Dying to Tell (6 page)

eleven

Larry Conti filled his
travel mug with coffee, tightened the lid, and left the break room. He headed deeper into the rear office area and checked twice to see if anyone was watching him. Across from the rear emergency exit, he used a key to open a door marked “Secure Storage” and went inside. The room was lined with a dozen rows of ceiling-high storage racks filled with file boxes. He maneuvered around them to the rear of the room, where a staircase led down to the bank's basement and the historical file storage.

In the basement, he found Karen already waiting for him in the middle of the room surrounded by more racks of files. She looked upset and anxious and jumped up from a metal folding chair when he appeared. Her face was pale and her eyes red and irritated, as though she hadn't slept in days. Nerves were getting the best of her.

“I was just about to give up,” she said in a low, crackly voice. She crushed into him. “What took you so long?”

“I had to write my statement, Karen. The cops are intense, you know?”

She grimaced. “Yeah, right. I'm sorry. What have you found out?”

“Same question to you.” He looked her over, trying to catch a lie. “What have you heard from Thorne and Marshal?”

“No one knows where Marshal is, but that's not unusual. Franklin told me what you already did: they found William dead in his vault but don't think the robber did it. We retrieved William's emergency instructions and get this—there was a file in his safety deposit box for Professor Tucker.”

“Is that why she had the meeting with the Chairman?”

Karen shrugged. “I don't know. And I don't think anyone else does, either. Do you know how William died?”

“He didn't just die, Karen, he was murdered. And they think the murderer was someone he knew, too.”

“Oh my God.” Her eyes darted around. “He was right, wasn't he? It's all happening. Someone was after him.”

“You gotta relax, Karen. It could all be a coincidence.”

“Coincidence? I don't believe that and neither do you.” She looked around again as though someone was listening. “Was it coincidence someone tried to rob his vault this morning and now William's dead?”

“I don't know. Maybe.”

“What's wrong with you, Larry? You told me William asked you to protect him. Now he's dead. Don't you think he was right? Don't you think someone was after him?”

She was right, of course. More right than she realized. He said, “Yeah, yeah, I know. But who was after him? Who killed him? And why?
Was it the vault or something else?”

“Do you think Marshal had anything to do with all this?”

“I don't know. Marshal asked me to spy for him. I thought that was to keep the Chairman from screwing up here at the bank. You know, like Alzheimer's or something—that's what he told me. But now I'm not so sure.”

Karen bit her lip and blinked a few times. “That doesn't mean that's not the real reason he wanted you to spy on him.”

“No, you're right. But I wonder, don't you?” He glanced back toward the stairwell and listened. Karen was holding back—he felt it and heard it in her voice. He had to find out what she knew and what Thorne knew. Karen was Thorne's favorite and he knew why. Still, jealousy had a way of getting in the way of common sense. He couldn't afford to get it all wrong.

“Somebody shot the Chairman in cold blood, Karen—sound like anyone you know? A
cold-hearted
bastard?” She looked away and he pressed her. “Did you meet Thorne last night? We were supposed to meet—you and me—remember?”

“No, I didn't see Franklin last night. Why would you think that? He was out of town.” She reached out and touched Larry's arm. “I'm
sorry about last night. I tried to call, but you didn't answer. Really, I did.”

“What about Thorne? I heard you talking to him yesterday on the phone.”

She pulled her hand away from his arm. “That was business—he asked me to check William's schedule about some meetings he wanted to set up. He and Marshal were gone until this morning and you know that.” She looked away and tried to hide the redness on her cheeks. “I know what you think, Larry, but you're the teacher's pet, not me. Everyone in the bank knows William protected you.”

Yes, that was true. “Then I guess we were both pets, right?”

“You listen to me, Larry.” Her eyes grew fiery. “I live right down the street. You know what I see late at night—who I see coming and going. But you don't know everything I do. Maybe that's why Thorne is nice to me. Maybe that's why he doesn't trust you—you're kissing William's ass and sneaking around for Marshal at the same time.”

“No, I'm not.” He stepped into her and took her shoulders. “Careful, Karen—be very, very careful. Rumors and gossip can get you fired … or worse. And what about us? What would happen to us if they started poking around? I don't want that and neither do you, right?”

“No, of course not.”

“Listen, you know I'll look out for you.” He took her hand and touched the gold bracelet he'd given her. He ran his fingers over the raised letters of her name on one side and the Egyptian hieroglyphs on the other. It had cost him more he'd ever spent on a girl and she'd accepted it on their second date. “I can't believe we're together. Do you think I want to lose that?”

She looked away. “No, I guess not.”

“I'm worried about you. If whoever killed the Chairman thinks you saw or know something, you could be in danger. You could be next.” He leaned in close, put his arm around her, and gave her a reassuring hug. “You should tell me. I'll protect you. Trust me.”

“I do, Larry. It's just this place—this damn bank—it's cursed, I swear.” Karen kissed his cheek. “Look what it's done to William.”

Larry watched her walk to the stairs and disappear. Yes, this damn bank was cursed—something the Chairman had said for years. And now he knew what the Chairman would want him to do. He had to protect his boss, even with him gone.

Larry took a heavy breath and breathed a sigh before taking out his cell phone. He dialed his voicemail. When it connected, he typed in his security code—52779, the numbers spelling his name—and waited.

“
You have no new messages. You have
twenty-five
saved messages
.”

With a couple taps on his cell phone keypad he was done.

“
All messages deleted
.”

Then he repeated the exercise by dialing a local number, reaching the phone's voicemail, and hitting the number key to access the phone's mailbox.

“
You have two new messages. You have five saved messages
.”

He listened to all the messages and tapped the keypad again.

“
All messages deleted
.”

He closed his phone.

William would have been pleased.

twelve

Bear and I found
Cal Clemens in the break room with a fresh pot of coffee. When Bear walked in, Cal poured him a cup. While he was scrounging for cream in a small refrigerator, Larry Conti walked in carrying a file folder.

“Detective Braddock?”

“Yeah, Larry, what do you need?”

“I thought you'd want to see this right away.” Larry handed him the folder. When he looked at Cal, he cocked his head and gave
him the
once-over
. After a long moment, he grinned. “Hey, aren't you Calloway Clemens, the Blues Man?”

Calloway the Blues Man?

“Yeah, that's me.” Cal cracked a smile. “Do I know you?”

“No, no, but I know you.” Larry thrust a hand out and almost wrenched Cal's arm off. “I listen to
Remember When
every weekend. I don't think I've missed more than three weekends since the Kit Kat opened. You sure can play.”

“Play?” I watched Cal's face light up. “Bear, are you hearing this? Cal's famous.”

Cal had always been a loner. He was an honest cop but not one of the
first-call
guys on Bear's team. He was more of a constant, steady hand—not the firebrand,
go-getter
type. If you gave him the task, you could trust it to get done—as long as his partner, the aforementioned Mikey Spence, didn't derail him. Except for the occasional choir practice after work—that's beer and bitching, not churches and singing—Cal didn't run with anyone from the department. He did his work, paid the minimal attention to cop functions, and went about his own way.

Now I find out he's the notorious Calloway Clemens—whoever that was.

Bear asked, “Cal, are you keeping something from us?”

“Not like you think, Bear,” he said. “I told you about my pal Keys and his band. Well, I'm in the band. We play blues and swing out at the Kit Kat West.”

“No shit?” Bear's face brightened. “The cat what?”

“The Kit Kat West.” Larry waved in the air. “You're kidding, right Detective? That's the new nightclub out on Route 11 North. Been open for months and everyone is talking about it. Man, what a place—folks come all the way from DC, Baltimore, even Philly and New York. It reminds me of—”

“Yeah, right. The new club.” Since Bear didn't have a clue what Larry was talking about, he changed the subject. “What about this file, Larry?”

“Man, Calloway blows a mean sax, too. Last weekend—”

“The file, Larry.”

Larry slapped Clemens's shoulder again. “Okay, sure. But I gotta ask you about the band later, Calloway.”

“Ah, Larry, it's Detective Clemens around here, okay?” Cal said. “But hey, I'll get you the CD we just laid down. Just tell us about this file.”

“Great.” Larry nodded at the file in Bear's hand. “Okay, listen, after your guys were done with me, I did some checking on our systems.”

“Your systems?” Bear said, throwing some unhappy eyes at him. “You weren't supposed to touch anything, Larry.”

“Yeah, I know. But Mr. Thorne told me to get you the daily reports from the building access control systems. That includes alarm system, the CCTV system, and the access control system.” Larry waited for Bear to nod his approval. “So, I did some extra checks. Take a look.”

Bear opened the file and scanned over the pages that had “Sancus Security Systems, LLC” in a marquee at the top of each. I peeked, too, and zeroed in on several
yellow-highlighted
entries on two computer printouts on top of the stack. Bear read them twice and looked up at
Larry.

“Do I read this right? There were alarms at one thirty, two fifteen, three fifteen, and another at three
fifty-one
?”

Larry shook his head. “Not alarms, Detective—just activations of the rear employee door—the door opened, that's all it tells us. It was opened four times between one thirty and three
fifty-one
. If you look, the building alarm was set at seven thirty last night. The main vault was locked down and alarmed earlier at six, as always.”

“Okay, I'm following. Go on,” Bear said.

“The Chairman entered the annex again at eleven
forty-five
p.m.—the rear door was opened and the alarms deactivated. I know that because his access card was used on the doors and it was his pin code used to deactivate them. We track employees that way.”

I looked over the pages as Bear
re-read
them. “Looks like someone came in and out a couple times. And what about that other annotation there?” I pointed to an entry on the printout that showed a
five-digit
code in red.

Bear asked Larry and Larry held up a finger. “That's a power flux. The main power went off for almost a minute and then back on. The alarm system sent a signal to the security company, but it reset right away. So, while Mr. Mendelson was in here, the power went out and came back on about a minute later—at one twenty.”

“Hold it.” Cal made notes on his notepad now. “The old man arrives at eleven
forty-five
and unlocks the offices. His access card and pin were used, right?”

“Exactly,” Larry said. “But not in the bank—just here at the annex.”

C
al jotted more notes. “Then more than an hour and a half later, the power goes off and on. Ten minutes later, the employee door opens—but no one's access card was used, right? So that means Mendelson opened the door from the inside and let someone in?”

Larry nodded. “Right, I figure he didn't leave because his card wasn't used again to
re-enter
.”

“Then at two fifteen, the door opens again without an access card,” Bear said, reading the printout, “so Mendelson went out, because an hour after that, the same door opens using his access card—he came back in. And then again
forty-one
minutes later the door is opened without an access card, so whoever was in here left. Is that it?”

Larry nodded. “That's right. Of course, all I can tell you is that the Chairman's card was used to enter, not that
he
used it.”

Bear's face tightened a little as he read over the printout. His left eye always twitched and almost closed when he was deep in thought—or when his beer was too warm. “What was William doing at that hour of the morning?”

“And how did that get him killed?” Cal asked, looking at Larry. “You got any idea, man?”

Larry shrugged. “If someone propped the door open, say, to let someone come in without an access card, we wouldn't see that here. And there's more. The CCTV system went down last night and never came back up.”

“Terrific.” Bear flipped through a couple pages in the file and found the printout marked “Security Surveillance Report.” He looked at the entries and found the last one
time-stamped
0119. He looked up at Larry. “The cameras were turned off
after
the power flux?”

“Yes.” Larry's voice was excited now. “Someone tripped the power at the main control box and stopped the system from recording. The cameras were still on when the power came back on, but they didn't record anything after one twenty this morning.”

Cal looked at his notes. “Just in time for whoever to join William in the annex. So, let's see what was recorded before then. Like if anyone came into the building with William the first time.”

“Can't,” Larry said. “Someone took the hard drive that records everything.”

Bear cursed. “Any backups?”

“Nope—too expensive. We run the cameras and record over them every other week.” Larry headed for the coffee pot. “The cameras are recorded around the building on hard drives. That time of night, only the entrances and vaults are recorded. Office areas turn off when
the alarms are activated and turn back on if the alarms go off. They
were recording when the Chairman came back into the building just before midnight. Whoever turned off the recordings took the hard drives.”

Cal said, “That would be William Mendelson—it would have to be. He was the only one in the building during the power flux, right?”

“Maybe not,” I said. “William might not have come into the annex alone at eleven
forty-five
, or maybe he let someone else into the building. That person must have taken the CCTV recordings because they showed his or her identity.”

Bear said as much, adding, “And that someone murdered William Mendelson.”