She was quiet for a minute. The coffee maker chugged and gurgled, reassuringly mundane.
Will glanced toward the hallway that led back to the rest of the house. “Have you taken a look in there?”
“Not yet. I don’t want to risk contaminating anything.” She reached into her briefcase and took out a legal pad. “There are other things you and I can cover in the meantime.”
“If you’re going to ask me who might have done this, don’t,” Will advised, sounding every bit as frustrated as he looked. “I’ve been sitting here, wondering where Megan is, wondering how she is, wondering who could have taken her. Since eight-thirty this morning I’ve wondered, and I’ve come up with nothing.”
Savannah shared his anguish. Once again she wanted to beg him to bring in the FBI, but she knew what his answer would be.
“Can you think of anyone who had a grudge against you or your family, or even Megan?”
He shook his head.
“Anyone at the plant?” The Vandermeer money was in textiles. Though Will hid the extent of the damage, most people knew that the Vandermeer mills had seen better days. In the past five years, workers had been laid off and two of the five plants had been closed. “Maybe there was a manager who felt he should have been transferred rather than fired. Maybe there was a rabble-rouser who was fired to make room for a transfer.”
Will denied both theories. “Whoever did this wanted money.” He jerked a hand toward the note. “It’s spelled out right there.”
Savannah read the note again. It certainly demanded money. But the wording was odd.Kick in a cool three million.Someone had spent extra effort cutting out more letters than was necessary. A simplePay three millionwould have sufficed.Kick in a cool three million.She wrote the words, then studied them. The phrase bothered her.
“Mmm. The three million is pretty clear. Still, someone out for revenge could get it this way. The money would be a bonus.” A different thought occurred to her. “It’d be particularly gratifying if the person knew about your present cash flow problems. How many people do?”
“Not many,” Will said, then conceded, “I mean, the layoffs and plant closings are common knowledge. It’s obvious that I’m tightening my belt, but not many people know why.” He shook his head. “But I don’t think it’s revenge. I’ve never been an ogre. I’m just not a good money manager.”
“Okay,” Savannah said. “We’ll guess that this was done purely for the money. Just in case, though, why don’t you give me the names of your plant managers.”
Will’s eyes widened in alarm. “They’re all good men!”
“I know,” she soothed, “but I’d like to put them to work for us. They would know, or be able to find out, whether there’s been any trouble—”
“They would have reported it to me.”
She tried again. “Maybe trouble is the wrong word. What I’m looking for is different—strange behavior, something out of the ordinary, a change from the norm, like unexplained absences by a regular worker, a sudden grouping of two or three workers who hadn’t been friends before, any recent complaints that seemed particularly strong or out of order.”
Will remained skeptical. “I don’t think it’s anyone from the plant. I told you, aside from the layoffs, my people are treated well. Maybe too well. If I were stingier, I wouldn’t be losing money. My workers have a good deal.”
Choosing her words with care, she said, “That may be so in your opinion and mine, but a worker may see things differently.”
“Then he’s crazy.”
“Anyone involved in kidnapping usually is.” With that, Savannah could see she’d made her point. “I have to consider every possibility, Will. Look at that note; we won’t learn much from it. Sammy and Hank can dust this house from top to bottom, but if the kidnappers wore gloves, we won’t get fingerprints. If they were careful about where they stood and moved, we may not learn anything from the lab reports. I may be groping around in the dark, but all I need to do is graze the light switch, and we’re on.”
Will looked deflated. “But I wanted this kept quiet.”
“It will be. We’ll be totally discreet in our inquiries.”
“You’ll be doing the asking?”
“No,” Savannah said, then went on, taking the offensive quickly and confidently, if gently. “Time is of the essence. I can’t do the asking myself and still coordinate things, and we need as much information as quickly as possible. Ideally, I’d take a dozen detectives and feather them through the state, but since I didn’t think you’d go for that, I’ve called in two other people. Just two. They’re like Sammy and Hank. They work full-time for us. They happen to be wonderful people, a married couple, very effective. No one ever knows they’re law enforcement officers.”
Will’s frustration overwhelmed him. Slamming a fist on the oak tabletop, he cried, “Damn it, I didn’t want this, Savannah! I didn’t want the police brought in at all! Youknewthat!”
Savannah refused to be cowed. “We need information, Will. Ginny and Chris will be strictly in the field. They won’t come anywhere near the house. They’ll be asking questions, that’s all.”
“If they’re asking questions, they’ll be making everyone and his brother suspicious. People will wonder what’s going on. Before long, rumors will be flying, and then we’ll have no hope of keeping a lid on this thing.” He drove a hand through his hair. “I shouldn’t have gone to you people. Someone’s going to blow it.”
On the one hand, Savannah understood Will’s position. In his social circle, questions sparked gossip, and on the tongues of the idle rich gossip was lethal. Yet she doubted Will’s rich friends were going to be at the center of the investigation. They wouldn’t need three million dollars. Nor would they risk the electric chair. There were easier ways to commit suicide—most of which the idle rich knew.
“No one is going to blow anything,” she vowed. “As of this minute, there are seven people who know about this case—Paul, Anthony and me, Sam and Hank, Ginny and Chris. We’re all professionals. Paul will be in touch with you and me; he’ll do what we ask and only what we ask, and he’ll keep Anthony at heel. If we get any information, we may hook into the pattern-crime computer program, but we’ll be a code word, that’s all. Sam and Hank will send their findings to the crime lab—which will know this case only by a number—then they’ll sit here by the phones with us. They won’t have contact with anyone on the outside, unless we ask them to.”
