Adrian McKinty - Hidden River

Klimmer’s smile evaporated. His face had become instantly gray, nervous, he was no poker player, that’s for sure.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said calmly and finished his brandy.

“I’ll lay it out for you in easy steps. The letter was postmarked from Boulder on the twelfth of June. By someone who knew Victoria’s home address. None of her neighbors knew her home address, so it had to be someone at work. Crucially, only someone with access to her personnel file could know that her house was called the Tiny Taj. Victoria never told anyone that. You and three others were the only ones left at CAW. You were the only one with access to her personnel file. There was a partial print on the inside of the envelope itself, and I’ll bet if I took it to the police they’d find it matched your fingerprints.”

“That’s impossible,” Klimmer said angrily.

“It’s impossible that there was a print on the envelope? Impossible because you used gloves? Is that right, Mr. Klimmer? Perhaps we’ll let the police decide that.”

Klimmer groaned. The bluff had worked. He wasn’t used to this sort of thing. He was no informer, or blackmailer. He really thought that he had screwed up somehow and left a print. He frowned in disbelief.

“Shit. Shit, shit, shit. I should never have sent that letter, I should never have got involved,” he said, putting his head in his hands.

John opened his mouth to speak, but I shook my head at him. We had to go very carefully now.

“Mr. Klimmer, I feel you wanted me to find you. You wanted this. The mere fact that you postmarked this in Boulder. That you sent it at all. You wanted someone to come looking for you, to investigate. Please, Mr. Klimmer, tell me what you know,” I said.

“Oh, God, I don’t know anything, not really, not anything,” he said.

“Mr. Klimmer, you liked Victoria and you seem to know that the man the police are holding didn’t kill her. You think you know who did kill her, so tell me. You sent the note because you didn’t want him to get away with it. Tell me who did it, tell me what you know. I’ll take care of everything, you won’t have to be involved.”

Klimmer looked at me and then at John, went to the kitchen, took a drink, and came back with another full glass of brandy. His eyes suddenly bleary, red, tired.

“What if I ask you to leave right now?” he said.

“We’ll go straight to the police,” I said.

“Damn it,” Klimmer said, taking a gulp from his glass. “I am so stupid, I’ll be next. He’s killed two people. I’ll be next. What was I thinking? I should have stayed out of it. I should have stayed on for a couple of months and then resigned. It would have been ok. Work till Christmas, say I don’t like the new atmosphere, quit. I had to stick my stupid nose in.”

“Who has killed two people?” I asked.

“Are you taping this?” he said suddenly, his eyes wild. He stood up awkwardly. He came over to John and patted him down, then he lurched to the other side of the balcony, did the same to me.

“No wire, your word against mine,” he said with triumph, his tall frame blotting out the sun.

“Mr. Klimmer, take a seat, we’re not taping you, we want to help. Now tell me who has killed two people?” I said very softly.

“One of them. One of them,” Klimmer muttered, sitting, wiping his mouth.

“Who are you talking about?”

“One of them, one of the brothers,” he said with irritation, his knuckles white around his brandy glass.

“The Mulhollands?”

“Yes, the Mulhollands, of course the Mulhollands, who else? Either Charles or Robert, I don’t know which one, but it is one of them, that’s the only possibility.”

I sipped my brandy and remained silent. I had to go easy, tease out the information, slowly, deliberately.

“Mr. Klimmer, why don’t you start at the beginning? Tell us everything.”

“The beginning. Ha. You don’t know,” he said, smiling sadly.

“Tell me about Victoria,” I said.

“Victoria, oh, God … She was charming. We got on wonderfully. She couldn’t sleep. Woke up a lot at night. I bought her a Go-to-Sleep Sheep. It played ‘Beautiful Dreamer.’”

“Ok, go on, please.”

“I suppose I was almost jealous when the brothers wanted her to work for them, too, coordinating the move, before that, you see, she worked for me. She was sweet. Charles and Robert probably just wanted her around. She didn’t have the experience to do all that stuff with the move. She did mass mailings for me.”

“She was killed because one of them was in love with her?” I asked.

“No, why don’t you listen? Robert wasn’t interested and Charles’s wife is Amber Mulholland. Have you seen her yet? Amber Mulholland . Believe me, he wasn’t going anywhere. Very beautiful. Drop-dead gorgeous. Even put Victoria in the shade.”

“So what if she’s beautiful?” John said. “That never bloody stopped anyone before. People cheated on Marilyn Monroe.”

“No one cheats on Amber Mulholland, but anyway, this is way off the point. We’re not talking about an affair. No one had a goddamn affair with Victoria,” Klimmer said testily.

“How can you be so sure?” John said, and I glared at him.

“No, no, no, if you would just listen. It was the stupid move to Denver. Victoria would never have seen the accounts. She’d be alive today,” Klimmer said with marked irritation. He was a little spiky now, jumping out of his skin. Pale, sweating.

“Mr. Klimmer, take it easy, you’re going to tell me everything very slowly,” I said.

“I need a drink,” Klimmer said, draining his glass.

“John, get the man another brandy,” I said, giving him Klimmer’s glass. “Just a small one, John.”

John went, made a large one, brought it back. Klimmer took it greedily.

“There we go, the sun’s setting, now we’ll see some stuff,” Klimmer said.

“Just start at the beginning,” I said again softly.

“The beginning again. Ok. Victoria kept a computer diary. The only people who had access to her office were Charles, Robert, and myself. I didn’t kill her, so it had to be one of them. You see?”

“Or both of them,” John said, looking at me. I shook my head at him again. I didn’t need him bloody interrupting.

“Tell me more,” I said.

“Victoria was helping me coordinate the move. She had a lot of new responsibilities. One of them was to close down our bank accounts in Boulder and open new ones in Denver. We were with the Bank of Boulder, it was too small, anyway. We should have done that years ago.”

“Mr. Klimmer, back to Victoria,” I said.

“She noticed some sort of discrepancy, a payment problem. Victoria was discreet. It had come from an account owned by CAW but only accessible to Charles and Robert. They’re not as rich as you would think, did you know that? Obviously millionaires and their father is a billionaire, but their trust income is tiny. CAW pays them a good salary and Charles is a partner in his firm, but clearly it wasn’t enough to pay Houghton. You see?”

“I don’t see, who is Houghton?”

“He probably thought they had more money than they really had. Everyone does. It’s part of their image. Look at Charles. He’s a successful lawyer, but that doesn’t put him in Bill Gates territory. Right? You understand now? Not if he’s being asked to pay millions.”

“Who’s paying millions?” I asked, desperate for Klimmer to slow down a bit.

“One of the brothers. Maybe both, I don’t know. The point is, they’re wealthy, but not wealthy enough. But that’s fine, you see, because obviously they began tapping the CAW accounts, get it? You see what I am saying?”