CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
It didn’t take Elaine long the next morning to find Alex, Marlon, and Nicolette toiling away in the study under the pretense of getting things done. Lack of concentration was to be expected, what with Connery and Slye prowling around as if their livelihoods depended on the apprehension and arrest of the person who murdered the county’s most prominent citizen. However, they did put on a good show at looking busy.
Nicolette, for example, sat at a roll-top desk in the far corner going over a stack of reports. She was peering through a pair of bifocals and holding a wooden pen with a gold clip tight between her fingers. Marlon was sprawled out on a lounger with his feet dangling over one of the armrests. He had a collapsible toy figure in his hand, a boy wearing a bellhop’s uniform, and he examined it with more interest than he’d ever shown at any of Carl’s staff meetings. Perhaps toys were easier for him to understand.
Alex was working with Katerina, trying to formulate early stats and determine recommendations to mention at the next meeting with the Kast Varnish sales managers and distributors. Those people were scattered all over the country in twenty-eight states to date, from California to New York, and from Minnesota to Texas. Carl had been making plans to expand his business into every state of the union, and eventually overseas to Europe and beyond. It was important to let the current managers know as soon as possible what changes would be made, when they would take effect, and why.
When Elaine entered the room wearing her usual black and white uniform and armed with a duster, everyone looked up except Marlon. The toy he was playing with must’ve been fascinating, indeed. “Pardon the intrusion,” she said. “I won’t be long.”
“Of course,” Nicolette said, adjusting her bifocals. “Come in.”
Nicolette was the epitome of good breeding and refinement; she came from an upper middle class, African-American family from the Bronx. Her mother was a homemaker and her father, the vice president in charge of marketing at a large computer company. He’d also served in the military, a navy man, and he’d been one of the first black fighter pilots during the Korean War. When he was discharged in the early sixties, he’d earned the rank of captain after twenty years of service. A proud man who was even prouder of his daughter, and he had every reason to be. Nicolette was becoming a success story herself.
Alex Gordetsky was sitting beside Katerina and a young man who was a manager at one of the Ann Arbor manufacturing divisions of Kast Varnish Enterprises. The gent obviously had been called there to hear what Alex had to say about something relative to the business. Listening carefully to everything Alex was saying, the young man nodded his head at appropriate times and took notes like a first-year college student.
Marlon sighed, causing the toy in his hand to crumble. The tips of Marlon’s ears, the top of his forehead, his cheeks, and the bridge of his nose were red today, as if he’d gotten too much sun. He glanced at Elaine as she came near, but she didn’t hold his interest for long. Merely sighing again, he turned his head away from her general direction and devoted his entire attention to the toy in his hand.
Elaine took out her favorite feather duster and started cleaning a table with a lamp on it in a corner. Casually, as if just remembering, she pulled a note from her apron pocket and said, “Oh, I meant to tell you all that Detective Connery will be coming back here this afternoon.”
“What’s that?” Alex said, standing up and allowing several papers to drop from his lap to the floor. Stooping down, he retrieved them one by one, barely taking his eyes off Elaine as she repeated herself.
“Detective Connery is coming back today,” she said again, watching Nicolette’s reserved yet startled reaction to that. She even took off her bifocals to give Elaine a better look.
“Is he coming to ask more questions?” Marlon said. “Is that it?”
“I suppose, but he also left this message.” It seemed appropriate to hold the note up a little higher.
“What message?” Alex asked, shoving the papers he’d picked up into the hands of the young man beside him and then scowling at her as if he couldn’t see very well. Either that, or he smelled something foul. Katerina seemed surprised, too, perhaps because Elaine had been entrusted with the message instead of she.
“The police have found something on John Linton’s skin that explains more about how he came to be incapacitated.”
“And what’s that?” Nicolette asked, snapping her ballpoint shut and putting it down on a stack of papers.
“Long streaks of open wounds were found on his arms and chest.”
“Open wounds? What caused them?”
“Electrical burns.”
“Electrical burns?” Marlon said. “From what?”
“I believe John got them by being subjected to an electrical charge.”
“Stunned?” Alex said. “You mean like a stun gun?”
“Yes, or a cattle prod.” Elaine hesitated on purpose to build up the drama into what she had to say. “Like the cattle prod hanging out in the barn. I’d say the killer really knew his way around here.”
“Yeah,” Marlon said, as if just getting the point.
“Detective Connery also said that it appeared as if Mr. Kastenmeier had soot on his face when he died, soot from the explosion. But that’s not what it was.”
“What was it?” Alex interjected.
“Ink.”
“Ink?”
“Yes, ink from an ink-jet printer, like the one Silas has.”
“What exactly is the significance of that?”
“Detective Connery is concerned about the card that’s missing.”
“The missing what?” Alex asked.
“The missing card, sir. The name card.”
“What name card?” Marlon said. “You’re not making any sense.”
“That’s because you’re not allowing me to finish,” Elaine said, feeling the upper hand and taking advantage of it by being sassy. She’d waited a long time to be able to speak to them this way.
“Silas printed up twenty-five name cards for the meeting,” she continued. “He used an ink-jet printer to do it.”
Everyone looked confused, but no one interrupted.
“After the meeting on Friday,” she continued, “everyone put his or her badge holder in the box near Mr. Kastenmeier’s desk. But when the police went through the box, they found one missing.”
“Well, I know mine must’ve been there,” Alex said. “I remember turning it in.”
“Yes, you did, Mr. Gordetsky,” Elaine told him. “The only one missing was Mr. McGhee’s.”
“And why is that significant?” Marlon asked, getting up and patting his pockets even though he’d been wearing different clothes on the night of the murder. “What difference does it make? I always forget to take mine off at the end of the day. It’s probably at home on my dresser.”
“Why should a missing name badge concern the detectives?” Alex asked. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“I suppose it has to do with the content of Mr. Kastenmeier’s stomach when they analyzed it during the autopsy. I believe the results came back this morning.”
“And what did they find?” Alex said. “Escargot and cognac? Perhaps a touch of humble pie?”
“Detective Connery didn’t say what he found. Except….”
“Except what? Stop playing games and tell us what you know.”
“He mentioned a piece of paper.”
“What paper?” Nicolette asked. “Are you referring to the document found in the walking stick?”
“No. Evidently Mr. Kastenmeier had swallowed a piece of card stock before he died. They found it in his stomach.”
“So?” Marlon said, putting the toy down on an end table and looking puzzled.
“Card stock was used to make the name cards, which were passed out in badge holders on Friday. It was faint, but Detective Connery said that he was able to make out a name.”
“How the devil did a name card get in Carl’s stomach??
??
“He must’ve swallowed it, you idiot!” Nicolette surmised, growling at Marlon. “But what does that prove? I mean, really? How could Carl have been sound enough to rifle through a box of name cards and find the one he’d wanted while being brutally attacked?”
“The police believe the killer was still wearing the badge holder with the name card in it when Mr. Kastenmeier pulled it off his clothes.”
“Which explains the plastic holder in his hand when he died,” Alex said, rubbing his chin and sideburns.
Elaine nodded. “Perhaps the killer tried to take it away from him, but Mr. Kastenmeier wouldn’t allow it. Clothing fibers were found on the pin clip on the back of the card holder in Mr. Kastenmeier’s hand.” She paused to allow the drama to build again. They were all getting nervous over Carl’s resourcefulness, and it was fun having the upper hand. Even Katerina noticed, staring at Kast Varnish’s elite executives as if she didn’t recognize any of them. “I guess Detective Connery feels that whoever killed Mr. Kastenmeier was very upset over what had happened during the meeting on Friday.”
“Whose name is on the card found Carl’s stomach?” Nicolette asked. The question made her flinch in anticipation.
“The police didn’t say.”
“What does it all mean?” Marlon said. “I don’t understand what you’re getting at.”
“Connery thinks Carl swallowed the name of his killer,” Nicolette said, considering Elaine with a half-smile. “Isn’t that right?”
“I wouldn’t presume to know what the detective thinks, Ms. Howard. I only know what he said, and he never mentioned any specific name.”
“Why did he tell all of this to you instead of Katerina?” Alex said. “You’re just a domestic, after all.”
“I was the one who answered the telephone this morning,” Elaine told him. “Katerina hadn’t arrived yet. Domestics are usually the only ones up at six, sir, and besides that, I am here all night.”
“Well, why does he want to see me? You said so yourself that my badge holder was in the box.”
“I don’t know why he asked to see you, Mr. Gordetsky. You’ll have to ask him when he gets here. But he did seem very concerned about your witnessing Mr. Kastenmeier’s signature on the document he found in the cane.”
“Well, if he’s wondering about my badge holder,” Nicolette said, “I know for a fact it’s in the box. I remember putting it there.”
“He did say that yours was accounted for.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“I guess he’s concerned about how you took Mr. Kastenmeier’s demotion. After all, he did lead you to believe you’d been ousted by Marlon for the company’s second seat.”
Nicolette smiled, but her bottom lip trembled. “All I could do was grin and bear it like everyone else did, of course,” she said. “The only one in love with the idea was Marlon. His being promoted meant trouble for everyone, and not just for me. Most would agree that the reputation of the entire company was on shaky ground after a pronouncement like that.”
Marlon whipped around and stared at her with his mouth hanging open. This time he needed no interpreter to understand exactly what she’d said.