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"I left my business card yesterday. I was hoping you'd call," I said, taking a seat in the metal chair beside her desk.
"I'm sorry. We were swamped with work." She fo-cused a look on me. All the flint was gone and worry had taken its place. The lady was in a mood to talk. She said, "I heard about Lyda Case on the radio this morning. I don't understand what's going on."
"Did you know Lyda?"
"Not really. I'd only talked to her a couple of times on the phone, but I was married to a man who killed himself. I know how devastating that can be."
"Especially when there was no way to have it veri-fied," I said. "You did know all his lab work disappeared within days."
"Well, I heard that, but I wasn't sure it was true. Sui-cide is sometimes hard to accept. People make things up without even meaning to. What happened to Lyda? The radio didn't say much except that her body'd been found. I can't tell you how shocked I was. It's horrible."
I told her the details, sparing little. Ordinarily I'd downplay the particulars, not wanting to pander to the public appetite for the gruesome specifics of violent death. With Ava, I felt the reality of the situation might loosen her tongue. She listened to me with distaste, her dark eyes filling with anxiety.
"Do you mind if I smoke?" she said.
"Not at all. Go ahead."
She opened the bottom drawer of her desk and pulled out her handbag. Her hands were trembling as she shook a Winston from the pack and lit it. "I've been trying to quit, but I just can't help myself. I stopped at the drugstore and picked up a pack on the way to work. I smoked two in the car." She took a deep drag. One of the engineers peered around from his drafting table as the smoke drifted toward him. She had her back turned so she missed the look of a
"Let's go back to Hugh's death," I said.
"I can't help you much with that. I'd only been with the company a few weeks before he died, so I hardly knew the man."
"Was there an office manager before you?"
Ava shook her head. "I was the first, which meant the office was a mess. Nobody did a thing. Filing alone was piled up to here. There was just one secretary. Heather was the receptionist, but all the day-to-day business was handled by Woody himself, or one of the engineers. It took me six months to get things squared away. Engineers may be obsessive, but not when it comes to paperwork." She took another drag, then tapped the small accumulation of ash from the end of her cigarette.
"What was the atmosphere like at the time? Was it tense? Was anybody caught up in an office dispute? A feud of any kind?"
"Not that I ever heard. Woody bid on a government contract and we were trying to get organized for that…"
"Which entailed what?"
"Routine office procedure. Forms to be filled out, clearances, that kind of thing."
"What happened to the bid?"
"Nothing. The whole thing fell through Woody had a heart attack, and after he died, Lance let the matter drop."
"What was it they were bidding on? I wonder if that ties in."
"I don't remember what it was. Hold on. I'll ask." Ava turned and sca
He detoured toward us, his expression clouding with concern when he caught sight of me. "What's the story on Lyda Case? My wife just called and said she heard about her on the news."
I gave him the shorthand version, putting it together with the question at hand. "I'm still trying to figure out how it ties into this business with Lance. There's gotta be a co
"He's not seriously being accused of insurance fraud, is he?"
"Looks that way. Along with me, I might add."
"Appalling," he said. "Well. I don't see how it could have any bearing on the contract we bid on, but I'll fill you in. We get a little trade paper called Commerce Daily, published by the government. It was Hugh's job to check it for any contract available for bid that might apply to us. He found one under heating equipment, requesting bids on a furnace for processing beryllium, which is used in the mak-ing of nuclear bombs and rocket fuel. It's hazardous work. We'd have had to build in a whole new venting system to accommodate CAL-OSHA, but if we got it, we'd have been in a position to bid on future contracts. Woody felt it was worth the expense of retooling. Not all of us agreed with him, but he was a shrewd man and you had to trust his instincts. Anyway, that's what we were going after."
"What would it have been worth to the company?"
"Quarter million bucks. Half a million maybe. More, of course, in the long run, if we bid on future work."
"What was the status of the bid when Hugh died?"
"I don't know. I guess we were gearing up. I know he'd gone down to the Federal Building in Los Angeles to pick up all the paperwork. Since it was the Department of
Defense, we were going to need a company clearance, plus individual clearances. Hugh's death really didn't have much effect, but when Woody died on top of that, we lost heart."
"Could the company have handled the work with both men gone?"
"Probably, but of course Lance was just taking over, getting his feet wet. I guess we dropped the ball, but that's all it amounted to. We weren't out anything. We might not have been low bidder anyway, so it's all speculative."
"What about bids since?"
"That's an aspect of the business we haven't paid much attention to. We're on overload half the time as it is."
I looked at him, truly stumped. "And you don't think it's relevant?"
"If it is, I don't see how."
"Thanks for your time, at any rate. I may need to get back to you."
"Sure thing," he said.
Ava and I chatted a while longer, but the conversation seemed unproductive, except for one minor point. She mentioned, in passing, that Ebony had attended the me-morial services for Hugh Case.
"I thought she was in Europe, married to some play-boy named Julian."
"She was, but they came back to the States to visit every six months or so."
"How long had she been in town? Do you have any idea?"
Her look was blank. "Can't help you there. I was too new myself to sort out what was normal in that family."
"Maybe I can check it out," I said. "Thanks for your help."
Driving back into town, I was kicking myself. I'd falsely assumed that neither Ebony nor Bass could have been tied in to Hugh's death as both of them were out of the picture at the time-Ebony in Europe, Bass in New York. Now I wasn't sure. I stopped at a public phone booth and called the Woods' house. The maid answered. I was willing to talk to just about any member of the family, but that turned out to be problematic. Mrs. Wood was resting and had asked not to be disturbed. Ebony and Ashley had gone to the Santa Teresa Monument Company to look at memorial tablets for Miss Olive's gravesite. Bass was due back at any minute. Did I care to leave my name and number? I decided to hold off on that. I said I'd call again later and hung up without identifying myself. I hauled more change from my handbag and tried Darcy at the office. She had nothing new to report. I brought her up-to-date and we commiserated briefly on the blanks we were drawing. She said she'd leave word on my answering ma-chine if anything developed. Fat chance, I thought.
I returned to my car and sat there at the curb. I poured the rest of the hot coffee into the thermos lid, sipping it with care. I was getting closer to the truth. I could feel it in my bones. I felt like I was circling, the orbits getting tighter as I approached the central point. Some-times all it took was one tiny nudge and everything fell into place. But the balance was delicate, and if I pushed too hard, I might barge right past the obvious.