Morgan pretended to read from a list of questions in his notebook. “Did you have a good impression of him?”

“Sure, he was cute.” She waved her cigarette in the air and cackled. “Nice ass, too.”

“Do you believe him to be trustworthy, to possess good qualities and character?”

“Well, I wouldn’t know about that, would I?”

“Wouldn’t you?”

“Wasn’t like I did any work with him. I was a glorified secretary, for godsakes.”

He made a brief entry in his notebook before he launched another official-sounding question. “How long did your time at Primo overlap?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Marigold sucked a deep cloud of smoke into her lungs as she thought about that a moment. “Two… no, I think, more like three years.”

Morgan decided to edge gently into this. “Did you ever know Jack to get into any trouble with the authorities?”

“You mean cops?”

“Them, or any other legal authorities.”

“If he did, I sure as hell didn’t know about it.”

“Did Jack have any problems at the firm? You worked for the CEO. Anything that came to his attention?”

Marigold frowned at him. “That sort of stuff was always treated real confidential. You know, kept behind closed doors.”

“But did you ever hear about anything? A stray comment from your boss? Watercooler rumor, that sort of thing?”

“Why? He in trouble or something?”

“Not at all, no. Just a background check.” Morgan worked up his most reassuring grin. The old hag was a nosy pain in the ass. “Sorry if I’m wasting your time, ma’am. I’m required to ask these questions.”

“Well, I don’t know nothin’ about any of that.”

“The name Edith Warbinger mean anything to you?”

“Nope. Should it?”

“Jack handled her investments back then. A large account, a mountain of money.”

“I told you, I never heard of her.”

“Okay, you’re doing fine. Can you tell me what happened to your boss?”

“Why?”

“We’re trying to track him down. Can’t seem to locate him anywhere.”

“Are you Feds always this incompetent?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, ain’t like he moved anywhere in a decade,” she said with a dismissive smile. “Check Flushing Cemetery.”

“He’s dead?”

“No, he bought a condo there. ’Course he’s dead, you idiot. Bastard bought it back in ’98.” There was a slight slur to her diction. Morgan was sure she’d been drinking.

“No kidding,” Morgan said, acting surprised. “Heart attack, stroke, what?”

“Plane crash. Too bad, too.”

“Yes, it’s always sad. So young, such a promising life cut short.”

“No, you fool, I was always hoping he’d die slow and agonizing. Maybe catch some exotic disease, some particularly nasty, lingering kind of cancer. Guess he got lucky.”

“You didn’t like him?”

“He was a lousy, rotten crook. Real bastard to work for.” She crushed out a butt on the ground and immediately fired up another.

Morgan pretended to make another small notation in his notebook, casually mentioning, “I’m surprised we missed it. A plane wreck, huh?”

“Yeah, him and that so-called CFO. Another real creep. They got stir-fried together against a mountainside.”

“Accident?”

“Why? You thinkin’ I did it?” She stopped and cackled, then it quickly developed into a nasty smoker’s hack.

He waited till the wracking noise stopped, then said, “Just, you know, it’s a little weird. We’ve tried to track down several of Primo’s board members from those years. Three of them-Nussman, Kohlman, Grossman-they’re all dead.”

“Are they?”

“Very.”

“Too bad.” Didn’t sound that way, though.

“Unhealthy place to work, huh?”

“Are you through?” she asked, stirring in her chair.

So far he had nothing. She was wearing her affection for Jack on her sleeve. Nothing interesting was going to come from the old hag unless he played it a little smarter. He gave her a hard, menacing stare as if he already knew the truth. “Thing is, a few sources told us there were serious tensions between Jack and your boss.”

“What sources?”

“I’m afraid I can’t divulge that.”

“You need to talk to better people, bud. As I remember, Jack was too canny to get caught in Kyle’s crosshairs. Real smart boy, that one.” She stood and brushed a few ashes off her coat.

“Then maybe you can help me here. Do you remember any of Jack’s close friends in the firm?”

A quick shrug. “He was an associate, I was the boss’s assistant. Wasn’t like we went out for drinks every night. I was too old for him anyways.” She finished off her cigarette and lazily tossed it into a clump of wild bushes.

“Please, this could be helpful. A few people dumped on Jack. Personally, I like him. I’d just like to balance the ledger a bit.”

Marigold thought about it a moment. She obviously didn’t trust him, but wanted to do Jack as much good as she could. “This is all I’ll tell ya. Talk to his assistant.”

“You have a name?”

“Yeah. Su Young… something. Chinese, maybe Korean.”

“How about an address?”

By now she had her back turned and was walking back to the house. “Lazy government bastards,” she remarked over her shoulder. “Go find her yourself.”

18

The Pentagon office of the Defense Criminal Investigative Service was located in room 5E322, on the fifth floor, almost midway on the outermost ring, indisputably the least desirable location in a building known for its lack of pleasant accommodations. The fortified doors hid a windowless warren of cubicles, in essence a large walk-in safe due to the sensitive nature of the work done inside these walls.

The room was designed for no more than twenty. Currently, forty investigators and assistants were crammed and pigeonholed into the space, at risk of suffocation.

Nicholas Garner, chief of the financial crimes division, cursed as he banged a shin on a stray chair, and fought and squeezed his way through the terrible sprawl of office furniture. He finally reached the seventh cubicle on the left, where he dropped an armful of papers on the desk. “I need you to plow through this.”

“When?”

“Today, Mia.”

Mia pushed away what she was doing and looked up. “What is it?”

“Mendelson Refineries.”

“Is this a quiz?”

“Midsize refining outfit. Located in Louisiana. Place called Garyville.”

“Is there some particular suspicion I’m supposed to hunt down?”

“You tell me.”

She picked up the thick stack of papers and began riffling through the pages. It was a chaotic mess-financial spreadsheets, billings, invoices, payment slips. Nicky had apparently ordered one of the overworked assistants to make a mad dash through the procurement directorate and dredge up every piece of paper dealing with Mendelson Refineries. It would take hours to go through it all. Then many more hours to separate the wheat from the chaff in a frenzied hunt for real evidence, if indeed any existed inside this mass of garbage. “Another inside tip?” she asked, sounding annoyed.

A quick nod. “Hotline, again. Male voice, anonymous, the usual. He swore up and down Mendelson’s cheating us blind.”

Mia sipped a Diet Coke and rolled her eyes.

Garner offered a stiff, apologetic smile. “I know, and I’m sorry. We did get a trace this time.”

“And where did it originate?”

“Pay phone outside Garyville. Maybe another prank, might be real. Standard rule applies-you don’t check, you don’t know.”

The hotline was a great idea that was rapidly souring into a dispiriting disaster. Sources were supposed to call the hotline number to report abuse or financial shenanigans, and this would trigger an investigation. The ratline, it was called. All tips were confidential and this was the beauty of it. No names, just blame.

The past few months, however, the hotline had been inundated with a suspiciously large number of reports of abuse or thievery. The callers were nearly all anonymous. All the calls had to be painstakingly looked into; very few panned out.