Bad Business (20 page)

I
was part of the family at Kinergy by now. I smiled at the woman at the reception desk and headed for the elevators without anyone saying
may I help you.
Kinergy was humming right along, just as if things were going good. Up in Gavin's old office Marty Siegel and his two assistants were deep into their computers. Adele sat close to Marty, I noticed, looking over his shoulder. Vinnie sat tilted back in a high-backed leather swivel chair near the window. He shot me with his forefinger when I stuck my head in the door.

“Progress?”

Marty didn't even look up from the computer.

“You'll be the first to know,” he said.

“Attitude?” I said. “After I got you this lucrative gig?”

“Go track down a criminal,” Marty said.

“Okay,” I said.

Adele smiled at me, though I think Marty had replaced me in her affections, or Vinnie, or maybe both. Inconstancy, thy name is Adele.

I went on down the hallway to Bob Cooper's big corner office and past the platoon of secretaries in his outer office to the desk of the secretary in chief in her inner office. And she ushered me into the vast digs of the CEO. Cooper stood when I came in and gave me a huge smile. Welcome wherever I went.

“Spenser,” Cooper said and came around his desk, which took him a while because the desk was nearly the size of Vermont. “Good to see you. You caught any bad guys lately?”

“You should know,” I said.

“Ouch,” Cooper said. “I really walked into that one.”

I sat in one of the eight or ten red leather armchairs scattered around the office.

“Talk to me about Gavin,” I said.

“Ah, Gav,” he said. “Damn shame. Was it definitely decided it was suicide?”

“If it wasn't,” I said, “why would someone kill him?”

“God,” Cooper said, “you think someone killed him?”

“Well, if it wasn't suicide, what would be the other options?” I said.

“Of course! Jesus, I'm getting dumber by the minute,” Cooper said. “Do you think it was murder?”

“Do you think he would kill himself?” I said.

“No, Gav was a stand-up guy. He'd been in the military, you know. And then he was CIA. It's hard to imagine he'd kill himself.”

“So who would kill him?” I said.

“The police think it's murder?”

“Police haven't told me,” I said.

There was no special reason to lie about it, but on the other hand there was no special reason not to.

“Gav would have been hard to kill.”

“Depends on who's got the gun,” I said.

“Yes, of course, I suppose with a gun . . .”

“So why would someone shoot him?” I said.

“Well, he was in that spy business, he might have made enemies.”

“I'd buy that more if he wasn't the second Kinergy guy in a month to die of gunshot.”

Cooper nodded. On the oak-paneled wall behind his desk was a huge portrait of Big Wilma, looking pretty much like Big Wilma.

“I suppose,” he said.

“Any other thoughts?”

“I don't . . . I can't . . . everybody liked Gav.”

“He was very loyal to you,” I said.

“Oh, God, yes. I mean Gav and I go way back. Ever since Yale.”

“He wasn't married,” I said.

Cooper smiled. “Gav wasn't good with women,” Cooper said.

“Which means?”

“He was divorced three times.”

“Any current action?” I said.

Cooper grinned at me, man to man.

“There was always current action for Gav,” Cooper said.

“Any current favorites?”

“Gee,” Cooper said, “I don't want to be telling tales out of school.”

“Neither do I.”

He recognized the threat. It almost pierced the jovial CEO shield for a moment, but he righted himself.

“But I'd rather tell them than have you tell them,” he said. “Gav was spending a lot of time with Trent Rowley's missus.”

With all the information clutter, I had forgotten it: my first meeting with Jerry Francis, outside the Rowley home:

“So far the only person I caught her with was him.”

“Her husband?”

“Yeah. Guy who hired me.”

Gavin had hired him.

“Gavin was seeing Marlene Rowley?” I said.

“Yep.” Cooper smiled some more. “No accounting for taste, I guess.”

“I guess,” I said.

“I
'm just going out for my walk,” Marlene said. “Can you walk along with me?”

I said I could, and we set out. Marlene was in full stroll regalia as we walked past the big empty lawns of her neighborhood. A symphony of spandex. At the end of her street we turned and walked along the seawall. Below us the ocean washed across the beach. There were people in bathing suits down there and occasionally one worth studying. Marlene made no reference to getting fried and passing out on me the last time I saw her. I suppose, in fact, that there isn't so much to be said.

“Shame about Steve Gavin,” I said.

“Yes.”

“Did you know him?” I said.

“Oh, yes, of course. I saw him at a number of Kinergy functions that I attended with my husband.”

“Would you have any idea why he might want to kill himself?”

She couldn't resist the dramatic opportunity. She did an amateurish impression of someone thinking. Frowning, her lips slightly pursed, her eyes narrowed.

“Maybe he was unlucky in love,” she said.

“Who was he unlucky in love with?”

“Who? Oh God, I don't know. I just said that. I mean, isn't that why a lot of people kill themselves?”

“Any reason someone might want to kill him?”

“Someone? Who? I thought he killed himself.”

“Well,” I said, “just hypothetically, if it wasn't suicide but murder. Who would you suspect?”

“Suspect?”

“Hypothetically,” I said.

A good-looking woman walking a small black-and-white bull terrier walked past us. I glanced at the woman's backside. Excellent. Marlene looked at me as if she disapproved.

“Cute dog,” I said.

“I can't really guess,” Marlene said, “even hypothetically, about Mr. Gavin's death. I barely knew him.”

I nodded. We walked along the water. Ahead of us on the sidewalk a couple of gulls were fighting over an orange peel. They flew up as we reached them and came back down to continue the fight when we were past.

“Marlene,” I said, “you were intimate with Gavin.”

“Excuse me?”

“Marlene,” I said, “you were intimate with Gavin.”

“That's a terrible thing to say.”

“Marlene, you really should stop lying to me,” I said.
“A private detective named Jerry Francis spotted you together several times. A very reliable source, highly placed at Kinergy, says Gavin was keeping company with you.”

Marlene stopped and leaned on the iron railing along the seawall and stared out at the ocean. Then she turned slowly back toward me. Her eyes looked a little moist, but some people can produce that look with effort.

“Damn you,” she said. “You leave me nothing. No shred of dignity.”

“Maybe a shred,” I said. “Tell me what you can about Steve Gavin.”

“He was a very fine man.”

“And you're heartbroken by his demise,” I said.

“Oh, why must you be cruel. I couldn't show what I felt.”

“Why not?”

“I was a, a married woman,” she said.

“Until your husband's death.”

“And after my husband's death?” she said. “What would people think if the next day I was flouncing around with Gav?”

“Hideous to contemplate,” I said. “Did Gav have a theory about your husband's death?”

“No, of course not, he would have told the police immediately.”

“I'm sure,” I said. “Did he know anything about your wife-swap arrangement with Bernie and Ellen?”

She slapped me. It was a showy slap, but not a very hard one. I stayed on my feet.

“I'll take that as a no,” I said. “Did he know about Darrin O'Mara and his program?”

“You bastard,” she said. “Doesn't anything touch you?”

“I'd be deeply touched,” I said, “if you told me whether Gavin knew about O'Mara and his program.”

“I may have mentioned something about it.”

“Did you tell him you were involved?”

“No, of course not. I simply told him that I'd heard it was popular at Kinergy.”

“Was he interested in that?”

Marlene was doing defiant now. Her head was up and sort of tilted back, as one's head would be if speaking to an underling.

“Yes. He seemed quite interested. It is, after all, quite an interesting concept.”

“You bet,” I said. “Was there anything else he was interested in?”

She almost blushed.

“I don't mean that,” I said. “Was there anything else about your husband or about the company that Gavin seemed interested in.”

“There was some sort of money problem, I think. He had talked with Trent about it, I think, before Trent passed away.”

“Did he say what kind of money problem?”

“Nothing I paid attention to. I found it all very boring.”

“Did he talk with anyone else about it?”

“He seemed worried about Coop,” she said. “After Trent's tragic death, Gav said maybe he could talk with Bernie.”

“Bernie Eisen.”

“Yes.”

I put my hands up to defend my face.

“He didn't know about you and Bernie.”

She had moved from haughty to icy.

“I told you, no.”

“So how long had you and Gavin been an item?” I said.

“Since, let me see, we were, um, together for the first time . . . it was just a little while before Trent's death, I believe.”

The woman with the bull terrier came back along the seawall toward us. I watched her over Marlene's shoulder. The front was as good as the back.

“So for a while there,” I said to Marlene, “you were juggling Trent, Bernie, and Gavin. Pretty good.”

“I wasn't juggling anything,” she said. “I was trying to find myself.”

“How'd that work out?” I said.

“Very well, thank you. I know who I am now.”

I avoided the trap she had set. I did not ask her who she was. Whoever she was I was sick of her. The only genuine thing she had done since I met her was to get zonkered at lunch.

“Shall we walk back?” I said.

“Tired already? I always walk five miles. I'm in excellent condition.”

“Can you do a one-armed push-up?” I said.

“A what?”

“Never mind,” I said.

“Five miles too much?” she said.

“Yes,” I said. “I'll say goodbye here.”

“Well, I hope I've been helpful,” she said.

“Sure have.”

“Good,” she said. “We always enjoy our time together, don't we.”

“Always,” I said.

B
ack at my office I called the management company that ran the Park Drive apartment complex where Coop had his love nest, and impersonated a police officer. There was no one named Cooper in the building, nor anyone named Griffin. Apartment 2B was rented to Steven Gavin. Checks were from his own account.

I looked at the big picture of Susan on my filing cabinet.

“So,” I said to her, “Gavin knew about the love nest, and he knew about something else, something to do with money which he'd spoken to Trent Rowley about, and maybe Bernie Eisen.”

And Trent Rowley was dead, and so was Gavin. Had he mentioned the money thing to Cooper? Didn't sound like it. Why not? Because Cooper wasn't involved in the hands-on day to day. Because he wanted to be president
and would need deniability if some sort of money scandal emerged.

“So why was Gavin having Marlene and Ellen followed?” I said to Susan's picture.

Susan's picture didn't seem to know, either. And why, in addition, was he pursuing an affair with Marlene? Love was of course a possibility. But it wasn't a certainty. The fact that he was having her followed wouldn't be a problem if he wanted to sleep with her. Jerry Francis and his partner reported only to him, and they thought he was Marlene's husband anyway. And she was attractive enough to sleep with if you didn't have to talk with her afterward. Maybe he slept with her because she was available. But he went back, if I could believe her, for more. Why? Research?

Say he was as loyal to Cooper as Adele said he was. Cooper seemed to think so, though I detected no real sense of loss. Cooper probably didn't feel much about people other than Cooper. And say, because he was renting the love nest for him, that Gavin knew Cooper was involved in some sort of seamy sex thing. But he might not have known what, and it worried him. He wanted Cooper to be a senator, maybe president, too.

But the seamy sex thing wouldn't get him killed. Cooper would know he could keep the secret. Hell, Cooper had him rent the apartment on Park Drive. So it was something else. And the only something else I knew about was the money thing. Which Marty was working on. So why was Gavin having two wives tailed about a money thing?

I looked at my picture of Susan again. It had been taken in the country, and she was wearing a straw hat
and holding a glass of wine, and talking to someone off camera and smiling, like she smiles, with her head turned and tilted a bit. She was so Susan in the picture. It was my favorite.

“What am I missing?” I said.

Susan's picture gave it some thought. I gave it some thought. Neither of us said anything for a while. It was a humid August. Outside my window it had gotten darker than it should have in the middle of the afternoon. And I could hear thunder. The thunder wasn't close. Too far away yet for lightning. No rain yet. But the air was suspenseful with it, and it would be here soon.

Then I said, “They intersect.”

I was pretty sure Susan's picture said,
of course they do.

There was something in common between the seamy sex thing and the money thing. Otherwise I could make no sense of it. Which meant here came Darrin O'Mara again. And his pal Lance.