Monahan 02 Artificial Intentions (33 page)

I sat in silence and looked out the window of the car, admiring the green space of Central Park. Lou had turned into the Park on West 86th and I watched the dozens of joggers on the path near the Reservoir.

I turned to Kelly who was lost in his own thoughts.

“This is pretty hopeless isn’t it?” I asked him.

“It may seem like it, at this point. But something’ll break.” He was trying to sound reassuring. “I’ve only been at this for a day or so. We will get to the bottom of this. Don’t you worry, Miss Monahan.”

chapter forty-six

Kelly’s cell phone rang while Lou was driving south on Fifth Avenue right past the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Another place I wanted to visit and hadn’t had the time yet.

“Northland,” he said into the phone, and then he listened for a few seconds. “Let me call you back in fifteen.” He snapped the cover shut on his phone and shoved it back into his belt holster. Lou pulled up in front of my apartment building a few minutes later.

I exited the car onto the sidewalk and thanked Lou who was holding open the car door for me. Our doorman was standing nearby under the awning of the entrance to the building. Kelly exited the car on the sidewalk side as well, and told me he would see me to the apartment.

I got close to both he and Lou and asked them,
sotto voce
, if they thought all this extra togetherness was necessary. Lou took umbrage with that and drew in a deep breath, stuck out his seemingly fifty-two inch chest and said, not so
sotto voce
, “If anything were to happen to you, like what happened to Mr. Connaught,” (he pronounced it Keh-nott), “I could nevah live wid myself.”

I patted his arm and told him I appreciated his attention and his driving and that I was only joking (kind of). Kelly’s cell phone rang again as we were walking into the apartment building. I gave the doorman a smile, feeling like royalty, and headed towards the back of the lobby and the elevators. Kelly was talking quietly into the phone when the elevator doors opened. We waited while three people exited, one of whom was my favourite nosy neighbour, Miss Constance Everwood from the 20th floor. I motioned to Kelly to wait for a minute and stepped up to say hello.

“Miss Everwood,” I said, “Good afternoon.”

She stopped and placed both hands on her cane and peered up at me.

“Miss Monahan. How nice to see you,” she said.

“Likewise,” I said. We walked, or rather shuffled, over to the side of the elevator lobby for a little chat. Miss Everwood was dressed in a beautiful off-white, cashmere coat, sensible chocolate brown walking shoes, and a jaunty hat right out of the thirties. It even had a little feather on the side. The whole outfit looked a little warm for the temperature outside, but some older folks are apparently cold all the time. She had a mesh shopping bag hanging from the same arm as her purse.

“Off to do some shopping?” I inquired.

“Yes. I’m just picking up a few Friday night treats. Thought I’d rent a video, get a bag of popcorn and maybe a chocolate bar. Seen any good movies lately?” she asked me.

I was a little taken aback. Her Friday night sounded like one of mine, not what you would expect of an eighty-year old woman.

“Depends,” I told her. “What type of movies do you like? Chick flicks? Action?”

“I love movies with lots of sex and gratuitous violence,” she said. With a straight face.

“Really?”

She slapped me on the arm. “No, I was just joshing with you. I do like movies with some action.”

“Then watch Pearl Harbour. It’s really good.”

“No, I don’t think so. Thanks anyway, but when you’ve lived through the horror of something like that, you don’t necessarily want to see it on the big screen.”

I imagine she had a point.

“Not to worry,” she told me. “Part of the fun is browsing at the video store and watching people’s reaction when I ask where the porno flicks are.” She laughed at this and so did I. Our Miss Everwood was quite a joker.

“So,” I nudged her. “Any action at the apartment of my co-worker?”

She shook her head. “Nope. Although I did get a few hours of sleep last night so I can’t guarantee there wasn’t some coming and going. But I doubt it. Nobody’s allowed in or out of that place after eight at night. I think I told you that didn’t I?”

“Yes. Yes you did Miss Everwood. Thanks for the information. Enjoy your movie and your Friday evening.” She gave me a little wave and shuffled off.

Kelly was standing in the same spot, still talking on the phone. He finally hung up as I was putting my key in the apartment door.

“My guy’s on the ground in Flagstaff,” Kelly said. “If you’ve got a minute, I can come in and fill you in.”

“Absolutely,” I told him. “Gimme a minute to change into my jeans. Help yourself to anything you want in the kitchen.”

Kelly was sitting at the breakfast bar and Jay was serving coffee when I joined them in the kitchen. As soon as I climbed up on my barstool, Jay served me a hot, black coffee.

“Thank you,” I told him and then turned to Kelly, who was sitting beside me. “So, give us a report.”

“Okay. Jerry Rigley, my guy, has been in Flagstaff for about two hours now. He headed straight for the hospital because he wanted to see if he could get any information from them before the administration types close up shop for the weekend. The hospital confirmed that both Miss Scott and Mr. Tucker were employed at the hospital at the same time. That’s about all they would share. Jerry did manage to buy the secretary in the personnel department a coffee and she was so grateful she gave him the home addresses they had on file for both Scott and Tucker. Checking out both of those addresses are next on his list of things to do. Hopefully, he’ll find someone who can recollect something about the two them.”

Kelly sipped his coffee and I had a hunch he had more news so I sipped my coffee too, and waited. Jay was leaning against the opposite counter, with his arms folded across his chest.

A couple of silent moments passed and I finally broke it. “So, anything else to report Kelly?”

“Well, there is some news a little closer to home,” he offered. “Apparently Mr. Ben Tucker has been seeing a nephrologist here in New York.”

“Excuse my ignorance, but what’s a nephrologist?” Jay asked.

“A kidney specialist,” I told him. “I learned that the other day when I was doing all my reading of the Global Devices files and our PISTON project.”

“Well that’s interesting,” I said to Kelly. “What are they treating him for? Is it an infection?”

“No, I’d say it’s a little more serious than that. It seems our Ben Tucker, or Donald MacLean, is on dialysis. Three times a week.”

“That would explain why he was nowhere to be found when I went looking for him the other day. Can people on dialysis hold full time jobs?” I wondered out loud. “How long does dialysis take?” I wasn’t sure who I was asking these questions of, but it was definitely an interesting subject. And, it seemed that Kelly had the answers.

“Dialysis is different for each person. Each session can take anywhere from an hour to overnight. Lots of people keep their jobs while on dialysis. In Tucker’s case, the dialysis appointments last three hours each time.”

It suddenly struck me that at every turn we were running into kidneys. Real ones or artificial ones. I had heard more and learned more about kidneys in the last two weeks than I really cared to know. I mused about that for a while before Kelly interrupted my thoughts.

“Mr. Tucker is in dire straights though,” Kelly told us. “He has kidney damage because of his paraplegia. He’s losing his kidney function and is close to renal failure.” Kelly reached inside his jacket and pulled out his little notebook. He flipped to a page near the middle and read from it. “Apparently he has
neurogenic lower urinary tract dysfunction.” He looked up at me. “He needs a kidney transplant. Soon.”

“That’s not all he needs,” I said. “A kidney transplant. And a job. His ass is fired for lying on his job application.” I felt only a wee bit of satisfaction when I said that out loud. It would have been better if I could have said it to his face.

Although it seemed like a lifetime ago, it was just yesterday that I had confronted Ben in my office about the Global Devices contract. He had denied any knowledge of what was going on. If asked, I wondered how well he would be able to deny knowing Nat Scott before working at Phoenix. The man was a convicted sexual offender, which in all likelihood put him in the category of psychopath. I think that’s the right term to describe people convicted of sex crimes. Just to make sure I wandered into the bedroom and grabbed the dictionary off the shelf.
Psychopath: a person affected with antisocial personality disorder.
Well, one could argue that sexual offenders fit into the category
antisocial
. The internet gave me more insight into antisocial personality disorder.
Psychopaths use charm, manipulation, intimidation, sex and violence to control others and satisfy their needs. They have no conscience or empathy. Psychopaths are pathological liars, have grandiose self-images and use glibness and superficial charm to get what they want.
I felt like ice water had been poured over me and I shuddered.

Jesus, Mary and Joseph. What had I gotten into this time?

chapter forty-seven

Carrie and I spent at least an hour on the phone going over a list of things I had missed that day at the office. There were a dozen phone calls to return, none of which couldn’t be put off until Monday. At least that’s what I thought as she went down the list of calls.

Russ Freeson had asked that we meet as soon as possible to go over updated financial statements. He and the auditors had apparently re-worked all the numbers after he got the news about Global. The quarterly financial statements that we had filed about two weeks ago with the Securities Commissions would have to be restated and refiled.
Fuck, fuck, fuck
. Not good. More fucking damage control and I wasn’t confident that we would be lucky enough to get this done with little fanfare or scrutiny. So far there had been no coverage of the release we had issued on the cancellation of the Global Devices contracts. Let’s keep our fingers crossed.

Sandra Melnick, our VP Operations who had agreed to take over R and D, had called. She had spent the day with the team and wanted to report back to me. Call her on Monday.

Mark Hall, our whining VP of Sales who had made such an indelible impression on us yesterday, had called. Hoped I didn’t mind, but he was going to take some time, take a few days off, maybe head over to Bermuda with his wife. Get away from it all.

“Was he kidding?” I asked Carrie.

“No Kate, he wasn’t.”

“Remind me to deal with that on Monday,” I instructed her. Mental note to self to fire that whining wimp. Unbelievable how a good crisis brings out the finest in some people.

“Get Russ Freeson in to see me first thing on Monday. Ask him if there are copies of the financial statements that he could fax to the apartment now. Do you have the fax number here?” She did and she would call Mr. Freeson right away.

Sara Williston from the bank had called. Twice.

“Did she say what it was about?”

“No, but the second time she called she sounded a little disappointed that you weren’t here.”

My watch said it was 4:30. By some standards, that would be way past quitting time for some bankers. Not Sara though. She answered on the second ring.

“Sara, it’s Kate Monahan. My office said you called today.”

“Hi. Thanks for calling back. I hope I didn’t get you at a bad time.”

“No, I’m at home, just finishing up for the day. What’s up?”

“I’m not sure,” she started tentatively. “Do you know if Tom was acquainted with a Dr. Jordan Francis?”

“Yes he was. Why?”

“Well, one of our branches on the Upper West Side called me today. Very strange.” She paused.

“And?”

“They were doing a routine audit at the bank, and one of the auditors was checking that all the safety deposit boxes had been paid for and she recognized a name on the list of box holders.”

“Whose? Dr. Francis’?”

“Yes, but she recognized the other name from recent news reports. Tom Connaught. He’s a co-owner of the box. The auditor looked up Tom in the bank records and saw that he was a customer at my branch. And called.”

We both paused for a minute.

“I want into that safety deposit box,” I told her.

“You can’t Kate. Tom was only a co-owner. We’d need Dr. Francis’ permission.”

“Well, that’s not likely in the near future. He hasn’t been heard from in almost a month.”

“Is there some way to contact him?” Sara asked.

“Not that I know of. He hasn’t been seen at his home or his office for over a month.”

“Are NYPD looking for him?”

I snorted at this. “They didn’t seem too interested today when I tried to talk to them about it. Dr. Francis was a client of our company and from talking to people at his place of work it seems he resigned his job and said he was moving away. That doesn’t sound like a missing person to most people. It sounds like someone who doesn’t want to be contacted.”

“Well, I’m sorry but until Dr. Francis turns up, we can’t access the box. I didn’t mean to upset you with this news Kate, I just thought you’d want to know.”

“Yeah, thanks Sara. I’m not upset. Just another dead end in a day of dead ends. Not very encouraging but interesting.”

So what the hell could be in that safety deposit box? What were Tommy and the impossible to find Dr. Francis up to?

It was Friday night, and I was glad to see the end of the work week. If I had been at my apartment in Toronto I would be doing some housework, some laundry, ordering a pizza for delivery, and hunkering down with a good Harlequin romance novel. A normal, boring, Friday evening. But nothing that had happened over the last couple of weeks resembled normal, and I longed for it. The traffic below on Fifth Avenue was heavy, and the fumes from the cabs and buses, and Lincoln Town Cars wafted up to where I was sitting on the balcony with my Diet Coke. My feet were up on a cushioned ottoman and my drink was sitting on a glass-topped table beside me. You could fit one small kitchen chair on my balcony in Toronto so I was feeling pretty special sitting in this very comfortable outdoor chair, enjoying the exhaust filled air. The smoke from my cigarette just added to the whole ambience. Jay would be back soon with our pizza and I had a good book to get into. I might even take a long bath and get into bed really early.