Hugger Mugger

THIRTY-FIVE

THE POPULATION OF Atlanta is less than Boston's, but it is the center of a large region and for that it seems bigger. I was in the Buckhead neighborhood, north of Atlanta, where the governor lives, surrounded by large lawns, expensive houses, an upwardly mobile constituency, and some very good restaurants. One of them, Pano's and Paul's, was located out past the governor's mansion, in a small strip mall on West Paces Ferry Road. It was 5:35 when I got there, and there were tables available. I asked for one, got one, ordered an Absolut martini on the rocks and a deep-fried lobster tail, and tried to look like I preferred to dine alone in a fancy restaurant.

If Jon Delroy was the CEO of a security business that operated out of a file cabinet in Bella's Business Services, then how big an operation was it, and why was its CEO out in the field all the time, guarding a horse? Why wasn't he in the Peachtree Center, in an office with a large reception area, shmoozing clients and serving on crime advisory councils, and having lunch at the Ritz-Carlton downtown with the commander of the GBI?

I declined a second martini, ate my lobster tail, paid my tab, and went out to my car. It was twenty to seven. I headed back to Bella's Business Services and parked behind the building just after seven. Her back door would be three down from the left end of the mall. I got out of my car, got a toolbox out of the back, and went to the door. It was locked with a spring bolt on the inside, but the frame had shrunk a little since it had been installed and there was a sliver of an opening. I put on some crime scene gloves, turned the knob and held it there with duct tape. Then I got out a putty knife and tried to spring the lock tongue back with no success. I put the putty knife back and got out a flat bar. There was no one in sight. I put the bent end of the flat bar into the crack at the door edge and pried the thing open. It made some noise as the spring bolt screws inside tore out of the door, but if anyone heard it they didn't care, and no one came running. I untaped the doorknob and picked up the toolbox and went in and closed the door behind me. The spring bolt was hanging by one remaining screw. I went to the file cabinet. It was still light outside, but inside it was too dark to read the labels on the files, so I got a small flashlight out of the toolbox and held it in my cupped hand and went through the files. Denise was an orderly person. The files were alphabetized, so I found Security South quickly.

There was no way to conceal the break-in. Denise would report that someone was there earlier looking for Security South, and she would remember that the someone had talked with her about her alarm system. They'd assume that someone to be the burglar, and they would, of course, be right. She'd probably remember that the someone had said he was a private detective, from Boston, which wouldn't help the Atlanta cops much, at least until they contacted Delroy, and even if that led them to me, and Denise ID'd me, there was no way to tie me to the crime. So there was no reason not to steal the file. And there was some reason not to sit in the burgled office and read it by flashlight.

I put the flat bar and the duct tape in my toolbox, put the folder in flat on top of the tools, and closed the box. I went out, closed the broken door behind me, put the toolbox in my car, got in and drove away. No one paid any attention to me. I went up Peachtree Road, to the Phipps Plaza Mall, and parked in their garage across from the Ritz-Carlton Buckhead, took the file folder out of the back of my car, went up to the first level, and sat on a bench to read it.

It wasn't much of a file. It contained a collection of invoices that indicated that Three Fillies Stables had paid Security South an annual amount of $250,000. The slips went back five years. Each invoice was marked paid, with a check number and date entered in a nice hand. There was a deposit slip stapled to each receipt that told me that the amount had been deposited to an account in the Central Georgia Savings and Loan branch in Buckhead. There were also some Visa credit card receipts, each neatly annotated in the same nice female hand, "Paid, PC" and a date. As far as I could tell, Delroy had put the whole Security South operation on his credit card. Uniforms, guns, flashlights, ammunition, walkie-talkies. And as far as I could figure, somebody else had paid the bills. Penny Clive?

I found a place with a coin-operated copier and made copies of everything, put the originals back in their folder, drove back through the lively Buckhead traffic to the strip mall on East Paces Ferry, parked in back again, put on gloves again, went into Bella's Business Services again, and put the file folder back where it belonged. Then I departed. Scot-free. Again.