessert? He normally eats a cookie. You know what I mean?”

  “Did I mention that he casually dropped a couple of times in the conversation that I or we or whatever wouldn’t always be running the company? He said stuff about no one lives forever, and accidents happen, and maybe I’ll have a heart attack and only mentioning something as innocuous as retirement after I shuddered under his gaze. Maybe I’m the one being paranoid this time, but maybe he knows you know.”

  “That’s a lot to think about,” said Bill. “I wish I could have been there, to see how much was out of character for him and how much was just Nick being ruthless old Nick.”

  “Me too,” I said as I reached the elevator. “Look, I’m heading down to Hanson’s office now, to see if I can shake any clues out of him. I’ll keep you posted.”

  I hung up the phone and looked about, just to make certain no one had been listening in on my conversation. After I had convinced myself I had been safely ignored, I mashed the call button and double checked the directory to be sure Marketing was, in fact, on the fourteenth floor. It was. I mashed the button again. And again. For an elevator with exclusive access, it was taking a rather long time to come up. After what felt like several minutes, I gave up and raised my hands in what I hoped was a good, folksy, Omaha huff.

  “Damn elevator!” I shouted and made my way to the stairs.

  “Are you sure you want to take the stairs?” Beverly called from her desk.

  “Well, I certainly don’t want to wait any longer,” I sho
uted back, hoping I sounded more inconvenienced than angry. Bill Thompson didn’t strike me as a quick to anger type, and I would hate to spoil my disguise with the wrong inflection.

  “What about your knee? Do you think it’s up to it?”

  My left knee had been a little stiff, but I had assumed that was just me not being used to old age. I racked my brain for something Bill-ish to say. “Hang the knee,” I called back. “I’ll live.”

  She looked like she wanted to add something to our dialogue, but seemed to think better of it and returned to her work.

  I pushed open door to the stairwell and began to hobble down. After only one flight, I regretted not waiting for the elevator. Beverly wasn’t kidding about that left knee. As I walked, I passed a dark-haired girl, cute in her own way, I suppose. Not the jammiest of the jams, but still attractive. Maybe it was the sweater or maybe it was Bill’s hormones, but I couldn’t help but picture her naked. She smiled coyly, and I felt a flash of recognition.

  “You’re that poor girl who spilled coffee all over Beverly’s desk,” I said.

  “Yeah,” she blushed. “I just got a replacement cup to bring up, but the elevator must be out of order. But it seems you know that already.”

  “Yeah,” I said with a laugh.

  She smiled sheepishly, then went to pass me. I turned awkwardly to let her by and couldn’t help but inhale deeply the scent of her hair as she passed. What the hell, Bill?

  I must have taken her by surprise because she spilled her coffee once again. It was warm, but not hot, thankfully. No doubt it had cooled down after so many flights up. Still, it soaked into my suit and ran down the stairs.

  “Shit,” she said. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to swear. It just…”

  “Isn’t your day?” I asked.

  “No, I guess not. Looks like I have to go all the way back down again.”

  I nodded and shrugged. “Sorry, kiddo.”

  “No,” she said and brushed a few rogue hairs from her face. “I should apologize, not you. I ruined your suit.”

  “Tell you what,” I said. “I’m old, my knee is going out, and now the stairs are wet. If you could help me down, I’d be glad to call us square.”