"Oh, sure we can," Marla announced with another toss of her head. She linked one arm through mine and another through Macguire's. "You can help us storm Albert's office. And Macguire, introduce me to your friend if you see her. I love reformed snobs. There are so few of us."
Dread filled me as we pushed through the first of two sets of heavy glass doors. I want to get this straight, I could imagine Tom saying with one sandy-colored eyebrow lifted. Without an appointment, the three of you breezed into a multimillion-dollar financial firm, one of you faked a heart attack, and then the other two crashed into the partner's office? And I'd reply, Something like that. And he'd say, And you were surprised when they kicked you out?
"I'm here to see Albert Lipscomb," Marla proclaimed to the receptionist. "He's expecting me!" I assessed the dark-suited woman behind her tall rosewood desk. She seemed to be the first obstacle in a succession of battlements.
"Well, Ms. Korman, it's good to see you," the receptionist replied pleasantly. Her black hair was cut severely around a face painted with ultrapale makeup. After giving Marla a hundred-watt, brown-lipsticked smile, she cast a disdainful glance at Macguire and me.
"They're with me," Marla told her. "friends of Albert."
The receptionist glowed again. "Well, then. Why don't the three of you just go on back?" I guess caterers weren't the only ones taught to suck up to the high rollers.
We followed a muted purple, green, and coral tweed carpet down a coral-painted hallway bisected with rosewood wainscoting. Phones rang; noises burbled out of open-doored offices; harried, well-dressed assistants rushed to and fro. One strikingly quiet spot, was the closed door to an office with the metal panel removed from the orangey-pink wall. The door's gold lettering still read Victoria Lear, C.F.A., Chief Investment Officer. She'd died in Orpheus Canyon, near the mine that Marla was now questioning. I couldn't help myself: I surreptitiously grasped the handle. As I turned the knob, I imagined Tom shaking his head. But the door was locked.
Albert Lipscomb's secretary, a gorgeous platinum blonde who informed us her name was Lena Pescadero, wore a low-cut red dress that made Macguire's mouth fall open. Personally, I was transfixed by her hair, which was stylishly teased into a voluminous, tangled cloud. Lena turned away from greeting us to announce matter-of-factly into the phone that Albert was in conference and would return the call at his earliest convenience.
"Albert's expecting me," Marla said chummily when the secretary had hung up the phone. "We mad a nine o'clock appointment over the weekend."
Lena Pescadero raised a thread-thin eyebrow. "You did?" She made a note on a pad and tapped the computer keys to bring up Albert Lipscomb's schedule.
"Hmm," said Lena as she stared at the screen. "I wish someone would tell me what's going on."
Marla rolled her eyes at us, then turned back to Lena. "Albert's not in conference?"
"No."
"Well, where is he?"
"I don't know, but he's had a lot of calls," Lena replied. She chewed on her lip and considered Marla thoughtfully. "What's going on with the clients? Did Medigen's antiviral drug get rejected by the FDA over the weekend, and nobody told me?"
Taken aback, the three of us were silent until Macguire piped up with, "Uh, I don't think the FDA works over the weekend."
Marla sighed. The phone on Lena's desk buzzed again and she answered it.
"No, no, not yet, Mr. Royce," she said. "Print out what?" She turned to the computer screen. "Okay, one moment, please." She tapped a few keys and lowered her voice. "Excuse me, but are you all getting a lot of... No, no, I'm sorry, sir. Charts for Sam's Soups, yes, certainly. Opportunity for margin expansion, and what was the other... oh, recurring revenue base. Yes. Right away. No, I don't know if she was the only other one who had it in her database before she... before the... yes, sir. Just as soon as he gets here."
I murmured to Macguire, "Let's go look for your friend." To Marla, I said, "We'll be back." Once Macguire and I were out in the hall, I said, "What's your friend's name? How long has she worked here at Prospect?"
Macguire blushed. "Bitsy Roosevelt." His acne-scarred forehead wrinkled in thought. "She's been here a year or so. I think."
"Would you be willing to ask Bitsy if she knew this Victoria Lear person? See if Victoria was doing anything with the Eurydice Gold Mine?"
Macguire began, "Sure, but why do you - " but I grasped his arm and shook my head.
Brightly, I said, "Looks like we're not the only food folks here today."
Shifting his weight nervously next to the massive reception desk, Sam Perdue seemed to have utterly lost the serene composure he'd exhibited at the mine party. There, his blond hair had been neatly combed over what I now saw was a bald spot, and his pale face had been unemotional, almost ethereal. This morning his thin hair splayed out from what looked like a monk's tonsure. His flushed face appeared miserable. His tie stuck out at a cockeyed angle, and one of his shirttails hung from his pants like a dishrag. Not surprisingly, the receptionist was resisting admitting him.
"I want to see Tony Royce right now!" I heard him demand. "It's about unit expansion. He knows all about it."
"You'll have to wait, please," the receptionist chanted as she pressed buttons on a telephone.
I greeted Sam with, "Hi, there. Are you doing all right?" I gave him a sympathetic look. "You seem upset."
He looked at me with disbelief. "Goldy? Goldy Schulz? Are you catering another party for them already?"
"No, no, we're just down here... with a friend.'" Behind me, in his sweetest voice, I heard Macguire ask the receptionist about Bitsy Roosevelt.
Sam sucked in his thin stomach and nudged the shirttail into his pants. "Are they going to invest in your catering business? You can tell me the truth, Goldy. Maybe I'm just wasting my time here."
"I promise they're not investing in me," I replied heartily. The receptionist had hung up the phone. Carrying a load of papers, Albert Lipscomb's secretary whisked down the hall to our right. A short, pear- shaped young woman in a beige suit entered the lobby and squealed with delight on seeing Macguire. Bitsy Roosevelt, no doubt.
"You're married to a policeman, aren't you?" Sam asked me uncomfortably. Albert Lipscomb's question. Sam straightened his tie, but his face was still pinker than the walls.
I nodded and said cautiously, "Sam, are you sure you're all right?"
He cleared his throat. "A woman fell on the steps going up to my restaurant at eight o'clock this morning and broke her ankle. We weren't even open. It's a bad break, and she was supposed to go by ambulance to Lutheran Hospital. I wanted to follow the ambulance, of course, to see if she was all right. But..." He paused and gazed at the massive rosewood desk. He seemed to have lost the thread of his story.
"And was she?" I prompted him. "All right?"
His face wrinkled with pain. "I don't know, because there's a picnic area that was washed out... you know the one just as you're coming into Aspen Meadow?" When I nodded, he continued, "A child fell into the water this morning and nearly drowned. The parents flagged down the ambulance, and the ambulance stopped. The EMT gave the kid mouth-to-mouth and CPR."
"What?"
"The ambulance... they have to do that, I guess, when's it's a matter of life and death, but the broken-ankle lady wasn't very happy.... The kid's okay, but they had to take him to the hospital; too... and I knew I was going to be late getting here...." He blushed even more deeply and groped for words. "And then I couldn't find a place on this street to park - "
He was prevented from telling me more of his sorrowful saga by the receptionist's announcement that he could go back to Mr. Royce's office. Sam excused himself and rushed away.
Bitsy told us she had to go take the minutes of a meeting, "like right now," so Macguire and I started back toward Marla.
"Bitsy says she didn't work with Lear," Macguire told me under his breath. "But she has a few people she can talk to. Says she has to be discreet, though."
"Great."
"I told you I'd make a good investigator."
I sighed when we walked back into Albert's reception area. There, Marla sat nonchalantly at the secretary's desk copying words from the computer screen. Make that two good investigators.
"For heaven's sake," I exclaimed without thinking, "what in the world - "
"Fantastic, you're back." She scribbled intently. "Keep a lookout for Lena, will you?"
Macguire squinted at the corridor, clearly delighted at an opportunity to conduct surveillance. I felt surrounded by lunatics. "Let's leave," I said, hoping to persuade them of the folly of their ways. "It's quarter after nine. Albert's not coming."
Marla tore the top paper off the pad. "No way. I wanted to see who phoned our friend Albert this morning. Guess what other clients are worried besides me? He's had twelve calls including the Hardcastles once and Sandy Trotfield twice." Anger spiked her " husky voice. "All Eurydice Mine investors. I scared a few folks, wouldn't you say? Maybe Albert had more to hide with that assay report than he let on. So he's playing sick to avoid everybody."
"She's coming," Macguire reported, in a low growl that I suspected was heavily influenced by Humphrey Bogart. Marla tapped a few keys to bring up another screen.
"Everybody get on the couch," I begged.. Lena entered looking as if she'd seen the proverbial ghost. "Who just talked?" she demanded. "Who said to get on the couch?"
"I did," I replied. Heat flamed up my neck. Lena recovered and stared at me. "You have no idea how much you sound like... oh, never mind."
I didn't question her, just settled onto the couch by Macguire and Marla, who were earnestly flipping through investment magazines. Lena phoned Albert's house and left a message on his tape. Fifteen minutes later, she dialed his cellular. No answer. Calls from Eurydice investors continued to pour in; I recognized their names from the Saturday night guest list. At ten o'clock I tried to convince Marla to go to her cardiac rehab. Instead, she got on the phone with Southwest Hospital and rescheduled.
At eleven, Tony Royce, looking as handsome as ever, rushed into Albert's waiting room. Today he wore a camel blazer and dark brown pants that matched his perfectly groomed mustache. "He's not here yet?" He addressed Lena. "What the hell is going on?"
"He's had twenty-two calls;" she snapped. "And, no - he has not called, written, or E-mailed his whereabouts."
"Yeah, tell me about the calls." Tony lowered his voice. "Marla, everybody seems to want to know about your little problem with the assay report."
Marla exhaled loudly but did not reply. Tony's energetically roving dark eyes took in our morose group. He asked if anybody wanted lunch and we all said we were staying put. When he returned an hour later, he bore bags containing two cold grilled cheese sandwiches for Macguire and grilled tuna and polenta, along with a raspberry-custard tart, for Marla, Lena, and me.
"I probably shouldn't eat this tart, but I really was very upset," Marla grumbled as she forked up a bite dripping with berries and cream. "It's all Albert's fault."
Lena said sympathetically, "If he's not here in a couple of hours, I'll drive up to his house to see if he's hiding out."
"I'm coming with you," Marla said firmly. Unfortunately, we were all still there at three o'clock. In a convoy of four vehicles, Marla, Lena, Macguire, and I headed back up the mountain toward Eagle Mountain Estates, a swank development west of Genesee and east of Aspen Meadow. Once we were off the interstate, the large houses loomed in the mist. I felt a stab of worry about the Women's Club dinner. I would give this expedition another forty-five minutes, and no more. We meandered along neighborhood streets until Lena pulled her Toyota up in front of an oversize A-frame of the genus mountain contemporary.
We rang. We knocked. We called. The front door was locked, as was the back. Marla traipsed around to a wall lined with windows.
"Albert! Albert Lipscomb!" she shouted. The more Marla called, the sicker Lena looked.
"Isn't there something else we can do?" Macguire asked me. "The neighbors are going to call the cops if Marla keeps hollering like that."
"I have a key, just wait a minute," said Lena. She pawed through her purse and pulled out a key hanging on a chain decorated with a red plastic heart.
Within two minutes, we were all through the front door. Macguire loped up the stairs as if he owned the place. After a moment, he returned, smiling uncertainly.
"I don't think there's anybody here," he reported to us.
As we walked through the first-floor rooms, I tried to calm Tom's voice in my inner ear, something along the lines of not getting into trouble.
"Albert!" Lena called. "Al! It's me!" There was no answer.
"Everybody wait here," said Lena. "I know this place and I... know where Al keeps his things. If anyone's going to pry, it should be me."