Sacrifice, Part Three

“So what happens now?” Rachel was spooning lentil stew into our bowls. “The case is over?”

            “I don’t know.” I stared at my bowl. If I was a P.I. on TV, I’d keep working to avenge my client’s death. I wasn’t sure I had that luxury in the real world of groceries and cable bills. 

I tried a spoonful of lentils. “That’s good.”

            “Of course it is.” She added some salt. “Are you okay?”

            “I guess.” I took a sip of beer. “On the one hand, her retainer will cover at least one more day of investigating, if I want to. On the other hand, I don’t have an excuse to go around asking questions now. If I do, they’ll probably figure out that I’m not really a consultant. If they haven’t already.”

            “You should have left something there so you have an excuse to go back.”

            “You think I’m a rookie or something?” I grinned. “My jacket and a notebook. Mostly blank.”

            “Hey, you could be a pro.” Rachel smirked. “So what do you think is going on? Do you need me out there to scope the place out with my awesome psychic abilities?”

            “Maybe. There’s no sign of assault or murder in any of the people who died. Linden looked like she was having a massive stroke or something, and her husband had a heart attack, and one of the others had a stroke too. So if someone’s knocking them off, first—why? Then, how?” I finished my bowl and started filling it again. “Old family recipe?”

            “Somebody’s family.” Rachel took more too. “I can’t go with you tomorrow, I have work. I can’t start taking days off right away.”

            “I’ll manage. How’s work going on?”

            “Fine. I like the clients. Not that you have to actually ‘like’ the clients, but it helps that they aren’t dealing with anything gross, like necrophilia or severe addiction to bananas. Other kinds of addiction, yeah, but I’ve studied that.” She stirred her stew. “And the partners are fine. Dr. Brody, who runs the place, is funny. I’m not sure about Jordan, she doesn’t talk much, but the other guy, Adam, thinks he’s my dad. He wants to mentor me.” She rolled her eyes with a smile.

            “As long as it’s just mentoring.” With a girlfriend like Rachel, I tend to be a bit paranoid.

            “Oh, they all know I’m engaged.” She flashed the ring on her finger. “I bring it up just once a day. All day, but that’s not overdoing it, right?”

            I wasn’t arguing. “Are you sure the ring’s okay? I could get a bigger diamond.”

            “Let’s save something for when you’re rich.” She walked around the table to give me a kiss. Just when it threatened to get more interesting, my phone buzzed.

            Calvin Riley. I’d forgotten all about him. “Hi, Mr. Riley, I apologize for not calling you back today—”

            “That’s okay.” He spoke hurriedly. I could hear voices and music behind him, as if he was calling from a bar. “I heard about what happened today. With Cathy.”

            “How did you know?” It wasn’t the kind of story that would go viral.

            “A friend who works there. Listen, if you still want to talk, we could meet tomorrow.”

“That would be great. What time?” We agreed on a restaurant near his home in Evanston, 8 a.m. I hung up.

            “What’s that?” Rachel went back to her chair. 

            I started clearing dishes. “A guy who used to work at Hallinan. Quit or got fired before my client’s husband took the job. He sounded a little shook up.”

            “Were they friends?”

            “I guess I’ll find out tomorrow. I’m meeting him for breakfast.”

            “Darn. I have to work tomorrow, or I’d go with you and get waffles. And help you do detective work too, of course.”

            “Of course.” I opened the dishwasher. “I’ll make you waffles on Saturday.”

            “You better.” She grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and headed for the living room to watch TV while I finished up.

 

Calvin Riley’s hair was black with streaks of gray, and his handshake was firm when he stood up to greet me. We were in a diner in Evanston, not far from Hallinan’s HQ.

            I ordered coffee and eggs. “Thanks for meeting me.”

            “Yeah.” Riley frowned. “I was—stunned by what happened to Cathy. Right after Frank.”

            “Did you know them well?”

            “Frank, yeah. We worked together for a couple years. Good guy.” He sipped some coffee.

            Time to get to it. “Why did you leave the company?”

            Riley grimaced. “I had a heart attack. I’m fine now—a little surgery, better diet, more exercise, all that stuff. But it felt like time to get out. It was getting to be pretty high stress, and I had the feeling I was about to get fired anyway.”

            “What kind of stress?”

He sighed. “It was—one of our biggest teak suppliers went out of business, and I had to scramble to replace them. Costs went up. I was trying to find a couple other companies so I could negotiate better deals, but there was a board meeting coming up, and I was getting flak from Brad and other people, and then I, uh, heard a rumor—so I decided it was better to get out while I could.”

            “A rumor you’d get fired?”

            He looked away from me. “Not exactly.”

            “Then what?”

            The waitress came with my eggs and refilled our coffee. When she left, Riley crossed his arms. “It was Sean. CFO, Sean Plunkett. He showed up in my office one night. He told me—well, he said something like, ‘The board will be looking for someone to sacrifice.’ And I said, sacrifice? And he repeated it, sacrifice. And it didn’t sound like, like just getting fired. The way he said it . . .” Riley let out a long breath. “It sounded worse.”

            “So you quit.”

            “No, I had a heart attack, and then I quit.” He stirred cream into his fresh coffee. “I was home, and my wife was right there and called the ambulance. I was technically dead for about a minute, but then I came back. I didn’t see any angels or white lights or anything.” He chuckled. “But it felt like a warning sign. I figured my best move was to get out. They promoted Frank, and I got out. Found a good job over at DonPro, in Skokie. I kind of forgot about everything, and then I heard Frank died. And yesterday Cathy.” He closed his eyes.

            It felt like a warning. I gave him a moment. Then: “I got your name from Phil Gravick—”

            “Yeah, we’re friends. He’s the one who called me yesterday. He, uh—I told him about what Sean said at the time.”

            I put my fork down. “Okay, just so I’m clear on what you’re saying—the company is killing people when business is bad? Without shooting or stabbing anyone? Right before they hold a board meeting?”

            Riley groaned. “I know, I know. When you put it like that—”

            I held up a hand. “No, that’s what I think too. That’s not even the craziest thing I’ve ever heard.” I could have told him about the vampires and demons and killer plants I’ve seen, but I didn’t want to scare him away. “When Cathy Linden died yesterday—” I leaned forward, keeping my voice low. “She was trying to say something. She kept saying ‘sack.’ Like a sack of something? But ‘sacrifice’ works too.”

            “God.” Riley ran his hands over his beard. “But how—like you said, they weren’t murdered. Just natural causes.”

            “Stuff like that can have unnatural causes. What else do you know about the company? About these board meetings?”

            “They hold them at the Workshop. It’s across town. I don’t know why there. They don’t hold them very often, but they make a big deal out of it. Lots of preparations, like they’re expecting the Queen of England or something.”

            “But only the senior executives are there? Nobody else from the staff?”

            “No. They don’t even cover it on the intranet or anything. But afterwards there’s always new stuff coming down for us—for them—to do. Some of them don’t make sense, but they get done, and things get better. For a while, at least.”

            “They always call board meetings when business is bad?”

            He thought. “Not always catastrophically bad, no. Sometimes it’s more like they’re looking for new ideas, or new markets. But it seems like when things are tough, well—it happens.”

            “More than three times in the last ten years? Four times.” Ryan Foster, Towers, now Linden, and the previous CEO. “What about Kenneth Ericson? The CEO before Bradley?”

            “He was—I didn’t know him real well. I got the feeling he was hired because Bradley was too young to run the company. Four people? It seems like there were more. There was a guy named Todd who got in an accident on his way home one night. He was in charge of storage and shipping. And Paul Vasquez, he was about to go on vacation and he fell and hit his head. He was customer relations. That’s all I can think of.” He stared at me. “Oh my God.”

            “Yeah.” I pushed my plate away. “Sounds like you got out at the right time.”

            “But what can you do? Anything? It’s not like you can go to the police, right?” He shook his head. “This sounds too crazy, even while we’re sitting here talking about it.”

I took out my wallet. “I don’t know.” The waitress came up, and I handed her my credit card. “Maybe keep this to yourself? I don’t know what I can do at the point.”

“Okay.” Riley looked dubious, and I didn’t blame him. “Thanks for breakfast.”

I’d forgotten that I didn’t have a client to charge this to. But I could still write it off on my taxes, maybe. “No problem.” I stood up. 

“You going back there now? To Hallinan?”

It probably wasn’t the smartest move. But I had left my jacket there. “Yeah. Wish me luck.”

 

Valerie Kim looked up as I passed her cubicle but didn’t say anything. I caught a puzzled frown from Hugo. Phil Gravick blinked, started to speak, then looked away. He seemed to be inconspicuously packing up a bag.

            I sat down and opened the notebook I’d left behind. It was brand-new, with just a few notes jotted on the first few pages for credibility. The office around me was quiet. I heard some buzzing from phones, the hum of the printer in a distant corner, a few bits of quick, muted conversation, and occasional footfalls as someone passed by me. I jotted some nonsense notes just to look as if I was still doing work.

            Then one set of footfalls didn’t pass. I looked up. Sean Plunkett. The CFO I’d seen leaving Linden’s office right before she died.

            “Mr. Jurgen? Sean Plunkett.” He didn’t offer to shake hands. “Could we talk? My office?”

            “Sure.” I stood up.

            He led me through the cubicles and down the hall to an office in the corner of the building. The window looked out over the top of the parking structure next door. 

Plunkett closed the door and pointed to a chair for me. He sat behind his desk. 

“We don’t have any paperwork for whatever project you were working on for Cathy Linden,” Plunkett said, looking straight at me.

            I shrugged. “Maybe the memo got misplaced?”

            He leaned forward. “Are you really a management consultant, Jurgen?”

            No “Mr.” My cover was probably blown, and I didn’t have a suicide capsule like any self-respecting spy. “No. I’m a private detective.” I gave him a card. 

            Plunkett looked at it for a moment. Then dropped it on his desk to look me over. “Why are you here under false pretenses, Jurgen?”

            “Ms. Linden had some concerns after the death of her husband.” I crossed my arms, as if I was settling in for a long chat. “After yesterday, I’d say she was right to be worried.”

            He cocked his head. “What are you talking about?”

            “Kenneth Ericson, Ryan Foster, Paul Vasquez, and others. And Frank Towers, and now Cathy Linden. This doesn’t seem to be a very healthy place to work, does it? Is there an asbestos problem in the building?”

            “There’s a problem inside this office.” Plunkett pointed toward the door. “I think you should leave right now, Jurgen, before I call the police.”

            I had to push a little. “You’ve got a big board meeting coming up, don’t you? What happens there? What kind of sacrifice will this one call for?”

            The word “sacrifice” seemed to be a trigger. Plunkett stood up suddenly. “Out. Now.” He reached for the phone.

            “Okay, okay.” I got to my feet. “I wouldn’t want to have a sudden unexplained heart attack.” My hand on the doorknob, I said. “I’m just going back to the cubicle to get my jacket, and then I’ll leave. You’ve got my card if you want to talk.”

            One of his eyes twitched. He didn’t say anything, as if not trusting his voice. I left, closing the door behind me.

            At the elevator, after finally retrieving my jacket—you can’t pull that trick more than once—I found Phil Gravick. He was carrying a large plastic bag and looking nervous, like a shoplifter trying to evade the alarms.

            I nodded. “Getting out?”

            “Y-yeah.” He kept his voice low. “You talked to Calvin? He called me. This place just gives me a bad feeling.”

            The elevator doors opened. “I know the feeling.”

 

Back home I wrote up a report. Not for my client, obviously, but I wanted everything documented. Just in case Rachel came home and found me dead on the floor from a heart attack. Then, after lunch, I reactivated the cases I’d put on hold and started back on them—trying to put Cathy Linden out of my head. 

            I couldn’t get her words out of my head, though. Tomorrow is another day. But she didn’t have any more tomorrows. Damn it.

            Rachel got home at seven. I had a pair of burritos ready to put in the oven, and I told her about my day as we drank beer and waited for them to get warm.
            “So what do you want to do?” she asked when I finished.

            “I don’t know. I feel like—When your client gets killed, you’re supposed to do something about it.”

”Isn’t that from The Maltese Falcon?” Rachel cocked her head.

“He was talking about his partner, not his client. Feels the same.”

“Yeah, but you’re not Sam Spade. Sorry to break it to you.”

I shrugged. “That’s the way the cookie crumbles, sweetheart.”        

She was about to throw a napkin at me when my phone buzzed. Unknown caller. I groaned. Probably a telemarketer, but in my business I have to answer, even if only to turn down a chance to update my car’s extended warranty. “Hello, Tom Jurgen speaking.”

“Tom. Phil Gravick. From Hallinan?”

“Uh, yeah. How’d you get my number?”

“I was talking to Calvin. He said—are you really a private detective?”

I frowned, impatient and hungry. “Yeah. Sorry I had to lie to you. I was working for Cathy Linden, before she, you know, died.”

“That’s okay. Look, like I said, I was talking to Calvin Riley, seeing if he could help me out with a new job, and your name came up, and—” He was talking fast, as if he’d been drinking. “Anyway, there’s this board meeting coming up, and you and Calvin were talking about it, and about how people seem to die right before the board meeting, and—”

“Phil, I’m, uh, in the middle of dinner with my girlfriend.” I looked at Rachel, who was halfway through her burrito already.

“Right, sorry, I forgot what time it was. Uh, so look, I might know a guy who could get you in to listen to the board meeting on Saturday. You interested?”

I scooted my chair back. “I might be.”