Flash (24 page)

An hour later Jasper helped Olivia pry a large, heavy box out of the condo's basement storage locker. They hauled it to the elevator and took it to her sunny eleventh-floor villa.

Olivia saw the disapproval in his eyes when she lifted the lid off the box to reveal a loose array of documents, envelopes, and mail addressed to Roland Chantry.

“Okay, so I don't subscribe to the anal-retentive system of filing,” she said. “At least it's all there.”

“How can you be sure?” Jasper rummaged through the contents of the box. “We'll be lucky to find all of the credit card statements, let alone every single check.”

“Trust me.” She reached into the box for a handful of bills. “Everything is in here.”

“I'll believe it when I see it.”

It only took fifteen minutes to find the record of payment to the Pri-Con Self-Storage facility. Olivia spotted it first. A jolt of non-caffeine-related energy shot through her.

“You were right. He paid a bill to a storage facility in south Seattle last January.”

“Let's see.” He reached for the credit card statement and contemplated the payment for a long moment. “It's a place to start. But don't get too excited. We don't know what he kept there. When we open the locker we may find nothing but old fishing gear or his military service memorabilia.”

“Let's see if we can get into the locker this afternoon.” Olivia reached for the phone book and picked up the phone.

Two minutes later she found herself listening to a recorded message.

Thank you for calling Pri-Con Self-Storage. Pri-Con stands for private and confidential and we guarantee both. Our offices are open from eight to five weekdays and Saturday. On Sunday we close at two
P.M
…
.

“Shoot.” Olivia glanced at the clock as she dropped the phone into the cradle. “We can't get in today. The place closed half an hour ago. It doesn't open until eight tomorrow morning.”

Jasper's mouth tightened. “I've got meetings with two critical path suppliers tomorrow starting at eight-fifteen. I probably won't be finished until eleven at the earliest.”

Olivia drummed her fingers on the table. “I've got an appointment with Todd and Dixon Haggard in the morning. We're going to review final plans for the Lancaster fund-raiser.”

“Let's shoot for noon. I usually leave my Jeep on Bainbridge, but I'll drive it in to work tomorrow. I'll pick you up at your office.”

“All right.” She reached back into the file box to heft a small, zippered bag.

“What's in there?”

She smiled, feeling a trifle smug. “All of Uncle Rollie's keys. They survived the fire. With any luck, one of them will fit the lock on the storage locker.”

Jasper shrugged. “If we don't find the right key, we can cut off the lock. I'll bring some tools.”

Her small burst of euphoria collapsed. “This is an interesting development, but like you said, it might lead nowhere.”

“It's a place to start. And it feels right.”

“What do you mean, right?”

He hesitated. “I can't explain. All I can tell you is that I think we're on to something here. The fact that your uncle had a storage locker that you didn't know about is very interesting. And if we discover that someone else has gotten into it and if we can figure out who that person was …”

“Yes. I see what you mean.” She shuddered. “This is weird, Jasper.”

“Blackmail is weird.”

“True.” She eyed the box of papers, restless now that they had an objective. “We're stuck. There's nothing we can do until tomorrow.”

Jasper's smile was slow and intimate. “I wouldn't say that. We can always work on our united front project.”

A weightless sensation settled into Olivia's stomach. “In the middle of the afternoon?”

“Think it would be tacky?”

“No. No, I don't think it would be tacky at all. But, then, what do I know? I'm the one who brought you Foil Town.”

“That's true,” Jasper said. “But I sort of liked it.”

“Remember that the next time you need an event producer.”

“I need one right now.” He grinned and reached for her.

She would try very hard not to giggle this time, she promised herself.

Olivia got the call canceling her appointment with Todd and Dixon at twenty minutes after eight the next morning.

“Mr. Haggard and Mr. Chantry need to reschedule for two this afternoon,” the secretary said on the other end of the line. “Would that be convenient?”

Not hardly, Olivia thought. There was no way she could get to the Pri-Con Self-Storage facility, go through the contents of Rollie's locker with Jasper, and get back to the office in time for a two o'clock meeting. “How about three?”

“I'm afraid that doesn't work for Mr. Haggard. He and Ms. Lancaster have a rally to attend in eastern Washington this evening. They'll be flying to the Tri-Cities at four.”

Damn, damn, damn
. The fund-raiser was a very
important contract with a wealth of future possibilities. She could not afford to annoy the client. Olivia glanced at her watch and stifled a groan. “Two o'clock will be fine, in that case.”

She hung up the phone and gave the problem a moment's consideration. So much for the noon trip to Pri-Con. On the other hand, she now had her morning free. There was no reason she could not go out to the self-storage facility alone and have a look around. If one of the keys in the zippered pouch fit, she would be able to get inside the locker. If not, she would have no choice but to reschedule with Jasper for later in the day.

She picked up the phone again and dialed Jasper's office number. Rose answered.

“I'm sorry, Olivia, Mr. Sloan is out. May I take a message?”

“Yes, please, Aunt Rose. Tell him that my schedule got changed. I'm no longer available for the one o'clock we had planned together. Tell him that I'm going to go out to the facility in south Seattle this morning, instead. He'll know what I'm talking about.”

“I'll tell him, Olivia. But I better warn you, Mr. Sloan is not in a good mood today.”

Olivia frowned. “Things not going well with the supplier meetings?”

“It's not the suppliers. He was like this when he walked through the door.”

“Like what?”

“Sort of icy, if you know what I mean. Like he was getting ready to go into battle or something.” Rose's voice dropped to a confidential whisper. “Quincy suggested
that maybe you and Sloan quarreled about some of the changes going on around here.”

“Nonsense,” Olivia said crisply. “Jasper and I are in, uh, perfect accord regarding the transition at Glow.”

“If you say so.”

“Just give him my message as soon as you can, Aunt Rose.”

Olivia hung up the phone and sat quietly, thinking for a moment. Jasper had looked anything but icy when he left her condo shortly after eleven last night.

She got to her feet and grabbed her purse and keys. She would worry about Jasper's mood later.

The Pri-Con Self-Storage company occupied an aging, four-story cinder-block building located on a neglected street in the south end of the city. A vacant warehouse stood adjacent to it. There was no sidewalk in front. Weeds had long since replaced whatever professional landscaping had once existed.

It looked like the No-Tell Motel of storage facilities, Olivia thought, as she drove into the tiny, graveled parking lot. The sort of place where management probably did not ask too many questions so long as the rent got paid on time.

From out of nowhere, she suddenly recalled a story she had read in the papers about a man who had murdered his wife and hidden her body in a self-storage locker. It had been three years before the corpse had been discovered.

“Get a grip, Olivia.”

When she got out of her car, she noticed that there was only one other vehicle in the small parking lot.
Either Pri-Con Self-Storage was not a thriving operation, or there were not a lot of people who wanted to move their personal possessions in and out of storage at eight-forty-five on a Monday morning.

She surveyed the building as she walked toward a door marked
Office
. Every window on all four floors had been bricked up. For security purposes, she speculated. Or perhaps to create additional space for lockers inside. It was amazing how forbidding a building without windows looked.

The small office was empty. There was an
Eleanor Lancaster for Governor
poster taped to the window.

Olivia pressed a buzzer. It was a good five minutes before a thickly built man appeared. He was garbed in a pair of well-worn camouflage pants and a black T-shirt. His long gray hair was tied in a ponytail. The word
Privacy
was tattooed on one arm.
Freedom
was spelled out in large, flowery capitals on the other. He did not look pleased at the prospect of having to assist a customer.

“Yeah?”

Olivia decided the occasion required a certain degree of assertiveness. She drew herself up to her full height and gave him a steely smile.

“My name is Olivia Chantry. I'm the executor for the estate of Mr. Roland Chantry, recently deceased. In the process of settling his affairs, I discovered that he maintained a locker in this facility. I'm here to examine the contents. I can, of course, provide proof of my legal authority to do so.”

The attendant squinted at her and then shrugged. “Help yerself.” He turned to go back through the door from which he had emerged.

“I take it you're not real big on security around here?” Olivia called after him.

The attendant paused. He looked at her over his shoulder, eyes slitted. “What we're real big on around here is privacy.”

“Privacy?”

A demonic glint blazed in his squinty eyes. “That's the problem with this country today, y'know. No privacy anymore. The founding fathers went to the wall to secure privacy and confidentiality for the citizens of these here United States. Guys like me fought and died in a lotta wars for the right to privacy.”

“Yes, well…”

“You'd think people today would have a little respect for all the blood that's been shed to protect the constitutional right to privacy and confidentiality. But, no. Every time you turn around the govmint's chipped away another piece of our personal privacy.”

Olivia decided to transition from assertive to soothing-the-client mode. “I understand.”

“Pri-Con Self-Storage guarantees absolute privacy and confidentiality to its clients. No questions asked. Long as you pay yer rent, you can store anything you damn well want in yer locker.”

“I was simply commenting on your lack of security measures.”

“Pri-Con don't guarantee security.” The broad face worked furiously. “Can't rightly do that without a coupla grenade launchers and some mortars, which, thanks to the socialist elite that's taken over our govmint, us entrepreneur types can't hardly get hold of, let alone set up in front of our place o' business.”

“I see.” Olivia cleared her throat. “Could you kindly direct me to Roland Chantry's locker, Mr. Uh—I didn't catch your name.”

“Name's Silas.” He gave her a suspicious look. “Thought you was an executor.”

“I am.” She held up the zippered pouch. “I have Mr. Chantry's keys and plenty of identification, but I don't have the number of his locker. Many of his records were lost in a house fire.”

“Huh.”

“Perhaps you'd like to call the lawyer who handled his estate,” Olivia said smoothly. “He'll explain everything.”

Alarm flickered in Silas's eyes. “Don't want to talk to no lawyer. Got too many of 'em in this country. We got one rule here at Pri-Con. Whoever pays the rent gets to go inside the locker.”

Olivia recognized the opening he had given her and moved briskly to seize it. “It may interest you to know that, as the executor of my uncle's estate, I now pay the rent on Roland Chantry's locker.”

“Huh.” Silas mulled that over for a long time.

“I will be happy to call my lawyer,” Olivia said again. “Chantry's dead, you say?”

“That's right.”

Privacy
and
Freedom
rippled on Silas's big arms as he raised his shoulders in a massive shrug. “Guess it'll be okay then. Guy's dead, probly don't care too much about his privacy anymore.”

He stalked into the office, sat down at the desk, and reached for a large rotary card file.

“I see you don't use a computer for your office records,” Olivia murmured.

“Don't trust 'em.” Silas flipped through the cards. “No privacy with computers. Chantry, Chantry, Chantry. Yep, here we go. Locker Number Four-ninety. That's up on the top floor clear to the back.”

A rush of excitement swept through Olivia. “Thanks. How do I get up there?”

“Elevator's over there in the corner.” Silas scowled. “Gonna need a hand truck or a platform truck to haul out his stuff?”

“Not right away.” She smiled brightly at him as she backed out the door. “I'll have to inventory the contents of the locker first to determine the disposition of the items.”

“Yeah, sure. Disposition 'em all you want. Light switch for each floor is just to the right of the elevator. Turn out the lights when you leave.”

“You bet.”

When the elevator door slid open on the fourth floor a short while later, Olivia understood why Silas had mentioned the location of the light switches.

She could barely see her hand in front of her face.

The fourth floor was cloaked in a thick darkness that was relieved only by the eerie green glow of an emergency exit sign above the stairwell.

Olivia felt her way out of the elevator and groped for the light switch. She found it just as the door of the elevator cab slid shut behind her.

Only a few of the fluorescent fixtures overhead stuttered to life. In its endless quest for privacy and confidentiality, the management of Pri-Con Self-Storage was obviously committed to maintaining low light levels.