Adrian McKinty - Hidden River

“Was Victoria one of the people who had to look for a new apartment?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, I think she was,” he said, his eyes narrowing with the recollection. He dabbed at a bead of sweat on his forehead. He got up and grabbed a Coke to conceal how tense he was. I was glad when he sat that big skinny frame down again. He opened the can and drank little sips.

“When did the rest of the organization leave for Denver?” I asked.

“More or less everyone was gone by the tenth. I know that because it was Robert’s birthday and they had the party at the new building in Denver. So neither Peg or I were there, although you would have thought it was bad taste having a party in light of what happened,” he said a little angrily.

“Victoria’s murder,” I said.

“Yes.”

“So everyone was gone by the tenth?”

“Pretty much.”

“And it’s just been you here since then?”

“No, myself, Margaret, two of the CU students, Julie and Anne. But I was put in charge of winding things up. We needed a senior person for that.”

“What’s the command structure? Where are you in the hierarchy?”

“Why do you need to know that?” he asked.

“I’m just curious.”

“Oh, ok, well, Charles and Robert at the top, joint presidents, and then myself, Steve West, Abe Childan are vice presidents. I know what you’re thinking — three vice presidents for a permanent staff of twelve, but we plan to grow and—”

“Did Margaret, Julie, or Anne know Victoria?”

“Well, it’s a small organization, everyone knew everyone.”

“Let me put it another way. Did they know her well, were they confidantes?”

“Uh, I really don’t know.”

“So, Mr. Klimmer, for the last ten days you’ve been more or less running the show since the move to Denver?”

“At this end, yes.”

“And Victoria was killed right before the move?”

“That’s right. A very difficult time.”

“On June fifth. Just days before the move,” I said flatly.

“Yes.”

“That’s interesting, isn’t it?” I said.

“What is?”

“That she was killed just before she got a new apartment in Denver, a whole new set of circumstances. If someone was going to murder her at her old apartment they were running out of time. They had to strike soon.”

“I suppose,” he said, again taking tense sips from his soda.

“What was the name of the moving company that you used to relocate from Boulder to Denver?”

“I can’t quite remember, it was a Spanish name, I could find out pretty easily. I can ask Charles when I talk to him.”

“Yeah, I’d like to know. Tell me, Mr. Klimmer, where did you go to college?”

“Cornell University.”

“Good school. Charles and Robert?”

“They went to Harvard. Why do you want to know that?”

“If you’ll bear with me.”

“Fine,” he said submissively.

“Did you have access to Victoria’s personnel file?”

“What are you saying?” he asked, again a trace of irritation in his upper lip.

“Did you have access to her personnel file?”

“Yes, but what’s that got to do with anything?”

“What about Margaret and the students, would they have had access to it?”

“Of course not. It’s confidential.”

“Ok. Let me ask you something else. I see you don’t have a printer here. If you wanted to print out a document, where would you print it out?”

“What?”

“If you could answer the question, please,” I said.

“All the printers have been moved to Denver. Margaret has one at her desk, I believe. What exactly is the relevance of that question?”

“Could I see Victoria’s personnel file?”

“Again, most of the personnel files have been sent on to Denver,” he said, but from his tone I knew that Victoria’s had not.

“But not hers, because she’s not personnel anymore,” I said.

He nodded and put down his soda. For some reason he had kept the file. And of course he knew exactly where it was. He stood, unlocked the big chrome filing cabinet, reached inside, and handed it over without another mutter about it being confidential or none of my business. He smiled weakly, sadly. Victoria had clearly meant a lot to him.

“Did you know her back in Ireland?” he asked. The question threw me a little.

“No, I didn’t,” I managed.

“Oh, she was really a wonderful person. Not just beautiful, clever, too,” he said absently, putting the filing cabinet key back in his pocket.

The cream folder contained six sheets of paper. I scanned them, checked that she had written “Tiny Taj” as part of her home address. Of course she had. I gave the folder back. He put it carefully back in the file cabinet. I looked at him for a moment. He and three other people could have sent the anonymous note. It was postmarked June 12 and by then everyone else had left for the Denver office. He worked closely with Victoria. I would have to check out Margaret, Julie, and Anne but my gut told me it was him. He was educated, at a very good university, pretending in the note not to be. A secretary might not have thought to do that. But a secretary would have had time to reprint a letter if she was interrupted. A boss using the printer, say while the secretaries went for lunch, would be in a rush, possibly making do with a faded copy. Most telling of all, only he of the four people here could have found out Victoria’s home address in the personnel file. Probably he sent the note. It all fit. Why? Why did he do it? Because he liked Victoria? Why not go to the cops? Was he afraid of something? Someone? Frightened for his own life? If Hector Martinez had dropped his driver’s license here at CAW, the murderer had picked it up to frame him. Someone here. Someone in CAW. Perhaps Klimmer was the murderer himself and this was his oblique confession.

“What’s the difference between CAW and Greenpeace or Friends of the Earth or the Sierra Club or whatever?” I asked.

“Oh, we’re quite different,” he said.

“How so?”

“Well, we’re in favor of a policy called Wise Use.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s a more balanced approach to the environment. We’ve become very successful at counteracting some of the more biased approaches to environmental policy foisted on us by the media.”

“Who do you think killed Victoria?”

Klimmer blanched for a second. It was standard cop procedure to throw a lot of secondary questions and then hit the person with the big question. Standard procedure, but it often worked.

“I–I don’t know,” he stammered, telling me, incredibly, that he did know. Or at the very least he didn’t buy the story about the burglar. Hector Martinez killed Victoria Patawasti. The police had him in custody. It was an open-and-shut case. Or so it appeared to be. Unless you had a different piece of evidence. Unless you thought you knew who really did it. The phone rang.

Klimmer picked it up.

“Yes… oh, yes… uh-huh, it’s been very busy.”

He put his hand over the receiver.

“Mr. Jones, I am extremely busy, perhaps we can meet here again in a few days or maybe early next week.”

“You said you would be gone by the weekend.”

“Oh, oh yes, sorry, yes, well… here, take a card, and give me a call and we can talk, this isn’t a good time.”

I shook my head. I didn’t want to go, I felt I was right on the verge of a breakthrough. I remained in my seat.

“I have a few more questions,” I said.

Klimmer suddenly stood, towering above me, his face paler.

“I said this isn’t a good time, give me a call and we can talk,” he said more forcefully, almost angrily.

“It will just take a minute,” I said, wanting to push him a little.