The P.U.R.E. (8 page)

“I never would have guessed ol’ Kenneth to be such a ladies’ man. Poor Darla. Their animosity at the Turner’s party makes more sense now. I’ll bet she knew all about her husband’s philandering.”

“What do you think Bob thought of his wife sharing mistress duties with Jayna?”

“I’ll bet he was even happier he did Kenneth in. He got an extra dose of rationalization for his actions.”

“I wonder if he’ll tell Leslie.” Crunching and rattling paper noises seeped in from Jon’s car.

“The question is, does Leslie know that Bob knows? And if so, what does
she
think of the circumstances of Kenneth’s death? Does she suspect Bob? Is she worried for her own safety? At least we don’t have to worry any more about the fraud the IPO would unleash.”

“Hey, where’re you parking?” A new round of garbled sounds peppered his words.

“In the garage, of course. Aren’t you? We can charge it on our expense report since it’s a second work location in one day.”

“Sure, but I meant on what level?” The munching grew louder.

“I don’t know. I’m just now turning on San Jacinto. Where are you at, and more importantly, what are you eating?”

“I’m in the garage, and I’m eating a taco. I made a run for the border after I left Aphrodite. I got extras. Park on seven, and I’ll give you one. Ciao bella.”

“Okay. Meet you on seven. Ciao bello.” Italian sounded so much cooler than the Spanish cuss words I grew up with.

Despite his very English last name of Cripps, Jon’s mother Julie, née Giulietta Federici, had been born and raised in Italy.

He taught me a couple of phrases, like ciao bello. I understood that to be a woman’s “ditto” response to a man’s ciao bella, both of which meant, “See ya, buddy!” or something like that. Sometimes he said things he’d refuse to translate, and I assumed he was poking fun at me in a good-natured way.

No matter what his meaning, I loved the sound of his voice and the aura of mystery when he spoke Italian to me.

11

By Monday, Aphrodite had returned to full functionality though very subdued.

My first appointment with Jayna didn’t go well. She was a mess, like she hadn’t slept in days, her eyes red with dark circles. She kept dabbing them and blowing her nose.

After my first question, she choked out, “Excuse me. I need to go to the ladies’ room. I’ll be right back.”

“Do you want me to leave and come back?” I started to rise.

“No, I’ll only be a minute. I want to talk to you.”

“Okay. I’ll just hang out here.”

She dashed out, and I immediately scanned her desk. I excelled at reading upside down—an unsanctioned auditor’s trick everyone practiced but nobody admitted.

I plucked her projections for the public offering from the stack and turned it toward me to study the intended distribution of the money raised. The majority of the funds would go to the bank to pay off Aphrodite’s loan, with a huge cut to the investment bankers for their services. She’d also itemized Anderson-Blakely’s hefty fees and those of the attorneys.

At the bottom of the spreadsheet was the notation: “redemption of 5000 preferred shares to Dalrymple Beauty, callable at 800% of face”.

Who was Dalrymple Beauty? Why didn’t we have a record of any redeemable preferred shares? I’d audited all the stockholders’ equity accounts; I should have known about a special class of stock.

A thin manila folder peeked out from beneath her desk blotter. The label said, ‘Dalrymple Beauty Consultants, LLC’.

Luck had hopped on my shoulder for a ride.

I grabbed the file and ran to the copy machine between Jayna’s office and the ladies’ room. If she returned before I finished, I would dash back to her office and restore the papers to their original spots or make up a story to explain myself if necessary.

As the last copy finished, I darted back into her office, my heart pounding. The file and worksheet I restored to their original spots, with mere seconds to spare before she appeared in the doorway.

“I’d almost given up on you.” I hoped I didn’t sound breathless.

“I’m sorry I took so long. I just can’t believe he’s gone or that someone murdered him. He wouldn’t hurt a fly.” She sniffled into a Kleenex.

“You two were close?”

She jerked her head up. A few tears fell before she nodded.

“I’m so sorry, Jayna.” I reached out and patted her hand.

“I hope they catch whoever killed him,” she said. “He was a good man caught in a bad situation. He didn’t deserve this.”

“What do you mean ‘caught in a bad situation’? Did he have a drug or gambling problem? Do you think someone had a score to settle with him?”

“I don’t know.” She began to cry again. “Kenneth was … never mind.” She waved her wadded up tissue at me. “I think I need to go home.” She stood and began gathering her belongings. “I’m sorry to leave you guys in a lurch, but my staff can help you with whatever you need.”

She grabbed the folders I’d copied and placed them in the top drawer of her file cabinet. No lock secured the contents.

I did a bit of my own mental filing and tucked that away under “just in case”. In the meantime, I had my own copies.

I got up to leave. “I really am so sorry, Jayna.”

She stopped, turned back to me. “Please don’t mention anything I said about Kenneth and I being close or about his murder, Gayle. People might not understand, and I was only speculating.”

I nodded, but inside, I cringed at being asked to participate in someone’s deception. I also wondered about what she wanted to say to me, why she made me wait for her when she dashed off to the ladies’ room, and why she left without telling me.

• • •

“Hey, Bob,” Doug said as Bob entered the audit room right after I did.

I stashed my contraband papers in my briefcase.

“Hello, everyone. How’s it going?” Bob removed his jacket and used some framed artwork as a mirror while tweaking his hair before taking a seat.

“We didn’t expect you until tomorrow,” Doug said.

“I decided to come earlier to perform a second review of the exceptions we found but passed as immaterial. I also want to have a meeting with the team about the latest developments in Kenneth’s murder.”

“Is Marilyn coming?” I asked.

“She’s on her way. We’ll start when she gets here.”

Scarlett seemed surprised. Jon’s face betrayed nothing. I didn’t expect it to since he was privy to the same conversation between Bob and Arthur as I. Tony showed nothing either because I doubted anything of substance bubbled through his mind other than how to parlay Bob and Marilyn’s presence into a self-promotion opportunity.

While we waited for Marilyn, Bob disappeared somewhere within the bowels of Aphrodite.

“Oh, by the way, Jayna left for the day.” I announced, realizing others on the team had need of her too.

“Why did she leave?” Jon asked.

“She’s still upset over Kenneth’s death—a total mess.”

Doug shook his head and muttered under his breath, but I couldn’t make out his words. No doubt something uncomplimentary. He’d made plenty of disparaging remarks about Jayna before.

Marilyn strode in and dropped her briefcase in a chair before asking, “Where’s Bob?” She looked like she hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep in weeks. Her eyes were puffy, her skin sallow. She wore next to no makeup, and her hair and a brush had been duking it out for dominance. The hair had won.

“I don’t know,” Doug said. “He showed up about a half an hour ago, told us we were going to have a meeting, and we haven’t seen him since.”

“He’s been here half an hour already?” Marilyn asked with a frown. “He told me he’d be here at ten thirty.” She chewed on the inside of her bottom lip and stared down at the table as if deep in thought.

I checked my watch—fifteen minutes after ten.

Marilyn situated herself and retrieved the inventory file. She muttered a few curses as she flipped back and forth between her review points and Bob’s, probably because Bob had blown hers off.

“What the hell?” she murmured, brow deeply creased. She pulled out a notepad and began writing.

At ten thirty, Bob returned.

“Marilyn! Good. You’re here. I need to speak privately with you in the other conference room down the hall,” Bob said.

She shot out of her seat and declared with passion, “Most definitely.” She took her notepad with her.

They returned a half hour later, both flushed in the face. It must have been one hell of a meeting, and I wished I had manufactured an excuse to loiter outside the room they used.

Slipping into his seat, Bob said, “Our engagement has obviously taken an unusual twist with Kenneth Petrovich’s murder. In light of the suspicious nature of his death, Arthur has asked us to re-examine some of Aphrodite’s more sensitive areas, such as inventory and receivables. That being said, because I haven’t been comfortable with the job we did on the physical inventory observation, Aphrodite will recount while we observe. Scarlett, you’ll observe the Dallas inventory, and Tony, you’ll do the same in El Paso.”

I tapped my pen on the palm of my hand as I scanned the faces in the room. Bob had said before he thought Jon’s and my work was flawed because our counts contradicted Aphrodite’s records. Less than a week earlier, he’d been willing to sign off despite the differences. Did he still believe our work to be subpar given what he told Arthur? Why did he assign Tony to redo my work?

My palm began to sting from the pen’s repeated impact.

“Jon, you’ll assist Scarlett, and Gayle you’ll assist Tony, so the pair of you can learn from your mistakes.”

Tony? Seriously?

I slapped my pen down on the table. “Excuse me, Bob, but what mistakes? You just said there is suspicion Aphrodite’s records might not be up to snuff. The discrepancies Jon and I noted in the first go round have had nothing to do with the quality of our work. Those differences were one hundred percent to do with something Aphrodite did.”

“It doesn’t matter who screwed up the first time,” Doug said, “but we sure can’t take any chances with our second shot.”

“But—”

“Gayle! Moving on.” Bob’s sneer proclaimed he would brook no further discussion on the subject.

I glanced at Jon, and he shrugged but didn’t look too happy either. He was politically savvy enough to know better than to challenge the partner in charge of the job. I still hadn’t mastered that skill.

Marilyn was probably thrilled over the redo of the inventories, egos be damned, but she showed no emotion whatsoever.

If Marilyn’s fat lady was singing, I despised her tune.

“Aphrodite will re-inventory day after tomorrow starting at seven a.m.,” Bob said. “The short notice is to prevent any cover-ups. Tony, you and Gayle will need to fly to El Paso tomorrow night.”

“Aye, aye, captain.” Tony looked particularly pleased with himself.

I wanted to slap the insufferable ass. The idea of having to tag along as his flunky infuriated me.

Doug flashed a smirk my way.

Fine.
He’d be the last to know what I found on Jayna’s desk.

12

With Bob on site, I’d stashed the copies in my briefcase and didn’t dare pull them out to show Jon. I kept my head down all day despite a few inquiring gazes from him. I also stayed away from Jayna’s office.

Bob’s directives still churned in my system like rotten chili when Doug sent us home at five.

I snatched my car keys and decided to get a frozen yogurt to literally and figuratively cool off. My car must have possessed a mind of its own because it drove us to Jon’s parking lot instead.

I’d not yet had a chance to tell Jon about what I’d found on Jayna’s desk and hoped he was home, though like me, I doubted he’d had much of an opportunity to make any sort of plans. We didn’t often end our day at five—more like seven or eight.

I rang his doorbell and waited. Voices inside trickled to my ears, but I attributed them to his television. I rang again. Footsteps moved toward the door. He cracked it open. The face in the narrow opening didn’t belong to Jon but to his ex-fiancée, Thalia.

“Yes?”

Should I leave? No. Act normal because we’re friends, and friends do visit each other for friendly reasons.

“Uh … is Jon home?” I asked.

Come on, Lindley. A little more self-confidence.

“He is, but he’s in the shower right now.” Her brow furrowed. She pointed and wagged a finger at me. “I met you a few weeks ago, didn’t I? What was your name again? Scarlett?”

Thalia stared down at me from somewhere around six feet, a lot taller than my measly five feet two inches. I despised being short, and I especially hated having to crane my head back to make eye contact. At least her voice sounded whinier than I remembered.

Don’t back down or act surprised she’s here. So what if they got back together and were having makeup sex. So what. Not my business. No sirree. Play it cool, wrap it up, and get out.

“Yes, we met. I’m Gayle.” I tried to peer around her. “I was in the neighborhood and wanted to talk shop with Jon for a second. Are you guys getting ready to go out?”

Jon appeared within my line of sight, shirtless and wet-haired, jeans hanging low on his hips, and prevented Thalia from answering my question. He slowed as he approached the door.

I was taken aback by his partially undressed state. Before me stood someone I barely recognized. Someone with powerfully broad shoulders, and a taut, muscular stomach. Someone who obviously worked out.
A lot.
Bench presses, sit-ups and preacher curls, oh my! His chest displayed enough hair to label him a man, not a boy nor a gorilla. Who knew so much male yumminess lurked beneath his starched button-downs and conservative ties.

Gayle! Stop!

“Gayle!” he said with unexpected enthusiasm. “Come in, come in. What brings you here?” He ran a hand through his hair, finger combing wet cowlicks into submission.

I stayed outside. “Sorry to drop by unannounced. I wanted to talk privately with you about a few work topics, but I think I’ve come at a bad time.” I glanced back and forth between him and Thalia to convey my unspoken acknowledgement of their reunion and its aftermath. “We’ll catch up sometime before I go to El Paso. Nice to see you again, Thalia.”