He had landed on his back, his arms up near his face, his legs twisted, but open. He had been slashed in several places—all arteries—and judging by the blood flow, the killer had hit at least two arteries on opposite sides of the body at the very same time.
Just from the way that the slashes were made, Romey was guessing that there was more than one assailant or the assailant was using a kind of weapon that she was unfamiliar with.
Of course, that was if Whitford’s killer had been human.
If the killer wasn’t human, all bets were off. Even a windowless concrete bunker couldn’t keep certain types of aliens out. Some of them might not even trigger perimeter alarms.
But she wasn’t going to make any suppositions about the species of the killer. Not yet. Nor was she going to guess what exactly had killed Whitford.
To her knowledge, no one had seen his back. No one knew whether or not the body’s position—and the blood—had been staged.
“When you’re done with him,” she said to another tech who was working the far end of the room, “make sure you get excellent recordings of what’s underneath him.”
“Underneath?” the tech asked.
“Don’t you think it odd that there’s no furniture in the middle of the room?’
“I think this whole place is odd,” the tech said, and returned to her work.
That about summed it up. The whole place was odd. And Romey had only seen the foyer, one of the corridors, and this living room.
And the grounds. Which had more security than all of the government buildings and the Port combined. She’d had to respond to dozens of alerts in her own internal systems just to override the estate’s commands to shut off her links.
She crouched next to the body, careful not to touch it or the blood spatter near him.
“You gotta wonder,” she said softly to him as if he were still alive to hear it, “if all this paranoia about the perfect security system is what actually got you killed.”
She waited. Of course, there was no response.
Then she stood.
Whatever had killed him had done so with all the security in place. Would it have been easier to kill him without the security? Or did the killer like a challenge?
She had a hunch she’d find out.
Sixteen
Flint made it to Van Alen’s office in record time. Two squads blocked the entry, so he parked in the lot and took the back elevator. On the way, he told Talia that if he caught her touching any computers in Van Alen’s office, he would tell Van Alen.
“So?” Talia said defiantly.
“So you don’t want to go head-to-head with Maxine Van Alen,” he said.
“She won’t get mad at me,” Talia said as the elevator doors opened onto the main floor, “she’ll get mad at you.”
Then she stepped into the large reception area. Flint smiled at her back. She was probably right. He kept forgetting the way other people perceived children—the way he used to perceive them before Talia had come into his life.
Usually the reception area was full of junior associates, assistants, and young successful lawyers hurrying from one important case to another. People were constantly talking, and constantly moving.
But not now. The human receptionist—an affectation that Van Alen insisted on—was the only one in the large area.
“Mr. Flint,” she said as she stood. “Ms. Van Alen is in a situation.”
Not with a client or in a meeting. Flint found that to be an interesting choice of words.
“I have a meeting with her,” he said like he was supposed to, “and I think I’m a few minutes late.”
“I don’t recall…” The receptionist bent over the clear screen that rose from part of her desk. “Oh. You’re right. It’s marked urgent. I’m to send you right back.”
Flint nodded as he headed toward the back. Talia walked beside him until they reached the reception desk.
The receptionist put her hand out. “I’m afraid only Mr. Flint can go back there.”
“She’s my daughter,” he said. “She comes with me.”
The receptionist’s eyes widened just a bit. She apparently had no idea that Talia had come into Flint’s life.
He tried to remember if he had ever brought Talia here before. Probably not. He usually came while she was in school. He didn’t want her to know about this part of his life.
He didn’t want her to know about a lot of his life and his work. She didn’t need to. It put her in danger.
The back, which usually bustled as much as the front, seemed calm as well, but in a different way. Attorneys, assistants, and some clients stood in the corridor, arms crossed, staring down the hallway.
A man’s voice echoed through the normally quiet area.
“Ms. Van Alen, please. Tell them. They can’t arrest me. I didn’t do anything wrong.”
Then there was silence. Flint couldn’t tell whether that was because Van Alen was answering or someone else was speaking.
Talia looked at him. Flint put a hand on her back and propelled her forward.
“Sir,” one of the attorneys said, “I don’t think you should go back there.”
“Maxine’s expecting me,” he said.
He continued to walk past the associates. They all looked nervous. A few stepped aside as he passed.
The corridor narrowed before it opened into the waiting area that was exclusively Van Alen’s. Four police officers stood near the corridor, and more were inside Van Alen’s office.
A man Flint didn’t recognize stood near Van Alen’s desk. He was beefy and red faced, and he looked scared.
Van Alen stood near the waiting room couch, staring into her office. Two more officers stood inside.
They looked like street cops. Flint didn’t see a detective, which surprised him. He would have expected to see one, given what Van Alen had told him.
“You can’t arrest me,” the man was saying. “I’m in a law office.”
“That doesn’t give you immunity,” one of the officers said. “Especially when the office is the one who called us.”
“Is that true?” The man looked at Van Alen. “I came here as a favor to you.”
She didn’t say anything. Flint couldn’t read her face. She seemed calm, but she often put on that demeanor when she was the most nervous.
Talia glanced up at Flint again, as if he should do something. He let his hand drop from her back and stepped around her.
“Maxine,” he said as he walked into the waiting area.
Van Alen looked over her shoulder. For a brief second, he thought she seemed relieved. “Miles.”
“I came for our meeting.”
“We have a situation,” she said.
“I can see that.” He wasn’t sure what she wanted him to do. Everyone faced him, though, as if he were the authority in the room.
The officers seemed uncomfortable. They probably weren’t used to being in a law office. Considering their training, they probably weren’t certain what to do. They knew how to handle problems on the street and in other businesses, but they had been taught to give too much respect to lawyers.
“I used to be a detective with the Armstrong P.D.,” Flint said to Van Alen, even though she already knew that. He knew the cops didn’t. “Do you want me to see what I can do?”
One of the officers said, “No offense, sir, but if you’re no longer with the department, then we’ll have to ask you to step back.”
But Flint continued to look at Van Alen. “Maybe I can mediate. It seems like you’re at an impasse here.”
She looked from the officers to the man in her office.
“Give us a minute,” she said to the police.
They stepped back. That, too, was part of the training and Van Alen clearly knew it. She went into her office and nodded at the officers. They walked out.
“Stay here, Talia,” Flint said.
“Da-ad.” She looked frightened. She had no idea what was going on and he wasn�
�t going to tell her.
“The officers will keep an eye on you.”
“But—”
He didn’t listen to her protest. Instead, he stepped into the office with Van Alen and the man from Whitford Security.
“I don’t need a mediator,” the man said. “I didn’t expect a lawyer to call the cops.”
“Doors down,” Van Alen said. She stood close to the doors, though, as if she didn’t want to get near this man.
He smelled of sweat. His eyes were wild, but if he had found three bodies like he claimed, he had every right to be upset.
“You were on protection duty for Ki Bowles?” Flint asked.
The man glanced at Van Alen.
“It’s all right,” she said to the man. “It’s Mr. Flint’s money that hired your firm.”
The man frowned. “Yes.”
“What’s your name?” Flint asked.
“Pelham Monteith.”
Flint used his links to check the man’s name against Whitford Security’s current public database, which he had downloaded as he headed to meet Van Alen.
It didn’t take him long to find Monteith.
Flint cross-checked the name against the police databases that he could access with his own network.
“I check out, don’t I?” Monteith said.
“I understand you left two crime scenes today,” Flint said.
“I have a duty to my clients.”
“Which you clearly failed at, considering Ki Bowles is dead.”
Monteith flushed.
Flint’s personal links found nothing about Monteith in the database, but he would check from his own system later. He had a way to get into the police records that he didn’t want to try from here.
“Ms. Van Alen is right to call the police. You were wrong not to go to them in the first place,” Flint said.
“You’re saying that because you used to be a detective,” Monteith said.
“I’m a detective who is now a Retrieval Artist,” Flint said.
Monteith started. He obviously knew that Retrieval Artists worked at the edges of the law.
“Then you should understand why I don’t want to go in,” Monteith said.
“You’ll go in,” Flint said. “You’ll let them talk to you. You’ll answer all the questions you can about the deaths of Ki Bowles and Roshdi Whitford.”
“And the other security guard?” Van Alen asked.
Flint looked at her, surprised. He hadn’t heard of the other guard.
“He was Bowles’s guard,” Van Alen said. “He was with her.”
“Enzio Lamfier,” Monteith said softly. He seemed more broken up about his colleague than he was about Bowles. Which made sense. He had worked with the other man.
“You’ll answer every question you can without violating your contract with Whitford,” Flint said.
“Any talking I do to the police violates my contract,” Monteith said.
“Not if it’s what the client wants. I’m the client. You’ll talk to them.”
“What if they arrest me?”
“You’ll do what any other suspect does. You’ll call an attorney. I’m sure Ms. Van Alen can provide names.”
“She’s an attorney.”
“She has a conflict of interest. She brokered the deal between me, Bowles, and your firm. She’s not going to handle your case, nor will anyone from this office.”
Monteith squirmed. Van Alen gave Flint a sideways smile. She could have just told him this was what she wanted him to do. Instead, she let him figure it out on his own.
Which was probably smart. She hadn’t imparted any information across any link, and she hadn’t done anything that someone could use against her in some kind of case that came out of this meeting.
“You guys set me up,” Monteith said.
“That’s not possible,” Van Alen said, “since you came to me.”
“Because you’re on the list. That’s where I’m supposed to go if something went wrong.”
“If you couldn’t find Whitford,” she said.
He nodded, looking miserable.
“But you did find Whitford.” Flint took a step closer. “Where was he?”
“In his house. In the living room.”
“You went in?”
“We all have access,” Monteith said. “He was dead. In the middle of the floor. Someone slaughtered him.”
“Was the death tied to Ki Bowles’s?” Flint asked.
Monteith shrugged.
“Was Enzio Lamfier usually on Ki Bowles detail or was he just there for the day?”
Monteith looked surprised. “How did you know that?”
“What exactly did I know?” Flint asked.
“That he was just there for the day.” Monteith glanced nervously at Van Alen. “This is all confidential, right?”
“No,” she said. “But I’m sure your lawyer can argue it anyway.”
“Then I’m not saying any more.”
“Yes, you are,” Flint said, “or Maxine won’t vet your attorney. You’ll have the same representation as Whitford and if the murders are tied to the company instead of Ki Bowles, you might have some serious conflict of interest problems.”
“What do you mean?” Monteith asked.
“How many of the other people on Ki Bowles’s detail were there just for the day?”
“Most of them,” Monteith said. “We stepped up the numbers after she ran that news story.”
Flint sighed. “Had most been moved as a permanent assignment or were you planning to rotate people in and out?”
Monteith looked at them both. Then he sighed. “We were going to rotate people in and out. Sometimes assigning them the entire time makes them get lax.”
“You were in charge of the assignments?” Flint asked.
“I was in charge of the people on the street,” Monteith said.
“In the Bowles case only.”
He nodded. “I wasn’t going to be rotated in and out.”
“Do you know of any threats to Whitford himself?” Flint asked.
Monteith shook his head. “But it wouldn’t surprise me. We get threats all the time when we’re handling big cases.”
“How about any connection between him and Enzio Lamfier?” Flint asked.
“You mean besides the fact that they were both part of Whitford Securities?”
“Beside that,” Flint said.
“No,” Monteith said.
“I thought you guarded in pairs,” Flint said.
“We do.”
“So you were the second on Bowles?”
“That was Gulliver Illiyitch.”
“Where is this Illiyitch now?” Flint asked.
“I don’t know,” Monteith said. “He should have been with Bowles and Lamfier.”
“But he wasn’t.”
“But that doesn’t mean he’s not on those grounds somewhere.”
“Alive?” Flint asked.
“I don’t know that, either,” Monteith said.
“Aren’t you supposed to defend your clients?”
“Yes,” Monteith said.
“Then shouldn’t Illiyitch have been there?”
“Yes,” Monteith said. “Something happened, I’m sure.”
“You didn’t check?”
“When I saw Bowles’s body, I tried to let Whitford know. When I didn’t reach him the normal way, I went to the business. He wasn’t there so I went to his house.”
“You didn’t look for your missing guard?”
“I wasn’t supposed to. I was supposed to follow procedure.”
“What about Illiyitch? If he’s still alive, what’s his procedure?”
“Same as mine.”
“So you don’t know if he tried to contact Whitford.”
“I don’t know anything!” Monteith looked at Van Alen. “Really. I’m not lying about that.”
“I know,” she said gently. Flint looked at her in surprise. He wasn’t so certain that Monteith was te
lling the truth. Then Flint saw her expression. She had no idea, either. She was just soothing him so that he would talk more.
Flint wasn’t sure he needed much more. He had enough to start with. Maybe enough to get ahead of the police investigation.
“Go with the police,” Flint said. “Cooperate. You’ll be fine.”
“I’ll lose my job,” Monteith said.
“You may have already,” Flint said.
“Because I lost a client?” Monteith asked.
“Because your boss is dead. The business might go along with him.”
Monteith moaned. He clearly hadn’t thought of that.
“Doors up,” Van Alen said.
They rose to reveal the police officers leaning against the walls of the waiting room. Talia was standing near one of the men, talking with him.
She looked relieved when she saw Flint.
He winked at her, then he turned to the officers. “Mr. Monteith will go with you now. He’s going to tell you what he found and what he saw. You don’t need to put him in custody.”
“We’ll decide that,” one of the officers said.
“We’ll be sending an attorney,” Van Alen said, clearly warning the officers that they had limited time with Monteith before someone official would arrive and end the questions.
“I’m…I’m going to go voluntarily,” Monteith said from inside the office, although he hadn’t moved forward. “I’ll tell you what I know.”
The officers looked at one another; then one of them shrugged. Two walked over to Monteith and took his arms, leading him into the waiting area.
Talia watched with real interest, even though she still leaned against the wall. Flint had started toward her when one street cop held out a hand to stop Flint.
“What did you do?” the cop asked.
“Mediated, like I said I would.” Flint kept his voice even.
“Should we take you along as well?”
“If you think it’s necessary,” Flint said.
The cop blinked at him. Van Alen was watching closely. Talia had bit her lower lip, looking nervous. Monteith glanced at Flint.
The one thing Flint had forgotten to tell Monteith was to keep the identity of the paying customer quiet.
Well, Monteith was going to tell what he knew. If he told them that Flint was the paying customer, then he wasn’t violating Flint’s instructions, and it would be Flint’s own fault.
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