The Answer Man (11 page)

He walked down the hallway as if he had a legitimate reason to be there. It was a stellar performance, but there was no audience to appreciate it. Surely there were a few workaholics still toiling in their cubicles. But with each turn of a corner, Ken could see only vacant corridors. He followed the numbers toward Browne's office.

The lights turned off.

Ken stopped. He wasn't in total darkness; traces of sunlight were still coming through windows in a few of the open offices. He squinted to see his watch. Seven-thirty sharp. The hallway lights were probably on a timer.

Ken saw a ribbon of fluorescent light spilling from a doorway. Browne's office. Ken stopped to listen.

There was a continuous rapid-fire clicking coming from behind the door. It was a familiar sound, but Ken couldn't quite place it. He crept closer to the door and peeked through the crack.

All he could see were bookshelves.

He placed his fingertips on the door and shoved. It swung inward, revealing more bookshelves, a window, a desk…

And a man slumped over the desk.

No way in hell.

Ken froze. This couldn't be happening.

The man's face was lying on his computer keyboard,
causing line after line of letters to scroll down the monitor screen. It was making the clicking sound.

Ken still hesitated. Then he heard a sound. Voices in the hallway. Coming his way, naturally.

Ken stepped inside and pressed himself against the wall. The voices came closer, as did the sound of casters rolling across the carpeted corridor. A vacuum cleaner. Cleaning people.

The voices faded as the workers turned the corner.

Ken stepped away from the wall. What now? Maybe the man wasn't dead. Maybe he'd had a heart attack and was just unconscious. He should check.

He walked over—and saw a tiny bullet hole in the man's forehead, with only the tiniest trace of blood. Jesus.

Should he report the murder? No. He was already linked with two murders. How would this look?

As he was pondering what to do next, he noticed the lock on a file drawer in the desk. He had come here for information, and the stubborn part of him refused to leave without it. He reached for the drawer. It didn't open.

He had a good idea where to find the key. He pushed back Browne's chair and thought for a moment. Did he really want to do this?

No. Yes. Maybe.

Hell no, he didn't want to do this.

But the stubborn part took over again. He jammed his hand into the corpse's right pants pocket. Wet. Browne had pissed in his pants at the moment of death.

Ken fished for the keys, finally hooking them with his middle finger. He pulled them out and unlocked the desk drawer. It was jammed with files. He thumbed through the tabs until he found one labeled
V
.
I
.

Vikkers Industries?

He reached inside. No paper. Shit. But as he pulled out the folder, a thin, rectangular piece of metal slid out. He picked it up. It appeared to be an aluminum sample cast
with a dark purple hue. A series of numbers and letters were etched on one side. He pocketed the sample and put the folder back into the drawer. There didn't appear to be any other relevant files.

Ken held up the keys. Was it absolutely necessary to put them back where he found them? Yeah, probably so. He once against stuck his hand into Browne's damp pocket and deposited the keys.

He looked at the computer. It could be holding more information, but there wasn't time to guess at the password. It was time to get out.

He leaned into the doorway, checked both directions, and walked down the corridor. He reached the elevator bank and punched the button. It didn't stay lit. He tried it again. Again, the light didn't stay on.

Damn. It must have switched over to key access only, probably at the same time the lights went off.

Ken followed the glowing green exit signs to the stairwell. He ran down to the sixth floor, where he found the covered walkway that crossed Spring Street to another office building. He crossed the bridge, took the other building's elevator, and emerged on the street below.

As Ken walked to his car, he cast a glance up at Browne's lighted office. First Carlos Valez, then Sabini, now this guy. Three people he had recently come into contact with. No way was it a coincidence.

What had he stumbled into?

Christ. If he didn't wind up in jail, he might just end up as corpse number four.

“I have some news for you.”

Early the next morning, Ken was walking across his office parking lot, when he heard Gant's voice.

Lieutenant Gant.

Again.

Ken felt the metal strip in his pocket. Shit. If Gant
somehow found out that he had been in Don Browne's office, the hunk of metal might be evidence enough to bury him. It had been a sleepless night, and the morning obviously wasn't going to be any better. He was still shaken from the experience of finding Browne's body.

Did it show? Could Gant see that he was half out of his mind? “What do you have?” Ken asked.

“I'm afraid you botched a test.”

“What test?”

“The test you gave Carlos Valez. He
didn't
steal the VCR.”

Ice water surged through Ken's veins. “How do you know?”

“The mall manager told me. Someone tipped her off, and they found the unit at another guy's house. Did you test someone by the name of Robert Finlayson?”

This wasn't happening. Christ almighty.

“Yes,” Ken answered in a low rasp.

“That was the guy.”

Ken nodded. One of his worst fears had finally come true. He had been proven wrong. Shit.

“I guess it happens,” Gant said. “You can't be right all the time.”

How about half the time?

Was he right even that much?

Carlos had said he lost his job, his home, and his family because of that damned machine. No, not because of the machine. Because of the examiner.

“Thanks for making my day,” Ken said. “Is that what you came to tell me?”

“That and the fact that this gave Carlos Valez even more reason to have been angry at you. If you want to admit anything, your position would be stronger than ever. He was obviously furious with you.”

“There's nothing to admit!”

Gant said nothing.

“Do you want to arrest me? Huh? Jesus. Okay, so I
screwed up his exam. I have to live with that. I didn't kill him though. What more do I have to say?”

“Nothing,” Gant said. “You don't have to say another word.”

Ken half expected handcuffs to be snapped around his wrists, but instead Gant turned on his heel and walked away.

Ken entered his building, sailing past the smirking receptionist on the way to his office. Did she know what a fraud he was?

Probably.

Ken flew into his office, slammed the door behind him, and kicked the polygraph stand. The machine crashed to the ground. A knob flew off and spun furiously on the floor.

That felt good.

Ken settled into his desk chair and looked at the mess. Why had Gant come? The fact that the exam was botched didn't have any real bearing on the case; it didn't suggest that he was responsible for Carlos's death. No, Gant wanted to throw him off balance, hoping to upset him and get a confession out of him. That was it.

The man was just doing his job.

The way he had been doing
his
job when he screwed over Carlos Valez.

Ken rubbed his face with his hands. What the hell was happening? Don Browne's murder was reported on the morning TV news, but there was no apparent motive, no suspects, no anything.

Was he fooling himself by thinking he could find that money?

Maybe.

But the money, Ken realized, wasn't all he was after. With the police breathing down his neck for a pair of murders he didn't commit, he was driven to discover what was happening around him. He suspected that the twelve-million-dollar booty was in the eye of this storm, and if he could
find it, a lot of other answers would follow. Answers he just might need to stay out of jail.

But the quest was getting more risky by the moment.

“
What the hell are you doing?”

Myth pushed her way into Ken's apartment. It was two thirty-five
A
.
M
., and Ken, in his grogginess, had answered his door without checking the peephole first.

“I'm trying to sleep,” Ken replied. “You're not helping.”

She glared at him. “I was talking to Sabini's widow, and she said an insurance investigator was there to see her. I checked around, and none of the agencies would admit to it. Then she described the car he was driving.
Your
car.”

“Yeah, so what?”

“Looking for Sabini's money will only attract attention from the police.”

“We also agreed not to see each other. That didn't stop you from coming over to my place the other night.”

“I admitted that was a mistake.”

“Fine. You make your mistakes, I'll make mine.”

“This involves both of us, Ken. If you blunder into that police investigation, you risk exposing everything we've done.”

“I'll be careful.”

She sat on the sofa. “It's a waste of time. Tell me, are you any closer to finding the money?”

Ken wiped the sleep out of his eyes. “Maybe,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“I know that some information from Sabini's laptop was copied and sold by a data recovery guy.”

This got her attention. “When?”

“A few weeks before they found the money missing. It was sold to an executive at a competing company, who happened to have been murdered last night.”

Myth stared at Ken for a moment. “Are you talking about the man at Crown Metals?”

“One and the same.”

“How did you find this out?”

“I asked around.”

“Do the police know all this?”

“I don't think so.”

She sat still, thinking in silence. “I wonder if Vikkers Industries knows.”

“Sabini's company? How would they know?”

She hesitated before speaking. “Did you know Vikkers Industries is under investigation?”

“For what?”

“They recently completed a very lucrative merger with Lyceum Metals. The Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating charges of misconduct on the company's part.”

“What kind of misconduct?”

“I'm not sure. The investigation is still in the preliminary stages. The SEC doesn't like to publicize these things because it can have an adverse effect on the company's stock.”

“What does this have to do with anything?”

“Maybe nothing. But if someone is murdered just a few weeks after obtaining Vikkers' privileged information…”

“You think Vikkers may be involved.”

“Was the murdered executive the only one who had access to this data?”

“As far as I know. Why?”

“I've heard this strictly off the record, but several executives around town are reputed to have received Vikkers' sensitive financial data in the weeks prior to the merger. It actually discouraged other companies from trying to ace Vikkers out of the merger with Lyceum Metals.”

“Why?”

“It didn't paint a pretty picture of Lyceum. Vikkers completed the merger with no other bidders in the running. The top Vikkers guys made out like bandits.”

“Maybe Don Browne spread the information around before he got killed.”

“Possible. But why would he help his rivals? I'm sure he paid dearly for that data, and he'd want the advantage of having it to himself.”

“Maybe someone killed him for it.”

“Maybe. But the other firms have supposedly had that data for weeks. We're only assuming, of course, it
was
Sabini's data.”

“If they all had Sabini's data,” Ken said, thinking it through, “then there
is
an explanation.”

Ken shoved Keogler against a telephone pole behind the data recovery service. The kid was petrified.

“Who else?” Ken demanded, leaning into Keogler's face.

“What—what do you mean?”

“Don Browne wasn't the only guy you sold this information to, was he?”

“Yes, I swear!”

“Bullshit. This information is all over the place. I want to know who else you slipped the data to.”

Keogler squinted in the midmorning sun. He was sweating despite the mild temperature. “I can't do that.”

“Sure you can. And while you're at it, tell me who else knew Don Browne had the information.”

“No one else knew. I wouldn't tell anybody that.”

“Except me, huh? Right. You're forgetting I still have the tape of our conversation. And a copy of the data that you gave me.”

“Come on, give me a break, will you?”

Ken shoved a pen and paper into Keogler's chest. “Start writing.”

Keogler took the pen and paper, fumbling with them as he glanced meekly at Ken. He turned, and using the phone pole as a backing, began writing. “I didn't tell anyone besides you that Browne had the data. I didn't tell any of these guys that I'd sold it to anyone else. It wouldn't be good for business.”

“Why did you originally give me Browne's name and no one else's?”

Keogler clicked his tongue. “He was a deadbeat. He wouldn't pay the balance of what he owed me. He tried to say the information was bogus. Can you believe that? So it didn't exactly break my heart to give you his name.” Keogler shook his head as he continued writing. “Man, that data must be hotter than I thought.”

“Have you looked it over?”

“Of course. But there are no access numbers in there. Like I told you, no one could have used it to rip off the company. I checked.” Keogler handed Ken the pen and paper.

Ken glanced over the list. There were four names and companies.