How to Survive a Killer Seance (26 page)

“He’ll be right out,” she said. “Have a seat.” She nodded toward the two brown leather couches facing each other in the middle of the room.

I felt her eyes on my back as I sat down to wait for my “ex-husband.” When I stole a glance at her a few seconds later, she was clicking away on her computer, no doubt IMing everyone in the office about Jerry’s ex being in the lobby. The news would be viral by the time he got out here.

I was quite proud of myself, coming up with such a great lie on the spur of the moment. But before I could gloat too much, a side door to the lobby opened and a young man stepped out. In his blue power shirt, Men’s Wearhouse suit, and black loafers, he looked more like an eager company employee and less like a fake waiter.

“You’re not Camille!” Jerry Thompson said, hands on his hips.

“No, sorry about that.” Camille, I assumed, was his ex.

“So who the hell are you?” he continued.

I stood up, reached into my purse, and pressed the RECORDINGS app on my iPhone, then pulled out a business card and handed it to him. “I’m Presley Parker. We met the other day at a party.”

He looked over the card, glanced up at me; then his eyes shot over to the receptionist. “Katia, call security,” he demanded, his face reddening. “And have them show this woman out.”

He turned on his heels, but I lunged and grabbed his arm. “I don’t think you want to do that, Mr. Thompson. Or should I call you Joe the Waiter?”

He spun back around. “What do you want?” he hissed. “The party’s over, Miss Parker. I have nothing to say to you.”

“The police may not be so easy to escape, Mr. Thompson, even with your security people at the ready to back you up. And they’ll definitely want to hear what I have to say.”

He chewed his lip for a moment, his red face turning splotchy. Glancing around he spotted the nearby conference room, stepped over, and pulled open the door.

“She’ll need to sign in—” Katia called out.

Thompson ignored her. He took me by the arm and yanked me inside. Closing the door behind him, he moved over to the windows and pulled the blinds. I sat down in the chair closest to the door and tried to look relaxed and confident. Inside a beehive was raging. What was I getting myself into?

“So what do you want?” He turned around, his arms crossed defensively. “I’ve done nothing wrong. There’s no law against moonlighting as a waiter.”

“No, but there are laws against blackmail, extortion, corporate espionage, and murder,” I said calmly, as if I accused someone of major crimes every day. I’d learned a lot about interrogating suspects from Detective Melvin.

Thompson exploded. He started shouting and spittle flew from his mouth. “I had
nothing
to do with any murder! Yes, I was at the party. But Levi’s death shocked me as much as everyone else.”

I leaned back in the conference chair. Cushy. Real leather. Made me feel like a proper CIO: chief interrogation officer. “It’s obvious that you were spying at the Séance Party. But I think you were there to steal the Hella-Graphics 4-D Projector—and got caught.”

“That’s absurd,” Thompson cried, but I noticed that he’d uncrossed his arms and was now clenching his fists, as if preparing to defend himself physically. “You have nothing on me. I’m calling security.” He walked the few steps to the long conference table, his hand extended and ready to grab the multibuttoned phone that sat there.

I hastily placed my hand over the receiver to stall him. “Jonathan’s been arrested,” I said, playing my last card. I had run out of accusations and was throwing everything I had at him, hoping he’d—what? Confess?

Jerry blinked so many times, I thought he’d developed a tic. He pulled his hand back from the phone and tucked it into a suit pocket. A more natural color returned to his face. “Well . . . good. Then they’ve caught the killer. I’m not surprised. Jonathan was an egomaniacal dictator who wanted all the fame, glory, and money for himself. He deserves whatever he gets. We’re done here.” He started for the door, obviously planning to make a quick escape.

I stood and moved in front of him, blocking his exit. “I don’t think Jonathan killed Levi—or anyone for that matter. I think you and your boss, Dane Scott, are behind all this.”

His face flamed again. His hands contracted into fists.

Uh-oh. Had I really just said that?

Had I just told a probable killer that I knew what he’d done? What was to stop him from killing me? I was safe—for now—in the conference room, but once I left this building, it was open season on party planners. There was no telling when Thompson might try to silence me. Maybe he’d already tried, I thought, remembering the pounding on my walls last night.

“By the way,” I continued, “your little attempt to scare me last night didn’t work. And I’ve told the police everything, so if something happens to me, you and Dane Scott will be the first ones they’ll question. After all, Jonathan is locked up. If I die, he’s got an alibi.”

Jerry face contorted in anger. I thought he might strike me—until a voice came over the intercom.

“Jerry?” It sounded like Katia, the multipierced receptionist.

Jerry Thompson stared at the phone as if it had suddenly come to life. Indecision about answering it was written all over his face. After another moment’s hesitation, he pressed a button.

“What?” he snapped.

“There’s a call for you. Do you want to take it in the conference room?” queried the disembodied voice.

He glared at me, then picked up the receiver to make the call private. Just before he turned away from me, I saw the color drain from his face. I could have sworn he said the name “Levi Webster.” If it really was Levi Webster who was calling Jerry Thompson, it had to be from the grave.

Seconds later Jerry slammed down the phone. He turned to me, almost surprised to see I was still in the room, then dialed three numbers and said only, “Conference room.”

Two beefy security guards arrived to escort me out the front door. I tried to maintain my dignity as they held my arms forcefully, but the stares I garnered from looky-loo employees didn’t do much for my pride. Oh well. I thought things had gone fairly well for flying by the seat of my pants.

And I had the whole conversation on my iPhone recorder. I pulled out my phone and listened to part of the conversation. Then I called Brad.

“You done yet?” I asked.

“Where have you been? I’ve been calling you.”

I glanced at my phone. I’d turned off the ringer while “in conference” with Jerry Thompson and hadn’t turned it back on. Three calls from Brad.

“Sorry. Something came up. I’m on my way back to Hella-Graphics. Be there in a few minutes.”

“Where are you—”

I hung up and hoofed it up the hill. Brad was standing outside, looking around—for me, I assumed. I waved. He didn’t. We headed for his SUV in silence, and it wasn’t until we were on the bridge that he asked again, “So are you going to tell me what you’ve been up to?”

“I went over to Stereo-Scope Graphics to see if I could find out more about Dane Scott.”

Brad rolled his eyes. “You can’t get past the front door at those places without an ID.”

I smiled at him. I could almost feel my eyes twinkling.

His mouth dropped open before he hastily returned his gaze to the road. “You’re kidding. How did you get in?”

“Charm. Looks. Personality. The door was unlocked. Who knows? What’s important is, I talked with Jerry Thompson, Dane’s right-hand man, and he’s definitely hiding something. He acted very nervous and kept overreacting to my questions.”

Brad stole another glance at me. “Did you find out anything?”

“Aside from the fact that he has an ex-wife? Yeah. I think he got a call from Levi Webster.”

Brad frowned. “Obviously that’s not possible. Levi’s dead. Unless he was calling from one of those Ghost Boxes.”

“No, that’s just it. You should have seen his reaction when he was told who was calling. He looked like he
had
gotten a call from a Ghost Box.”

“What did this Levi person say?”

We pulled off the bridge and drove down Macalla Road onto Treasure Island.

“I don’t know. I was escorted out of the building at that point. But I’m dying to know how that conversation went.”

We drove to Building One and parked in the lot. Gathering our things, we headed for the Art Deco front doors, flanked by giant stone statues of portly men and women, more remnants of the Golden Gate Expo of 1939.

Brad started to veer toward his office, but I called after him. “Brad, could you do me a favor?”

He groaned. “What now?”

I ignored his brief look of exasperation. “Could you find out from Detective Melvin what they discovered in Jonathan’s confiscated computer, since Melvin’s not likely to tell me? They should have that information by now. Maybe there’s something about Levi—or Zachary—in there.”

He pressed his lips together, nodded, and disappeared into his own office next door to mine. I spent the next half hour trying to focus on upcoming party events but my mind kept circling back to Jonathan—and my mother’s plea to help him. In between phone calls to possible clients, I made random notes, but none of them offered any “Aha!” moments.

“Hey,” Brad said, peeking in the door. “Any suspicious phone calls or strange knocking sounds lately?”

“Very funny.”

He sauntered into the room and sat down at Delicia’s vacated desk. Dee was off at her audition for the travel bureau that she’d been rehearsing for.

“Did you talk to Detective Melvin?” I didn’t really have to ask. I could tell by Brad’s expression that he had. “Well? What did he say? Did they find something?”

Brad picked up a bride and groom cake topper I had recently used at an engagement party. This one had the bride standing, dragging a reluctant groom. “It took them a while to retrieve the deleted messages, but they found e-mails to and from Zachary Samuels. Seems Jonathan found out that Zachary was planning to sell inside information about the 4-D Projector to Dane Scott.”

“Wow,” I said, surprised at the revelation. After all, Zachary had denied it.

“That’s not all. Jonathan threatened Zachary for betraying him.”

“Threatened him? How?”

“Luke sent me a copy—I have it right here.” Brad pulled a folded paper from his back pocket and handed it to me.

It read, “I’m gonna kill you, you double-crossing traitor.”

Things were not looking good for Jonathan Ellington.

I dreaded telling my mother. She didn’t take bad news well. She also seemed to think I was superhuman and could solve all her problems, which, of course, was impossible to live up to. The only good thing about Alzheimer’s was that she often forgot my imperfections along with what she’d asked me to do. I wasn’t sure, however, that this incident would be easy to forget. It seemed so personal to her.

Still, the facts were piling up against Jonathan. The motive, opportunity, means, not to mention the physical evidence—police had found his fingerprints on the weapons. That was to be expected since he touched them both, but still . . .

And now I had to add credible threats made to one of the victims, thanks to Jonathan’s recovered e-mails to Zachary.

Did Jonathan really think deleting the e-mails would be enough to cover his motive? For a computer expert, it seemed pretty stupid. One thing Jonathan wasn’t was stupid.

Still, SFPD had recovered the messages Jonathan had sent to Zachary when Jonathan had discovered Zachary was planning to sell the intellectual property to Stereo-Scope Graphics—for a multimillion-dollar price. Not only would Zachary be rich, but Jonathan would no doubt be ruined.

So where did this leave Dane Scott? Did Zachary manage to get him the 4-D information before he was killed—even though he swore to me that he had no such plans? Or was Zachary murdered before he could accomplish his goal?

If Dane Scott
did
receive the information before Zachary died, maybe he’d killed Zachary—with the help of Jerry Thompson—to make sure Zachary didn’t talk. And that way Dane wouldn’t have to pay Zachary off.

The best of both worlds.

I had to find out more about Dane Scott. But with him hiding inside that silicon fortress, he’d be nearly impossible to confront. The only way to get to him was to lure him out like I had with Jerry.

And I had just the plan.

 

Brad had disappeared from his office. He was probably helping Marianne with another one of her bogus requests. I’d need his help for what I had in mind, but for the time being, I’d ask Duncan Grant, skater, gamer, and computer expert, and Berkeley Wong, videographer, to lend a hand. They shared an office two doors down from mine.