Джозеф Файндер - Company Man

“That’s what we want to find out,” Audrey said. Daddy : it stabbed her, hearing that from a grown woman. She thought of her own daddy, remembered his smell of tobacco and sweat and Vitalis. “We need your help. I know this is a painful time, and you probably don’t want to talk at all, but anything you can think of will help.”

“Miss Stadler,” asked Bugbee, “was your father a drug user?”

“Drugs?” She looked puzzled. “What kind of drugs?”

“Such as crack?”

“Crack? My dad? Never.”

“You’d be surprised at who uses drugs like crack cocaine,” Audrey put in hastily. “People you’d never ever think of as users, people from all walks of life. Prominent citizens even.”

“My dad didn’t even know about that world. He was a simple guy.”

“But it’s possible he kept things from you,” Audrey persisted.

“Sure, possible, but I mean — crack? I’d have noticed,” Cassie said, expelling smoke through her nostrils like the twin plumes of a fire-breathing dragon. “I’ve been living with him for almost a year, I’d have seen something.”

“Maybe not,” Bugbee said.

“Look, I don’t do drugs myself, but I sure know people who do. I mean, I’m an artist, I live in Chicago, it’s not unheard of, you know? Dad had none of the signs. He — it’s absurd, really.”

“You’re originally from here?” Audrey asked.

“I was born here, but my parents divorced when I was a kid, and I went to live with my mom in Chicago. I come... came back here to visit Dad pretty often.”

“What made you come back to stay?”

“He called me and told me he’d just quit his job at Stratton, and I was worried about him. He’s not well, and my mom passed away four or five years ago, and I knew he needed someone to take care of him. I was afraid he couldn’t cope.”

“When Detective Bugbee asked you about drugs just now, you hesitated,” Audrey said. “Was he on any kind of medication?”

She nodded, passed a hand over her eyes. “A number of meds including Risperdal, an antipsychotic.”

“Psychotic?” Bugbee blurted out. “Was he psychotic?”

Audrey briefly closed her eyes. The guy never failed to do or say the wrong thing.

Cassie turned slowly to look at Bugbee as she snubbed out the cigarette on the top of the Coke can, then dropped it through the opening. “He suffered from schizophrenia,” she said absently. “He suffered from it for most of my life.” She turned to Audrey. “But it was more or less under control.”

“Did he ever disappear for stretches of time?” asked Audrey.

“No, not really. He’d go out for walks once in a while. I was glad when he got out of the house. This last year has been hard for him.”

“What did he do at Stratton?” Bugbee asked.

“He was a model builder.”

“What’s that mean?”

“He worked in their model shop making prototypes of products they were working on, the latest chairs or desks or whatever.”

“He quit, didn’t get laid off?” Bugbee said.

“They were about to lay him off, but he just sort of blew up and quit before they could do it.”

“When did you last see him?” Audrey asked.

“At supper Friday night. I... I’d just made supper for us, and he usually watches TV after supper. I went to the room I’ve been using as a studio and painted.”

“You’re an artist?”

“Sort of. Not as serious as I used to be, but I still paint. I never got a gallery or anything. I support myself by teaching Kripalu yoga.”

“Here?”

“In Chicago I did. I haven’t worked since I got to Fenwick.”

“Did you see him before you went to sleep?” Audrey asked.

“No,” she said sadly. “I fell asleep on the couch in there — I do that fairly often, when a painting’s not working and I want to think about it, sometimes I just fall asleep and wake up in the morning. That’s what happened Saturday morning — I got up and had breakfast, and when he wasn’t down by ten I started to worry about him, so I went to his room, but he was gone. I... will you excuse me? I’m thirsty — I need—”

“What can we get you, honey?” said Audrey.

“Anything, just — I’m so thirsty.”

“Water? Pop?”

“Something with sugar in it.” She smiled apologetically. “I need a hit of sugar. Sprite, Seven-Up, anything. Just no caffeine. It makes me crazy.”

“Roy,” Audrey said, “there’s a vending machine down the hall — could you...?”

Bugbee’s eyebrows went up, a nasty smile curling the corners of his mouth. He looked like he was about to say something unpleasant. But she wanted a little time alone with this woman. She had a feeling Cassie would open up more easily with her alone.

“Sure,” Roy said after a long pause. “Happy to.”

When the door closed, Audrey cleared her throat to speak, but Cassie spoke first.

“He has it in for you, doesn’t he?”

Good God, was it that obvious? “Detective Bugbee?” Audrey said, feigning surprise.

Cassie nodded. “It’s like he can barely contain his contempt for you.”

“Detective Bugbee and I have a very good working relationship.”

“I’m surprised you put up with him.”

Audrey smiled. “I’d prefer to talk about your father.”

“Of course. I’m sorry. I just — noticed.” She was weeping again, wiping a hand across her eyes. “Detective, I... I have no idea in the world who might have killed my daddy. Or why. But I have a feeling that if anyone can find out, you can.”

Audrey felt tears come into her eyes. “I’ll do my best,” she said. “That’s all I can promise.”

Terra was the finest restaurant in Fenwick, the place you went to celebrate special occasions like birthdays, promotions, a visit of a special old friend. It had the slightly forbidding air of an expensive place where it was assumed you didn’t go often. Men were expected to wear ties. There was a maître d’ and a sommelier who wore a big silver taste-vin on a ribbon around his neck like an Olympic medal. The waiters ground pepper for you in a mill the size of a Louisville Slugger. The tablecloths were heavily starched white linen. The menu was immense, leather-bound, and required two hands. The wine list itself, a separate leather-bound folio, was twenty pages long. Nick had taken Laura here for her birthday, a few weeks before the accident; it was her favorite place. She loved their signature dessert, a molten chocolate cake that oozed chocolate like lava when you spooned into it. Nick found Terra stuffy and nervous-making, but the food was always great. From time to time he’d take important clients here.

Dinner tonight was with his most important client: his boss, the managing partner from Fairfield Equity Partners in Boston. Nick hadn’t particularly liked Todd Muldaur when he first met him, in the company of Fairfield’s founder, Willard Osgood. But Osgood always placed one of his deputies in charge of the companies his firm owned, and Todd was the man he picked.

Not long after Dorothy Devries had tapped Nick as her husband’s successor as CEO, she’d summoned Nick back to her old dark mansion to announce that the family was facing a huge tax bill and had to sell. It was up to Nick to find the ideal buyer. There was no shortage of interested bidders. The Stratton Corporation had no debt, steady profits, a major market share, and a famous name. But plenty of the buyout firms wanted to buy Stratton, gussy it up, then turn it around for a quick sale to someone else. Spin it off, maybe take it public — who the hell knew what those rape-and-pillage folks might do? Then the call came from the famous Willard Osgood, who had a reputation for buying companies and holding on to them forever, letting them run themselves. Willard Osgood: “the man with the Midas Touch,” as Fortune magazine called him. The perfect solution. Osgood even flew in to Fenwick — well, he flew in to Grand Rapids in his private jet and then was driven out to Fenwick in a plain old Chrysler sedan — and came a-courtin’ on the widow Devries and Nick. He charmed the pants off Dorothy Devries (she was partial to pantsuits, actually), and won over Nick as well. Willard Osgood was as plainspoken and unpretentious in person as he was in all his interviews. He was a lifelong Republican, an archconservative, just like Dorothy. He told her his favorite holding period was forever. Rule number one, he said, is never lose money; rule number two is never forget rule number one. He really won her over when he said it’s better to buy a great company at a fair price than a fair company at a great price.