Buyer beware

17

She was a tall, auburn-haired woman in her early thirties, clear-complexioned, leanly well built and with carefully penciled, arched eyebrows that gave her a sharp eyed, inquisitive expression. "I'm Alison Day of Business View," she said, "and you're Alan Nudger."

"Alo," I corrected her, "but how did you come so close?"

She smiled an all-knowing, sharkish smile that had a curious sexual appeal to it. Her features were of a sharpness that would have been unattractive but for their chiseled perfection. "I'm a feature writer for my magazine, researching for a series of articles on the pressures and unexplained suicides and accidental deaths of top business executives across the country. You came here to Witlow Cable and now plan to go interview Mrs. Elizabeth Manners; I did things the opposite. I've talked to Robert Manners' widow, and now, here I am at Witlow. I was just getting ready to leave Mrs. Manners when her husband's secretary phoned. I asked about the call and Elizabeth Manners told me about your appointment. Though I thought you might be gone from here, I decided to check anyway. And here we are."

"Why?"

She appeared surprised. "What?"

"Why are we here? Why did you want to see me?"

"Oh, I wanted to find out about your involvement in this, of course." She spotted my empty cup, then the coffee machine. There was a boldness in her lean-legged stride as she crossed the cafeteria to the vending machine. She reached into her purse and pulled out some change. "Can I buy you another coffee?"

"Thanks, no. I don't want to make a pig of myself, and a chauvinistic one at that."

She gave me the knowing, eyes-sideways smile to show I hadn't rattled her. I took an antacid tablet.

"We can help each other, I think… Aldo, is it?"

"Alo."

"Call me Alison. You're a private detective. That's really fascinating."

"It's all in the eye of the fascinatee. What did Mrs. Manners tell you, Alison?"

"She said that her husband had seemed worried about something for months before his death, but that he never told her exactly about what. When she pressed him on the subject, he would simply categorize his worries as business pressures. I find this recent trend curious because the suicide rate among top executives is well below the national average. Statistically, six-point-six percent-"

"Alison," I interrupted her, holding up my palm in the universal stop signal, "I am not a believer in statistics."

"Really?" She sipped the coffee she'd bought and strode back to my table. "I should think you would be, being in a sense a policeman. Given sufficient and accurate data, statistics are an invaluable tool, in the business world especially. More sales are generated-"

I held up my hand again. "I'm not interested in sales being generated," I told her. "I've got too much on my mind as it is. Is that all that Manners' widow told you?"

She stared down at me with amused eyes that were a cattish pale green. "Essentially, yes." She smiled. "What did Brian Cheevers tell you?"

"So we can cross check their stories?"

She nodded, still smiling. She had a good idea. I gave her most of what Cheevers had told me.

"There is one thing," I said as she sat across from me, mentally digesting what I'd told her. "I can't promise to tell you everything; I have certain obligations you don't."

"Sure, I understand that. I never thought you trusted me completely, either. Who are you working for?"

I had a vision, then, of her descending on Dale Car-Ion, using my name, spouting her Business View facts and figures at him in her crisp, confident tone. Then the questions. I guessed Alison Day might be the last representative of the press Carlon would want to know about his missing daughter.

"I have to keep that confidential for the time being," I said to her.

She appeared disappointed but not surprised. I was becoming more wary of her by the minute. I said, "You mentioned something about the deaths of several top executives across the country…"

"Yes," Alison said, "counting Manners, six, nationwide, in a very short period of time."

"I wasn't aware of the trend."

"One would have to be in a position to see the entire cloth to discern the pattern."

"And your magazine thinks there is a pattern?"

She lowered her coffee cup from her lips. "That's partly what I've been assigned to discover."

I wadded my own cup and tossed it neatly into a trash container. I didn't like the idea of becoming mixed up with a reporter, but at this point there was little to lose. She had no idea who or what I was actually investigating, and I could keep it on those terms.

"Have you ever heard of the Gratuity Insurance Company?" I asked her.

"No, why?"

"I wondered if anyone you've questioned in connection with the other deaths mentioned them."

"No, but on the other hand, I didn't ask. I can check back, though."

I smiled at her. "That's what I was really asking."

Alison pulled a notebook from her purse. "Gratuity Insurance," she said, jotting it down as she pronounced it.

"How about the name Jerry Congram?" I asked while she had her notebook out. The pencil darted again while Alison spelled the name aloud to me.

She looked at me expectantly for a moment saw nothing else was forthcoming and snapped the notebook shut. "I'm at the Clairbank Hotel," she said, "room four oh seven. That's an invitation only to exchange information after you've talked to Elizabeth Manners and I've talked to Brian Cheevers."

"I thought you might want to show me your stock market graphs," I said innocently.