E Is for Evidence

"I'd say so."

"I can't figure out why he agreed to it. We're talking major insurance fraud. He gets caught, it's his livelihood. So what's in it for him?"

"It has to be a payoff," Darcy said. "If Janice hosed him, he's probably desperate for cash."

"Maybe," I said. "It means somebody knew him well enough to think he'd tumble to a bribe. Andy 's always been a jerk, but I never really thought of him as dishon-est."

We'd reached the glass doors of California Fidelity. "What are you saying?" she asked as she unlocked the door and let us in. She flipped the overhead lights on and tossed her handbag on a chair.

"I don't really know. I'm wondering if something else was going on, I guess. He's in a perfect position to fiddle with the claim forms, but it's still a big risk. And why the panic? What went wrong?"

"He probably didn't count on Olive getting killed. That's gotta fit in somewhere," she said.

We went into Andy 's office. Darcy watched with inter-est as I went through a systematic search. It looked like his business files were still intact, but all of his personal effects had been removed: the photograph of his kids that had sat on his desk, his leather-bound appointment calendar, ad-dress book, Rolodex, even the framed APSCRAP and MDRT awards he'd gotten some years before. He'd left a studio portrait of Janice, a five-by-seven color head shot, showing bouffant blond hair, a heart-shaped face, and a pointed chin. She did have a spiteful look about her, even gri

I sat in his swivel chair and surveyed the place, won-dering how I was going to get a line on him. Where would he go and why take off like that? Had he made the bomb? Darcy was quiet, not wanting to interrupt my thought processes, such as they were.

"You have a number for Janice?" I asked.

"Yeah, at my desk. You want me to call and see if she knows where he is?"

"Let's do that. Make up an excuse if you can, and don't give anything away. If she doesn't know he's skipped out, let's don't tip it at this point."

"Right," Darcy said. She moved out to the reception area. I picked up the file I'd brought and pulled out all the papers. It was clear that Andy was in serious financial straits. Between Janice's harangue over the late support check, and the pink- and red-rimmed du

Andy 's calendar pad still sat at the uppermost edge of his blotter, two date sheets side by side, co

I went out to the reception area, taking the calendar pad and the file folder with me.

Darcy was on the phone, in the midst of a chat with Janice, from what I gathered.

"Uh-hun. Well, I wouldn't know anything about that. I don't know him all that well. Uh-hun. What's your attor-ney telling you? I guess that's true, but I don't know what good it would do you. Look, I'm going to have to run, Janice. I've got somebody standing here waiting to use the phone. Uh-hun, I'd appreciate that and I'll let you know what we hear on this end. I'm sure he just went off for the weekend and forgot to mention it. Thanks much. You too. Bye-bye. Right."

Darcy replaced the receiver and let out a deep breath. "Good God, that woman can talk! It's lucky I called when I did because I got an earful. She's p.o.'d. He was supposed to come by last night and pick the kids up and he never showed. She was all set to go out and had to cancel her plans. No call, no apologies, nothing. She's convinced he's skipped town and she's all set to call the cops."

"Wouldn't do any good unless he's been missing sev-enty-two hours," I said. "He's probably shacked up some-where with this bimbo he's so crazy about." I showed Darcy the letters I'd picked out of his trash.

It was wonderful watching her expression shift from amusement to distaste. "Oh God, would you let him suckle your hmphm-hmph?"

"Only if I doused it with arsenic first."

Darcy's brow wrinkled. "Her bazookas must be huge. He couldn't think what to compare 'em to."

I looked over her shoulder. "Well, 'footballs,' but he crossed that out. Probably didn't seem romantic."

Darcy shoved the papers back in the file. "That was titillating stuff. Oh, bad joke. Now what?"

"I don't know. He took his address book with him, but

I do have this." I flipped through the calendar pad and showed her the penciled initials scattered through the months. I could see Darcy's mental wheels start to turn.

"Wonder if she ever called him here," she said. "She must have, don't you think?"

She opened her top right-hand desk drawer and took out the log for incoming telephone calls. It was a carbonless system with a permanent record in yellow overlaid by white perforated originals. If a call came in for someone out of the office, she made a note of the date and time, the caller, and the return number, checking off one of the responses to the right, "Please call," "Will call back," or "Message." The top slip was then torn out and given to the relevant recipient. Darcy turned back to December 1.

It didn't take us long to find her. By comparing the log of Andy 's calls with the calendar pad, we came up with one repeat caller who left a number, but no name, always a day or two prior to Andy 's assignations… if indeed that's what they were.

"Do you keep crisscross around here?" I asked.

"I don't think so. We used to have one, but I haven't seen it for months."

"I've got last year's in my office. Let's see who's listed at this number. We better hope it's not a business."

I pulled my keys out of my handbag as Darcy followed me.

"You were supposed to turn those keys in," she said in mild reproof.

"Oh really? I didn't know that."

I unlocked my office door and moved to the file cabi-net, pulling the crisscross from the bottom drawer. The number, at least the year before, belonged to last name, Wilding, first name Lorraine.

"You think it's her?" Darcy asked.

"I know a good way to find out," I said. The address listed was only two blocks from my apartment, down near the beach.

"Are you sure you're okay? I don't think you should be ru

"Don't sweat it. I'm fine," I said. The truth was, I wasn't feeling all that terrific, but I didn't want to lay my little head down until a few questions had been answered first. I was ru