Deadly Interest (23 page)

I sipped my water, raising it slightly in
Stan’s direction as thanks. He smiled again. Nodded again.

Lulinski’s eyebrows lifted. “So why don’t
you tell me how a girl with Irish looks and a last name of St.
James, can speak Polish like a native daughter.”

* * * * *

On the drive from the police station to
Banner Bank, I turned my phone on to check for messages. Other than
noting that my battery was getting low, there was nothing. Not that
I’d expected any messages, of course. Bass knew I wouldn’t be in
till after lunch and Lucy was out shopping with Aunt Lena at the
mall all day. I didn’t really expect anyone to call me. Not
really.

I wondered what the weather was like out in
San Francisco today. And what sorts of plans the sister station had
come up with that required William and Miss Bliss to get there so
many days early. I decided that they must be very busy.

When I found myself grimacing out the
windshield at nothing at all, I decided it was time for some
music.

I flipped the radio on, and sighed with
pleasure as the opening chord of one of my all-time favorite Train
songs reverberated through my tiny Ford Escort’s interior. I
cranked the volume up and sang along with gusto, musical talent be
damned.

When I got caught thus emoting at a red
light by an old man in the car next to me, I shrugged. He laughed,
and I did too. When the light changed, I was still smiling.

Maybe things were beginning to look up.

* * * * *

I read the nameplate before I introduced
myself. “You’re Nina?” I asked, extending my hand with a smile.
“I’m Alex St. James.”

Nina Takami raised her head with an
insouciant swing of her jet black hair. Her chin jutted high and I
got the feeling she labored to maintain such a studious bored look
in her eyes. “So?” she said, ignoring my outstretched hand.

I dropped my fingers to grip the edge of her
desk, feeling my smile fade. Leaning forward slightly I blinked,
twice. “So . . .” I said, drawing the word out, “Maya Richardson
told me that you’d take care of handling my files for me while I’m
here.”

Nina Takami stared. Worked at it.

Instantly tired of her, I sighed an
explanation. “When I left yesterday, you weren’t around. I talked
to Beth instead.” I gestured toward the empty desk next to Nina’s.
“She put the records into one of your drawers.” Swinging my hand, I
indicated the file cabinet behind her. “Bottom one.”

“
So talk to
Beth.”

My patience waning, I said, “Beth isn’t
here.”

“
Well then you’re out of
luck.”

“
What is your problem?” I
asked, not caring that my voice rose. “I’m here doing a favor for
Mr. Dewars, and all I’m asking for is a little
cooperation.”

“
Trust me,” she said,
jutting a defiant jaw as she spoke, “you’re not doing anyone a
favor by being here.”

Her attitude floored me. “Fine,” I said,
“I’ll get them myself.”

Resisting the urge to mutter under my
breath, I headed for the cabinet, crouching to retrieve the file
from the bottom drawer.

Part of me was
disappointed that she turned aside, thereby granting me
de facto
access to the
cabinet. I’d have welcomed the chance to toss her on her size two
ass. I began to pull the papers out of the drawer when I realized
above the office din that my buddy Nina was on the phone, talking
about me.

“
So, what do you want me
to do?” she asked, eyeing me with distaste.

I ignored her.

When I stood, arms full, heading for the
lunchroom, Nina Takami stood too, effectively blocking my path. Jaw
set, she fought a smirk. Failed. “You have to wait here.”

Giving a weary headshake, I moved to get
past her. She stepped in front of me again, this time folding her
arms.

What was this, a playground skirmish? We
were both adults here. Yet I couldn’t stop myself from saying,
“Says who?”

Staccato answer. “Mr. Riordan. He’s on his
way.”

David was going to get an earful, that was
for sure. “Fine,” I said, dropping the files on her desk. “When he
gets here, say hello to him for me.”

This time when I moved, she let me. Around
us, all chattering conversation, keyboard sounds, and calculator
noises ceased as every pair of eyes in the place fixed on the two
of us. Had I been required to bulldoze my way out, she might have
been able to coerce witnesses to say I assaulted her. Five minutes
I’d known Nina Takami and already she made my skin crawl.

No matter how hard it is to keep one’s head
up after an altercation in front of an audience, it’s a thousand
times harder to keep from going red in the face. One of those
autonomic reflexes, it accosted me now, and even as I walked the
long row past the arrangement of desks, I could feel my cheeks
throb with heat.

I hadn’t gotten halfway out when who should
appear at the far end of the throughway, but Owen Riordan himself.
He took five long strides and less than two seconds to close the
distance between us. “Ms. St. James,” he said, with a smile that
pushed his cheeks sideways, but didn’t quite reach his eyes. “How
nice to see you again. How are you today?”

I flashed a glance behind me to see Nina
Takami still standing before her desk, glaring our direction. Back
to Owen, I said, “Why don’t you tell me?”

I’ve seen people arrange their faces before.
Never works to make them look innocent; rather it serves to point
up their complicity in whatever the sordid situation. Baffled,
because I truly had no idea what agendas were playing out just
beneath my level of comprehension, I waited for Owen to arrange his
soft-dough face into feigned confusion. I could have spoken his
words with him, he was so predictable. “Why, whatever do you
mean?”

I clasped my hands together, almost
prayerfully, pressing my fingers hard against one another to keep
myself from blasting. “Owen,” I said, calm as can be, remembering
how I’d had to maintain composure the day before when I talked with
Barton. I had new respect for Mrs. Vicks; she’d been stuck dealing
with these two clowns on a regular basis. “Mr. Dewars asked me to
look into Mrs. Vicks’ bank accounts.” I kept my voice low, my
manner soft, like I was addressing a kindergartner. “To be honest,
Owen,” I said, using his name again, condescendingly, “I don’t know
what he thinks I might find. But you know what?”

His eyes had hardened. He didn’t like this
at all. I knew it. I could feel it. I loved it. “What?” he
asked.

I nodded my head to accompany my nearly
sing-song words. “This is my story, Owen. This is what I do for a
living. If you have a problem with my investigation, why don’t you
take it up with Mr. Dewars?” I smiled then. “I know I plan to.”

“
There’s no need to be
angry,” he began. “Nina?” he called, walking past me toward the
girl, still standing at her desk like some sort of toughie. He
waved his fingers for me to follow.

I stood my ground.

He rested a protective hand on the account
information I’d dropped on Nina’s desk, and turned to me again.
“We’ve just gotten started on the wrong foot here. I have no
problem with your investigation. Of course not. None whatsoever. I
do have a problem with these files being removed from the vault
area. Nina knew that. That’s why she called me. Right, Nina?”

Arms still folded, her glare never wavered
from me. “That’s right, Mr. Riordan.”

I stared at Owen’s homely face, but said
nothing. His flaccid facial muscles under pasty skin, combined with
his “let me try to fake a pompadour” hair, and gaggable cologne
screamed “has-been playboy” to me. The fact that twenty-something
Nina here looked at him with something akin to hero-worship made me
wonder what these two might be doing behind vault doors.

“
All I’m saying,” he
continued, easily, “is that we have to keep these files protected.
That’s why David set you up downstairs in the first place. Maya
didn’t know better, but I’ve gotten things squared away with her
now too. So,” he attempted a conciliatory smile, “let’s get you
settled back down there.”

I had no intention of getting settled back
into that hole. “I’ll pass,” I said, then turned to walk away.

“
Wait.”

Owen trotted after me, caught me by the arm.
I shook his hand free, about to say something utterly impolite when
he surprised me. “Please,” he said. “Walk with me. I’ll
explain.”

He grabbed both boxes of files, and I didn’t
offer to help. I led the way out through the busy offices to the
bank of elevators.

“
So?” I said as we walked.
“Explain.”

“
I’m sorry about the
difficulty in there,” he began. His voice grunted as he shifted the
weight in his arms

“
Difficulty?” I said, my
voice filled with incredulous outrage. “You and that Nina person
treated me like a two-year-old. I don’t have time for
that.”

“
No, no, of course not,”
he said, his voice attempting to take on the same sort of soothing
tone I’d noticed from David, but I could tell the heavy boxes were
getting to him. “There are a few things you don’t know.”

“
Enlighten me.”

“
Don’t,” he said, as I
reached to press the ‘down’ button. He glanced back the way we
came.

I raised an eyebrow.

“
You heard about this
audit?” he asked, lifting a knee to bolster the boxes in his
arms.

I nodded. “David told me that it was
scheduled. Nothing out of the ordinary.”

Owen shook his head, his breath labored.
“No. There’s more to it this time. We’re afraid that we have an
embezzler in the bank. Maybe several. No idea which department, or
who or how many are involved. And no one knows about this but me
and David.” He winced, readjusting the boxes yet again.

“
And this affects me,
how?”

His pasty face reddened as he struggled.
“Can you grab one of these?”

I slid the top box off his load and held it
in both arms. Then I waited.

“
Thanks.” He blew out a
breath. “It could be anyone. It could even be Maya, or Nina.” He
jerked his chin back toward the offices we’d just left. “We’ve
instituted a new rule that the auditors can’t take files out of
their temporary offices. We’re doing that to protect our own
interests. If I let you waltz around with Mrs. Vicks’ accounts, and
keep the auditors behind closed doors, it’s going to look
suspicious.”

“
You gotta be kidding,” I
said. “Mrs. Vicks’ accounts are a completely different
issue.”

He shrugged, sneaking out a finger to press
the down button. “I’m sorry. That’s just the way it is.”

Before I let Owen leave me alone in the
vault cave, I made him stand there and wait while I dug out
statement after statement from the boxes, and while I marked off
each and every one of those even-dollar amount checks written on
Mrs. Vicks’ account over the years.

“
Hang on,” I said, when I
caught him checking his watch for the third time. “Almost
done.”

Stepping up to watch over my shoulder he
asked, “You want a copy of every one of those?” not bothering to
disguise the whine in his voice.

“
Yep,” I answered. “Every
one.” Truth was, I would have been happy with a random sample of
copies of the checks in question, but I didn’t feel like being
especially gracious at the moment. “I know Mr. Dewars wants me to
be thorough.”

“
Fine,” he said, just as
I’d begun to copy down the check numbers from year two. He rubbed
his temples as he turned to leave. “Give the list to Lorna. I’ll
get to it later.”

* * * * *

I made it back to my office close to four
o’clock.

“
Nice of you to grace us
with your presence,” Bass said. Judging from the constipated look
on his face, I gathered he had news, and it wasn’t good. He dropped
into one of the chairs opposite my desk. “Why isn’t anything
easy?”

I didn’t have time for his complaints. “The
problem isn’t things going wrong, Bass,” I said, deadpan. “The
problem is you expecting otherwise.”

“
I’ll try to remember
that,” he said rolling his eyes, leaning forward to rest his arms
on my desk. “Barton Vicks came back.”

“
I thought—”

“
Yeah,” he said,
interrupting me. “We all thought the restraining order would keep
him out of here. But he showed up today, hat in hand, apologizing
for his behavior the other afternoon. Wants to talk to
you.”

“
Me? About
what?”

“
He says he wants to
apologize to you personally.”

Now, I rolled my eyes.

“
Yeah,” Bass said, “I
know. He’s up to something. But that’s not what I’m here to talk to
you about.”

“
Oh?”

“
Hank Mulhall wants this
story finished. He did some checking and he believes that
Up Close Issues
isn’t
covering this one at all. He thinks, what with your connection,
that we can really make this story sing. That we can get the top
spot with this feature.”

“
You told him I’m working
on it?”

Bass bit his lip. “He wants it filmed
Monday.”

“
Monday?” As the word
burst from my mouth, I stood up. “What is he, nuts?” I started to
pace past the picture window that overlooked the Chicago River,
stopping to stare, while I collected my thoughts. Where for a brief
few hours, the city had been covered in pure-white snow, the mounds
lining the streets were now decorated with dark speckles, like
dirty polka-dots. Why couldn’t things that were beautiful just stay
the way they were? The once-pure snow had turned into so much
filth.