The Dead Man

Chapter Thirty-five

McNair, Carter, and Dolan fell in line behind Nancy, disappearing into the garage elevator. Sherry stood by me, waiting for Sanchez to retrieve Michael Lacey from the cops at the front door.

"That FBI agent sure gave you a look," she said.

"He has a crush on me."

"That wasn't a man love look. That was an accusation look. You said the FBI is questioning Anthony Corliss about Walter Enoch's murder. It sounds like Dolan thinks you're a suspect too."

"Thinking isn't in his skill set."

"Well, he has a badge and you don't so he must be doing something right. And I'm certain my brother will want to know if you are a suspect. I think that would be quite a conflict of interest for you. I don't know how you could continue working here."

I wanted to tell her that thinking wasn't in her skill set either but that wouldn't advance the ball so I ignored her and watched Lacey as Sanchez herded him toward us.

He was jabbering, searching for a question Sanchez might answer, his head swiveling as his eyes darted around the lobby, the fact that he was the only civilian being escorted by the cops and what that might mean dawning on him. He stopped as if to turn back but Sanchez cupped his elbow, keeping him in line as he stumbled, the solid ground on which he'd built his life giving way.

Close up, he wasn't a bad looking guy, the slight crook in his nose offset by the cleft in his chin, a combination some women would call quirky and cute. No one would say that he looked like someone who would strangle and rape his fiancee until after he was convicted. Then people would say that they knew it all along, that they saw it in his eyes or the way he walked or the way he chewed his food. Until then, they'd say he looked normal, like the rest of us.

"This conversation isn't over," Sherry said to me as she led them toward the conference room.

I would have shot a snappy comeback at her but I shook instead, a belly to the brain temblor that jacked my head up and back like I'd been hit with an uppercut.

"Can't wait," was all I could manage.

Leonard jumped me when I got back to my office.

"What the hell is going on? People are going crazy up here. There's all kinds of rumors about a dead body being found."

The police wouldn't start canvassing the floors until after McNair and Carter were finished in the sub-basement and could brief their troops on what questions to ask. Anything I told Leonard now would be rebroadcast in e-mails, text messages, and phone calls, distorted by the time it reached the second set of eyes and ears, indecipherable by the time it reached the last, confusing people about what they knew and how they knew it. Since McNair couldn't find his foot if he stepped in a bucket, I didn't want to make his job any harder.

"So let's not start any new ones. When the police come by, just answer their questions."

He traded in his stick-on smile for hangdog disappointment. "You don't trust me to keep quiet."

I put my hand on his shoulder. "I trust you to be human."

He brightened at my touch. "That's a start. You've got company," he said, pointing to my office.

"Who?"

He leaned toward me, his voice a conspiratorial whisper. "Connie Nichols. She's the HR director and a total bitch. You give a girl a compliment and she'll write you up for harassment. Word is she's a dyke."

My mother taught me not to drink from a poison well and not to turn my back on the person who poisons it. She wouldn't have liked Leonard.

"Thanks for the heads-up."

Connie Nichols stood when I came in; a manila file tucked under one arm. She was middle-aged middle management, dressed in a dark green pantsuit, her bottle blond hair cut straight and close to her shoulders, her face grim.

"Jack Davis," I said, shaking her hand. "Have a seat."

"Connie Nichols, HR director. What a terrible thing."

I closed the door and sat in the chair next to her. "What terrible thing are we talking about?"

"My God! Poor Anne!" she covered her mouth and lowered her head, crying. She pulled a tissue from her jacket pocket and wiped her eyes.

I waited for her to stop crying, not surprised that she knew about Anne. Nancy Klemp had called Anne's boyfriend. There was no way to know how many others she had called, though one would have been enough to start a wildfire. Carlos Morales no doubt had done the same, his story racing along a separate upstairs/downstairs network, the two colliding like weather fronts spawning a shit storm. Whatever doubts Connie may have had were extinguished when Milo Harper told her to bring Anne's file to my office. She sat up, red-eyed.

"Is it true, what they're saying he did to Anne? That's so awful it's unspeakable!"

I didn't want to lie to her and I didn't want to fan the flames. "May I see her file, please?"

She handed it to me, taking my request as confirmation, her eyes welling up again. Anne's application and performance reviews were on top, the more recent information toward the back. She was twenty-five years old, graduated from high school in Warrensburg, Missouri, and from Truman State with an English degree. She had worked for the institute for eighteen months and her performance reviews were exemplary. Connie reached for the file, flipping to the last page.

"You should probably take a look at this. She turned it in yesterday."

It was a sexual harassment complaint.

Leonard Nagel began asking me out in November. I told him that I was living with someone and that we were going to get married. He said he didn't care and that he would make me forget my boyfriend. He kept asking me out even though I told him to stop. Since then, he has continued to bother me and has made a number of graphic sexual references that are not welcome. I told him that if he didn't leave me alone, I would file a complaint against him for harassment. He laughed and said that it would be his word against mine and that I would be sorry if I did.

"Who else knows about this?"

"No one," she said, ducking her head, her cheeks red; a silent confession that this too had gone out on the inhouse wire. "She left it in an envelope on my desk last night. I was so busy when I came in this morning that I didn't open it until I heard what happened. Then Mr. Harper told me to bring Anne's file to your office. When I saw Leonard, I got so frightened, I started to shake."

"Nothing wrong with a little shaking. Does Leonard have a track record for this sort of thing?"

She nodded, taking a deep breath. "Another woman filed a complaint last year. Same story. Leonard came on to her. She told him to get lost and he wouldn't take no for an answer. She said he'd just show up out of nowhere and tell her what he wanted to do to her and how great it would be. She said she was scared to death of him."

"What was Leonard's story?"

"He denied everything. He said he complimentedher one time about a dress she was wearing and that was it."

"How was her complaint resolved?"

"She dropped it when her husband got transferred out of state. She said that she was just glad she'd never have to see Leonard again. I wanted to fire him but Mrs. Fritzshall said no because he could sue us since we had no proof."

I knew from supervising my staff at the FBI that employees like Leonard could be fired without cause so long as the decision wasn't based on race, gender, religion, age, or sexual orientation. Connie could have canned him without explanation and he couldn't have done anything about it. Sherry had screwed the pooch on building security and personnel decisions. It was a good thing her brother had a lot of money. He would need it to clean up her messes.

"The police will want a copy of Anne's file and the other woman's complaint. Make an extra copy for me. Do it yourself. I don't want anyone else seeing this stuff."

She stood, her back stiff, the veins on her neck taut. "I'll bring the copies right back."

"That would be great. The police will want to have a look at Anne's desk so make sure no one goes near it."

"I'll take care of that. How long will it be before the police arrest Leonard?"

"If and when the police arrest anybody is up to the police. Our job is to let them do their job. It will be up to the court and a jury to decide whether Leonard or anyone else is guilty of anything. Jumping the gun could ruin his life if he's innocent."

Connie grabbed the handle to my door, leveling me with a hard-eyed glare. "I hope they cut his balls off and feed them to him before they execute him."

I followed her into the hall where she blew past Leonard. He waited until she was out of earshot.

"Did I tell you or did I tell you?" he asked, his be-mybuddy grin back in place, a thin sheen of sweat percolating across his forehead.

"You sure did."

"She say anything about me?"

I didn't want to spook Leonard before McNair and Carter could talk to him. I hadn't wanted to lie to Connie Nichols but I had no compunctions about deceiving him.

"Not a word."

"Good to know. It's just that she's got her favorites and I'm not one of them."

"I wouldn't worry about it. If she doesn't like you, it's probably because of the geography. You're up here on the eighth floor with the top brass and she's downstairs, probably stuck in a cubicle she wishes had windows and walls. Nothing you can do about that so don't let it get to you. Besides, you work for me, not her."

He rose and offered me a fist tap, his grin splitting his face into northern and southern hemispheres. "You got that right, boss!"

I sat at my desk chair, comparing Leonard to Michael Lacey. Their profiles were different: Lacey's long on probabilities and short on facts; Leonard's easier to plug in to what I'd seen in the basement. He'd snooped in the dream project files, made unwanted advances to Anne and threatened her. And, he had a track record.

That was reason enough to put Leonard on the short list for Anne Kendall's murder and to check for any connections between him and Regina Blair. But his profile didn't put him in the ballpark with Tom Delaney and Walter Enoch. Looking for a unified theory, one that captured all the victims with a single killer could be a mistake, a cop's version of looking for love in all the wrong places.