Monahan 02 Artificial Intentions (30 page)

“What’s his military background?” Jay asked.

“He was a marine staff sergeant who retired a few years back. He was military police and spent some time at NCIS.” Jay’s eyebrows rose in a question mark so I clarified it for him. “Naval
Criminal Investigation Service. Kelly was an investigator for them.”

Kelly was sliding his cell phone into its holster when he came back into the kitchen.

“That was one of my guys who’s been doing the background checks. Apparently there’s more to the story on Ben Tucker than we thought.”

“What do you mean?” I asked him.

“My guys have been going through the background histories of the people in R and D and checking the facts themselves. We’re not relying on the facts in the INTELLI-Guide background information. He’s come up against a few walls as he’s been checking out Mr. Tucker’s story. The first time he thought it was just a fluke. But the second, third and fourth time the facts didn’t check out, the red flags were wavin’. So far, his education and work history are lies. He apparently had several previous jobs listed and none of them are true.”

“How can that be?” I demanded. “How much do we pay this company to do background checks? Has anyone checked
their
background? Did your guys find discrepancies in any of the other files?”

“Not that I’ve heard so far,” Kelly said. “I’ll give INTELL-Guide the benefit of the doubt here, but if we find any more discrepancies, I have a feeling we’ll be using another company after this to do our background checking.”

“You’re fucking right we will be.”

“So my guy has stopped checking what Mr. Tucker put down on the file, and we’re now starting a trace on him with other sources. It shouldn’t be too long before we find out Mr. Tucker’s true identity. Apparently his social security number is fake too.”

“You have
got
to be kidding me,” I fumed. Kelly’s cell phone rang again and he disappeared into the living room to answer it.

“Well, he seems to be getting things done,” Jay observed. He closed the dishwasher door and started wiping down the counters. I didn’t understand how he could appear so calm. My insides were roiling and I was royally pissed. I grabbed my cigarettes and headed for the balcony. Mr. Chisel Jaw, Drop Dead Gorgeous Tucker was a phony and I couldn’t even begin to fathom why he was employed at Phoenix. I wondered who had hired him and how much damage he had done since he’d been with the company.

Kelly joined me on the balcony before I was halfway through my cigarette. He referred to his notebook and told me, “His real name is Donald McLean. He spent time in one of the state prisons in Arizona. And he’s a registered sex offender.”

In spite of the humid evening air, I felt a little chilled, pacing up and back on the balcony. I cupped my hands against the windows and peered inside, where Kelly was sitting at the dining room table, at the far end of the apartment. The chandelier above the dining room table was the only light coming from that end of the apartment and straight ahead of where I was on the balcony, the apartment was in darkness except for a soft glow coming from inside the cubby-hole in the wall, where Jay was working on the computer. Even though I lived on one of the main streets of Manhattan, there was little sound coming from Fifth Avenue below me.

Kelly had been working the phones ever since he broke the news to me about Donald McLean, a.k.a. Ben Tucker. Jay was somehow helping out and doing some digging on different computer databases. Me, I felt useless, so I stayed out of the way, and chain-smoked on the balcony.

Things were spinning out of control as far as I was concerned. Nat Scott had vacated the premises, left her job and the company without a word to anyone. She might as well have sent a one-word email to everyone in the company: GUILTY. But just exactly what is she guilty of, I wondered. Tucker, one of our senior people in R and D turns out to be a felon. Was he involved with Nat Scott? Jordan Francis disappears. What did he do that was so bad he had to resign his position? Was he falsifying records? Was Natalie Scott guilty of the same thing? Did Ben Tucker - or Donald McLean, dammit - help Nat Scott? Did they kill Tommy because he figured it all out?

I was suddenly very conscious of the fact that Natalie Scott lived in the same apartment building. Was she not worried about running into me, seeing me in the lobby? She left Phoenix without so much as an email, a phone call or a kiss-my-ass. One could surmise that she had no desire to have any contact with anyone from Phoenix. Too fucking bad, I thought, as I stormed into the apartment and headed for the elevator. The front door to the apartment closed quietly behind me and I punched the button on the wall to call for the elevator.

The ride to go up six floors took less than a minute, hardly enough time for me to figure out what I was going to do or say when I confronted Nat. I was surprised when the elevator doors opened to see four apartment doors, each with a solid brass plaque mounted on the door with the apartment number. All the floors in the building were apparently not like mine, containing only one apartment. I stood and stared at the four doors and tried my Amazing Kreskin routine, trying to conjure up Nat Scott’s image behind one of the doors. When that didn’t work, I did the next best thing. I knocked on the door closest to me. And waited. When there was no response to my knock, I went to the door next to it and rapped.

I didn’t have to wait long before the door opened a crack and I heard a voice.

“Hello?” The voice was elderly.

“Hello,” I answered back. “I’m Kate Monahan, from the fourteenth floor.” The door opened another half inch or so but I still couldn’t see who was there.

“You don’t live on the fourteenth floor, Miss, and I’m calling building security right now. Mr. Connaught lives on that floor.”

“Oh, please, don’t call security,” I quickly pleaded with her. “Mr. Connaught is my ex-husband. I’m living in the apartment now.”

The door opened about six inches and a little white head peered out. The little white head was on a tiny body, one that was actually shorter than me. She was stooped over, and held onto a cane with both hands.

“Tom never spoke of an ex-wife,” she told me. I wasn’t surprised at this and told her so.

“Kathleen Monahan, ma’am.” I held out my hand and she offered hers. It was delicate and her skin felt like silk. “Constance Everwood,” she said.

“Pleased to meet you Miss Everwood.”

“Allow me to say how sorry I am about the loss of Tom Connaught. He was a good man, a solid man. And a gentleman. There aren’t many of those around these days,” she said. I agreed with her. “What can I do for you tonight, Miss Monahan?”

“I’m looking for Natalie Scott’s apartment,” I told her.

“Well, why didn’t you just ask at the Front Desk?” she asked.

“I came straight up on the elevator. I just thought all floors had one apartment, like mine.”

“Ha,” she half-laughed. “Yours and the nineteenth floor are the only ones with single apartments. The rest of us live four apartments to the floor.” She made it sound like she was living in a tenement building when in fact she was living at a very exclusive, Fifth Avenue address.

“Yes, that’s too bad. Can you tell me which apartment Miss Scott lives in?”

Miss Everwood pointed at the apartment two doors over from hers. “Whatever business would you have with that one?” she asked.

“Oh, we work together,” I told her, making it sound like we were girlfriends who were getting together to paint our toenails.

“Well, she’s turned out as sour as that mother of hers. Do you work at Tom’s company? You must, because she,” Miss Everwood poked her nose in the direction of Natalie Scott’s apartment, “works there too. Tom told me.”

“Did you see Tom often?” I asked her.

“Often enough. At least once a week,” she told me. “In the lobby. We’d ride the elevator together. He’d help me with my packages. Such a nice man. Have they found out what happened to him?”

I shook my head. “Thanks Miss Everwood.” I took a step back, letting her know I needed to move on. “I hope to see you in the lobby or the elevator,” I told her.

“Don’t waste your time going to her apartment,” she nodded again in the direction of the Scott’s door. “No one answers the door after eight o’clock at night. Been that way since they moved in. You can bang on that door, you can yell that you’re with the police. No one will come.”

“Oh, okay,” I said reluctantly. “Do you know if Miss Scott is at home? She wasn’t at work today and I wondered if she was okay,” I lied. I didn’t give a tiny rat’s ass if she was okay.

“She’s home. Came in around five this morning and hasn’t gone out.” Constance picked up her cane and pointed it at a small peephole in her door which was placed at about the four foot mark. “I keep track,” she bragged. “Can’t sleep so I pace. And when I hear the elevator, I check to see who’s on it.” I wondered if she had ever applied to work the Front Desk of the building as a security guard. This was Neighbourhood Watch at its best, although admittedly she was only keeping track of three other families.

“Although I must admit, it’s strange,” she said.

“What’s strange?” I asked.

“That I haven’t seen her mother in six months. Good night Miss Monahan.” She turned around and shuffled back into her apartment.

“Good night Miss Everwood,” I answered.

Six months? That
was
strange.

chapter forty-two

I joined Kelly and Jay at the dining room table when I got back from my jaunt upstairs. The two of them hadn’t even noticed that I was gone.

“The watchdog on the twentieth floor says that Nat Scott is at home and has been since five this morning,” I reported to them.

Kelly’s face was a large question mark.

“I went up to Nat Scott’s floor,” I told him. “I’m so pissed right now. I wanted to talk to her. Get to the bottom of this.”

Kelly ran his hand over his face and his fingers pulled at the sides of his mouth. The shake of his head was imperceptible, but it was there. Jay saw it too.

“Kate,” Jay said, “I don’t think you should be running around, checking things out by yourself. It’s not safe.” Kelly’s slight nod, agreeing with Jay, did not go unnoticed by me. I impressed myself by deciding not to argue with either of them.

“Any news?” I asked, changing the subject.

“Yeah, on two fronts,” Kelly told me. “First on Dr. Francis. There’s been no sign of him for about a month at his apartment building. No one has seen him coming or going. His apartment is still full of his belongings and the food in his refrigerator has gone bad. “

“So your people were in his apartment?” I asked.

Kelly nodded. I didn’t ask how they got in.

“Does it look like he packed a couple of suitcases and took off?”

Kelly shook his head. “Nope. Toothbrush is still in the bathroom, a set of suitcases are sitting in the bedroom closet. Neighbours haven’t seen him.”

“This is not good,” I said, stating the obvious. “Dr. Pritchard and the staff at Global Devices think that he moved away. His resignation letter said that he was moving and he didn’t leave a forwarding address. What the hell is going on?”

Jay and Kelly looked at me, silently. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Everything was out of control and I felt like Alice in Wonderland, falling and falling. What the hell had I got myself into? What the fuck had Tom Connaught been thinking when he left this shit fucking mess to me? I slammed the palms of my hands on the table and stood up, shoving the chair backwards with my legs.

“We need to call the police and report the poor man missing. Can you find out if he has any family Kelly? Maybe he’s not missing. Maybe he’s scared and is hiding out with them.” I tried to calm myself down, breathing through my nose. I was ready to pack it in, lock, stock and barrel, right now, right here. Kate Monahan was scared and starting to panic. Slow breaths through the nose, I told myself.

Jay was starting to look concerned but knew to keep his distance. He knew that when I was scared I would lash out at anything or anyone near me.

I put my hands on the table and leaned forward a bit. “I’m okay,” I told the both of them. Liar, I told myself. “I’m going to make some coffee. Who wants a cup?”

Ten minutes later we were all back at the dining room table, with our coffee. “So,” I asked Kelly. “Let’s get back to where we were before I panicked. Sorry about that.”

Kelly held up his right hand and shook his head. I took this to mean, no apology necessary.

“You said there was news on two fronts,” I reminded him.

Kelly looked over at Jay and they shared a glance that went something like this: if you think she panicked over the news on Dr. Francis, wait until she hears this.

“What?” I demanded of them.

“It’s about Donald McLean. We found out why he spent time in the state prison.” Jay was delivering the news on this one.

“He’s a sex offender. I’m not sure I want to know the gory details,” I told them.

Jay ignored my wish and told me anyway. “He was convicted of sexually fondling his patients.”

“What patients?” I asked.

“Well, apparently our Mr. McLean was a surgical resident at the Flagstaff Memorial Hospital. Donald McLean is a medical doctor with a specialty in surgery. Although the Arizona Medical Board doesn’t agree. They revoked his license when he was convicted.”

I sat there and let that news sink in. Disgusted was a good word to describe how I felt. And a little more than slightly sick to my stomach. Disgusted with myself, to think that I had found that man attractive. Disgusted with myself to think that I had flirted with him.

Jay looked at me and I had a sudden urge to crawl onto his lap and cuddle up.

“Shall I finish the story on Mr. McLean?” he offered. I nodded.

“Well, the police records that we were able to access reported that after he was convicted, but before he was sentenced and sent to the state prison, Mr. McLean ran his car into a tree at full speed. The police report indicated that the weather was good, and there were no skid marks to indicate that he tried to avoid the tree. The report speculated that it was an attempted suicide.”