For another hour we kept at it, as the sun moved around to the front of the storage building, abandoning any pretense of subtlety and attacking us head-on. We riffled through the pages of books, opened letters and looked in envelopes, dug through trouser pockets. Still nothing. I found an MP3 player and decided to keep it. At least the day wasn’t a total loss. I figured my dad wouldn’t mind; the only music he was listening to these days was being played by angels on harps.
“Hey, junior.” My uncle startled me out of my reverie and I jumped. I glanced over and found him staring at me with the look of a teacher trying to get through to his dimmest, most hopeless student. “What did you just put in your pocket?”
“It’s an MP3 player,” I told him, happy I could finally be the expert on something. “You can play music on it.”
“You can play music on it,” he mimicked me in a falsetto voice. I hated it when he did that. He knew I hated it, of course, which was why he did it. “Do you ever recall your father listening to music? Ever?”
I shook my head. “Well, no,” I said, “but then again I’ve been gone for a while.”
“I realize I’m the old fart here,” he said, “but isn’t an MP3 player nothing more than a portable computer hard drive?”
“Yeah, I guess so,” I said, shrugging my shoulders. I realize how dumb it makes me look that I still didn’t see what he was driving at, but in my defense, it was hot and I was tired.
“And what could you do with a portable hard drive that looks like an MP3 player?” my uncle asked, in a tone filled with false patience.
The other shoe finally dropped. “You can put sensitive information on it and keep it with you, and no one would be the wiser,” I answered, happy that I had caught on. Better late than never, after all.
Uncle Brick straightened up, looking a lot livelier than I felt. “I think we’re done here for today,” he told me, and moved straight to his Mercedes, where he sat in air-conditioned comfort while I tossed all my dad’s stuff back into the giant oven and locked it up.
When I finally finished, dropping into the blessedly cool car and complaining about his untimely retreat, he simply said, “eighty,” pointing to himself, and “forty-two,” pointing to me. I shut my mouth and let him drive us back to the office.
“Well, I’ll be damned.” Brick and I were knocking back a couple of beers and looking at his twenty-one inch, flat screen computer monitor. For an eighty year old, self-proclaimed “fossil,” my uncle sure had some fancy equipment in the office. Right now, that fancy equipment was showing us the information my dad had been holding for Robert Billingsley, presumably while he tried to decide how to handle the situation the man had gotten himself into.
Glowing on the monitor were two sets of financial records for the accounting firm of Higgins and Dawes, Billingsley’s employer. Or at least they had been his employer, until poor Mr. Billingsley found himself staring up at the underside of a cement truck. One set of records, no doubt the one H&D kept available for public consumption, showed a healthy, thriving business. The other set, which was the accurate one and the discovery of which had gotten Billingsley killed, revealed a company teetering on the verge of utter financial devastation thanks to the looting of the firm, presumably by either Mr. Higgins or Mr. Dawes.
Clearly Dad hadn’t realized how desperate the looter would be when he realized his treachery had been discovered; otherwise he would have taken more immediate action. Then, of course, he had received a lead shower supplied by one or more unknown assailants, and just like that, the financial shenanigans of Higgins or Dawes became the least of his concerns.
Uncle Brick theorized that the guilty party or parties at H&D had found out Billingsley was on to them. Perhaps the accountant had confronted them himself, not realizing the extent of the danger he was in. They weren’t aware that Billingsley had managed to smuggle out proof, so they killed him. Shortly after that, Dad was dead himself. If Maggie Billingsley hadn’t come to us with her suspicions, or should I say her certainty, that foul play was involved in the death of her husband, no one would ever have been the wiser.
The obvious question now, so obvious in fact that even I could see it, was how should we proceed?
The following morning, bright and early, Brick and I found ourselves headed uptown to the accounting firm of Higgins and Dawes, where Robert Billingsley had labored for the past seven years. We were dressed in suits and ties, and I couldn’t help appreciating the irony of the fact that had I quit accounting to become a private investigator and my first case was taking me to—where else?—an accounting firm. I could almost hear Allison snickering from three thousand miles away.
“Shouldn’t we have some sort of plan?” I asked Brick as we walked along the busy sidewalks of Boston’s financial district. All around us, thousands of people hurried to their places of employment, preparing to move billions of dollars of mostly electronic money around the world, making decisions that would directly affect the lives of thousands or maybe even millions of people.
“We do have a plan.”
“Really. And what would the plan be, exactly?”
“We ask Mr. Dawes if he killed Robert Billingsley because Billingsley discovered Dawes has been embezzling money from his own company.”
“Small talk doesn’t work for you, does it?”
My uncle laughed and I took that as a sign I should go ahead and ask my next question, since he had been so forthcoming in sharing the intricacies of the plan and all. “I understand the thief had to have been one of the top guys, since the embezzlement is so far-reaching and complete, but what makes you so sure it’s Dawes and not Higgins? Or maybe they’re in on it together.”
Uncle Brick looked sideways at me, not even slowing his pace as he answered. “George Higgins has been dead for over ten years, which in my long experience makes for one damned near unshakeable alibi.”
“Ah.” I nodded sagely. “I’m going to stop asking questions now. If you don’t mind, maybe you should lead the interrogation when we arrive at Dawes’s office.”
“If you insist,” my uncle agreed, and it’s lucky he did, because I was so winded from the pace he was setting that it was going to be at least thirty minutes after our arrival before I would be able to speak without panting like a lovesick hound dog anyway.
We turned into the massive building housing the offices of Higgins and Dawes. It was constructed of concrete, glass and steel and like most of the construction in this four hundred year old city, reached for the sky to make the most out of the cramped land mass Boston was built on. I sometimes thought it would be a miracle if the whole city didn’t one day just sink into the ocean from the weight of all the buildings and people. I supposed if New York was still above water, Boston would probably be okay for a while yet.
The offices we were looking for were located on the ninth floor, a fact Brick seemed to know without even looking at the directory located in the lobby. He strode to the bank of elevators, me dutifully following behind and trying to catch my breath, and we stepped into the first available car.
Walking into the reception area of Higgins and Dawes was like stepping into the very definition of opulence. Plush, dark green carpeting complemented the wood tones in the waiting area, with thick leather easy chairs encircling the large, airy room. Lighting was provided by a huge crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling. The whole thing felt a little like a set from the old TV series, “The Love Boat.” I half expected Captain Steubing or perhaps Julie to walk around the corner at any moment.