Dead Men's Tales (Olivia Grant Mysteries Book 2) (6 page)

"Are you trying to get rid of me?"

"Not a bit. Just thinking of your happiness."

He went on into his office where he sank into his chair, swiveled it around, and put his feet on his desk. Naturally, I followed him.

"Let's not talk about my love life. I want to know what you learned today."

"Okay. I checked out the hotel again: the linen room, the reception area, the dining room, asked questions at the front desk. Also got the names of the employees on duty that night and spoke to most of them."

"And?"

"I couldn't find the briefcase anywhere. One waiter
thinks
he saw Hammond holding something like it that night, but he's not sure."

"That sounds pretty conclusive to me. Hammond carried it in, and someone else carried it out."

"Everyone else seems to deny having it."

"You haven't talked to everyone yet." I sat down. "I'll ask Debra and Rose, but there's still that vice president, John Ziegler, and his wife."

Brad leaned back in his chair and chewed absentmindedly on his thumbnail, a habit of his I'd first noticed after I returned from England a few months ago.

"And maybe Amanda is lying. She could be the murderer." Earlier I had dismissed that idea, but it pleased me because I thought Brad had taken too much of a liking to her too soon, arousing my protective instincts. She'd given me the impression of being a cold, calculating woman, not my idea of the perfect sister-in-law. Besides, extra mother that I was, I wouldn't feel I'd completed my job until both Brad and Samantha were married, owned a home with a sizeable mortgage, and had several children I could spoil rotten.

He glanced up. "Why do you think Amanda is lying? By the way, I talked to the young man who carried the statues for her. He says he left the room immediately."

I smirked. "See? Plenty of time for her to have killed Harry."

"We still need a motive."

"Maybe there's something incriminating in the briefcase, and she wants you to find it before the police do."

"The police don't seem to care about it."

"How do you know? Did Tom Ortega say so?"

He ignored my questions. "So far, I count her out. I think her interest in the briefcase is exactly what she said it is—business papers she has to handle."

I sighed. Brad was probably right, and I was just being overly suspicious. He left the office, but I remained for another few minutes, thinking of nasty ways of disposing of Amanda, all, unfortunately, barred by the Geneva Convention.

When I entered Brad's office on Tuesday morning, I found a man pacing the floor. In his early forties, I assumed, tall and slender. His light brown hair was beginning to recede in a Tom Hanks way. Attractive, too.

"Good morning. I'm here to see Mr. Featherstone."

"He's not in?" I hustled over to the connecting door, opened it, and looked in Brad's office. No Brad. "How did you—"

"The door wasn't locked." He fingered his tie and collar and looked a little uncomfortable, as if he'd been caught using the executive washroom.

So the cleaning crew had failed to lock the outer door again the night before. I only hoped I wouldn't walk in some morning and find a serial killer waiting for me.

"Do you have an appointment?"

"No, but we spoke yesterday, and he gave me his card."

"Have you been here long?"

"About five minutes." He sat down and folded his arms across his chest, as if getting prepared to wait even longer.

"May I get you some coffee while you're waiting, Mr.—" He didn't fill in his name because I no sooner got the words out when the outer door opened, and Brad breezed in.

"Mr. Novotny, come on in. I see you've met Mrs. Grant."

So this was Carl Novotny, the man who'd found Harry's body. Also, I remembered from Brad's tape, the man who'd had a heated argument with Amanda in the hallway of their building. After acknowledging our introduction by shaking my hand, he followed Brad into his office.

I sat behind the desk in the receptionist office and turned on the computer. This time Brad hadn't closed his door, and I heard bits of their conversation.

I debated getting up and closing the connecting door myself—after all, I'd learn everything when I transcribed the tape Brad always made—but excessive curiosity was a deep-seated sin of mine.

I heard Novotny say, "Yesterday, when you came to my office, you asked me a question about problems within our company."

Brad didn't answer immediately. "I asked who stands to gain, financially or otherwise, from Hammond's murder."

"I didn't want to answer that just then. People could be listening and reporting things. You know what I mean? I started to phone you this morning, then decided just to come over and tell you what I think in person."

Brad said, "Good," and then seemed to be waiting to hear what secrets Novotny might reveal. Personally, I thought the man sounded a little paranoid. Did he think someone had bugged his own office? I'd married right out of college, so I worked only briefly in an office myself, but I'd heard a few unpleasant stories about sexual harassment and backstabbing, to say nothing of downsizing and corporate takeovers. What other shenanigans went on in Harry's company besides the rumors about him and Amanda?

"I'm only the marketing director," Novotny said, "so I don't have access to any but routine financial records, but something may be a little shady."

"How shady?"

"Like I said, I'm not sure. Some of us get stock options in the company as part of our annual compensation, but lately John Ziegler…"

Brad interrupted. "That's the vice president?"

"Yes. He's been trying to buy up options owned by the rest of us."

Aha, a takeover attempt.

"You think he's trying to get control of the company? Did Hammond suspect?"

"No, I don't think so. Hammond owned most of the shares, of course, but with him gone, Ziegler might try to buy out the widow."

"As vice president, won't he pretty much run the company anyway?"

"I doubt it."

"Then who will?"

"Amanda Dillon."

I didn't hear anyone speak for a long moment after that and assumed the lull meant Brad was pondering that new information. Personally, I thought the mention of Amanda—her face should suddenly collapse like Dorian Gray—popped up way too often.

Novotny continued. "Ziegler operated under Amanda's orders during Hammond's absences, and I think she has an employment contract that gives her a lot of power."

"How about you? Where do you stand in the company hierarchy?"

"Behind Ziegler at the moment, but Hammond planned some changes. If he took the title of CEO and made Amanda president, I could have moved up ahead of Ziegler."

"Why is that?"

"Because Hammond knew that Ziegler despised Amanda, that he didn't like working for a woman."

"A young and pretty woman, at that."

"Right. He's older. He hasn't adjusted to the way things are now. You have to give Hammond credit. He recognized potential in people and promoted them—men or women."

"I'm impressed." Still, Brad's tone revealed a smidgen of sarcasm.

"So you didn't mind working with Amanda, got along with her just fine." He paused. "You may not have been aware of it, but I happened to be standing in the hallway yesterday when you and she had an argument. I didn't hear the conversation, but it looked serious to me."

Novotny hesitated about a nanosecond. "We had a difference of opinion about something, that's all. Nothing important."

"Getting along with her is admirable, but I've been hired to find some answers, and your wanting to move up might seem to some people like a motive for murder."

Novotny's voice didn't reveal any concern. "The police may suspect me, like everybody else, but if I wanted to kill him, I'd have waited until after he promoted me, wouldn't I? Why do it before?"

I thought that over. Novotny's reasoning made sense. If I were he and wanted to take over the company, I wouldn't kill Harry with a vice president and Amanda Dillon still in line ahead of me.

"I'm trying to help," Novotny said next. "Ziegler is the financial officer, and I think he's been hatching this for a long time. Maybe Hammond found out, so Ziegler killed him. Or else he hired somebody else to do it." He paused. "You want to absolve Mrs. Hammond, so I'm offering it for what it's worth."

"Okay." Brad's tone suggested a shrug. "Thanks. I'll look into it. Anything else I ought to know?"

"As a matter of fact, yes. Are you aware that Hammond's daughter was having an affair?"

I groaned. Not another person trying to throw suspicion on Debra Hammond. I stopped listening momentarily, disturbed about this change of direction. First, he implicated Ziegler, then Debra. His stories could have been just that, stories, an attempt to divert suspicion from the real murderer, himself. As Brad had hinted the day before, he might have killed Hammond that night and only pretended he found him already dead.

"James Powell is a real sleazebag," I heard Novotny say. "And, since he manages the Bay Meadows store, he attended the banquet Saturday night. So he had the opportunity to kill Hammond."

Powell? Who was Powell? I hadn't heard that name before. I got up from my chair and walked across the little office, hoping to hear better from the other side of the open door.

"Interesting," Brad said. "Do you have any proof of his affair with Debra Hammond?"

"No, but she's been seen in their store."

Brad made a scoffing sound. "Since when is a woman going into a jewelry store suspicious?"

"When her father owns a different jewelry store in the same mall."

"So you think that the only possible reason she could have for going there would be to see Powell."

"Of course."

"She wouldn't just want to discuss business with another jewelry store owner?"

"Powell isn't the owner, though he acts like he is. Anyway, I don't think Debra had anything to do with her father's business, nothing to discuss with anybody there. I think she works for a financial company."

"Assuming for a moment you're right and Debra Hammond is seeing James Powell, why would one of them need to kill her father?"

"Maybe to keep him from disinheriting her."

"Forgive me for doubting you, Mr. Novotny, but not many daughters kill their fathers, and if they do, it's not usually over money. If she married the guy, she might not need her father's money."

I clamped my hand over my mouth to keep from protesting out loud. Brad had repeated my very words. I supposed next he'd add that after some grandchildren arrived, Harry would have come to accept Powell as his son-in-law.

But he didn't say it.

Next, I heard Novotny again. "Everyone knew that Hammond hated that whole operation. You see, a long time ago Hammond and Kevin McDonald had been partners in the jewelry business."

Kevin McDonald? Good grief, the list of people I'd never heard of was growing like Pinocchio's nose.

"When they split, McDonald went to L.A. and developed his own line of jewelry stores, but then he opened one in the same mall up here."

"How did Hammond react to that?" Brad asked.

"Made his blood boil. And then rumors started that his daughter, Debra, had a thing going with the manager, Powell."

"Did Hammond ever threaten Powell or say anything about what he'd do if his daughter became involved with him?"

"Not to me personally," Novotny admitted. "He probably said something to Amanda. She knew everything."

A short silence followed, and I paced the room for a moment. When I reached the other end of the small cubicle, I suddenly noticed a briefcase made of dark brown leather sitting on the floor between the two chairs. I picked it up and read the initials stamped in gold on the top: HDH. Harry's missing briefcase. Brad had found it already. I walked behind my desk and put it inside the credenza for safekeeping, then turned my attention back to the conversation in the next room.

Brad said, "Thanks for the tip. I think the idea is out in left field, but I'll look into it. Anything else?"

I didn't hear his reply, but soon Novotny came through the open doorway. He came over to me, smiling, and reached across my desk with his free hand to shake mine. "Thanks very much."

Since I'd barely said two sentences to the man, I wondered why he thanked me, but I smiled back, and he left.

Brad came out of his office a few moments later, grinning, and dropped a tape on the desk. "Here, in case you missed anything."

"I didn't miss him accusing Debra of killing her father. First, Amanda hints at it, now Novotny. And I don't believe it."

"You have to admit it seems everyone else does. You may have to revise your opinion." He headed for the connecting door, then turned back toward me again. "By the way, did you ask Rose if she has Harry's briefcase?"

My mind did a double take. "I beg your pardon?"

"I said, 'did you ask her about the briefcase?'"

"That's what I thought you said, but I don't understand why you said it. You already found the briefcase."

"No, I didn't."

"Then what's this?" I slid open the door of the credenza, pulled it out, and set it on top of the desk, handle up.

Brad looked almost as surprised as he did at twelve when he found out I already knew he'd been riding cable cars in San Francisco instead of attending school. "Where did you find it?"

"Right over there." I pointed toward the visitors' chairs against the opposite wall.

After a quick glance at the chairs, he fingered the initials on the top of the case. "How did it get there?"

"I assumed you put it there. I certainly didn't."

"I couldn't. I spent another hour looking for it this morning and came up empty."

We looked at each other again, and then our next word came out simultaneously: "Novotny."