Monahan 02 Artificial Intentions (7 page)

“Because it seems you’re the obvious suspect.”

chapter nine

Sleep finally came to me but I woke up restlessly several times in the night. I dragged myself out of bed around seven and immediately made myself a pot of coffee. While I waited for it to brew I brushed my teeth and dunked my face into a sink of cold water to try and revive myself. I wondered if this is how drug addicts felt in the morning.

The red light on my phone was blinking and I checked for the messages I had ignored last night. There was only one and it was from Jay.

I called his studio apartment and woke him up. Told him I needed to see him before he went to work and asked him to come to the hotel and have breakfast with me. When he arrived forty minutes later I gave him a long, hard hug.

“Nice digs,” he said as he looked around the suite. “Certainly coming up in the world,” he joked.

“Comes with the territory. That’s what I need to talk to you about.”

We sat at the small dining room table where room service had laid out muffins, croissants, jam in little jars, fresh fruit, juice and coffee. I poured myself another coffee and explained to Jay what had happened over the last day. He didn’t speak throughout my whole explanation and when I finished, he had an amused grin on his face.

“I don’t know what to say,” he said.

“Yeah, well neither do I.” I lit my third cigarette of the day and blew the smoke at the ceiling, away from Jay. He hadn’t said anything when I first lit up in front of him and I was grateful. One doesn’t need to be reminded of one’s weaknesses.

“What’re you going to do, Kate?”

I shrugged my shoulders.

“Are you up for this?”

“What do you mean? The challenge? The new job?”

“No, that’s not what I mean,” Jay said. “I know you. I’ve known you all my life and I’ve never known you to back away from a challenge. You’re incredibly bright and you’ll have no problem catching up with the business. I meant the wealth that comes with the challenge. Are you up for handling it?”

“I have no idea. You know me. I live from paycheck to paycheck. I barely have anything in my RRSPs. Last night I told Cleve I didn’t want it. I’m still thinking that way. Do you happen to know if sudden, new-found wealth changes people?”

“No idea. We were dirt poor as kids and I’m just glad to have a job and have enough money left over each week to send my mom. I’d have no idea how to handle what you’ve got now. I read somewhere recently that they’ve done a study on people who’ve won large sums of money in lotteries and they all say they aren’t any happier. But you’re a well-adjusted person now. Are you looking to be happier? Why would all this money change you?”

“The responsibility. It’s making me miserable already.”

“Scared of a little responsibility?” he challenged me.

I shook my head.

“Then dive in. Have fun with it. How many years have you been telling me you could do a better job than the monkeys at the top?”

“That was fantasyland. This is reality. And reality sucks.”

“Well, welcome to reality.”

As much as I felt like calling in sick on my first day on the job, I thought it would be prudent to at least show up and make an effort. I had no idea what to expect and no inkling of what lay ahead of me.

Carrie was at her desk when I arrived at 9:30 and I asked her to join me in my office.

“I’ll need your help with today with a few things,” I told her. “I need to get the lay of the land, so to speak. So, first things first. Can you show me where the coffee room is?”

She looked a little surprised but pleased.

I followed her through a maze of corridors to a large kitchen which resembled coffee rooms in offices around the world. Microwave oven, large refrigerator with an ice-maker on the front of the door, coffee-maker with several pots on the go, bulletin boards on the walls, and several Formica-covered, round tables with chairs. The room was empty of people and after I poured myself a cup we returned to my office. We didn’t bump into any staff in the hallways and I was surprised at how quiet the place was.

“The police have been calling?” I asked her.

She nodded.

“Well, let’s call them back and set something up. I need to talk to them.”

Two detectives arrived about half an hour later and I put aside the Wall Street Journal where I had been looking for financial news reports on Tommy’s death.

To my surprise, both detectives were women. They were complete opposites but that’s where the similarity to Cagney & Lacey ended. The one who introduced herself as Detective Bartlett was African-American and not much taller than me. The kindest way I can think of describing her physically would be rotund. She was round. Her face was circular and she wore her hair in a perfectly-shaped Afro. She was sporting two extra chins.

Detective Shipley was so tall I wondered if she had thought about playing professional basketball. My best guess put her at about six foot two. Her mousy brown hair was cropped short and it looked like she cut it herself. She was wearing brown, plain clothing which suited her just fine.

They were strictly business and after a fashion got right to the point.

“Thank you for seeing us so quickly Ms. Monahan,” Shipley said as she rummaged around in her purse. “Ha,” she finally said, and flourished a dog-eared notebook. She put her head back in the purse and I glanced at her partner who just shrugged her shoulders and rolled her eyes.

“Pen, a pen,” I heard her mumble and I offered one across the desk to her.

She grabbed at it gratefully and flipped over several pages in the notebook. Shipley was not impressing me and I checked out her overcoat to see if there were any more resemblances to Peter Falk’s Detective Columbo. She finally settled down with the pen poised over her notebook and looked me in the eye.

“Could you let us know your whereabouts on the night Mr. Connaught was murdered?”

Nothing like getting right to the point.

“I was in Toronto.”

She noted that in the notebook.

“Exactly where?”

“In my apartment,” I replied.

“Can anyone verify that?”

“No.” I didn’t like the direction she was heading with this line of questioning, but I wasn’t surprised. When Cleve had told me that I was a suspect, my immediate reaction had been horror at the thought.

“Initially Kate, you’d be the best bet for a suspect. The ex-wife who stands to inherit.”

Cleve had watched the gamut of emotions run across my face and then had done his best to calm me down.

I snorted. “What, are they nuts?” I said.

“I know it’s ridiculous. We both know it. But they still have to question you.”

So, when Shipley started asking me very direct questions, I had my answers ready.

“When was the last time you saw your husband?”

“My ex-husband.” I stressed the
ex
.

“Your ex-husband. When was the last time you saw him?” she repeated.

“I think it was about six months ago.” I had been thinking a lot about that the night before and I had remembered fondly the last time he came to town. As usual, Tommy’d been on a tight schedule but made time to call me and we went out for dinner. I couldn’t remember the exact date but it had definitely been before all the trouble at TechniGroup.

“Had you spoken to him in the last few days?” Detective Shipley asked me.

I hesitated before answering because I wondered if a message on voice mail counted.

“No. But I did have a message on my answering machine at work from him the day he died.”

Shipley made a long note in her book before looking up at me again. I wondered if Detective Bartlett ever spoke.

“And what was the message?”

“He said he wanted me to come to New York. My boss, Mr. Johnston was coming here for a board of directors meeting and Tommy left a message asking me to come along.”

“How did he sound on the message?”

“He sounded great. Full of enthusiasm, as usual. He was surprised to learn that I was working with Mr. Johnston.”

“Please describe your relationship with Mr. Connaught,” she said woodenly. It sounded like a question right out of a survey.

I didn’t have to think about my response. “Good. We were friends.”

Detective Bartlett’s eyebrows went up in disbelief at my response.

I stared at her and said, “Do you find that hard to believe Ms. Bartlett? That a divorced couple could have a good relationship?”

She blushed under her dark skin and lamely shook her head.

“Are you currently involved in a relationship with someone?” Shipley continued.

“Yes. But what’s that got to do with the price of rice in China?” I demanded.

“Just trying to get the whole picture.”

I’d had enough of their questions and decided to turn the tables.

“I’d like some information on how your investigation is going. Do you have any suspects?”

They both looked at each other and I was sure I saw the beginning of a grin on Bartlett’s face.

“Besides me?” I snapped.

“We’re not at liberty to say.” Shipley closed her notebook and jammed it back in her purse. “We’d like a copy of your financial statements.”

“My what?”

“Your financial statements. We can get the information by going directly to your bank and your employer, but you could help us by just handing over the information.”

“That’s just a waste of your time. Let’s go on the record here and now,” I stated emphatically. “I did
not
kill Tommy Connaught, and I did
not
have anything to do with his death. And I will
not
hand over my financial statements. You want them, go through proper channels.”

Shipley had an amused look on her face at my outburst and I was sure she was thinking
I think thou doth protest too much
.

I ignored her. “And yesterday was the first I heard that Mr. Connaught was naming me as his beneficiary. I would suggest that you turn your sights on someone else because you’re wasting your time investigating me.”

They both stood up to leave and Shipley left her card on my desk. I felt completely frustrated and was positive I’d hear from them again.

chapter ten

The next hour was spent very productively. I sat dumbly in my chair and stared out the window and chain-smoked. I felt useless and out of my comfort zone. I had trouble putting any thoughts in coherent order and repeatedly asked myself why I was here. I also thought about leaving. Packing it in and returning to Toronto. Running away from it all. Getting the hell out of Dodge.

Just before I slid completely into the black-hole of self-pity, I heard a timid knock on the office door. It was Carrie.

“You’ve got a call,” she told me.

I looked at her standing in front of my desk and wondered where she got the money to buy her clothes. Yesterday she’d been wearing an absolute knock-out suit and today she had on an outfit that probably set her back several hundreds of dollars. Like the suit she had on yesterday, this outfit showed off her hourglass figure. The jacket was long, tapered at the waist and flared out over her hips. Without moving my head I glanced down at the pathetic suit I was wearing. Definitely not dressed for success.

“Ms. Monahan?”

I snapped my attention back to Carrie.

“Sorry. You were saying?”

“You’ve got a call holding. I wasn’t going to interrupt but I thought you’d want this one. Someone from the morgue.”

The someone at the morgue was calling to let me know that the body was ready to be released. The body. I understood that all bodies were like slabs of meat to them but they could have been a little more delicate when they were calling the next of kin.

I had no idea what to do next. So I went to find Cleve. Carrie told me he was working out of a small meeting room down the hall. I stuck my head in the door and found him surrounded by mounds of papers and books.

“Gotta minute?” I interrupted him.

“Hey.” He seemed happy to see me. “I’ve been buried up to my neck here with paper. I need some of your time to go through all this mess with you.”

“Sure Cleve. But first I need some help.”

He was quick to offer to make the arrangements on my behalf.

“What kind of service do you have in mind?”

“I haven’t thought about it,” I told him truthfully. “Can you just get Tommy to a funeral home and then I’ll decide?”

His hand reached across the table and covered mine.

“Consider it done. What else can we help you with right now?”

“Everything. Can I be absolutely honest here?”

He nodded.

“I’m completely overwhelmed. I’ve got no idea where to start. And I have no idea what needs to be done.” I threw my hands up in the air. “Tell me what needs looking after. What’s expected of me?”

He thought for a minute before replying. “First of all, there’s nothing that needs your immediate attention. Maybe you should just take the next day or so and catch up on your reading. Last night you asked for all of the annual reports, press releases and financial statements. Why don’t you work your way through those first? Then I can spend some time bringing you up to speed. You should meet the executive team. And the project leaders. Get to know the people. Once you know the people, they can introduce you to Phoenix’s products and projects.”

It sounded like a plan to me.

“What are your immediate plans, Cleve? Are you sticking around for a while?” I knew it was a lot to ask. He had a family in Toronto.

“For as long as I’m needed,” he reassured me.

The financial statements were a total puzzle to me. The press releases and annual reports were a bit more helpful, and I started to gather a little understanding of the company. I was cautious though because I knew from experience how much or how little a public company was willing to share with the public. If it was mediocre news it was published with much fanfare. If it was great news they called a press conference. If it was bad news, they had a conference call with the stock analysts and tried to make it look like good news and downplayed the bad parts. Full, true and plain disclosure took on a whole new meaning when you were wading through a public company’s press releases.