Sara Paretsky - Total Recall

“Make the Sommers family whole,” I repeated steadily, trying not to let my own temper get the better of me. “It’s only ten thousand dollars. That’s one round-trip ticket to Zurich for a member of your executive committee, but it’s the difference between penury and comfort for Gertrude Sommers and the nephew who fronted for the funeral. Make a big PR splash out of it. What can Durham do then? He may claim he forced you to take action, but he can’t go around saying you stole the widow’s mite.”

“I’ll think about it. But it isn’t your best idea.”

“Personally, I think it’s a beauty. It shows how utterly reliable the company is, even in the most unreliable of situations. I could probably write the ad copy for you.”

“Because it isn’t your money.”

I couldn’t help smiling. “What, will Rossy storm in, crying, ‘Young man, every penny of this is coming out of your stock options’?”

“This isn’t a joke, Vic.”

“I know. The unfunny part is the connections nasty-minded people will make about the Sommers file vanishing. Did the company do something a decade back that they were eager to keep hidden?”

“We did not-categorically-” He cut off his own denial, remembering that we’d met over an Ajax claim fraud. “Is that what the cops think?”

“I don’t know. I can put out some feelers, although if it’s any comfort to you, what I’m hearing about the guy heading the investigation is that he doesn’t want to break a sweat.” I stood up, pulling a copy of the old ledger sheet from my briefcase. “This was the one document relating to Sommers that was left in Fepple’s office. Does it mean anything to you?”

Ralph looked at it briefly, shaking his head impatiently. “What is this? Who are these people?”

“I was hoping you could tell me. When I was here last week, Connie Ingram, that young woman from your claims-records unit, left Sommers’s company file up here. If it has copies of all the agency documents in it, maybe it’s got a complete copy of this one. I don’t know who these other people are, but the two crosses suggest they’re dead. The original of this page is quite old. And here’s a funny thing about it, Ralph: a forensics lab tells me the paper was made in Switzerland before the war. Second World War, I mean, not the Persian Gulf.”

His face tightened. “You’d better not be trying to suggest-”

“Edelweiss? Good heavens, Ralph, the thought only drifted slightly through my mind. The lab says the paper was sold to narcissists all over the world-it was apparently quite expensive. But Swiss paper, a Swiss-made gun, both in an insurance agency that is attracting a lot of attention-the human mind isn’t rational, Ralph, it just puts contiguous events together. And that’s what mine is doing.”

He looked at the paper now as if it were a cobra that had hypnotized him. The buzzer on his desk phone sounded, his secretary reminding him he was running late. He jerked his head away with a visible effort.

“You can leave this here-I’ll have Denise check the file to see if there’s anything else in this handwriting in it. Right now I need to run to another meeting. On reserves, on our potential exposure from Holocaust survivors, and other matters worth a whole lot more than ten thousand dollars. And than baseless accusations against Edelweiss.”

On my way down, I stopped on the thirty-ninth floor, where claims processing took place. Unlike the executive floor, with an attendant behind a mahogany console to monitor traffic, there was no obvious person to ask the way to Connie Ingram’s desk. There also weren’t rosy Chinese rugs floating on oceans of parquet. Hard mustard matting took me through a labyrinth of cubicles, mostly empty because of the lunch hour.

Near the south end of the floor I found someone sitting at her desk, working the Tribune crossword while she ate bean sprouts out of a plastic container. She was a middle-aged woman with tight, dyed corkscrew curls, but when she looked up she gave me a warm smile and asked what I needed.

“Connie Ingram? She’s on the other side. Come on, I’ll take you over, it’s too hard to figure out where anyone in the maze is if you’re not one of the rats yourself.”

She slid her feet back into her pumps and took me across to the other side of the floor. Connie Ingram was just returning to her desk with a group of other women. They were giving the usual return-to-work moans, along with a few quick plans for the afternoon coffee break. They welcomed me and my guide with friendly interest: much better to have someone to talk to than stare at computer screens and files.

“Ms. Ingram?” I gave my own forthright, girlfriends- together smile. “I’m V I Warshawski-we met last week in Ralph Devereux’s office, looking at the Aaron Sommers file.”

Her round face turned wary. “Does Mr. Rossy know you’re here?”

I held out my security pass, turning my smile up a few watts. “I’m here at Ralph Devereux’s invitation. Do you want to call up to his secretary to ask? Or do you want me to call Bertrand Rossy to tell him what I need?”

Her coworkers ranged themselves around her, protective, inquisitive. She muttered that she guessed that wasn’t necessary, but what did I want, anyway?

“To look at the file. You know the agent who sold the policy is dead? His copy of the file is missing. I need to see the paperwork so I can try to figure out who filed the original death benefit claim. Mr. Devereux is considering the idea of paying the widow because of the confusion around the file, the agent’s death, and so on.”

She flushed. “I’m sorry, but Mr. Rossy told me definitely not to show the file to anyone outside the company. And anyway, it’s still up on sixty-three.”

“How about the microfiche? Didn’t you say you printed the documents from the fiche? This is about an elderly woman who spent her life changing bedpans while her husband worked two shifts to make his premium payments. If the policy was paid out because of a bookkeeping error or because the agent committed a swindle, should this old woman have to suffer indignity on top of her bereavement?” Instead of writing copy for Ajax, I could be putting out stuff for Bull Durham.

“Honestly, it’s company policy not to show our files to outsiders: you can ask my supervisor when she gets back from lunch.”

“I’m having dinner tonight with the Rossys. I’ll mention it to him then.”

At that, her face became even more troubled. She liked to please people: what if I and the all-powerful foreign boss were both angry with her? But she was an honest young woman, as well, and in the end, she stuck by the company’s demands on her loyalty. I didn’t like it-but I certainly respected her for it. I smiled my thanks for her time and left her with one of my cards in case she changed her mind.

Outside, I turned the corner and went into the comparative quiet of the alley to check in with Tim Streeter. He was at the zoo with Calia. Radbuka had appeared in the park again as they were getting into Tim’s car, but Tim had found him more annoying than alarming.

“Of course we both know that stalkers turn violent, but at least as far as today went, he seemed more bewildered than menacing: he kept saying he only wanted a chance to speak to Max, to find out about his true family. But Calia started shrieking, which brought Agnes to the scene. She yelled for the cops, who did eventually come, she says-I’d already taken off after him. I did tell Radbuka he would have to leave, that Max was swearing out a peace bond, which meant he could be arrested for hanging around the premises.”

I blinked. “Is Max doing that?”

“I called the hospital and told him he really should. Anyway, everyone seems calm now. Agnes stayed at home to paint: I called my brother and told him to get up to look after the house. I wanted to get the kid out so that Agnes doesn’t freak thinking her daughter’s life is in imminent danger. Which it isn’t. Guy is a nuisance, but he’s physically no match for any of us.”