Alice relinquished just enough self-control to brush at her eyes with a long-nailed forefinger. "I was at my desk. Mr. Manners came out of his office and walked past me without speaking, but he seemed quite normal. He must have gone directly to take the service elevator to the roof. Ten minutes later I was told that he'd fallen."
"Fallen?"
"Suicide wasn't considered at the time. The police put that theory together later."
"But you don't believe it?"
Her entire body seemed to stir in a weary shrug. "I don't know. Something was disturbing him…"
"What do you think of Mrs. Manners?"
"I like her. At first I didn't; I thought she was too… pushy. Then I came to realize that she was totally dedicated to her husband's career. I saw her make many sacrifices over the past several years."
"Were you friends with her?"
"Not exactly. I think she knew her husband might not want that."
The low hum of an air conditioner or ventilator fan, which I don't think either of us was aware of, suddenly stopped, leaving a somehow louder silence in the tiny room. Alice Kramer spoke again, quickly, as if to keep the silence from engulfing us.
"Are you investigating his death?"
"Only indirectly." '"Then why?…"
"I'm investigating a disappearance, Miss Kramer. Have you ever heard the name Victor Talbert?"
"I don't think so."
"Jerry Congram?"
No.
"Gratuity Insurance?"
She hesitated. "No… not that I can recall." I watched her reach into her purse, which leaned against the leg of her chair, and draw out a pack of cigarettes. She offered me one and I declined. Her lean fingers trembled as she held a dainty gold lighter's flame to the tobacco.
"Do you think Mrs. Manners would talk to me?" I asked. "You could phone, tell her who I am."
"I'm sure she'd see you," Alice said, drawing on her cigarette as if trying to collapse it. I could see she smoked for medicinal purposes.
I stood and held the door open for her, then sat back down and watched through the still-open door as she used the phone on the typist's desk to call Mrs. Manners. I couldn't hear what she was saying, didn't particularly want to. Now and then she'd glance over at me as she talked.
After a few minutes Alice hung up the phone and walked to the doorway. "She can see you at four o'clock today."
I stood and thanked her. The expression on her face told me no thanks were necessary. She was still loyal, doing a last service for her ex-boss.
The four o'clock appointment with Mrs. Manners left me some spare time, but not much. I decided to have a late lunch in the employee's automatic cafeteria I'd noticed down the hall, then drive directly to see Elizabeth Manners.
The cafeteria was still empty. The center of the room was filled with small round tables and metal-legged plastic chairs, and the walls were lined with vending machines that dispensed soup, sandwiches and desserts. Next to a coffee machine, in a corner, was a small microwave oven on a table under a sign that read keep OUR LUNCH ROOM CLEAN.
After only a moderate struggle, I managed to coax one of the sandwich machines to accept my money and part with a ham and cheese sandwich. But the soda machine worked with clicking, whirring perfection and winked at me as I withdrew the cup. I sat at a table near a corner and peeled the cellophane from my sandwich. After a few bites I noticed the piped-in music, as bland as the food.
When I'd finished eating, I dutifully threw my debris into one of the trash containers placed about the cafeteria; then I got a cup of black coffee from the machine near the microwave oven and sat back down to try to relax.
The coffee wasn't bad for machine coffee, and I lingered over it. Two young office girls came in and regarded me as just another machine while they traded dimes for chewing gum, then left. Other than that I drank my coffee alone; then I leaned back in my chair and idly rotated the empty plastic cup on the tabletop.
"I did it just the opposite," a female voice said behind me. "I saw Mrs. Manners first."
A statement like that in a room I'd thought empty wasn't the sort of surprise I liked.
I turned in my chair.
17
She was a tall, auburn-haired woman in her early thirties, clear-complexioned, leanly well built and with carefully penciled, arched eyebrows that gave her a sharp eyed, inquisitive expression. "I'm Alison Day of Business View," she said, "and you're Alan Nudger."
"Alo," I corrected her, "but how did you come so close?"
She smiled an all-knowing, sharkish smile that had a curious sexual appeal to it. Her features were of a sharpness that would have been unattractive but for their chiseled perfection. "I'm a feature writer for my magazine, researching for a series of articles on the pressures and unexplained suicides and accidental deaths of top business executives across the country. You came here to Witlow Cable and now plan to go interview Mrs. Elizabeth Manners; I did things the opposite. I've talked to Robert Manners' widow, and now, here I am at Witlow. I was just getting ready to leave Mrs. Manners when her husband's secretary phoned. I asked about the call and Elizabeth Manners told me about your appointment. Though I thought you might be gone from here, I decided to check anyway. And here we are."
"Why?"
She appeared surprised. "What?"
"Why are we here? Why did you want to see me?"
"Oh, I wanted to find out about your involvement in this, of course." She spotted my empty cup, then the coffee machine. There was a boldness in her lean-legged stride as she crossed the cafeteria to the vending machine. She reached into her purse and pulled out some change. "Can I buy you another coffee?"
"Thanks, no. I don't want to make a pig of myself, and a chauvinistic one at that."
She gave me the knowing, eyes-sideways smile to show I hadn't rattled her. I took an antacid tablet.
"We can help each other, I think… Aldo, is it?"
"Alo."
"Call me Alison. You're a private detective. That's really fascinating."
"It's all in the eye of the fascinatee. What did Mrs. Manners tell you, Alison?"
"She said that her husband had seemed worried about something for months before his death, but that he never told her exactly about what. When she pressed him on the subject, he would simply categorize his worries as business pressures. I find this recent trend curious because the suicide rate among top executives is well below the national average. Statistically, six-point-six percent-"
"Alison," I interrupted her, holding up my palm in the universal stop signal, "I am not a believer in statistics."
"Really?" She sipped the coffee she'd bought and strode back to my table. "I should think you would be, being in a sense a policeman. Given sufficient and accurate data, statistics are an invaluable tool, in the business world especially. More sales are generated-"
I held up my hand again. "I'm not interested in sales being generated," I told her. "I've got too much on my mind as it is. Is that all that Manners' widow told you?"
She stared down at me with amused eyes that were a cattish pale green. "Essentially, yes." She smiled. "What did Brian Cheevers tell you?"
"So we can cross check their stories?"
She nodded, still smiling. She had a good idea. I gave her most of what Cheevers had told me.
"There is one thing," I said as she sat across from me, mentally digesting what I'd told her. "I can't promise to tell you everything; I have certain obligations you don't."
"Sure, I understand that. I never thought you trusted me completely, either. Who are you working for?"
I had a vision, then, of her descending on Dale Car-Ion, using my name, spouting her Business View facts and figures at him in her crisp, confident tone. Then the questions. I guessed Alison Day might be the last representative of the press Carlon would want to know about his missing daughter.