Likely Suspects (16 page)

“Perks of being a d
etective,” I commented.

“Damn straight,” he replied.
“So what do we think?”

“She’s
involved.” I didn’t hesitate. “I just don’t think she’s behind it.” Mark was in agreement.

“Griffin was too uncomfortable when I told her about the break-in,” O’Connell pointed out, “and her plans for leaving town
don’t make sense. Why would someone waste a plane ticket and bus ticket just to drive to a B&B maybe forty miles from here?”

“It’s almost as if whatever was supposed to have happened on Friday failed
, and she had to come back,” I pointed out. “Did you ever find out if anyone used the bus ticket?”

“
It was never cashed in or redeemed. Anything else you think I should ask?”

S
omething still wasn’t sitting right between her and Martin. “Bring up the acting-CEO, Blake Denton. See if anything shakes loose.”

O’Connell took the coffee
the tech had just brought back and headed into the interrogation room. “Almost done, ma’am,” he informed her, handing her the cup. “One last question before you go, how do you like working for the new CEO?”

“Oh, Mr. Denton is j
ust lovely.” She was practically giddy about the prospect.

“G
ood to hear,” O’Connell said, throwing a quick glance at us.

“Yes, he’s always been the most considerate when it comes to the
assistants, Christmas gifts and bonuses. He even gave me his airline miles to use.”

Bingo.

“Really?” O’Connell asked.

“Oh yes, I believe it was two…no, three years ago,” Griffin responded.

“Dammit.
” I hoped the dots were going to connect. The tech guy turned to me; unmistakably, my outburst startled him. “Sorry,” I apologized.

“Well
, thanks for your time. If we have any further questions, we’ll let you know.” O’Connell moved to get up but stopped once he got to the door. “Just between you and me, I’ve met Mr. Martin. He seems like a blowhard. Is Denton any better?”

Griffin
pondered the question for a few moments. “Mr. Martin is a sweet man, but he’s just too easily distracted from the important things. Don’t get me wrong, he’s been a great employer, but Mr. Denton is better for the company.”

I turned to Mark.
“Does Martin strike you as easily distracted from work?” I asked, considering the Martin I knew was a workaholic.

“Maybe he’s got an evil twin brother we don’t know about,” Mark suggested.

Griffin left the interrogation room, tossing the paper cup into the trash receptacle on her way out. O’Connell motioned to the glass before following her from the room and leading her presumably out of the building. The tech put on a pair of gloves and grabbed a plastic bag to retrieve the cup. At least we’d have some fingerprints or DNA in case we ever needed to make a comparison, even though this was definitely not the break I had been waiting for.

O
’Connell returned to the observation room a few minutes later. He wasn’t pleased by the way things had gone either. “Why’d you think it was so important to look for her on a Saturday?” he asked.

“It doesn’t add up.
She has to be connected. Did you see the surveillance tape with the mystery box, her unexplained disappearance, the fact that she enjoys working for Blake Denton?”

“I’m with you on the first two points, but wha
t does her opinion of an acting-CEO, whom Martin personally appointed, have to do with anything?” O’Connell questioned my reasoning, and I quickly explained what occurred the night before. “We can check into Denton just to see if there have been any complaints, but it sounds like he had a little too much to drink.” O’Connell dismissed my story easily. “But I agree. There is more than what she’s saying.”

“We need to find the box,” Mark added.
Yeah, but that’s not likely, I thought miserably.

“Look, I’ve got a stack of reports to read on
the explosion from Thursday, but without knowing the intended target, no obvious motive, and no one coming forward to take credit for it, there’s not much more I can do.” O’Connell was just being honest. “I’ve got a ton of open cases on my desk that all need attention, so unless you have something more concrete, I’m just working this in the background, at least at this stage.” I knew exactly what that meant; there would have to be more threats or worse before he could step back in to investigate.

“Okay,” Mark shook his hand, “thanks for doing what you can.
If you hear anything else, let me know. If my guys uncover anything, you’ll be our first call.”

I didn’t know what to say.
I understood O’Connell’s predicament. “All right, but if something important turns up, I’d appreciate a call next time,” I said pointedly for O’Connell’s benefit. Today was turning into a huge disappointment.

We
headed toward Martin’s house, and I leaned back in the passenger’s seat and closed my eyes. Mrs. Griffin had to know something. I just didn’t know how to get her to break.

“Wh
ere’s her husband?” I asked, and Mark looked puzzled.

“Who
se husband?”

“Griffin, Mrs. Suza
nne Griffin.” I emphasized the Mrs. “Is she married? Divorced? Widowed?” Mark shrugged. We had both read her employee file and had found nothing on her in any of the criminal databases, but as far as marriage was concerned, we were severely lacking in information.

“You’re going to have to ask
Marty. Maybe he’ll know.” We rode in silence for a while before Mark spoke. “So, last night,” he seemed cautious, trying to gauge if I wanted to talk about it, “you kicked that prick’s ass, right?”

I tried
to hide my grin. “Something like that.”

“Good girl.”

We arrived back at Martin’s compound, and Marcal buzzed us in. I was just about to ask Mark if he was going to hang around when my cell phone rang. I looked at the phone, annoyed. The caller was still blocked. I hit answer.

“Who is this?”
There was still no response, so I clicked end call.

“What’s going on
?” He wasn’t sure what caused my outburst.

“I don’t know.
I’ve been getting blocked calls all morning.” He took my phone and checked the call log. This was the third time today.

“Hang on.
” He picked up his phone and called the office. “Hey, Anita, this is Jablonsky, I need you to do me a favor. Can you find out who the last caller was to this number?” He gave her my phone number. “Okay, call me back whenever you have it. I owe you.” He hung up and turned to me. “It’ll just take a few minutes, hopefully.”

“Come inside.
You can stare at some horrible surveillance footage while we wait,” I offered as we got out of the car. Martin was in his second floor office on the phone. I could tell from his half of the conversation he wasn’t getting very far with the accounting department.

“What’s going on?” Mark asked.
I filled him in on the missing funds, and he shook his head. “When it rains, it pours.”

“Don’t I know it.
” I found the disk and the corresponding paperwork sitting on the coffee table. I turned the video footage on for Mark to watch as I began listing everyone who signed in to work that day and then crossed off all the names which corresponded to the list of people who were paid for working that day. There were only three names which didn’t match up.

“What am I look
ing for?” he asked. I had already seen the video once when we were at the plant, and there wasn’t much to be gained from it.

“Well
, ideally, the saboteur. So which of these things or people don’t belong?” We both stared at the screen for a little while. Everyone seemed to move about with purpose. No one loitered or seemed lost.

“What about this
guy?” He paused the screen.

“Looks like everyone else,” I responded
dismissively.

“No, see how
everyone else just mills about.” He rewound and hit play. “But,” he pointed out the guy, “this one makes sure he keeps his head down. He turns away from the others as he walks past.” He rewound and played it again. I had no idea how he noticed this. The guy was so inconspicuous I never would have seen it.

“That’s our guy
.” I checked the timestamp on the tape and double-checked the sign-in sheet. No one had signed in immediately before this guy appeared on camera. “I just don’t know how we’re going to identify him.”

“Can I take this
?” he asked, indicating the disk. “Maybe I can call in some favors and have our techs run it through, clean it up, see if we can’t get it cross-referenced with the employee IDs in our facial recognition software.”

“There are about a million dirty things I’d love to do to you right now,” I joked, expressing how incredibl
y pleased I was to have help identifying a suspect.

“How come you nev
er say anything like that to me?” Martin asked, appearing in the doorway.

“Maybe if you had better surveill
ance cameras installed, I would.” My response was snarky, and he ignored it.

“Glad to see you’
re still in one piece,” Mark commented.

“Yeah, my security’s been racking up a lot of overtime h
ours to make sure I stay that way. What happened with Suzanne?” Mark gave a brief rundown of the interview, leaving out the part where Griffin expressed her favoritism for Denton. I didn’t know if this was to spare Martin’s feelings or not.

“Is she married?”
My memory was like a steel trap.

“Used to be,” Martin said
. “She got divorced years ago.”

“I
’ll head out and see if I can get a rush put on this.” Mark held up the security tape. “I’ll check in with Anita. She probably got bogged down with other things, but if she gets a number for you, I’ll let you know,” Mark promised. We said our good-byes, and he left.

I turned to Martin.
“How are things?” I asked.

“No
t so good.” He frowned slightly. “Accounting doesn’t know where the money went. Oh and it gets better. They’ve also misplaced funds from three other accounts.”

“When did they go mi
ssing?” I had a sneaky suspicion the threats and the money were connected. Maybe this was why I was making the big bucks.

“They didn’t
even notice they were gone until I had them run through everything.”

“Okay, I’ll
give Kate a call. Do you have the relevant account numbers handy?”

“I’ll g
o get them.” He headed back to his office while I dialed the number.

“Hartley,” Kate answered instantly.

“Hey, Kate. It’s Alex Parker,” I greeted. “I know it’s been too long, but I have a favor to ask. I’m working private security right now for CEO James Martin. He’s got some funds that have gone missing in the last seventy-two hours or so. Think you can track them down? See where they went and who authorized the move.”

“Sure,
just give me the account information,” Kate said. Martin returned and handed me a sheet of paper. I read the numbers off. “I’m a bit backed up, but I’ll get to this as quickly as I can.”

“Thanks.
When this is all cleared up, we’re going out for a girl’s night, catch up, drinks are on me.”

“Can’t wait.
” She hung up.

“She’ll get to it as soon as
she can,” I relayed the message to Martin. This seemed to be the story of our lives right now.

Sighing, he
sat down next to me. “You realize it’s only a little past two o’clock, and there is nothing left to do today. Everyone else has jobs, and they go to work. But we’re waiting on Mark to give us a suspect, and Kate to find the money, and…”

“Stop it,” I cut him
off. “I know, okay. I know.”  

“I wasn’t criticizing
you.” He must have realized that’s what it seemed like. “But I don’t know how to just do nothing.” The wheels in my head were turning around something that had been bothering me for quite some time.

“Did you sleep with her?” I turned to
face him.

“Who?”
He was taken aback by the question.

“
Mrs. Griffin. Suzanne.” It was out of the blue, but it was driving me crazy ever since the conversation in my office. “Did you sleep with her?” I repeated.

“Yes.
” He got up from the couch and went into the kitchen. Well, that’s just fucking fantastic, but I resisted the urge to say as much.

“When?” I called into the
kitchen. I almost felt jealous. Quit being idiotic, I berated myself.

“About five years
ago. It only happened once.” He was standing half in the kitchen and half in the living room, unsure of what to do. I was pretty sure he was trying to find an escape route from this conversation.

“Was she still married then?”
I didn’t want to be asking these questions any more than he wanted to be answering them. Get a hold of yourself, Parker. I was staring into his eyes, judging the veracity of his statements.

“No,” he swallowed, “newly single.”

“You remember the part where I said I needed to know about the skeletons in your closet? This would count as a skeleton.”

“
Sorry, it’s something I’m not proud of and would rather forget.” He was pacing in the kitchen now, out of my line of sight.

“Was s
he upset you didn’t continue the affair?”

“There was no affair.
” He was angry because I was butting into his personal life. “It was a onetime thing.” He came back into the living room. “Everyone makes mistakes. I shouldn’t be the one being interrogated.”

“I’m not interrogating you.
” I tried a softer approach. “She’s angry at you.” He looked confused. “I know. It makes no sense. I get that, but I could tell. O’Connell asked if she preferred Denton to you. She made Denton out to be a saint.”

Martin rearranged
the liquor bottles at the bar and snorted. “Some saint.”

“That’s beside the point.
Not to mention, the conversation she had with me in the office, the one you so easily dismissed.” My accusatory tone was creeping back into my voice, and I tried to rein it in. “And then your comments on blackmail being in the box, blackmail against you.” I touched his shoulder and gently nudged him to turn around and face me. “She’s got dirt on you, doesn’t she?”