Executive Dirt: A Sedona O'Hala Mystery (3 page)

After we had gone over the questions three times, he finally switched personalities to pushy and insinuating. I relaxed.  He fit this role and sadly, in the computer business, it was much more normal for men to act arrogant and demanding, especially around women.

I answered the questions as quickly as he shot them at me, searching my brain for details, but there was little to add.  I hadn’t seen Joe since Thursday morning when he’d been on the phone.  “Other than mentioning he had moved back in with his mother and that she did his laundry, he only said he couldn’t talk right then.”

“About what?”

“No idea. He said something about being careful.  Oh—and he spoke in Pig Latin.” It couldn’t possibly be pertinent, but since I had no other details, may as well give him that.

“The entire conversation?”

“No.  Just a phrase here and there.  I think the being careful part was in Pig Latin.  Maybe a couple of other sentences.”

Before Saunders could repeat himself again, Adrian stood, his chair scraping against the floor. The conference room was one of the few places in the building with actual doors, but it was a cramped space with a large table and too many chairs.  “You know to call us if you think of anything else?”

Detective Saunders shot him a look of disgust.

Adrian shrugged. “If Sedona hasn’t thought of anything by now, she isn’t likely to.” He turned back to me. “You aren’t employed here because of the Huntington brothers, are you?”

Well, in a manner of speaking, I was, but not for the reasons he was worried about.  “No. I took this job to avoid any investigations that the Huntington brothers might be involved in.”

“Uh-hmm.”

He’d ask Sean about it. My brother would then blow a gasket. Sean seemed to think that me working with Huntington was somehow endangering his wife Brenda. He equated the jobs with catching a cold—stand in the same room with me and suddenly you were infected. It was not my fault the last investigation had been at the hospital where Brenda worked as a nurse.

“I’ll call if I think of anything, but I didn’t know Joe other than seeing him in his cube or at meetings.  We never spoke past a polite good morning.”  I wasn’t dumb enough to mention the idiot annoyed me.  No reason to even hint at a motive on my part.

It was past lunch time by the time I escaped the interview room.  Not only was I starved, the entire floor was a no-go zone.  Instead of being asked to work late, we were instructed to leave as soon as the police had finished questioning each of us.

Cary wasn’t one to let us depart quietly.  He stood at the exit on the first floor with a pile of phones. “They came in from the factory last night.”  He handed me a phone and an SD card.  “In case you can’t download the latest software over the internet from home, I’ve loaded it on the SD card.  Just install the code from the card like we did with the early test units, and you’ll be able to start testing the phones right away.”  His white button-down shirt was rumpled and had smudges of dirt smeared across the front. He might have actually carried the box of phones down here himself.

I accepted the phone and latest code because testing it was my job, plus he might chase me into the parking lot otherwise.

“The building should be cleared of police business by tomorrow morning. Too many startups fail. We cannot allow that to happen here.  Remember you and every employee here are my early retirement plan.” His chuckle was more of a cackle, held back because he couldn’t stretch his lips properly.

The prototypes were cheap plastic, barely attached to the display. The thing was already powered on, probably running older code. The logo of the company splashed across the front display, mocking me. Cary may not have suspected my plans to play hooky this weekend, but he had not only managed to demand that I work, but that I do so from home.

Really, it’s sad when you are employed at a company where the manager can’t put aside his retirement plans for a day despite the death of an employee.  The next rung on the ladder or the next botox shot was all that mattered to him.

I tossed the phone and SD card in my backpack.  I’d have to at least load the latest software or risk being fired.  Why couldn’t the cops have kept Cary locked in a room somewhere?

On the drive home, I allowed my thoughts to drift to the upcoming weekend with Mark.  That lasted right up until I pulled onto my street and saw a car parked at the curb in front of my house.  It was not Mark’s motorcycle or SUV.  It was my parents’ trusty white Accord.

My first thought was that Sean had called them to report the murder.  That didn’t make sense though because they lived hours away in New Mexico. Yet, here they were waiting on my porch.

Hoping nothing was wrong, I rolled the passenger window down while waiting for the garage door of my little patio home to open.  “Is everything okay?”

Mom waved. “We had to come see the baby!”

They had visited Colorado right after Brenda gave birth just a couple of weeks ago.  My brain scrolled backwards, trying to remember if they had informed me of a visit. “Let me pull in, and I’ll open the front door.” I pulled my Civic into the garage and hurried through the inside garage door.  I dropped my backpack near the kitchen counter on my way to the living room to unlock the front door.

As the door swung in, Dad spotted the tomatoes and peppers in my entryway. His eyebrows rose in delight. “You’re putting in a garden this year!”  He rubbed his hands together.  “Have you ordered the soil yet?  You’ll need a raised bed.”  He rushed past me without bothering with a hug.  He didn’t stop until he reached the window at the back door.  Despite seeing no garden bed, he put his hand on the doorknob.

“Hi, Dad,” I said, giving Mom her hug.  We both gazed at him affectionately, me without the trace of annoyance my mother exhibited.

“Looks like you need some help,” he said happily. “Have you found a place that sells composted turkey manure?  You won’t be able to buy elephant manure here.  Hmm.  I think I know a guy.”  He had his cell phone out before I had a chance to answer.

“Uh, Dad.”  I had no intention of putting in a garden.

Mom bustled over to him and grabbed the phone from his hand.  She pressed some buttons and then gave it back. “Dear, I’m certain Sedona has it all worked out.  You don’t want to interfere with her plans.” She turned to me. “We stopped by Sean’s, but he is at work, and Brenda and the baby weren’t home.  So we came here to unload the luggage. We can’t stay at Sean’s since the guest room is now a baby room!” Mom beamed. 

“Of course.”

“You knew we were coming to see the baby!”  Mom’s green eyes positively glowed.  Her strawberry blonde frizz was locked into a curly cap around her head.  The fact that she had done such a masterful job of smoothing it down to impress the new baby made me grin.

“Wasn’t that in two weeks?” I asked.

Dad grunted. “Your mother moved all my appointments around so we could come early.”

“Oh, you wanted to come back and see Samantha, too,” she said with a wave of her hand.

Dad mumbled, “We were coming week after next anyway.”

“Well, no time like the present,” my mom responded happily.

My brother, Sean, had his hands full between the new baby and doting grandparents.  Served him right.  He was always telling me how to live my life.  He’d be too busy to worry about me now.

Dad gazed out into the backyard.  “She has to have dirt.  There’s no dirt back there. It’s too rocky.” He faced me, hope etched across his face. His hand clutched his cell phone, but he refrained from dialing. For a broad-shouldered man standing nearly six feet, barely turning gray and muscles that came from working hard outdoors, he somehow managed to resemble a puppy about to burst with hope and excitement.

If Huntington had delivered dirt to my backyard, I’d have had no problem burying him in it.  He had done more than enough pushing me around.  Dad was a different story.  I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I was far too busy to take care of a garden.  With a sigh, I said, “I haven’t found any decent dirt yet.”

Dad could have won a speed-dialing contest.

While Mom and I unloaded luggage and snacks from the car, Dad contacted every man, woman and child who might have the slightest hint of where to buy the best dirt.  This wasn’t his territory, but by nightfall, he’d know more about gardening in Denton, Colorado than the internet.  Not even Radar, reformed hacker and computer expert that he was, could have found the places faster than Dad.

Since I hadn’t eaten, I helped myself to a piece of the cake Mom had brought.

Mom finished in the guest room and bustled back into the kitchen. She came to a dead stop when she finally noticed the sewing machine sitting on the table in the little dining nook.

“Sedona!”  She looked from the covered case to me. She knew that I didn’t sew, had no interest in sewing, and possessed not a shred of talent in that area. “What is this?  Can I see it?”

“Help yourself.  It was a gift. I don’t even want it. Not going to use it.”

Dad interrupted with, “Do you want to plant blueberries?”  He held the phone away from his mouth.

“Blueberries?  I don’t think I’ll have room. The yard is very small, Dad.”

“She doesn’t have room for more than two,” Dad said into the mouthpiece.  “And make sure they are dormant. It’s too cold to put’em out there if they aren’t.  Well, they might make it.”

Mom gave my shoulder an absent-minded pat. “You shouldn’t have invited us until the garden was in.”

I nearly choked on the chocolate cake.  I hadn’t invited them.  Not that they weren’t welcome, but not only had I not invited them, I hadn’t intended to put in a garden either.  Mom took the cover off the sewing machine and gave a happy gasp.

I closed my eyes and stuffed more cake into my mouth.

Chapter 5

My parents were on the way out the door just as Mark showed up. He eased into the driveway on his motorcycle, set his helmet on the handlebars and pulled off one glove to shake Dad’s hand.

“She’s putting in a garden,” Dad announced. “Chip off the old block.”

Mark gave me a once-over that was rather more amused than usual and nodded his head. “She is something, that’s for sure.”

After basic pleasantries, Mark followed me to the open front door, unzipping his black leather jacket on the way.  He shortened his stride to match mine. He was almost a foot taller, but for such a big guy, he moved silently. His chestnut hair was more than slightly tousled from his bike helmet, but I resisted the urge to comb through it with my fingers.  Instead, I gave a last wave to my parents as they departed for their visit with the grandchild. Hopefully they would manage to drive my brother, Sean, nutty.

Before we stepped inside, Mark touched my cheek and looked me over again. “You okay?”

“You heard about the murder?”

“Did you really trip over the body?”

I wrinkled my nose. “I hope not. There was a dead guy, Joe Black, in one of the bathroom stalls.  I tried to miss any and all puddles.”  The thought of the mess made the cake in my stomach suddenly heavy.

“What happened?” he asked.

Before I could recite any details, a disembodied voice from inside the house answered the question for me. “Babe, we are happening. Abebay, eway areyay appeninghay.”

I let loose a half scream and pushed Mark sideways, away from the open doorway. “OHMYGOD!”

“Who the hell is that?” Mark demanded, pulling me closer as he tried to stuff me behind him.

“Pig Latin,” I squeaked, peeking into the living room before yanking quickly back. My brain wrapped around the Pig Latin phrase, a repeat of the English one. “Babe, we are happening.” I edged forward one step, my back to Mark, searching my living room for a ghost.  Mark’s arm was a band of steel preventing me from advancing any further.

There was nothing but empty air in the room. The dining nook contained the sewing machine, the table and little else. The bar counter separating the living room from the kitchen was low enough to allow me to inspect most of that empty room as well.

There wasn’t any fog, no colored smoke, not a wisp of a creature.

Mark and I stood that way for at least a minute, me breathing hard with Mark keeping me tucked by his side so that I wasn’t as exposed. The way he was holding me, I was half inside his leather jacket, but it was impossible to take cover when there was nothing to hide from.

Eventually, he eased away from me and stepped into the living room. I sidled close and kept pace.

“What—” I started to ask.

“Borgot at your service.  Orgotbay atyay youryay ervicesay.”

I jumped, ready to run, my eyes frantically roving around the empty space.

“Did that come from your backpack?” Mark swiveled sideways, honing in on my purple backpack sitting near the counter. I had tossed it there just like always when I got home from work.

I stared warily at my bag.  “The phone. Borgot’s phone.”

“A phone?” Mark asked.

“Borgot at your service,” it repeated.

I surged forward, dug through the backpack and extracted the cheap plastic phone. “Cary, my manager, insisted we take a phone home for testing since the police wouldn’t allow us to work in the building until they were done with the investigation. He handed out phones on the way out.”

“What’s with the Pig Latin?”

I told him about Joe and his stupidity. While I talked, I switched the phone off.  “Joe was hired as some ridiculous excuse of a language expert, but the only language he knew besides English was Pig Latin.  He walked around spouting phrases and patting himself on the back as if he was a genius.”

“He talked management into putting voice messages in Pig Latin on a phone?” Mark was incredulous.

“I doubt it. But he must have added it somehow. A lot of coders add a hidden personal signature to code even though they shouldn’t.” I frowned. “But he couldn’t code his way out of a paper bag, so I don’t know how he would have gotten any of his Pig Latin onto the system.”

Mark shook his head. “He had the ego to add personal messages in
Pig Latin
?  Was he an idiot or what?”