No. Never happened. That same thought applied to all other possible suspects. How would they get into the Bee building after hours? That one simple problem made it more likely that Doris Grandfelt wasn’t killed at Bee at all—that she’d been picked up in a bar or on the street and killed elsewhere.
But. Baer’s question about how Locklin would get into the Beebuilding made him consider the fact that at least three people had been regulars at Bee: Grandfelt, who worked there; Fisk, who worked there; and Carlson, a client.
That was odd all by itself, and he made another entry in the notebook, looked at the note, then paged back through his notebook to entries he’d made during the interview with Bee’s CEO, Cory Donner. The entry included a personal cell phone number, and Virgil punched it into his phone.
Donner answered on the third ring, and said, “Agent Flowers. I was wondering if I’d ever hear from you again.”
“Sorry to bother you so late in the day…”
“I work late,” Donner said. “How can I help you?”
“When Lucas and I spoke to you, you mentioned a sexual scandal you had at Bee a couple of years before Doris Grandfelt was murdered. You said that the company had instituted a somewhat draconian prohibition about sexual relationships between employees…”
“Yes, indeed. Draconian is the right word.”
“Did you ever have to enforce it?”
“No, not really. Actually, we softened it. Two of our employees began seeing each other, secretly, and when it got serious, the man, Tom Bergstrom, went to the CEO at the time, told him what was going on, and offered to resign if the company thought that was necessary. Tom was a good guy,isa good guy. He’s still with us. There was some conversation about it in the upper ranks. We all agreed that the absolute ban had served its purpose, as a warning, and could in some circumstances be inhumane. Both Tom and his girlfriend, Mickey Lee, were excellent employees and that had some influence as well. They eventually married.”
“Was that right around the time Doris was murdered?”
“No, no, that would have been later.”
“If a senior married executive had developed a relationship with Doris, back fairly soon after the relationship ban was instituted, would he have been fired?”
“Oh, yes, I think so. The original relationship, the one that caused the ban, was quite a shock to the company,” Donner said.
“So if Doris…”
“I see where you’re going with this. Doris develops a secret relationship with somebody who ate in the executive dining room, and then threatens to reveal the relationship unless he dumps his wife and marriesher. So he kills her. With a cafeteria knife.”
“Just considering the possibilities.”
“I’ve got two words for you. Maybe three, depending on how you think of contractions.”
“And those are…”
“We’re accountants. If we were going to murder Doris, we would do it carefully, unspectacularly, thoroughly, and a long way from Bee. We wouldn’t hack her to pieces.”
“Ah.”
“Was there anything else?” Donner asked.
“If somebody wanted to get into Bee at night, where would he or she get a key to the building?”
“That would be difficult. Doris had one—among her duties was what amounted to being a mail clerk. All the outgoing things would be collected at the end of the day and parceled out to UPS or FedEx. She would wait for the pickups and then lock up. That was one of her duties. Her friend Stephanie also had a key, and the same duties. We also had two receptionists who would arrive early, and would havehad keys to open the building so employees could get in. Several executives had them; I did not, not then.”
“So the keys were controlled. They weren’t just handed out to everyone.”
“No, they weren’t. There’s quite a lot of sensitive information in our files. For instance, we hold tax returns for a number of prominent politicians and businesspeople. We’re responsible for that information, for its security. Right now, I believe there are twelve keys.”
“Okay.”
“I don’t feel like I’ve been much help,” Donner said.
“Actually, you have been. Thank you.”
Virgil rang off, looked at his watch. Time to head back to the hotel, get something to eat, read through his notebook, and get himself settled in front of his laptop to knock out some words.
