Total Recall

The insult was worth it, though: when I moved past him to the elevators, the security staff didn’t challenge me-they figured I was one of Terry’s detectives.

I rode up to the sixty-third floor, where the executive-floor attendant was at her station even though it was a Saturday morning. Poor Co

“Detective Warshawski,” I said to the attendant. “Mr. Devereux is expecting me.”

“The police? I thought you were finished up here.”

“That was Detective Finchley’s team, but I’m overseeing the whole case, including the agency murder. You don’t need to call-I know my way to Devereux’s office.”

She didn’t try to stop me. When an employee has been murdered and the police are in, even executive-floor staff lose their poise. Ralph’s secretary looked at me with a worried frown, but she also didn’t try to send me away.

“He’s still with Mr. Rossy and the chairman. You can wait out here if you want.”

“Is Karen Bigelow in the conference room? I can talk to her in the meantime.”

Denise’s frown deepened, but she got up from her desk to escort me to the conference room. When I went in, the seven people at the long oval table were talking in a jerky, desultory way. They looked up eagerly but sank back in their seats when they saw it was me, not Ralph. Karen Bigelow, Co

“Karen, you remember Ms. Warshawski? She’d like a word.”

When the boss’s secretary says that, it’s tantamount to a command. Bigelow didn’t like it, but she pushed away from the table and came with me to the outer office. I made the conventional overtures-I was very sorry to hear of the death, I knew it must be quite a shock-but she wasn’t going to unbend for me.

My own lips tightened. “All right, let’s do this the hard painful way. We all know Co

“So you can go to the police and blame this poor dead girl some more? Thank you, no.”

I smiled grimly. “So there is a desk file-I wasn’t sure. If we could go see it, we’ll find in it the reason for Howard Fepple’s death, and for her own. Not because she had-”

“I don’t have to listen to this.” Bigelow turned on her heel.

I shouted over her own raised voice. “Not because she had anything to do with his death. But because the documents were dangerous in a way that she didn’t understand.”

Ralph walked into his office at that unfortunate moment. “Vic!” he snarled in fury. “What the hell are you doing here? No, don’t bother answering. Karen, what’s Warshawski trying to persuade you to do?”

The other six supervisors had come to the conference-room door at my shout. The expression on Ralph’s face made them scuttle back to their seats before he had time to order them to move.

“She wants to see poor little Co

Ralph turned a ferocious glare onto me: someone must have been chewing him out down in the chairman’s office. “Don’t you ever dare-dare-come into this building and try to suborn my staff behind my back again!”

“You have a right to be angry, Ralph,” I said quietly. “But two people are dead and a third is in critical condition because of whatever scam the Midway Agency was working around the Aaron Sommers claim. I’m trying to find out what it was before anyone else is shot.”

“The Chicago cops are working on it.” His mouth was tight with anger. “Just leave them to it.”

“I would if they were getting anywhere close, but I know things they don’t, or at least I’m putting together things that they aren’t.”

“Then tell them about it.”

“I would if I had any real evidence. That’s why I want to see Co

He stared at me bleakly, then said, “Karen, go back to the conference room-tell the rest of the team I’ll be with you in two minutes. Denise, do we have coffee, rolls, whatever? Could you get on that, please?”

Anger was still making a pulse throb in his temple, but he was trying hard not to take it out on his staff. He motioned me to his i

“All right. Two minutes to sell me and then I’m meeting with my staff.” He shut the door and stared pointedly at his watch.

“The agent who originally sold Aaron Sommers his policy in 1971 was involved in something illegal,” I said. “Howard Fepple apparently didn’t know about it until he looked up Aaron Sommers’s file. I was in the office with him when he did: it was clear it held something-documents, notes, I don’t know what-that grabbed his attention. When he faxed his agency material to Co

“No one knows what the original agent, Ulrich Hoffman, was up to. All the copies of the original Sommers policy documents have disappeared. The only thing left is the sanitized version. You yourself said yesterday that there should be handwritten notes from the agent in it, but those have all disappeared. If Co

“So?” His arms were crossed in an uncompromising attitude.

I took a deep breath. “I believe Co

“Goddamn you, no!” he bellowed. “What the hell are you up to?”

“Ralph, please. I know this must seem like déjà vu all over again, me coming in, accusing your boss. But listen for just one minute. Ulrich Hoffman used to be an agent for Edelweiss in Vie

“I’m sure all this history is fascinating,” Ralph interrupted me with heavy sarcasm, “but my staff is waiting for me.”

“Old Ulrich kept a list of his Vie

“Damn you, Vic, you can’t prove any of this!” Ralph smacked his aluminum desktop so hard he winced in pain.

“No, because those wretched journals of Ulrich’s keep disappearing. But believe me, Rossy is hot on their trail. The head office in Zurich can’t afford for this to come to light. Edelweiss can’t afford for anyone to see those books of Ulrich’s. I’m betting Rossy and his wife engineered Howard Fepple’s death. I’m betting he killed poor little Co

Ralph was very white. He unconsciously massaged his right shoulder, where he’d taken a bullet from his old boss ten years ago.

“I presume the police are co