I parked down a couple of spaces from the dirty white front of the building and walked up, past a small barbershop, studying the yellow stains where the cracked sidewalk met the stucco. I didn’t even want to think what those stains might be. What was Carol Conroy thinking about when she called a meeting in a place like this? The Red Derby wasn’t even a place that James and I would usually go, and we’d go just about anywhere that served cold beer.
Inside, the odor hit me fast. The smell of stale beer that had soaked into the carpet, the cigarette smoke that had permeated the heavy curtains, the curtains that hung in shreds from the window, and a sour smell that I couldn’t quite place. A lone drinker with long hair and jeans and a T-shirt sat at the bar, hunched over his shot and beer. The bartender stood behind his vinyl bar and wiped the counter with a towel. I squinted in the dim light and could make out five tables and five booths. A neon beer sign hung above one booth advertising Strohs beer, and I was pretty sure that beer wasn’t even made any more.
There was no sign of Carol Conroy.
“Skip Moore?”
I spun around and could make out the shadow of her face and figure. Tiny, about five foot, and dark brown hair freely framing her pretty face. She looked all of twenty-five years old. I hadn’t uttered a word.
“Are you Mr. Moore?”
“Um, yeah.” How lame.
“I’m Carol Conroy. I called you and-”
“I know.”
“There’s a booth over there.”
She fully expected to meet here and tell her story right here. I’d expected to go to someplace a little more upscale. We walked to the booth and sat.
“Bud, Bud Light, Miller, Miller Light.” The rotund, balding bartender looked around the room, never making eye contact, bored with the entire process.
We ordered two Bud Lights, and I waited. Mrs. Conroy played with the napkin the bartender had placed in front of her, folding it, unfolding it, and occasionally looking up at me. The bartender finally brought the beers, a smart-aleck smile on his pudgy face. I’m sure he thought we were two illicit lovers, before or after a session at a cheap hotel. This certainly wasn’t a place for business meetings.
“You’re in the security business.”
“I am.” I took a long swallow of beer. Warm and definitely past its prime.
“You’re setting up a security system for my father’s company?” She’d pulled a yellow pencil from her purse and was tapping the eraser on the table.
“We’ll be installing a complete security system for Synco Systems. State-of-the-art motion detectors, smoke detectors, door monitors, window monitors-”
“Mr. Moore-”
“Please, call me Skip.” I took another sip from the bottle. It wasn’t as bad this time. By the end of the bottle it would be just fine.
She paused for a moment, considering my request. “I can’t do that. Calling you Skip is just a little too informal. Mr. Moore, you know that my husband is president of Synco Systems.”
“Yes ma’am.” So it was Mrs. Conroy and Mr. Moore. Very businesslike.
“And Ralph Walters was vice president of operations, in line to take over the company if something should happen to my husband.”
I wanted her to get to the point. I seriously didn’t care about the hierarchy of her company. She was like Em. A rich bitch who already had hers, and probably didn’t get that I was way down the pecking order. But I quietly waited. I was in line to make over twenty grand, and if it meant dealing with these people for a couple more days, I could do it. I could do anything, almost anything, for twenty grand.
“Mr. Moore, I talked to Ralph Walters’s wife.” She closed her eyes for a moment. “His widow.” Another long pause.
“And-”
Mrs. Conroy pointed the tip of her pencil at me like the barrel of a gun. “And she is convinced that her husband’s death was not a suicide.”
It was my turn to pause. I’d been first on the scene, and when a man has a gun in his hand, and his brains are spattered over his desk, I didn’t know what else to call it but suicide.
“Did you hear me?”
I took another swallow of beer and saw she hadn’t touched hers. “Yes ma’am. Ma’am, I was there.”
“I know.”
“It certainly appeared to be a suicide.”
She paused, giving me a long look. “Mr. Moore, are you a detective?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Have you witnessed a suicide before?”
“Um, no.”
Carol Conroy pursed her lips and shook her head.
“Maria Walters doesn’t think it was a suicide, and neither do I.”
I finished my beer. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because you’re in security.”
I looked into her brown eyes. “Mrs. Conroy, as you just pointed out, I’m not a policeman. I’m not a detective. I’m just a security salesman.”
The lady moved her bottle of beer over to my side of the pitted booth. “Have mine.” I looked down and saw someone had carved the word “muerte” in the vinyl. I was pretty sure the word was Spanish for death.
“What makes you think someone killed Mr. Walters?”
She took a deep breath. “Ever since Synco Systems took on this new project, there have been strange things going on. I’m not supposed to tell anyone this, but the project does involve the United States government. Enough said.”
I just kept listening.
“Did Sarah tell you about Tony Quatman?”
I shook my head. The name didn’t ring a bell.
“He is the designer of the system. This new computer system that’s supposed to prohibit any hackers from breaking in.”
“Okay.”
“A week after Synco signed a contract with the government, Tony resigned. Didn’t give a reason. He just wrote a note and walked out.” She made a flourish with her right hand, brandishing the yellow pencil as if she was writing the note herself.
“And why is that a problem?”
“Tony was to get a very nice bonus when the project was completed.”
I understood. I was to get a very nice bonus when I’d finished playing Sarah’s boyfriend. And thinking about that made me feel kind of sleazy, sitting here talking to Sandler Conroy’s wife while Conroy was probably boinking his prostitute girlfriend. My pretend girlfriend. This whole thing was so sordid.
“He walked out. No bonus. Now does that make any sense to you? You’re a businessman, Mr. Moore. Would you walk out on a bonus?”
“Mrs. Conroy-”
“No one has seen or heard from him since.”
I shrugged my shoulders.
“His secretary, Julia Bayford, she didn’t show up the next day, and we’ve heard nothing from her or her husband.”
“People move. People change plans.”
“I want you to look into it.”
“What?”
“You’re a security guy.” She let that hang, as if I should jump at the chance to use my vast experience in selling security systems to help solve a possible murder and disappearance.
“As I said, I sell security systems. That’s it.”
“Listen to me. You’re going to have full access to the building. You’re brand new to the company and you can look places that no one else has looked. If you stumble onto something you shouldn’t see, you just tell them that you were doing security work.”
I nearly swallowed the entire second beer.
“Mr. Moore, I believe Ralph was murdered. I believe that someone either forced Tony Quatman out, or they killed him. I believe Julia Bayford-”
“I can’t do this. I wouldn’t have a clue what to look for. I have no idea why these people are disappearing, and to be honest, Mrs. Conroy, I don’t care. I just want to do my job, get paid, and leave. Look, I really need this job. I can’t take a chance of screwing this up.”
She shook her head, pulling her hair back from her face. In the dark bar I saw the dark side of the pretty lady. Her lipstick was a little more red than I’d first noticed. Her eyes a little dark with the makeup. Maybe a little too much blush on her cheekbones. “Mr. Moore, if I’m right, and Ralph Walters was murdered, if Tony Quatman was murdered, I believe someone else is going to be killed as well. Believe me when I say I’d like to prevent that at all costs.”