5

Behind the Orange Curtain


As I drove the unmarked through traffic to the I-5 interchange and headed south, I was reminded of my childhood, when riding south along the stretch of I-5 known as the Santa Ana Freeway was a magical journey, the long drive from my parents’ house through fragrant orange groves and dairy land culminating in our arrival at my brother’s and my personal kingdom-Disneyland. Behind that orange curtain, I could be Sleeping Beauty awaiting her Prince Charming or Becky chasing Indians with Tom Sawyer on our own private island, while Perris played out his big-game hunting fantasies on the Jungle River Cruise. We were too young to know that while the Magic Kingdom welcomed children like us (and our parents’ money), the reality was that colored girls and boys couldn’t be Becky Sharp, a big-game hunter, or any other “cast member” until a good decade after the park opened.

“And those first jobs were shoeshine boys and tap dancers!” my father, Matt, always reminded us. As I drove that road now with Thor, I wondered whether it was facts or fantasies that drove Nilo Engalla south from the Bay Area to behind Orange County’s mythical curtain.

A quick scan of the case file Billie had retrieved hadn’t provided many clues. The interviews Gena Cortez had conducted with Nilo Engalla’s parents, José and Rhea, had revealed that the boy was the only child of a union organizer father and an accountant mother. He’d grown up and attended public schools in Daly City, south of San Francisco, as part of a close-knit Filipino community. The boy’s only act of rebellion, it appeared, was going to UC Irvine instead of Berkeley, his mother’s alma mater. His parents had told Gena there were relatives in a province not far from Manila and in Northern California, but Gena’s subsequent notes and interviews confirmed that Engalla had neither left the country nor contacted any family members since his disappearance last summer.

“The parents were probably lying,” Thor pointed out when I recapped the file for him. “Filipinos can lie you around the block and you’d never know it. And before you drive the car off the road, I’m not saying this to be racist.”

They never do. “Then why are you saying it?”

“Years ago, we arrested a Filipino suspect at the scene of a crime, covered in blood, knife in hand. The little bastard beat the machine. The polygraph examiner said it wasn’t the first time it’d happened with Filipinos, either.”

“And how do Filipinos allegedly do that?”

“Not allegedly.” Thor looked past me toward The Citadel, a recently opened outlet mall on the site of a historic tire factory. “The examiner’s theory is that Filipinos attach no cultural shame to lying. Saving face at any cost, especially with outsiders, is what matters most. So, when necessary, they’ll lie. And, true to form, our guy had no discernible physiological response to the key questions we were asking.”

I knew there were some suspects-particularly among psychopaths and sociopaths, who lack the guilty conscience that motivates most people-who could beat a polygraph machine, but to make that assumption about an entire ethnic group sounded racist to me. Did Thor and that examiner have similar “theories” for every ethnic group not their own? I shook off the possibility and focused on the case at hand. “Regardless, that’s why we asked the Daly City PD to surveil the parents’ house, just in case the boy showed up there.”

Thor patted my shoulder. “No need to be so defensive, Justice. Nobody’s saying you weren’t doing your job. With Steve supervising, I’m sure you covered all the bases.”

I must have bristled at hearing Firestone’s name, because Thor then asked how long Steve and I had worked together. I exhaled and kept my mind on the road ahead. “Long enough.”

“Two and a half years altogether, am I right? I worked with the man for seven years before he was promoted to D-three and you transferred in. Steve Firestone is aces far as I’m concerned-always eager to learn something new, always willing to go the extra mile on a case.”

I took in a breath, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

I didn’t have to wait long. “It’s a shame what this whole sexual harassment charge has done to him. He’s started drinking again, you know.”

I bit my tongue and remembered my vow: Go along to get along.

“Jessica’s left him for good,” Thor went on, “and giving him one hell of a custody battle over the kids. All because some coochie-coochie split tail he was banging on the side got pissed off when he and his wife reconciled.”

That was it for me. I was tired of seeing red; whether from biting my tongue or from Thor’s comments didn’t matter. “You should have your polygraph examiner administer a test to Firestone, if that’s what he’s telling you! Firestone started hitting the bottle when Jessica first left him last spring, Thor. I know because he showed up at my house, stinking of beer and trying to make a pass at me. If I hadn’t threatened to kick his ass, he would have done me the same way he did Gena Cortez!”

“Come on, Justice! Steve was just kidding around. You know how he is.”

I realized this conversation was going nowhere fast and might even be engineered by the crafty senior detective to get me to reveal what I might say at Firestone’s upcoming hearing. Thoroughly annoyed at Thor and myself, I clamped my mouth shut and concentrated on the traffic while leaving him to leaf through his notebook. Several minutes passed in awkward silence. Finally, in an effort to put Firestone behind us, I said: “How’s your daughter-what’s her-?”

“Julia.”

“-yes, Julia-liking Oregon?”

“Salem’s okay,” he replied, lips drawn tight as he read through his notebook. “Her daughter Kate’s just having a little trouble adjusting to her new middle school. I promised Julia that my wife and I’d go up there this weekend and have a little talk with her.”

“Middle school can be quite a transition. All those different classes, and the heightened social scene.”

“Yeah, the social scene.” I could sense Thor’s restlessness in the seat beside me, as if he were making up his mind about something. “I want your opinion on something, as a woman, not a cop, okay?”

“Okay,” I said, not sure where this was headed.

“Some boys at Kate’s school found out she had, uh, you know, had her first, she’d…” His gaze fell on his notes as if the missing phrase was there.

“Gotten her period?”

He nodded, relief suffusing his face. I was sure mine was flushing. This was not a conversation I wanted to have with a man my father’s age.

“They decorated her locker with those, you know… those sanitary things. That’s what Julia was calling about yesterday, crying and arguing with Kate because she wants to come back to L.A. to live with her grandmother and me.” He sat back in his seat. “Damn near broke my heart. I’m just wondering if I said the right things.”

Moved by the emotion in the old detective’s voice, I told myself I should just shut up, pretend I had no opinion at all.

Chicken!

Oh, all right. “What did you tell her?”

“That she couldn’t let a bunch of losers shame Kate into shortchanging her education!”

“Sounds like good advice to me.”

“My wife and I are hoping to go up there this weekend. But until we do, I told Julia to take Kate up to the school and file a complaint with the principal. Can’t let a bunch of bullies ruin your daughter’s life, I told her.”

“I think that was the right call. It’s nice that you stood up for Kate. It’ll teach her not to be afraid.”

“She’s had a rough go of it. Heart defect when she was a baby, then her dad and mom divorced a couple of years ago. I feel like I’m all she’s got sometimes, so I gotta stand up for her.”

His comment lingered in the air for a bit. “I’d do the same thing for my niece or my sisters,” I said gently. “Same goes for my sisters in blue.”

If looks could kill, Thor had just put me six feet under. He slapped his notebook shut, hunkered down in his seat, and covered his eyes with his right hand. “Let me know when we get there,” he muttered.


The headquarters for CZ Toys was located in one of Irvine’s numerous office developments, clusters of reflective glass buildings that had been spreading like the plague since the city’s incorporation in 1971. We checked in with a guard in the granite-floored lobby and made our way into an elevator that was decorated with posters for the company’s latest line of interactive toys.

The lobby on the top floor was a plush affair, adorned on one wall with oil paintings of what must have been the company’s earlier headquarters in the mountains of Germany and the flatlands of New Jersey, and the other with full-length portraits of Carlo Zuccari and his son Chuck, the current CEO and a chip off the old man’s block, down to the piercing blue eyes and ramrod-straight bearing. Seeing the two men together, at about the same time in their lives, made me wonder again if the rumors of the father’s ties to the Nazis were true, and how much like the father was the son.

The receptionist on the top floor directed us down a long hallway to the boardroom where we were to meet the Zuccari family. Someone had gone to the trouble of laying out the latest in chi-chi waters, lattes, frappés, and fancy cookies, artfully arranged on silver trays. Yet as trendy as the spread before us was, the room itself was a throwback to an earlier time, down to the dark paneling and high-backed leather chairs surrounding a mahogany conference table with a raised shelf. On the buildings’ outside I could see the logos of everything from accounting firms to insurance companies, all of which I bet paid handsomely to be first among equals in this particular circle of corporate hell.

Our Dante was the sixtyish Barbara McIntyre, Chuck Zuccari’s helmet-haired assistant, whom I’d met when we first caught the case. Greeting us as she briskly entered the room, she shook hands with Thor, took his card, and made sure we had everything we needed. A squawk-box conversation could be heard coming from the adjoining office, which belonged to Chuck Zuccari. “Ms. Zuccari is just finishing up an overseas call,” she informed us after we were seated. “Is there a new development, Detective Justice?”

“Will she be long?”

“Not too much longer, I suspect.”

“Has Ms. Zuccari recovered from her injuries?”

Mrs. McIntyre turned a bright red. “I’m sorry, Alma is not employed by the company,” she explained in a clipped voice. “I was referring to Gabby.”

“Who?”

“Pardon me. Gabriella, Chuck’s daughter. The board named her interim president and chief executive officer last December.”

“I’m impressed. How old is she?”

“Thirty-four, four years younger than Mr. Zuccari when he moved the company to California.”

And five years younger than me. “Impressive. So now you’re her executive assistant?”

Mrs. McIntyre smoothed the sleeves of her jacket and crossed her arms. “Until we can find a replacement.”

Thor shot me a look. “Has Ms. Zuccari worked for the company long?” he asked.

“She was executive vice president of European marketing until she was called back from Paris at Thanksgiving, once the board realized Mr. Zuccari couldn’t…” Mrs. McIntyre swallowed hard and dropped her head, unable to continue.

There was a pained silence until I inquired about Mr. Zuccari’s condition. Mrs. McIntyre cleared her throat. “There’s been no change. When you called about wanting to speak with the family, I took the liberty of contacting the current Mrs. Zuccari, too.”

I noticed the coldness in her voice, how she emphasized the word current in referring to Alma. “Will Mrs. Zuccari be joining us?”

“She’s down at the hospital with Chuck and their baby. She wondered if you could meet her there when you’re finished.”

McIntyre offered me a slip of paper on which she’d written the name and address of a hospital in South Orange County. She then excused herself and glided to the outer door, closing it softly behind her. I opened a Perrier and took a seat closer to Gabriella’s closed door, thinking I might overhear something useful. Thor wandered over to an oversized glass display case at the other end of the room to study a selection of the company’s vintage toys. He still hadn’t spoken to me directly since our little set-to in the car.

“It’s amazing how long CZ Toys has been in business,” I tried.

No response.

“I remember the first of their toys I ever had-a talking Gabby doll. Maybe the doll was named after Zuccari’s daughter. You heard how Mrs. McIntyre called her Gabby?”

“My daughter Julia had one of these Gabby dolls.” Thor was peering at a doll about fifteen inches high, with brown ringlets and chubby cheeks, wearing a blue-and-white gingham checked dress and black patent leather shoes.

“Me, too.”

He continued to gaze at the doll. “Chatty Patty-”

“You mean Chatty Cathy.”

“Cathy, Patty, Catty, whatever the hell she was called, had just come out and by Christmas of that year, every little girl had to have a talking doll.”

“I remember that Christmas.” It was the year after our rambunctious family had moved to View Park, into a stately house architect Paul Williams had designed for my parents.

“But the damn things were scarce as hen’s teeth,” Thor went on. “I couldn’t find one until the night before Christmas. The store had run out of Chatty what’s-her-name, so I brought home a Gabby doll instead. Boy, was that ever the wrong thing to do! My little girl cried and cried because Santa didn’t bring her the right doll.”

“Santa brought me a Gabby doll that year, too.” I didn’t tell him I was so disappointed in her skin color that my father helped me dye her brown, with disastrous results.

Thor turned away from the display case. “That squeaking little voice drove me nuts! Always begging for a bedtime story.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “I heard that damned line so many times, I would pull the string after Julia went to sleep and tell it stories about the homicide cases I was working!”

“Maybe you would have preferred the phrase Mattel included in a couple of their Chatty Cathy prototypes.” The female speaking had emerged from Chuck Zuccari’s old office, accompanied by Robert Merritt, whom I recognized as the head of the company’s legal department. The woman was tall and lean in that gym-addicted way usually seen in women with too much money and time on their hands. Her heavily made-up cheeks were sunken; her shoulder-length highlighted brown hair was pulled into a ponytail that bore little resemblance to her curly-headed namesake in that display case. As if to accentuate their differences, this Gabby wore a black satin bustier decorated with studs under a black skirted suit that shrieked couture, and a diamond-studded Rolex worn on her right wrist that I was sure cost more than a month of my salary.

I could see Thor sizing up the thirty or so feet from where he stood to the door Merritt and Gabriella Zuccari had entered when they ruined his punch line. Was he thinking the same thing I was-how in the hell did she hear what he’d just whispered? “What phrase was that?” he asked, surreptitiously glancing around the room.

“Now remember,” she cautioned, a twinkle in her brown eyes, “these were the days when male sales reps sold to male toy store buyers.”

Thor’s smile faded as he looked warily from the advancing executives to me.

“The phrase was ‘Put me down, you bastard!’ My dad said it helped Mattel move tens of thousands of units. They outsold us five to one that Christmas.”

Although Thor laughed, he had turned a bright red. I stifled a smile, pleased to see another female get the veteran detective’s goat.

Gabriella approached the spot where I was sitting and stuck out her acrylic-nailed hand, the diamonds in her watch winking at me in the overhead lights. “You must be Detective Justice. Mrs. McIntyre tells me you have some news for us.”

I shook her hand and introduced her and Merritt to Thor, who, recovered by then, explained his supervisory role in the case. “Then perhaps I should be asking you that question,” Gabriella said, tossing her ponytail and giving him a brilliant smile as she pumped his hand in turn.

Thor’s eyes drifted to Gabriella’s exposed chest, then shifted quickly to her face. “There have been some developments,” he muttered, and sat across from me.

“Then we need to hear them,” Merritt said. A conservatively groomed man in his early sixties, Merritt was the typical corporate attorney and as different from Gabriella as night and day. Merritt had been a thorn in the side of our investigation from the beginning, always trying to block us from talking to employees, insisting that he or one of his staff be in the room during every interview. I knew he was only doing his job, but I couldn’t stop thinking that Robert Merritt was more of a hindrance than a help in solving the crime, even the kind of man who would push his own agenda, regardless of anyone else’s needs.

Merritt sat at one end of the table while Gabriella took the seat at the other. With her supermodel affectations and garish outfit, she was a little out of place in this traditional conference room, as if she were playacting the role of mistress of the universe, even if her domain extended only to dolls and model cars and things that go beep in the night. God only knew what a corporate veteran like Merritt thought of her.

“Did you find the gangbanger who shot my dad?”

“Will your brother be joining us?” I asked.

“He’d better.” She checked her watch and frowned, causing an ugly crease to form between her eyes. “We’ve got a big conference call in fifteen minutes. My sixth for the day.”

It was not quite four. “That’s quite a schedule,” Thor observed.

“I don’t know how my dad did it. And the day’s just getting started at our Asian manufacturing plants.” She cast a petulant look in Merritt’s direction. “I won’t leave here before ten tonight.”

“It must be quite a challenge,” Thor went on, “taking the reins from your father at so young an age.”

Merritt checked his cufflinks and smoothed his rep tie before saying, “Pending the results of the search, the board has placed its complete confidence in Ms. Zuccari’s abilities.”

Gabriella’s lips twitched into a smile. “Which I have every intention of earning.”

The mood in the conference room had turned tense, unlike the playful vibe I’d gotten when Gabriella had first entered the room. “Still, there can’t be too many women at your level,” I added, hoping to relax her a bit with the compliment.

Instead, her voice grew strident. “A woman was named president and COO of Mattel last year. And there are a few others outside of the toy industry-CEOs of apparel companies and that specialty produce company in Los Alamitos.”

“Frieda’s?”

“That’s the one. But you could still fit all of us into an elevator and have space left over.” She checked her watch again, tapping its face impatiently with one French-tipped nail. “Where is Mario, anyway?” she asked Merritt.

“Finalizing the schedule for your meetings in New York,” the attorney murmured, eyes back on his cufflinks.

Gabriella turned back to me. “How long have you been a detective?” she asked, clearly stalling for time.

“On the department since ’seventy-nine, made detective in ’eighty-two, and worked homicide for the last eight years.”

“Are there many female homicide detectives in the LAPD?”

“More females than in your corporate CEO elevator, but probably not enough to field a decent football team.”

This time it was Merritt who glanced at his watch. “Perhaps we should…”

Thor cleared his throat. “Let’s not monopolize these good people’s time.” He went on to give her the highlights of how Nilo Engalla had been found, and the cash discovered in the former intern’s car.

Gabriella listened with a look of growing surprise on her face. “And so you suspect this Engalla kid killed Mr. Shareef and shot my dad and Alma?”

“He’s been your chief suspect since he disappeared last summer, hasn’t he?” Merritt asked.

“It’s a little premature to make that assumption without more information, Mr. Merritt, which is why we’re here,” Thor said smoothly.

“What has he told you?” Gabriella asked. “Will you be putting him in a lineup, see if Alma or Mrs. Shareef recognizes him?”

“We need a few questions answered before we do that,” Thor replied. “Have there been any large sums of money missing from the company’s accounts?”

Gabriella looked to Merritt, who shook his head slightly, his mouth pulled down at the corners. “None that I’m aware of.”

“Although we haven’t received a final report from our external auditors,” Merritt hastened to add.

“When do you think that will be?” Thor asked.

“What was that about the auditors?” A man, a head shorter than Gabriella but curly-haired and more olive-complected, entered the conference room from Gabriella’s office. Mario Zuccari, as stern and proper as I’d remembered from last summer, had lost a few pounds since our first interview. It was understandable.

When I’d met him in July, Mario had been grief-stricken over his father’s shooting but clearly anticipating being named his successor. And as I gathered background information on him I understood why. He had all the tickets-summer job on the company’s warehouse floor at fourteen, took a year off from school to help his father with the relocation to Orange County, eventually earned a bachelor’s degree and an MBA from Stanford. He’d been Chuck Zuccari’s right hand ever since, taking on operating assignments in the company’s Latin American and Asian divisions before becoming, at thirty-five, executive vice president and chief financial officer, a position he’d held for the past five years. I wondered how he felt about his hair-tossing, couture-wearing sister getting tapped to run the company instead of him, even if only temporarily.

Mario introduced himself to Thor and nodded hello to me across the table. “When should we be receiving the auditor’s report?” Gabriella repeated.

“We’re just resolving some loose ends, so maybe three or four weeks,” Mario replied. “Why?”

“They want to know if the auditors discovered any cash discrepancies.”

Mario unbuttoned his navy suit jacket before sitting down next to Gabriella, revealing a tiny navy blue cross at the bottom of his dark red tie. “My sister forgets that our revenues were almost two hundred million last year. How would you expect the auditors to find a missing twenty-seven thousand?”

Thor and I exchanged a look. “We didn’t say how much money was found on Mr. Engalla,” he said.

Merritt frowned while Mario’s eyebrows shot up. “I’m sorry, did I get the figure wrong? I thought that’s what they said on the news this morning.”

I caught the way Thor pursed his lips and knew he was as annoyed about the media’s revelations of key information about Engalla as I was. “Perhaps you can have your Finance Department look into it,” he said to Gabriella.

“I’m the company’s chief financial officer, and the Finance Department reports to me,” Mario replied, his words clipped. “And unfortunately, my people don’t have time to drop everything to look into this. They’re deeply involved in our upcoming meeting with analysts in New York.”

“And there’s the annual shareholders’ meeting in April,” Merritt reminded him.

“You’re aware this could lead us to who killed Mr. Shareef and shot your father?”

Mario glared at Thor, mottled color rising to his cheeks. Before he could reply, Gabriella reached over and encircled his wrist. “Maybe we could get the Internal Audit Department to check into it.”

Mario disentangled himself from her grasp. “It’s certainly more important than that other matter the Audit Committee asked them to investigate,” he conceded. “But that request would have to come directly from the board.”

Gabriella glanced down the table at Merritt. “We can speak to Mother about it,” she said, her tone making it more of a question than a statement.

Mario frowned as he put the tip of a pen in his mouth. With his close-cut sandy curls, he looked a little like that doll in the case. Or an Airedale worrying a chew toy.

“Both of your parents sit on the board?” Thor asked Gabriella.

“Before the shooting,” Merritt broke in, “it was just Mr. Zuccari. But afterward, the family felt it needed representation, given its sizeable block of voting stock. So the other directors decided that Gabriella and Mario’s mother should fill Mr. Zuccari’s seat temporarily and be put forward to the stockholders as chair of the board.”

“That must have happened after our interviews last summer,” I noted.

“It was the end of last year,” he agreed. “But Mrs. Lippincott’s appointment isn’t official until after the shareholders’ vote in April.”

Mario cleared his throat. “Gabby, on second thought, having our internal auditing staff look into possible missing cash is not such a good idea. A few of them worked with Nilo and might try and protect him.”

“Then what’s your solution, Mario?” she snapped back, annoyed-whether at her brother’s change of heart or his using her nickname, I couldn’t be sure.

Before he could answer, Thor said, “Perhaps we should speak to Mrs. Lippincott.”

“I hardly think that’s necessary,” Merritt objected.

Still irritated, Gabriella waved away Thor’s suggestion. “I’ll take care of it, Detective. Don’t worry, we’ll get you what you need.”

A look passed between the siblings that reminded me of when Perris and I locked horns. Mario broke the stare-down by turning to Thor. “Didn’t the news say the money was found in Nilo’s car at the scene of the accident?”

The corners of Thor’s mouth pulled downward again. “Why do you ask?”

“Point is, you don’t know who it belonged to.” Mario Zuccari looked from one to the other of us. “The money might have been someone else’s who was riding with him and not have come from CZ Toys at all. Or Nilo could have gotten it some other way.”

Thor tilted his patrician head slightly to the left and considered Mario as if he were an interesting toy in the case behind him. “What way did you have in mind, Mr. Zuccari?”

Mario’s face reddened again under the scrutiny. “I was just suggesting that you might be better served to talk directly to Nilo,” he said stiffly, “rather than disrupt our company’s operations.”

“The police don’t need us to tell them how to investigate their case,” Merritt said with an apologetic smile to us. “Other than checking for any missing funds, what else can we do for you, Detective Thorfinsen?”

Ignoring the attorney, Thor asked Mario what he could tell us about Nilo Engalla. “Was he a good employee?”

“His supervisors said his work was acceptable, but they only had him working on special projects. Can’t give these kids too much responsibility.”

I wondered whether Mario’s last comment was a slur against Nilo’s inexperience or his ethnicity.

“Who were his supervisors?” Thor asked.

Mario resorted to his fingers. “Natalie Johnson in Accounts Payable, Felton Carruthers in the controller’s office, and Howard Hebson in Internal Auditing. And given that Nilo worked with Hebson and his people in Internal Auditing, I don’t think we should ask them to look into whether he might have embezzled that money they found on him.”

“You said that before.” Thor referred to the notes he’d been taking. “You’ve mentioned external auditors and an internal audit department. What’s the difference?”

Gabriella sat back and gestured to Mario for an explanation. His color calmed down a bit and he cleared his throat again. “An external audit is designed to determine if the financial statements prepared by management fairly present the financial position of the company. The board’s Audit Committee selects an independent accounting firm-”

“Like Price Waterhouse or one of those Big Eight firms,” Gabriella explained.

“My sister gets her audit information from watching the Academy Awards.” Mario’s sculptured lips twisted into something between a smile and a sneer. “Financial professionals know that mergers have reduced the Big Eight significantly.”

Gabriella rolled her eyes and reached for a bottle of Perrier.

“We use Shuttleworth and Bezney, which is a regional firm and a bit more hands-on than the ‘sincere blue suit’ outfits.”

“What specifically do they do?” Thor asked.

“Audit our balance sheet and the related statements of operation and changes in net assets. They also focus on how we book revenues and inventory, cash and cash equivalents, accounts receivable from our distributors and customers, accounts payable from our suppliers, major contracts from vendors, that kind of thing.”

“And how are they different from this internal audit department you mentioned that supervised Nilo?” Thor pressed.

Gabriella checked her watch and shook her right hand as if to hurry her brother along.

“Our internal audit department conducts special focus reviews and process improvement in areas like financial accounting, operations, and information processing. In short, it provides an added layer of control we deem appropriate for the company.”

Thor nodded as he made a note. “That’s a lot of work to be sure you’re stating your profits accurately.”

“Or losses.”

Mario Zuccari frowned and looked my way. “What did you say?”

“Profits or losses.”

A veil dropped over his blue eyes, but I could tell CZ Toys’ chief financial officer was pissed that I would even suggest the possibility. “That goes without saying.”

“Although last year was tremendous for us,” Merritt hastened to add.

“The last two years, actually,” Mario corrected.

I murmured something suitably complimentary, prompting Mario to reply: “Seventeen cents net income per share was what we projected this year, but we’re coming in closer to twenty.”

Thor made another note. “So there would have been nothing last summer of a financial nature that might have worried Mr. Zuccari?”

“Nothing that we know of,” Merritt replied, and looked down the table at Gabriella, who shrugged. Next to her, Mario was drawing ovals on his notepad.

“Gabriella was out of the country during that time, Detective,” Mario explained, looking up from his handiwork. “But, as two of this company’s key executives, Robert and I can assure you that in July, as we were going into our third quarter, we’d been tracking ahead of our projections, and the stock price was up. What was there to worry about?”

“What about the letter he received?” Thor asked.

Merritt seemed to pale at the question. “What letter?” Gabriella asked sharply.

“Dad got a crank letter from some woman a while back is all, Gabby,” Mario said as he frowned at his notepad.

“And that’s all it was, Gabriella,” Merritt said, his color returning. “Nothing that need concern you, my dear.”

Gabriella shrugged, checked her watch again, and began to push her chair away from the table. “Then if there’s nothing else-”

“There is one more thing.” Thor closed his notebook with a soft thud. “We’ll need to interview Ms. Johnson, Mr. Carruthers, and Mr. Hebson as well as Mr. Engalla’s coworkers in those departments.”

“That was done months ago!” Merritt objected.

We think it would be useful to speak with everyone who knew or worked with him again. And we’d like to talk to one of the auditors from Shuttleworth and Bezney, as well.”

“Certainly,” Gabriella agreed, a look of surprise on her face. “My brother can arrange that, can’t you, Mario?”

Mario nodded, although his jaw was set in a manner that said he’d rather be doing anything else besides carrying out his little sister’s wishes.

“Good. Detective Justice and I can be back here tomorrow morning-say at ten?”

“Gabby,” Mario whispered, leaning close, “I’m flying out with you tomorrow to meet with the analysts, remember?”

“Perhaps you should stay here and work with the detectives.”

Mario whispered something else to his sister that I couldn’t make out. She mulled it over for a moment, then nodded. “Mario’s right,” she said to us, “I’m going to need him in New York.”

Merritt said: “I’ll stay here and oversee the interviews, Gabriella, not to worry.”

Gabriella’s assistant appeared at the door. “I’ve got Mr. Agnafilo over in Laguna on the line.”

Gabriella rose and walked around the table to shake our hands. “Mrs. McIntyre is at your service. She or Mr. Merritt will know how to get in touch with us in New York, should you need to speak with me or Mario directly.”

Gabriella strode out of the office, Mario close on her heels. Merritt lingered behind. “Thank you for your discretion about that letter,” he murmured to Thor. “Mr. Zuccari would have been mortified if some wild-eyed story about his father had gotten back to his family or out to the press. He’s always been a stickler about appearances.”

“That I can see,” Thor said, looking about the elegantly appointed office. “Did you try to find out who wrote it?”

Merritt started stacking up his papers. “Not really. Chuck was adamant that we not give it any more attention than it deserved, but we still took certain precautions.”

“The outside PR firm and the extra security,” I reminded Thor.

Merritt nodded. “We wanted to be prepared for any eventuality, but as Mario said, it turned out to be nothing.”

Thor nodded thoughtfully. “Do you know where the letter is now, Mr. Merritt?”

The attorney gave an elaborate shrug. “I think it irritated Chuck so much, he eventually destroyed it.”

“And you didn’t keep a copy?”

“Mr. Zuccari never let any of us see the damned thing,” he said, with an embarrassed chuckle, “never mind copying it!”

“But you were concerned enough to hire the PR firm and the extra security personnel?” Thor pressed. “Why, if it was so insignificant?”

“Just being prudent. The PR consultant helped us craft a response in case the rumors got to the press. And as for the security, Mr. Zuccari was worried some Jewish survivors’ group might try and accost him-you know, act out in some way like those god-awful PETA people. So, we had our security chief add an extra guard in the lobby and a private detail to keep an eye on Mr. Zuccari’s residence. He was pretty annoyed by that. God knows what he’d say about the guys at the hospital.”

“Was that necessary?” I asked.

“Mario thought so.” Merritt stood up a little straighter. “Enough to hire two private contractors, through our security department after the shooting.”

“Ex-cops?” Thor asked.

Merritt shook his head and pursed his lips. “Given the attempt, Mario felt Mr. Zuccari needed something a little earthier, if you will.”

Thor and I exchanged a look. “Did Mr. Zuccari say there was a specific threat in the letter?” Thor pressed.

“To be perfectly honest with you, I thought Chuck was going a little overboard,” Merritt said as he walked to the door. “From what he told me, that letter was just a bunch of innuendos from a bitter, disgruntled woman.”

After the door closed, I said to Thor: “What’s Gabriella playing at?” I was about to say more when Thor put a finger to his lips and moved across the room to sit next to me.

His note read: I think the room is bugged. Maybe mics in the table somewhere.

I ducked under the conference table to inspect the fabric-covered shelf running around it, which was full of plugs and dials. And discreetly placed microphones.

“I don’t think Mario told his sister anything about Engalla.” I wrote on the page he’d started.

Thor nodded emphatic agreement. “I need to make some calls,” he said aloud as he resumed writing. “Give me that number for Alma Zuccari. I’ll call and tell her we’re on our way. You make the arrangements for tomorrow.”

And get the lowdown on the family, his message read.

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