Searching for Secrets (18 page)

Kirk nodded his head toward the exit. "Come on."

"I'm not at your beck and..." Christa stopped as Kirk moved quickly out the door, into the parking lot. His rudeness seemed to grow by the hour. She picked her purse off the chair and followed him. At this rate, as soon as her car was ready, she was considering parting company with this annoying man and taking her chances with Fast Freddy.

Kirk was already at the car when she got to the parking lot. He opened the door and slid in, and then appeared to reach under his jacket for something that he slipped under the seat. What could that be, she wondered. As she approached the car she heard footsteps behind her and turned to see Hadley.

He walked up to Christa and placed a friendly hand on her shoulder. "Guess this guy has you running around."

"More like following ten paces behind him," she said, her voice showing more irritation than she had intended in talking to anyone but Kirk. She saw the look of surprise on his face and apologized. "Guess I'm just ready for all of this to be over."

"I don't doubt it." Hadley opened the passenger door and held it as she slid in, then bent over so he could look at Kirk. "Heard the captain accompanied you to the door."

"Yeah." Kirk spoke almost as if he had enjoyed the escort. "He's got his fatherly-image hat on today."

"Guess he figures you've had a rough few days. Need any help?"

Christa wondered what Kirk had ever done to deserve such a good friend. Hadley was probably taking some risk in offering to assist them if the captain wanted Kirk off the case.

"Any news on prints in Christa's apartment?"

Hadley's grin included Christa as well as Kirk. "You'll be pleased to know we can look for Fast Freddy on a breaking and entering charge."

"Hot damn!" He slapped the steering wheel. "At least we can get him off the streets." He stopped. Christa had a sense that he had been about to say more but thought better of it.

"I'm just about to put out the word to pick him up,” Hadley said. “We know his haunts."

"Great. Christa and I were just about to get on with some of that relaxing the captain was talking about, weren't we?"

Christa started to remind him that he had promised to take her to the library, but when she turned to face him, she thought she detected a look in his eye that asked her not to mention what they were doing. "Right," she responded, and turned to smile at Hadley. "I'll feel a lot better when you have Freddy behind bars."

Kirk started the car engine, and Hadley gave them both a thumbs-up sign as he shut the car door and stood back. Christa turned to Kirk. "What's going on? Why were you holding your arm so strangely in there?"

"I almost got caught with my hand in the evidence locker, so to speak." He turned out of the parking lot, in the direction of the public library. "I wanted to see Chas Johnson's file, and had just signed it out when I heard one of the guys say good morning to the captain. Almost didn't get it under my jacket in time." He turned to grin at Christa. "In case you're keeping score, I just made you an accomplice in theft of police property."

"Thanks. But why didn't you want to tell Hadley?" Christa felt certain that's what his look had implied earlier.

"Because we can't take the files out of the building. He's willing to help me some behind the captain's back, but even he couldn't let me get away with that." Kirk pulled into the library parking lot. "While you look for whatever you want, I'll go through the file."

"I want to see if there's anything on Syndicated Computer Associates of the Midwest."

"You think they're famous enough to be in a book?" he asked.

"Not likely. But there are listings of local businesses, maybe there will even be a web site or reference to them if I do a Google search."

Twenty minutes later, Christa decided the information she was looking for might as well have been in Greek or any other foreign language. She closed the local business index that the reference librarian had given her and glanced at the clock on the wall. Quarter past eleven. When they arrived, she reserved 15 minutes of computer time, which started now. She stood by one of the two computers, a gentle reminder to the student now using it that his time was up. Grudgingly, he signed out of the program he was using and gathered his books.

Christa logged onto Google and did a search for Syndicated Computer Associates of the Midwest. When nothing came up she searched for portions of the name. There were lots of firms with the phrase "computer associates" in the name, and she was about to try narrow the search for that term to Iowa when she sensed Kirk's presence.

"Any luck?" He leaned against the bookshelf that stood next to the table with her computer. Christa looked up. For a moment she could remember the feeling of his hand pushing the small of her back into him, and she shifted in her chair to rid herself of the memory.

"Not yet. I have a few more ways to check."

Kirk looked down at the small piece of paper on which Christa had scribbled the firm's name. "What's the acronym?" he asked.

They both looked at the paper, and together said, "SCAM."

Kirk threw his head back and laughed so loudly that nearly everyone in the large area looked at them. Self conscious at the attention, Christa focused on the computer screen. "Do you think," she asked, "they gave it that acronym on purpose?"

"Heck, Christa. They probably thought of the acronym first and then came up with words to fit it. You won't find this Syndicated Whatever in any of your books or web pages. But," he held up the manila folder he had appropriated from the police station, "I did get some leads from old-fashioned investigative techniques."

Christa quelled the temptation to tell him where he could put his leads. "What did you find out?"

Kirk nodded toward a nearby table. "Come over here and I'll show you."

Christa logged off the computer and picked up her purse. She told herself she should be delighted at any new information. Solving Amy's kidnapping and preventing the probable drug delivery were the important things. She eased into the seat next to Kirk, careful not to get close enough to rub against him.

Kirk opened the folder and took out two pieces of paper, which he placed next to each other. Each appeared to be preprinted survey forms on which someone had made handwritten notes. "This," he pointed to the one on the left, "is the interview with his grandmother." He moved his fingers down the page to highlight her responses. "She gave a pretty detailed history of where he had worked."

She saw that the responses indicated he had worked for two years in a small electronics store on Highway One, not far from where it intersected with Highway Six. He had left there six months ago, and he stayed with his next three employers less than two months each. Each of the places dealt with electronic equipment of some sort; the third of the short-term employers appeared to be a computer service center of some sort. Christa looked at the scribbled name; New Age Computer Solutions.

Hattie was not sure why he left the first electronics store, but she knew he had been fired from the two jobs after that for failure to go to work. "Looks like he was getting pretty irresponsible the last few months," she observed.

"Typical of a meth user," Kirk said. "They get this rush of energy initially, and then they get real moody, paranoid, irresponsible, and sometimes even violent. Don't you see?"

Christa was more or less forced to look him in the eyes. She tried to ignore her quickened heartbeat. "What do you mean?"

"If he was the one trying to steal your computer, and we can be pretty sure he was, then maybe somebody in one of these firms was in on it with him."

Christa wished she could share Kirk's excitement. She turned back to the paper. No sense looking into the man's sensual brown eyes. "Is there any mention of Freddy working in any of these places?"

Kirk shook his head. "No, but that's not Freddy's style. He might organize the drug end of this scheme, but he's in this with somebody. Somebody who had $400,000 in extra capital and knew how to hide it."

"Or," Christa turned the sheet over, "can make it look like a legitimate business deal." She examined the back of both police interview forms. "How can you tell who wrote this information?"

Kirk took it back and examined both sheets he had shown Christa. "The officer's name should be at the top of each page, and his or her initials should be at the bottom." He frowned. "It's odd that they didn't sign it, but it happens sometimes."

He frowned again as he studied the notes on the interview with Hattie. "No mention that she told the police Freddy said anything about a Halloween delivery. I guess she really did forget."

"I'd put my faith in Hattie before a police report," Christa said. "Maybe the officer who made these notes forgot."

"Maybe." He took the two pieces of paper and put them back into Johnson's file. "We aren't going to find anything by looking for this "SCAM" computer firm. Let's go talk to the former employers."

Christa sensed that Kirk was being careful not to annoy her. She had to put her hurt aside so they could work together. It was the only way to be sure these thugs would be out of her life. Then she and Kirk Reynolds would go their separate ways. "All right," she said simply. "Shall we start with the store he was with the longest?"

MR. STONE HAD run the electronics store for nearly three decades. "People thought I was crazy when I stopped selling the old cabinet televisions and devoted more of my floor space to computers and electronic games. Thought it was a fad." His eyes lit up with glee. "Longest fad I've ever seen. Pretty profitable one, too."

"I'm glad for you," Kirk said, "but what I really need to know about is how well you knew Chas Johnson, and why he stopped working for you."

Twenty minutes and all of his patience later, Kirk learned that Chas had dipped into the cash register receipts a number of times. Stone was clearly saddened that his favorite employee -- who had started coming to the store when he as 10 and had been a favorite customer for years before he began working there -- had been responsible for the shortages. Stone confronted Chas, who denied being a thief. Finally, Stone suggested that the best way to find out would be for Chas not to work for one week. If there were still discrepancies in the daily receipts, Chas would be in the clear. If, on the other hand, the cash register balanced at the end of the day, Mr. Stone would have a better idea who had taken the funds. The thefts stopped, and Chas never returned to learn the results of the informal test.

As he opened the door for Christa to precede him out of the store, Kirk sensed she was troubled. For a change, he didn't seem to be the focus of what was bothering her. "What are you thinking about?" he asked.

"Hattie. She had to watch him change. It must have made her very sad."

"I'm sure it did." It seemed she thought about Hattie, whom she barely knew, more than the people around her. He didn't get it. But he wasn't about to say so. Instead, he suggested they go on to the two short-term employers.

The second store owner had nothing kind to say. He described an earnest young man who had worked hard for a couple of weeks and then began coming in late or calling in sick. There was no evidence that Chas had stolen cash. However, the owner was certain Chas had taken some computer components, specifically various types of additional memory.

"Why that?" Kirk asked. The manager, a nervous man who seemed eager that his visitors leave, merely shrugged.

There was no way to connect the thefts to Chas without doing an inventory after each shift. Instead, the owner had told Chas that, despite his detailed knowledge of personal computers, his increasingly irregular schedule was too big an inconvenience.

"I can bet why he took those particular components," Christa said, as they drove to Chas' last employer. "He must have been moonlighting by upgrading people's computers."

"What do you mean?" Kirk asked.

"Almost as soon as you buy them computers are out of date. Some people add capability to theirs, such as more memory so programs run faster. In this town, with all the college students and people who have home computers, there is a big market for someone who can install the new pieces fairly cheaply."

Kirk thought about that for a moment. "Quick cash. Makes sense, I guess."

It made even more sense when they found out that what he did for his final employer was upgrade and repair computers. Store owner Beverly Haskins had liked Chas Johnson. "I couldn't believe what the papers said about him, that he used drugs and all."

"It looked as if he started only in the months before he died," Christa said.

"I take it that he had not stolen anything from you, that you weren't about to let him go?" Kirk asked.

"Oh no. He was a great help to me." She smiled, thinking about him. "It didn't matter when he came in to do the work, which seemed to suit him. He repaired computers faster than anyone I've ever hired. Everyone was happy with his work."

Kirk shut his notebook. There wasn't much more to be learned from Chas' employers. Unless Hadley could pick up Fast Freddy and get him to describe the next-day delivery, they might never know who was going to get the $400,000 at Heartland National Bank.

"But," Haskins continued. "I don't think he was planning on working here too much longer. He said one of the stores that sent computers here for repair had really liked his work. I'm pretty sure the man who runs the computer store in the mall had offered him a job. Do you know Mr. Watkins?"

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHRISTA'S HEAD HAD BEEN SPINNING ever since Beverly Haskins had mentioned Mr. Watkins' name. Over the past two years, she had gone into his store with dozens of questions about how to use the first two computers he had sold her. He had no obligation to give her the painstakingly clear explanations he had so often provided. Someone that kind couldn't be involved in any illicit activity. Or could he? It had to be a coincidence that Mr. Watkins thought about hiring Chas.