Last Shot (Dev Haskell - Private Investigator, Book 6) (6 page)

“Everything okay?
” I gambled.

“Yes.” S
he smiled, but then added, “He’s on his way down and said for you to just wait. He’s always so darn sweet. Why don’t you just have a seat over there? It should only be a minute.” She indicated a line of card table chairs against the far wall.

Chapter Eleven

“Goodness, s
ome emergency must
have come up. He’s usually so prompt,” Madeline said fifty minutes later.

“Maybe I should just run up to his office,” I suggested.

“Oh, I’m afraid you better not. That would be exactly the time he’ll come down and you’ll miss him,” she said. “Would you excuse me? I’m just going to run to the ladies room for a moment,” she said, then picked up her thermos and quickly walked around the counter.

If I’d known their filing system
, I could have pulled the files myself. It wasn’t like I was going to take the things home with me. I just wanted to read them and get up to speed.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Aaron asked
a moment later. He was standing in the doorway, watching me stare at my feet.

“
Look, Aaron, I’m sorry. I just wanted to get up to speed on some background stuff relating to Desi Quinn.”

“So
, you decided that the best way to try and get up to speed was to pull an end run on me, is that it?”

“No.”

“Oh, that’s good to know. Now I guess I don’t have to worry. What the hell are you doing down here? And where’s Madeline?” he asked, looking around.

“I think she went out for a drink,” I half whispered.

That didn’t seem to faze him. “You want to look at our files just ask me. They’ve been closed for seven or eight years. I would have let you take a look.”

“That’s not the impression I got when we spoke on the phone yesterday.”

He seemed to think about that for a moment. “You can’t leave this room with anything except your own notes. Clear?”

I nodded.

“I’ll have you locked up and turned over to Manning and his serial rapists if you even think about taking anything out of one of the files.”

“What could I possibly take?”

“I’m not sure, just don’t. Okay? Madeline usually has some damn form to fill out around here,” he said, looking behind the counter. “Here we go. Okay,” he spoke as he filled in the form. “You stay here with those files. When you’re finished you report back to me up at my desk before you leave the building. Clear?”

I nodded.

“I’m not kidding, Dev.”

“I got it.”

Madeline lurched back behind the counter about twenty minutes later. She looked glassy eyed and the alcohol smell seemed stronger.

“Lieutenant LaZelle cam
e down and filled out this form,” I said, handing it to her.

“Oh
, isn’t that just the way? I’m gone for two minutes and he breezes in and out.”

“He said I should read the files down here. I guess maybe in one of those cubicles,” I said, trying to get things moving.

She waved
a hand dismissively. “Sure, dear, whatever you want.”

I was hoping she was just talking about the files. I handed her a slip of paper with Desi’s and Little Jimmy’s names written on it. “How about I
wait in a cubicle for these files?”

“Perfect.” S
he smiled, then seemed to stagger just a half step while she examined the names I’d written down, then she turned the sheet over to see if I’d written anything on the back side.

I waited in one of the cubicle’s wondering
for fifteen minutes if I’d ever see a file or Madeline when all of a sudden she rushed in. “There you go, Mr. Hastings,” she said, making a grand gesture as she deposited about a foot high stack of files on the desktop where I was seated. “All neat and tidy. Does Sir desire anything else? Anything?” she asked, raising an eyebrow and making a grand sweeping gesture with her right arm.

“No
thanks, Madeline. This will keep me busy for quite a while.”

“Very goo
d. I bid thee farewell and anon, my prince,” she said and then rushed back out of the cubicle.

I started with the smaller set of files first, Little Jimmy Fennell. I coul
d go through all sorts of minute detail, but suffice to say Little Jimmy died of a heart attack, cardiac arrest. He’d apparently climbed up thirty-seven granite steps toward the front doors of the Cathedral where he collapsed. The coroner’s report suggested he was most likely dead by the time he hit the ground, not that far a fall for a fellow who was barely four-foot-three.

T
he medical examiner’s photos had him laid out with his arms spread as if he was awaiting crucifixion. It was surmised this may have been the prank of some warped individual who happened across Little Jimmy’s still warm body. The image, a version of which ran on the front page of the Sunday paper is what led to all sorts of Da Vinci Code type speculation. Much of which was investigated and none of which seemed to hold the least bit of credence. To date, James Fennell, aka Little Jimmy remained the only known member of the gang who actually robbed the Ninth District Federal Reserve Bank and Little Jimmy wasn’t talking.

I stood up, stretched and looked around. I spotted Madeline with her head down on her desk apparently as
leep, which was probably a good thing. Her thermos lay on its side at the foot of her desk. It was apparently empty because there didn’t seem to be any trace of a puddle on the floor.

I returned to my seat and began to review the Desi Quinn files.

Chapter Twelve

Desi had told me
the truth. She had been an architect for Touchier and Touchier. Her address was listed, at least in the file I was reading, as being in the seven hundred block of Fairmont Avenue in St. Paul. A trendy older section of town comprised of large three-story Victorian homes.

She’d
apparently been a model college student, made the Dean’s List in grad school at Clemson and had been employed at Touchier for three years. She was on track to be made a partner in the next three or four years and by all accounts was an excellent employee. Her employee reviews, all signed by Gaston Driscoll, described her as a credit to herself and to the firm. She had no known prior offenses. Not even so much as a parking ticket.

How she came to steal Driscoll’s access codes and wh
at she did with the funds that she presumably received as a payoff, was never determined. Other than withdrawing the one set of files, there was never any record of her tampering with firm security. There were no bank records showing a large deposit, no evidence of a change in her spending patterns, nothing.

She was on
record as having withdrawn the Federal Reserve files from the firm’s vault. Upon closer examination, it was determined that she had used Gaston Driscoll’s access code when withdrawing the Federal Reserve Security files. At the time, Driscoll was conveniently out of town, enjoying a three week vacation retreat with his wife. The Driscolls had traveled to Sanibel Island in February, just as they had for the past eleven years.

Desi maintained Driscoll instructed her to deliver the file
s to an office in Town Square Court while he was out of town. The office was located in the twenty-seven story Bremer Tower. The office suite she delivered the files to, suite 2405, had been vacant for over a year, and in fact remained vacant at least up to and during her trial.

Her story had credence from the standpoint that in order to gain access and remove the Federal Reserve fi
les she needed Driscoll’s security codes. Desi had her own personal code, but her security clearance wasn’t as high as Driscoll’s. Interestingly enough, she followed procedure and signed her name, registering her removal of the Federal Reserve files. She did not obtain a delivery receipt when she supposedly delivered the same files to the non-existent office.

I was beginning to believe Desi’s story. The thing that was really convincing me was that Driscoll just happened to be away on his annual vacation. It could be a coincidence
, but then why would Desi sign her own name and insist she had delivered them to an office suite? She wasn’t an idiot. She had to have known that the office suite was a point, a key point that could be verified. She was either completely naïve or…

Desi’s
desk calendar was included in the file I was reviewing. There was a one-word notation on February 14, Valentines Day interestingly enough. The notation read ‘Files’. Two days later, on the 16
th
was the notation ‘Gas’. Then written on the 17
th
was the notation ‘Call Gas!! 1
st
thig!’

Was she feeling some sort of pressure
by the 17
th
? Had someone discovered the files were missing? The robbery didn’t occur for almost another two weeks. Dropping the ‘n’ on what I presumed should have been the word ‘thing’…did that suggest she was feeling pressure and possibly making mistakes? Or, was she just busy at that particular moment and writing quickly?

The file indicated Desi was terminated on February 26
th
. A full five days before the Federal Reserve Bank was even robbed. The reason given for her termination was simply ‘poor performance’ which seemed to run contrary to her three years’ worth of exemplary performance reviews. Up until that time she’d been a model employee, the golden child. What the hell happened?

Her termination had been
personally handled by Gaston Driscoll via the phone which seemed a rather cold and heartless method for anyone to be subjected to. I noted an individual from the firm’s Human Resources’ department had also been present, on the conference call, a woman named Helen Olsen. I made a note. There were probably a few thousand Olsens in the phone book. If Helen was under fifty years old there was a strong possibility she wouldn’t even be listed in the phone book. I’d have to call her at Touchier and if she was still employed there, try to set up an appointment.

I flipped back a page and looked at the reason for termination, ‘poor performance’. It didn’t seem to add up.

Over the course of the afternoon I continued to wade through the file. At no time did there ever seem to be a major focus on Gaston Driscoll. If Desi looked to be a model employee, Driscoll was a sterling citizen. The little that was in the file mentioned he was a wounded Army veteran, highly regarded professionally, as well as socially. He sat on the boards of four separate non-profit organizations, as well as half-a-dozen corporations. Hell, the guy even volunteered monthly at his church to cook and serve food to the needy.

He’d testified in court and a portion of the transcripts had been incl
uded in the file. Reading the transcripts Driscoll came across as reluctant to say anything negative about Desi. He’d been at the opposite end of the country when she’d ‘stolen’ the files. In the file transcripts, it was presented that it would not have been a difficult thing for Desi to obtain the files since she was aware Driscoll’s security access code was written on a card in his Rolodex.

It would not be
a far leap to conclude that Desi waited until lily-white senior partner Gaston Driscoll was out of the office for a week, used his access code and stole the files. Of course that still left some serious questions. Why would Desi sign her own name? And when confronted, instead of denying the fact, why would Desi not only admit she took the files, but then provide the address of a vacant office suite as the location where she delivered them?

No
where in Desi’s case file was there a hint of a sexual relationship between her and Gaston Driscoll. I understood Driscoll not wanting to bring it up, but you’d think Desi would have said something about it in her own defense, maybe mentioned the Ace of Spades tattoo she’d told me about. At least the tattoo was something that could be verified and suggested a more intimate knowledge of the guy than any other casual employee might have.

It was late in the afternoon. I had
a few pages of notes and scribbles, some of which I could actually decipher. I replaced everything, closed the files and walked out to Madeline’s desk. She was nowhere to be found. Her thermos was still on the floor next to her desk. There was a container of aspirin with the lid torn off where last I saw her sleeping. I left the stack of files on her desk and took the elevator up to Aaron’s office on the fourth floor.

After asking to see him I waited for another ten minutes before he came out of the secure homicide area.

“You finished down there?” he asked, stating the obvious.

“Yeah, I got about all I can get from
your files at this point. And that’s not much.”

He nodded like he understood. “Any conclusions?” he asked.

“Conclusions? No, not really. But maybe some suspicions.”

“Such as?”

“Well, I don’t know. Desi told me she was in a relationship for the better part of a year with Gaston Driscoll. He fires her a few weeks before the Federal Reserve robbery on the grounds of poor performance. Maybe she thought at the time he may have taken up with another woman and she was going to make life difficult for him.”