How to Succeed in Murder (12 page)

“Are you familiar with the term ‘spyware’?” He opened a cabinet for some plates.

“No, but I’m not surprised you are.”

He grinned. “The stuff Mike writes is way beyond the sort of things that hackers use to spy on people’s PCs,” he informed me. “It’s virtually undetectable and should tell us a lot.”

“I’ve noticed that techie people use the word ‘virtually’ where normal people use the word ‘almost.’”

He took a dripping slice of
ménage à trois
, a decadent three-cheese combo, and placed it on a plate in front of me. “What’s your point?”

“I’d prefer it if you didn’t get caught and murdered or sent to jail or something.”

He looked me in the eye. “Right back at you, Pumpkin.”

Chapter Twenty-one

Finally, it was show time.

“Good morning, working girl.”

Jack’s voice. I could tell by the mockery in it.

I squinted my eyes open. “Is it still dark out?”

“It’s seven o’clock.”

“That didn’t answer my question.” I pulled a pillow over my head.

“It’s dim out,” he conceded, cruelly taking the pillow away. “Not dark, just dim, and getting lighter every minute.”

I rolled over on my back and opened my eyes. “I’m really going to do this?”

“You don’t have to.”

I looked at him, focusing. “I’m really going to do this.”

He gave one brief nod. “Then you’d really better get up.”

It was a little after eight by the time I made it downstairs in my I-work-in-an-office costume of hipster pantsuit from Banana Republic, stretchy cotton blouse from Ann Taylor, and I-can’t-really-afford-these-but-I-love-them Via Spiga pumps that had been on sale at Macy’s.

Jack greeted me at the bottom of the stairs with a gratifying whistle.

“You think?” I turned around, looking down at myself with some doubt.

“Just promise me you’re keeping your wedding ring on.”

I looked at it, then at him. “I told you once, it’s for the duration.”

“Then you have my permission to go to work.” His mouth did that infuriating thing where it looked like it wanted to laugh but he wouldn’t let it.

“You’re enjoying this way too much,” I told him.

“I have a few things for you.” He picked up a black bag that I hadn’t noticed leaning against the stairs.

“Is that Kate Spade?”

“It is. More importantly, it has a laptop in it. Mike sent a couple over to Brenda and Simon last night too.”

“Oh, what a good idea!” I took the bag and opened it up. “And a new cell phone—oh! With a camera.”

“All the cool kids have them.”

All the cool kids probably didn’t lose them as often as I did. I closed the bag and kissed him. “Thanks, Jack. You think of everything.”

“We’re not done.” He took me by the hand and headed for the front door. When he opened it I was surprised to see an unfamiliar car at the curb.

“Did you take the Lexus in to be fixed? Whose is that?”

“Yours.”

I looked at the car. Then at Jack. Then at the car again. It was a new VW Beetle. Lime green. I looked at Jack again.

“Why?”

He took the laptop bag from me and started down the path to the car. “Because I didn’t think you’d like the bus.”

“But…hang on…” I followed him, not quite sure I had a handle on what he was saying. “Do you mean I have to drive to work?”

“Many people do.”

“But…” But I hate to drive. It’s so demanding. You let your mind wander for five minutes and you could end up killing some random pedestrian.

And I particularly hate to drive in San Francisco. Because once you get somewhere you have to put the car somewhere, and that can take hours. Then you end up walking so far back to where you were going that you might as well have just hoofed it in the first place.

Jack was looking at me.

“Can’t you take me in?”

He put the bag in the back seat and leaned against the car. “Very few mid-level consultants have drivers.”

Okay, true, but… “Ha!” I held up my left hand. “I’m married, remember? So it would be perfectly reasonable for my husband to take me to work!”

“Perfectly,” Jack agreed. “Except if someone is trying to kill me because I’ve been seen at Zakdan, we’d really rather not have anyone connecting us, right?”

Damn.

“Right.”

He opened the driver’s-side door. “So, do you want to take a look?”

I know when I’ve lost a battle. I came over and looked in the car.

“Oh, Jack, you put a flower in it!” A bright pink daisy in a little bud vase just to the right of the steering wheel.

He kissed me on the temple. “It was the least I could do.” Then he shoved me in the car and closed the door.

He leaned in the open window. “You do know how to drive, don’t you?”

I made a face at him. “I thought you knew everything about me.” I turned the key and revved the engine.

“Okay, then I guess there’s nothing else.” He grinned. “Have a nice day, dear.”

I think, at that moment, I kind of hated him.

***

I was scheduled to meet the rest of the A Team at a little café called Arugula near the Zakdan building. It was walking distance from Simon’s loft, and an easy rendezvous place for Brenda, coming in off the Bay Bridge. This would be our last chance to get our stories straight before making our united entrance at Zakdan.

Assuming, of course, I’d ever be able to park.

As I got within a few blocks of the place, I started scanning the streets. Ideally, what I wanted was unmetered street parking someplace between the two locations. Which would be just coming up as I crossed Fifth.

Which is right when I spotted Flank.

He stood in the street near the curb, arms not quite able to cross against his massive chest, wearing a dark suit and sunglasses. His increasingly sparse ponytail blew around a little in the breeze. He looked more like a strip-club bouncer than a secretary, but at least he wasn’t carrying an assault rifle. Probably.

I pulled up and rolled down the passenger window. “Flank? What are you doing?”

He crouched at the window, lowered his shades, and showed me a stunningly mismatched array of teeth.

I smiled back. Probably not my strongest effort, but it seemed the thing to do. “Flank?”

He made a sort of sweeping motion with both arms, gesturing to the sidewalk and the parking space he stood in. Then he said something unintelligible and looked proud.

“You saved me a space?”

The teeth appeared again. Then he resumed his don’t-mess-with-me stance on the sidewalk.

I parked.

Maybe he’d be more useful than I’d thought.

***

I made my way to the café with Flank following about a half-step behind, and me turning every few paces to tell him not to do that. It fueled all sorts of paranoia. But apparently it was part of his bodyguard training, because he just kept stopping whenever I stopped, so eventually I gave up trying.

I saw Brenda had already gotten us a table. The café was one of those old brick warehouses that had been converted into chic hangouts for the digerati. Exposed brick walls, high ceilings, with a polished pine staircase leading up to an additional seating area. There was a long high table with stools running down the middle of the space, and tables and chairs that got progressively more comfortable looking the closer they were to the windows.

Brenda was in a comfy place, bless her. And she looked just right in one of her new outfits, a blue-gray skirt and loose jacket in a fine wool knit, with a slightly lighter shade of blue-gray shell in silk. Professional yet approachable. Comfortable yet pulled together. Brenda, yet not Brenda.

“Hi, Charley!” She clapped a hand over her mouth. “Should I call you Charley?” she stage-whispered as I got closer.

“You might as well.” I plopped down in the chair next to her and set the laptop bag on the floor between us. “Jack and I didn’t really finish discussing it.” I could have told her that we’d been distracted by a bout of crazed lust, but it was probably too early in the morning for that kind of sharing.

“Discussing what?” Simon asked.

I jumped, not having noticed him on approach. Then I looked around for Flank. He’d taken a seat at the tall table where he could see us, the door, and just about everything else in the room. He nodded at me without disturbing his facial muscles. He was in position.

And he hadn’t attacked Simon. That showed progress.

“What didn’t you and Jack discuss?” Simon persisted. “And why aren’t we drinking lattes?”

“The whole fake name thing,” I explained. “And I don’t know.” I looked over to the busy counter. “Is this a stand-in-line sort of place?”

“It is,” Brenda said. “And I stood in line before you got here. I didn’t know how horrendous the bridge traffic would be, so I left plenty of time.” She handed Simon a slip of paper. “They should call our number any minute. Would you…?”

He sighed elaborately and took the number. “Nothing ever changes, does it? Except my costume.” He fiddled with the sleeves of the pinstriped Roberto Cavalli blazer he wore over distressed Diesel jeans and a pristine white shirt until we made sufficiently appreciative noises. Then he sat and leaned forward across the table conspiratorially. “And, of course, my name.”

“You’ve decided to use a cover name?” Brenda grabbed his arm. “What?”

“Rex,” he said, rolling the R a bit and savoring the word. “Rex Bannister.” He grinned. “I thought I’d use my same surname in case anyone notices I look like that infamous local man-about-town Simon Bannister. I can claim to be a cousin or something if the subject comes up. But in the meanwhile I’m Rex.”

He sat back, clearly pleased with himself.

“Why…Rex?” I hesitated to ask.

He blinked. “Isn’t it obvious? So I can have the nickname Sexy Rexy.”

Obvious. Sure.

Simon was spared our full reaction because our number was called. He went off.

“Are we all here?” Eileen’s voice cut through the babble of the increasingly crowded café.

“All present and accounted for,” I told her. “You, me, Brenda, Flank, and Sexy Rexy.”

Chapter Twenty-two

Morgan Stokes stood in front of the stainless-steel-and-green-glass receptionist station. The lobby of the building was vast, with one ubiquitous brick wall providing a backdrop to an enormous fish tank, and three curving, swooping walls in deepest shades of red, purple, and yellow-gold—the colors of the Zakdan logo.

It was a space designed to impress, not only with how-successful-we-are, but with how-cool-and-funky-we-are as well.

“Hello, you must be Harry Van Leewen’s team of consultants.” Stokes” greeting was apparently for the benefit of the receptionist. It occurred to me that we probably should have come up with a name for our fake consulting firm.

Eileen held out her hand to shake his. “That’s right. We’re the team from SFG.”

From where? Had I missed a page in the Fake Book?

“Great.” Morgan handed her some VIP badges, and spoke to the receptionist, who looked roughly seventeen and wore the most severe eyeglasses I’d ever encountered.

“Lara, these folks will be here for the next week or so. Make sure they get everything they need.” Then he hustled us onto the elevator before she could respond with anything other than a nod.

“The staff meeting is in ten minutes.” Morgan checked his watch to be sure. “I’ve arranged for you to work from a conference room, so you can have some amount of privacy. Everyone at Zakdan works in cubicles, except the execs on the fourth floor, but I assumed you’d want a sort of a bull pen together. You’ll need to wear your badges at all times. They’re your keys for getting around in the building.”

He illustrated this when the elevator doors opened on the third floor and we stepped out into a bright turquoise lobby. There were three doors, each with electronic card readers. He passed his badge in front of the reader at the door to the right, and ushered us in.

There was a field of cubicles ahead of us, a glass wall revealing a kitchen to our left, and a glass wall looking into a conference room on our right. Morgan led us down the hall and around the corner to the conference room door.

“You can put your things here for now—unless you’ll need them for the meeting upstairs. Do your laptops have wireless? You should be able to get onto our network. There’s a copy machine down the hall, and—”

“Morgan,” I cut him off for his own good. The man had to breathe sometime. “We’ll be okay.”

I tried to believe it as I said it. And he seemed to buy it, at least briefly. He focused on the tabletop.

“Did you hear about Lalit Kumar?” he asked quietly.

Brenda and I exchanged swift glances.

“Just what we read in the paper,” I answered.

“I’m so sorry,” Brenda offered.

Morgan nodded, still looking down. “It wasn’t a suicide.”

“Are the police—” Eileen began.

“Don’t talk to me about the police,” he cut her off, his voice harsh. Then he looked at each of us, making eye contact one by one. “Clara didn’t have an accident and Lalit didn’t kill himself, and the only way I know how to find out what really happened is to trust you people.” His voice cracked.

“You can trust us,” Brenda said softly.

“We’ll find out who’s behind this,” I heard myself promise.

He nodded and straightened his shoulders. “Right. Are you ready?”

As we’d ever be.

***

The executive boardroom on the fourth floor was sleek and elegant, with lots of pale wood and huge wall-mounted flat panel video screens at either end. The table was shaped like a giant oval with the short ends chopped off. It had built-in speakers and a horrifying assortment of technical gear running the length of it, presumably for teleconferencing and video conferencing and all the other types of conferencing these people do.

I’d expected them to be…what? Tense? Depressed? Grieving for their two lost colleagues? Instead, I found the large leather chairs surrounding the table to be occupied by the most hostile-looking group of individuals I’d ever stood before. And for someone who’s been in the theatre as long as I have, that’s saying something.

“All right, everybody.” Morgan ushered us to our seats. “Let’s get started. I’d like you to meet the consulting team from SFG.” He gestured to each of us in turn. “Eileen Scoto is the team leader. She’ll be your primary technical liaison. Brenda Gee is our change management expert—”

Simon slipped him a note while everyone was acknowledging Brenda. Morgan glanced at it and went on smoothly. “Rex Bannister will be focusing on long pole issues…”

Okay, Morgan had taken the name change right in stride, but what the hell was a long pole issue? I didn’t have time to figure it out, because it was my turn to give a little finger wave next.

“And Tess McGill is the project manager.”

Tess McGill? Who the hell was that? From the way Morgan was looking at me I assumed he meant me, so I smiled in the general direction of the rest of the table, wondering where he’d gotten the idea.

And then it hit me.

Jack.

He’d come up with a false name for me. And it was vaguely familiar.

“Oh!” One of the Zakdan people squealed. It was a painfully young woman with straight blond hair and angular black glasses. “Tess McGill—that’s Melanie Griffith’s name in
Working Girl
!” She looked around the table and seemed to sort of shrink back into herself. “Oh, sorry. I didn’t mean…”

“It’s okay,” I told her. “Don’t worry. Everybody thinks it’s funny.”

Particularly my husband.

Hilarious.

***

I told myself to focus as Morgan Stokes introduced the Zakdan cast of characters and invited each of them to make a few remarks. I mentally matched each person to what I already knew about them.

Jim Stoddard: He sat at Morgan’s left. Medium height, medium build, bald spot. Dressed in khakis and a button-down shirt with the Zakdan logo on the pocket. Looked annoyed to be stuck in this meeting. He was the executive vice president of Engineering. He was also the only one besides Lalit Kumar who knew about Clara’s proposed promotion, and he had a history of drunk driving. I’d last seen him speaking into his cell phone at Clara’s funeral.

Millicent O’Malley: Known by her initials as MoM to all, and I can’t say I blamed her. I mean—Millicent? I looked at her closely, remembering her as the schoolmistress who’d dished out that slap to the hysterical girl at the funeral. Painfully thin with cropped gray hair and tiny silver-rimmed glasses. Wearing a gray turtleneck sweater that looked likely to swallow half her face. Vice President of Engineering Services. I still wasn’t entirely sure what that meant. An old-timer at the company, she’d bounced around among various groups on her way to her current position. Morgan adored her.

Tonya Ho: She sat mid-table behind a barricade of electronic devices. A laptop, a phone, and I didn’t know what else arranged in a semicircle in front of her. Early thirties, with straight black hair parted off center and pushed behind her ears. Glasses that would have marked her as a member of the math club back in junior high, but that seemed to be a popular look around Zakdan. Wearing an outfit I’d seen at Banana, right down to the striped scarf. Vice President of Human Resources, she’d been with Zakdan just under a year. We had almost no information on her.

Bob Adams: Free of guacamole stains, but still a mess. Shaggy blondish-reddish hair thinning on top and an untamed beard. Wearing a much-faded tee shirt that stretched noticeably across a sizable midsection. I didn’t recognize the logo on the tee shirt, but guessed it was from some software company that had crashed and burned long ago. Either that or his college rock band. Vice President of Quality Assurance. Bob had been with the company for close to a decade, and since his group was supposed to test the software and find any bugs in it, Jack had labeled him a “person of interest.”

Troy Patterson: A slight build and a twitchy manner. Pale features, and straight blond hair worn in a sleek ponytail. He’d been at Clara’s funeral too. I recognized the ponytail. Troy spent a lot on clothes, and was wearing a Helmut Lang suit and open-necked Thomas Pink shirt, unless I missed my guess. Simon was going to hate him. Or have an affair with him. Vice President of Marketing. Had a history of leaving jobs after three years. He’d been at Zakdan two and a half.

Krissy Livingston: The one who’d made the Tess McGill connection. And, I realized with a jolt, the one who’d made the scene at Clara’s funeral. She was the only person new to the executive boardroom, which explained why she hadn’t been covered by Brenda and Eileen’s research. She’d been standing in for Clara since her death, but Krissy hadn’t yet received an official promotion. And she didn’t look comfortable in her seat. Acting Vice President of Client Knowledge.

I looked around at them as Morgan went on with his opening remarks. Did one of these people kill Clara?

Based on the gym receptionist’s description, almost any of them could have been the figure in the gray sweats that night. Only Bob’s beard made him ineligible. Okay, and maybe his physique. But any of the rest of them…

I snapped out of my mental lineup exercise when Eileen stood. It was time for her to give the speech she’d worked so hard on.

“At SFG, we believe that opportunity is the point at which luck meets preparation. Harry Van Leewen is in the position to provide you with a lot of luck. We’re here to see if you’re properly prepared.”

She sat.

That was it?

Apparently it was, because Morgan adjourned the meeting, telling everyone that we’d be talking to them individually over the next few days. As soon as they’d filed out, I turned to Eileen.

“Three sentences? You gave a three-sentence speech after all that fuss yesterday? What happened to what we wrote?”

She shrugged. “I was in the moment.”

Everyone’s an actor.

“Well?” Morgan looked at us all expectantly. “What do you think?”

We glanced at each other. What did we think?

Simon was the one to speak up. “I think we should have gotten some cool glasses.”