Municipal Blondes
4
Cleanup on Pier 63
I LEFT FOR THE OFFICE after taking most of the morning to sober up. Last time I drank was after my parents died five years ago. Any pattern there? Never again.
The letter
I was dressed and halfway out the door before I realized I was wearing jeans and a T-shirt. Damn! I might not have a job any longer but it was still Dag’s office. I went back and changed into a black business suit—slacks, white blouse, jacket, sensible shoes. I put on the same blonde wig I’ve come to identify with since I started wearing it a couple of years ago. I knotted a scarf around my neck and went out to catch a bus downtown.
The office was cold and empty. Silent. I didn’t bother to open Dag’s door. I couldn’t bear to look into his office without him there. First, I’d check email. Come to think of it, there was paper mail lying on the floor inside the door. I needed to check that. I wondered if there was a protocol I should follow about opening company mail. No one had actually told me I was fired, so I figured the best thing to do was carry on business as usual.
That meant throwing away the junk mail and opening the one remaining piece. It was a check from FinCEN for the work Dag did last month on a laptop Jordan brought him. As usual, it was made out to D.H. Investigations for Computer Forensics. I could take it to the bank and deposit it like normal. I slid it into a desk drawer to deal with on the way home tonight. Or on Monday if need be. I’d not gotten far into email, which was mostly just subscriptions and a couple of messages regarding my research thesis, when a man showed up in the doorway.
“Excuse me,” he said. “I’m looking for Miss Deborah Riley?”
“How may I help you,” I said, straightening behind my desk.
“I’m John Allen of Allen Jackson Attorneys at Law,” he said, presenting a card. It looked legitimate. In fact, now that I thought about it, that was the name of the law office I took Dag to last week.
“I suppose you want me to vacate the premises,” I said. “I just came in to clean out my desk. I’m not taking any company property.”
“No, no,” he answered. “You completely misunderstand me. Lars Andersen is the executor of Dag Hamar’s estate. I’m quite certain he wants you to stay on and continue working. I’m sure he’ll be in touch with you soon. I’m actually on my way to meet with him now.”
“I don’t understand.” I’m pretty dumb when I don’t want to listen.
“Dag came to my office last week and made revisions to his will. I’m not at liberty to discuss them with you because that is the responsibility of his executor. But I am confident that after he reads Dag’s will, Lars will want you to remain here and keep this business functioning until it is properly distributed to Dag’s heirs. But there are things that lie outside Dag’s will, which I agreed to execute on his behalf. The thing I have for you is completely within the legal rights of the deceased, so you needn’t worry about this being legal.” I was intrigued. Did Dag leave me some instructions that he wanted me to keep working on? Well, yes. He wanted me to collect the other code from the tattoo and put them together for him. But I assumed that came to an end with his death. The attorney was plunging ahead and I struggled to keep up with him. That’s one thing about attorneys—you don’t really have to hold up your end of the conversation.
“Dag asked me to personally deliver a letter to you,” he went on. I nearly choked. “I do not know the contents of this letter but I have some non-official advice for you. I strongly suggest that whatever its contents, you keep them to yourself until after Dag’s estate has been settled. It is personal correspondence between Dag and you and does not have any bearing on how the estate is settled or how it is accounted. No doubt it contains information about his feelings for you or, since you were his employee, someone he wants you to personally notify. It might even contain instructions for his funeral. In any case, read it in private and should you have questions about any portion of its content, you may contact me and discuss the matter under attorney/client privilege. Is that clear?”
“Yes,” I said. Frankly, I didn’t understand a word of what he said but it sounded like he was going to give me a letter and I should keep my mouth shut about it.
“Here you are,” he said and handed me the letter. Then he left.
I sat for a long time with it in my hands, just staring at it, not sure that I wanted to know its contents. Dag was sending me a letter from the grave. “If you are reading this, I am dead…” That sort of thing. Opening it would hurt.
I decided to put it away until later—perhaps when I was at home and in private. I shoved it into my purse and went back to cleaning up the office.
Clue me in
I finally convinced myself to find out if Dag had left any kind of list or directory of people who should be contacted in case of his death. I cleaned out his desk and made sure there were no paper notes around. Then I just sat on the sofa looking out at the Sound. I heard a noise in the outer office and a moment later, Jordan’s voice.
“Deb? Are you here?”
“In here,” I called back. Jordan’s frame filled the doorway and he came into the room.
“How are you doing?” he asked gently. JFC! I’m not a damned China doll. I’m not going to break. It sounded so patronizing.
“Fine.”
“Must be tough to come in here and not have Dag sitting at his desk,” he said. I realized he wasn’t just comforting me but he missed Dag’s presence as much as I did. I waved him to a chair. “Brenda has a bail hearing on Monday. It’s likely she’ll be released,” he said. That was like a blow in the gut. She tricked Dag into killing Simon. Dag went to the grave with that knowledge and it was devastating. It was so unfair that she might be released after all the harm she’s done.
“Bitch.”
“We have Simon’s computer and the backup disks Dag made. They were in the Condo when we raided Sunday. I just had a funny feeling though, based on things Dag told me I should always look for. Maybe the computer was tampered with—not by you or Dag, mind you—by someone before it was brought to you. If that were the case, I’m betting there are backup disks for the computer someplace. Dag taught me a long time ago to always look for the backups. People delete things from their computers if they think someone is going to look at them. But they don’t change the backups,” he said and paused. I just nodded. Something about what John Allen said earlier made me think I shouldn’t say anything about what Dag and I were investigating, even to Jordan. Self-preservation told me I shouldn’t admit to having the backup disks, whether he knew or not.
“I’ve got a warrant to search Brenda’s house to look for backups. I’m thinking I’ll hold onto it for a couple of days. It would be much more impressive to let her get home on Monday and serve the warrant then. I’d like her to be home when we come after the disks so she has a little extra fear to deal with.” He paused again and looked out the window at the ferry pulling out of the terminal. “I’ll look like a royal fool, though, if there’s nothing there to find.” He let the words trail off, then added, as if to himself, “Yep. A real fool.”
Okay. With the remnants of a hangover headache and admittedly unclear thinking, I was detecting that Jordan was throwing me a bone. If I could get the backups returned to Brenda’s house before he went in with a search warrant, he wouldn’t be coming after me.
“I’m sure you’ll find them,” I said. “You guys are really thorough with your searches. I bet you won’t have any difficulty finding them. She’s so conceited, she probably has them in her desk drawer.” There. I basically told him exactly where to look.
“Do you think so?” he asked. “It’s good to get a second opinion on these things. I mean, you were a big help in examining the container that had counterfeit CDs in it. If it hadn’t been for you and Dag telling us to follow it, we might have missed the whole bust.”
I smiled at him. It was a sad excuse for a smile but I like Jordan and if I can help him nail Brenda’s hide to the barn wall, I’ll do it.
“If you need anything, Riley, you’ve got my number. Maybe after things settle down a little, I could take you out to dinner as a thank you for all the help you’ve been on this case. There’s a good possibility we might work together again in the future, don’t you think?”
“If I can get a job someplace, sure,” I said. “By the way, do you know of anyone else that should be contacted? I was just looking through Dag’s address book but there aren’t that many people. He went to visit cousins in Sweden in September. I’m just trying to put together a list.”
“I don’t know but I’ll bet that someone over at the Swedish American Center would know. Maybe they’d even post a notice.”
Of course. I’d dropped Dag there. It’s where he spent every Saturday afternoon. I’d even joined him for Thanksgiving. Everyone there knew him and was his friend. I knew right then what I’d have to do tomorrow.
If I’ve got the courage to do it.
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