Sara Paretsky - Deadlock

His desk diary was filled with appointments. I copied the names he’d entered in the last few weeks of his life. He’d seen Paige on Saturday and again on Monday night. For Tuesday, April 27, he had written in John Bemis’s name and Argus with a question mark. He wanted to talk to Bemis on the Lucella and then-depending on what was said-he would call Argus? That was interesting.

Flipping through the pages, I noticed that he’d taken to circling some of the dates. I sat up in my chair and started through the diary page by page. Nothing in January, February, or March, but three dates in April-the twenty-third, the sixteenth, and the fifth. I turned back to the front cover, which displayed a 1981 and 1983 calendar along with 1982 at a glance. He had circled twenty-three days in 1981 and three in 1982. In 1981 he’d started with March 28 and ended with November 13. I put the diary in my handbag and looked through the rest of the office.

I’d covered about everything there was-unless I looked at each sheet of paper-when Janet reappeared. “Mr. Phillips has come in and he’d like to see you.” She paused. “I’ll leave those files in here for you before you go… You won’t say anything to him, will you?”

I reassured her and went over to the corner office. It was a real office-the heart of the castle, guarded by a frosty turnkey. Lois looked up briefly from her typing. Efficiency personified. “He’s expecting you. Go on in.”

Phillips was on the phone when I went in. He covered the mouthpiece long enough to ask me to sit down, then went on with his conversation. His office contrasted with the utilitarian furnishings elsewhere in the building. Not that they were remarkably ornate, but they were of good quality. The furniture was made out of real wood, perhaps walnut, rather than pressed board coated with vinyl. Thick gray carpeting covered the floor and an antique clock adorned the wall facing the desk. A view of the parking lot was mercifully shrouded by heavy drapes.

Phillips himself was looking handsome, if a trifle heavy and stiff, in a pale blue woolen suit. A darker blue shirt with his initials on the pocket set off the suit and his fair hair to perfection. He must make a good packet: the way he dressed, that Alfa-a fourteen-thousand-dollar car, and it was a new one-the antique clock.

Phillips disengaged himself from the phone call. He smiled woodenly and said, “I was a little surprised to see you down here this morning. I thought we’d taken care of your questions the other day.”

“I’m afraid not. My questions are like Hydra’s heads-the more you lop off the more I have to ask.”

“Well, uh, I hear you’ve been going around bothering the folks here. Girls like Janet have their jobs to do. If you have questions, could you bring them to me? I’d sure appreciate that, and we wouldn’t have to interrupt the other folks’ work out there.”

I felt he was trying too hard for a casual approach. It didn’t fit his perfect tailoring or his deep, tight voice.

“Okay. Why was my cousin discussing last summer’s shipping contracts with you?”

A tide of crimson washed through his face and receded abruptly, leaving a row of freckles standing out on his cheekbones. I hadn’t noticed those before.

“Contracts? We weren’t!”

I crossed my legs. “Boom Boom made a note of it in his desk diary,” I lied. “He was very meticulous, you know: he wrote down everything he did.”

“Maybe he did discuss them with me at some point. I don’t remember everything we talked about-we were together a great deal. I was training him, you know.”

“Maybe you can remember what he discussed with you the night before he died if it wasn’t the contracts. I understand he stayed late to meet with you.” He didn’t say anything. “That was last Monday night, if you’ve forgotten. April 26.”

“I haven’t forgotten when your cousin died. But the only reason we stayed late was to go over some routine items we didn’t have time for during the day. In my position I’m often tied up for hours at a time. Lois tries to help me keep on top of my calendar but it isn’t always possible. So Warshawski and I would stay late to go over questions that we couldn’t get to earlier.”

“I see.” I had promised Janet I wouldn’t get her in trouble, so I couldn’t tell him I had a witness who’d seen Boom Boom with the files. She was the only person who could have told me-Lois wouldn’t have any trouble figuring that out.

Phillips was looking more relaxed. He stuck a cautious finger behind his collar and eased his tie a bit. “Anything else?”

“Are your sales reps paid on commission?”

“Sure. That’s the best way to keep them active.”

“What about you?”

“Well, we officers don’t have access to direct sales, so it wouldn’t be a very fair system.”

“But the pay is good.”

He looked at me with something approaching shock: well-behaved Americans don’t discuss their salaries.

“Well, you’ve got a nice car, nice clothes, nice clock. I just wondered.”

“It’s none of your damned business. If you don’t have anything further to say, I have a lot of work to do and I need to get to it.”

I got up. “I’ll just be taking my cousin’s personal items home with me.”

He started dialing. “He didn’t leave any, so I expect you not to take anything away with you.”

“You went through his desk, Phillips? Or did the all-efficient Lois?”

He stopped mid-dial and turned very red again. He didn’t say anything for a second, his pale brown eyes darting around the room. Then he said with an assumption of naturalness, “Of course we went through his papers. We didn’t know if he was in the middle of anything critical that someone else would have to take over.”

“I see.” I went back toward Boom Boom’s cubbyhole. No one was on the floor. A black and white institutional clock above the far entrance said twelve-thirty. They must all be at lunch. Janet had left a neatly wrapped package on the desk with my name on it, or rather, as she had forgotten my name, “Mr. Warshawski’s cousin.” Beneath it she’d written: “Please (heavily underscored) return as early as possible.” I scooped it up and walked out the door. Phillips didn’t try to stop me.

Interstate 94 back to the city was clear that time of day. I made it to my office around one-thirty and checked in with my answering service. Murray had returned my call. I got back to him immediately.

“What’s up, Vic? You got something on the Kelvin death for me?”

“Not a sniffle. But I’m hoping you might oblige a lady and get one of your society people to do a little digging for me.”

“Vic, any time you want something like that, it’s usually a cover-up for some big story you don’t let us in on until after it’s over.”

“Murray! What a remark. How about Anita McGraw? How about Edward Purcell? And John Cotton? Weren’t those good stories?”

“Yeah, they were. But you led me around in circles first. You got something hot on Kelvin?”

“Well, maybe, in a way. I want some background on Paige Carrington.”

“Who’s she?”

“She’s a dancer. And she was hanging out with my cousin before he died. She was looking for some love letters in his condo the other day. Then Kelvin got knocked off. Whoever did it searched the place pretty thoroughly. It makes me nervous-I’d like to find out something about her background, and I also wondered if any of your gossip people-Greta Simon, for example-had sniffed out the relationship between her and Boom Boom.”