Watch Me (11 page)

‘Who else is here?’

‘Josh Landry. He deals mainly with property issues. Judy Dufrene is here as well. She’s our legal secretary.’

‘I take it you have a conference room?’

Mary nodded.

‘We’d like to talk to Judy and Josh, please.’

‘Certainly.’

Mary got up and led the way through to a large wood-panelled room with a high ceiling and a twenty-seat oak conference table. I tried to think of a single situation that would merit a table this big in a place as small as Eagle Creek. All that sprung to mind was a will reading.

‘Can I get you anything to drink?’ More of that conditioned politeness, and another fake plastic smile.

‘I’ll have a coffee, please. Black, two sugars.’

‘An iced water would be good, thanks ma’am,’ said Taylor.

Mary gave a slight nod and slipped out the door. The conference room was on the opposite side of the building from the park, which figured. Sam’s office would have been on the park side of the building. That was the prime position, and status had meant everything to him too.

That’s why he hadn’t downsized to cheaper premises further along the street, and that’s why he had the big house out on McArthur Heights with a three-car garage and too many cars to fill it. A place like Dayton, in this heat, you didn’t leave your car out in the sun unless you had to. The car that had been left out was a top-of-the-range Merc. Chances were that was just the runaround, which meant the cars in the garage were the really expensive ones.

There’d be a sports car, for sure. Possibly a Porsche, although I was veering towards a Ferrari, something red and flashy with a roaring engine that would turn heads when he drove up to the golf club. There’d be a luxurious sporty number for Barbara, too, possibly a soft-top Jaguar.

Then there’d be a big gas-guzzling SUV to ferry the three children around in, something more expensive than a top-of-the-range Merc, something like a Range Rover, one with tinted windows and heated seats and screens in the backs of the headrests for the kids, added extras whose main purpose was to underline just how rich he was.

Barbara had said that family was everything to Sam. She was wrong. From what I’d seen status trumped that one by a mile. In that respect the two of them had been more similar than either had probably realised. This table, this room, this whole building, it was just another way for Sam to display his wealth. Like the house up in McArthur Heights, and the Ferrari I was sure he had parked in his garage.

‘Does anybody around here drive a Ferrari?’

Taylor narrowed his eyes. ‘Why do you ask?’

‘No reason.’

Taylor gave a deep belly laugh that rumbled through the room like an earthquake. ‘Yeah, right. You expect me to believe that. Why don’t you ask me the question you really want to ask?’

‘Did Sam Galloway drive a Ferrari?’

A nod. ‘I guess this is the point where you tell me which model.’

‘A Testarossa.’

Taylor just stared. ‘How the hell did you know that?’

18

Mary returned with our drinks on a tray, Josh Landry and Judy Dufrene tagging behind like a couple of reluctant kids. She handed me a coffee, then passed a tall glass streaked with condensation to Taylor.

Judy was in her mid-twenties, plain-looking and demure, and dressed conservatively in a navy skirt and white blouse. The skirt was similar to Mary’s, but shorter and a little tighter. Judy had the sort of porcelain complexion that burnt at the first glimpse of the sun, a light sprinkling of freckles across her nose. I couldn’t see any signs of sunburn, so she’d been careful, plenty of sunscreen. Her long red hair was wound up into a tight bun and her eyes were as green as mine.

Josh was a middle-aged heart attack just waiting to happen. Short and wide, and florid-faced. A drinker’s face. He wore red suspenders over a white shirt. No tie and the top button undone. The bright red neck indicated unhealthily high blood pressure. His weight indicated high cholesterol, and a future filled with insulin shots to fight off the effects of type-two diabetes. He didn’t look happy. Then again, he gave the impression that he never looked happy. Josh was one of those people who trailed their own personal thundercloud behind them wherever they went.

Judy and Josh sat down on the opposite side of the conference table and got themselves comfortable. Mary made to leave and I asked her to stay. She stared at me for a moment to make sure I was serious, then placed the empty tray on the table, shuffled a chair out from under it and sat down next to Josh.

‘What can we do for you, Mr Winter?’

The question came from Josh. Sharp, direct, to the point. Sam Galloway’s passing had created a power vacuum and Josh obviously had ambitions to fill it.

‘What was Sam Galloway like to work for?’

Josh shrugged. ‘Most of the time he was okay.’

‘And at other times he could be a pain in the ass,’ I finished for him.

Another shrug. ‘What do you want me to say?’

‘I don’t want you to say anything.’

Josh gave me a tight look, then sighed and scratched his nose. He glanced down at the table, stared at his reflection in the polished oak, looked back at me.

‘Sam’s gone, and I’m going to miss the guy. I worked with him for almost a decade. This sort of thing happens, and it’s easy to turn a person into a saint.’ Josh sighed. ‘I spend my days helping people out when they want to buy or sell a house. This goes way outside my frame of reference.’ He paused, took a deep breath. ‘I guess what I’m trying to say is that Sam was a pretty decent guy. Some days he was happy, some days he wasn’t. I’m sure he had his problems. Everyone does.’

‘You know that for a fact, or are you just speculating?’

‘Pure speculation. At the end of the day he was my boss. We didn’t socialise, didn’t move in the same circles, didn’t go out for drinks. That said, he was a good boss. One of the best I’ve worked for.’

I glanced at Mary’s left hand, saw a wedding ring and an engagement ring with a tiny diamond set in it. ‘And what about you Mrs Sanders? Would you agree with that?’

Mary nodded. ‘Mr Galloway was a complete gentleman, just like his father. I couldn’t have asked for a better employer.’

‘What about you?’ I turned to Judy.

‘I’ve only been here seven months, so I didn’t know Sam that well.’

‘Still, seven months is enough time to form an opinion.’

‘I’d have to agree with Mrs Sanders and Mr Landry. Mr Galloway was a good boss. He always treated me well.’

I smiled at Josh, then Mary. ‘Thanks for your time.’

They looked at each other uncertainly then got to their feet. Judy made to follow and I waved her back down.

‘I’ve just got a couple more questions. It won’t take long.’

Judy watched Josh and Mary make their way around the large conference table and head for the door. She watched the door swing slowly shut, then looked back across the table at me. Her worried eyes met mine. She was holding her breath, waiting for that axe to fall.

‘You’re a liar. You might have only been here for seven months, but you knew Sam pretty well, didn’t you? Better than well.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘And that’s another lie.’

Judy stood up. ‘I think I’m going to leave now.’

‘No you’re not. You’re going to sit down and tell me how long you’d been sleeping with Sam.’

Judy slumped back into her chair. ‘I wasn’t sleeping with Mr Galloway.’

‘And that’s another lie.’

‘Why would he be sleeping with me? He was married.’

‘And married men never have affairs.’

‘I was not sleeping with him.’

‘The first time you referred to him as Sam, but every other time you’ve called him Mr Galloway. Now, you could argue that the first time was a slip of the tongue, you’d meant to call him Mr Galloway, and I could believe that, but not in the way you want me to believe it.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Okay, try this. You’re right down at the bottom of the food chain here at Galloway and Galloway. Josh has way more experience, and, even though Mary’s only educated to high-school level, she outranks you because she’s been here since the start of time. Now, I can see Josh using Sam’s first name because he knew him for a decade and would want to believe they were equals, even if they weren’t. For Mary, Sam is Mr Galloway, always and for ever. She’d never slip up and call him Sam because that’s not who he was to her. You, on the other hand, you’re the new girl, so when you were in the office you would have been very careful to call him Mr Galloway. However, when the two of you were alone he would have insisted you call him Sam.’

‘You’re wrong,’ she maintained, but there was no conviction in her voice.

I shook my head. ‘No, Judy, I’m not. The fact that you would accidentally call him Sam, even just once, implies familiarity and a degree of intimacy that goes outside the boundaries of the type of worker/boss relationship you should have had. So, I’ll ask again: how well did you know Sam?’

Silence fell between us, a long silence that filled the large high-ceilinged room. I was prepared to wait this out as long as it took because the outcome was a foregone conclusion. Judy was staring at her reflection in the table. Taylor was sitting quietly beside me, looking across the table at Judy. He was completely still, barely breathing. For such a large person, there were times when he left a very small dent on the world. He reached for his water glass and the rattle of the ice cubes made more noise than he did.

‘I didn’t want anything to happen,’ Judy whispered. She was still staring at her reflection.

‘And that’s another lie.’

19

‘I’m not a marriage wrecker.’

‘No you’re not. You weren’t Sam’s first. And, if things had turned out differently, you wouldn’t have been the last.’

‘It’s not what you think.’

I shook my head. ‘It’s exactly what I think.’

‘We were in love.’

‘That’s what he told you?’

Judy nodded. She looked up and stared defiantly across the table. I studied her for a moment, then shook my head and sighed.

‘And you believed him?’

Judy nodded again. A single tear slid down her right cheek, closely followed by a second one down the left, shiny wet tracks on her porcelain skin. Her bright green eyes were full of tears.

‘He told you he was going to leave his wife and family, didn’t he?’

Another nod. ‘He said they didn’t love each other any more. That they’d fallen out of love years ago. They slept in separate beds.’

‘And when exactly was he planning to leave her? Next week? Next month? Next year?’

‘He
was
going to leave her.’

‘No he wasn’t.’ I said softly.

‘How can you say that? You didn’t know him.’

‘Sam was never going to leave his wife, Judy. Do you really think that he was going to give up that big house over in McArthur Heights for you? No way. It was never going to happen. You deal with divorces here so you know how messy they can get.’

Judy was staring at her reflection in the table top again. ‘He said he was going to leave her,’ she whispered, but all the fight had gone.

I leant forward and placed my hands on the table. ‘Why don’t you tell me what happened?’

She spent the next ten minutes talking, detailing her affair with Sam in halting, tearful sentences. Her story was almost as old as time itself. A young girl gets her head turned by an older rich guy. He promises the moon and she believes him because she was brought up to believe that fairy tales can come true. In her world, Cinderella marries Prince Charming, and they live happily ever after.

Sam had told his wife he was working late the night he died because he was meeting Judy. Their liaisons followed a tried and tested routine. Judy would leave work somewhere between five-thirty and quarter to six and head home so she could shower and slip into her best underwear. Red was Sam’s favourite colour. Victoria’s Secret was his preferred brand. Sam would wait until the office was empty before locking up and heading out. Usually he’d leave by six-thirty, but that depended on how late Josh was working.

Judy’s apartment was a five-minute walk from the office, a couple of streets back from Main Street. Sam always walked there because Judy lived in the sort of neighbourhood where a Ferrari or a top-of-the-range Mercedes would stand out. His wife had told him to be discreet. That was the deal, and Sam would have complied. The last thing he wanted was to embarrass her. He had a good thing going, and there was no way he was going to screw it up.

So he’d sneak around to Judy’s place, being careful to make sure he wasn’t seen. They’d do whatever it was they did, then Sam would sneak back to the office, pick up his car and head home to McArthur Heights. Back into the warm embrace of his loving family.

Except last night Sam never made it to Judy’s apartment.

I sent Judy out and asked her to send Mary back in. The door swung shut and I stood up and stretched. ‘So where was Sam abducted?’

‘It’s got to have been here at the office,’ Taylor replied. ‘Snatching someone off the sidewalk is too risky. This isn’t New York, or one of those other big cities where, even when people do see something, they don’t see it. If Sam had been bundled into the back of a panel van, someone would have seen, and within five minutes everyone would have known about it.’

‘Yeah, that’s what I figure.’

‘How did you know Sam drove a Testarossa?’

Before I could answer there was a gentle knock on the door. Mary came back in and took the same seat as earlier, but only after she’d tidied the other two back into their rightful places under the large oak conference table. It was a habitual response, one born from years of conditioning. Mary had spent a large part of her life tidying up after people. Her husband, her kids. Her employer.

She looked me straight in the eye, defiant and challenging. ‘Mr Galloway wasn’t a bad person.’

‘But he was an adulterer. That’s one of the big ten. It’s right there at number eight, one place after don’t kill and one place before don’t steal.’