The Last Day

TWELVE

Leslie Wilde had worked for RGI for two years and had been Ward's secretary for fourteen months. Anna Bost, who had been his father's secretary was seventy- eight when she'd finally retired and moved to a condo in Charleston. Leslie had been the first applicant. She was bright, efficient, attractive, and quick- witted, and since she already worked for the company and had a reputation, he'd hired her.

Leslie was busy at her computer terminal when Ward entered her office, which was just next door to his.

“Good morning, Leslie.”

“How was the trade show, Mr. McCarty?” she asked him, smiling.

“Busy,” he told her.

“I put the order sheets on your desk,” she said. “I also have a stack of letters for your signature, and the new inventory report. The calls you need to return ASAP are on yellow Post- its, the should-be-returned-at-your-earliest on blue, and the standard sales calls on green. No personal calls.”

Ward had resisted installing an automated messaging system because he hated listening to a recorded voice and punching numbers to navigate to an actual person. He did have voice mail, but Leslie always asked the caller if she could take a message, or if they wanted to leave a message on Ward's voice mail. Most left a message with her, which further reinforced his belief that given a choice, people preferred to interact with living, breathing humans. Please listen carefully, as our options have changed. Please press one because we're insensitive assholes who are too cheap to hire an employee to answer your call.

“Very good,” he said. “Listen, Leslie. There's something I want to mention. If a young lady calls to ask for a die- cast car that I offered her for her mother on the flight home, get her name and mailing address.”

“You don't know her name?” Leslie asked, reaching for a pen.

“No. I told her I'd give her a die- cast car if she'd call. Get her name and address for me.”

A look of concern crossed Leslie's features, as she made a note to herself, then stared at Ward with alert brown eyes.

“Do you want to talk to her?” She was familiar with Ward's slipping memory and she, like everyone else in the offices, knew of his mother's illness. It had crossed his mind more than once that the same disease might be sneaking up on him from behind like an assassin. Ward was too young, wasn't he?

“No. Tell her you'll mail her the car unless she wants to pick it up,” he said, not wanting to chance spooking the girl. That is, if she called.

Ward went to his office, which had remained pretty much the way his father had left it-cluttered but clean. He hadn't cleaned out but a few of his father's personal items, merely introducing a few of his own. Wardo hadn't had a computer in his office, preferring to write out personal correspondence by hand, or type business letters on his Selectric, using carbon paper. In his last years, he'd had his secretary type that which needed formalizing and make copies for files.

Ward, a generation later, had a desktop and a couple of laptops. A picture of his family stood on his desk that had been taken in Killarney Ireland. Dermott O'caloughan, the owner of the Failte Hotel, had taken it the year before Barney died. Natasha had commented that she'd never visited any place as warm, or any place that had so many tourist shops whose inventory was comprised of so many things she didn't want to own. There was a second picture of Wardo, Mark, and himself taken during a charity tournament on the golf course at the Cabarrus Country Club. All three of the men smiled out from the framed snapshot like successful politicians who hadn't yet been caught at skullduggery.

For an hour Ward took care of necessary business. He was just about to walk to the warehouse to go over the incoming inventory, and to the studio to check the progress of designs on new products, when Leslie appeared at the open door, her long black hair tucked neatly behind her ears.

“Gene Duncan's secretary called to remind you that you're supposed to meet him for lunch at eleven- thirty at the Speedway Club. I don't have it on your planner.”

“Today?” Ward asked. He didn't remember making the appointment. Christ. “Tell him I'll see him there.”

As she turned to leave, Ward remembered something. “Leslie, are you still dating that private detective?”

“Yes,” she said. “Todd Hartman.”

“Is he good?”

Her cheeks flushed.

“Sorry, I meant is he a good detective?”

She giggled. “He doesn't brag, but his friends all say he's the best around. He has like two full-time investigators, a secretary, and lots of freelancers he uses. He does a lot of work for lawyers.”

“Does he work for individuals?”

“Yes. Sometimes.”

“And you'd recommend him. Even if you weren't dating?”

“My friend Erica hired Todd to check out a guy she was dating. The guy had just moved to town and he never let her pay for anything. He drove a Mercedes, dressed expensively, wore an expensive watch, was attentive, knew wines, took her to expensive restaurants, was handsome, always said and did the right things. She works, even though she has a large inheritance her aunt left her. When he found that out, he mentioned he was getting a thirty to forty percent return on some Chinese farm machinery deal a friend of his got him into. She never committed to it, but said she'd think it over. He never tried to push her. One day he left out a check where she'd see it, and it was for two hundred thousand dollars. He said it was a quarterly return on the Chinese deal, which he had a million dollars invested in. He said in four years he'd gotten back his million and everything from there out was profits. She wanted to make that kind of money and he said he'd ask if there was any room for another investor, but he doubted it.

“He told her a week later that he'd convinced his buddies to let her buy in. That wasn't a red flag for her. The red flag was from her lawyer, who wondered why he wasn't involved or married already, and told her that any deal that looked too good to be true was generally a scam. The lawyer hired Todd, and Todd found out that Mr. Perfect was using a false name. He discovered the lover's real identity by collecting his fingerprints. Mr. Wonderful was a con artist, with a wife. The Mercedes was leased and his rap sheet was two feet long. Todd set up a sting using Erica and a dummy bank check for half a million dollars and the cops arrested the guy. Erica thought I'd like Todd so she set us up on a blind date. I'd recommend him.”

“Well, I've got a little problem. You know the girl I said might call about the die- cast?”

“She hasn't yet.”

Ward told her about the girl and the missing prototype. Leslie listened without interrupting, until Ward said, “Can you give me his phone number and maybe even tell him I'm a nice guy before I call him?”

“Of course.” She scribbled down a phone number. “I know he'll be happy to help you out. I've told him about you. I mean what a nice guy you are.”

Ward hoped Hartman could find the girl and get the model back, because he doubted the police would spend the investigative energy that would be necessary to locate a phantom girl with no contact information to retrieve what amounted to a toy but he figured a private detective would at least make an effort for a fee.

“Sure thing,” Leslie said. “I'm meeting him for lunch.”

“That would be great. And thanks.”