Ashton hung up his phone. I stopped him as he started dialing again and asked if he’d mind talking to me for a few minutes. He was a heavyset guy in his middle or late forties; he followed me goodnaturedly into Boom Boom’s cubicle. I explained again who I was and that I was trying to find out more about Boom Boom’s job and whether he had tangled with anyone in the organization.
Ashton was friendly, but he didn’t want to commit himself to anything. Not with a strange woman, anyway. He agreed with Janet’s description of my cousin’s job. He liked Boom Boom—he livened the place up quite a bit, and he was smart, too. Didn’t try to trade on his relations with Argus. But as to whether he quarreled with anyone—he didn’t think so, but I’d have to talk to Phillips about that. How had Boom Boom and Phillips gotten along? Again, I’d have to ask Phillips, and that was that.
By the time we finished, the other guy, Brimford, had taken off. I shrugged. I didn’t think talking to him would help me any. Going through Boom Boom’s tidy, well-sorted drawers, I quickly realized he could have had a dozen dangerous documents connected with the shipping industry and I wouldn’t know it. He had lists of farmers supplying Eudora Grain, lists of Great Lakes carriers, lists of rail carriers and their jobbers, bills of lading, reports of loads, by date, back copies of Grain News, weather forecasts … I flipped through three drawers with neatly labeled files. They were all organized topic by topic but none of it meant anything to me. Other than that Boom Boom had gotten totally immersed in a very complicated business.
I shut the file drawers and rummaged through the top of the desk, where I found pads of paper covered with Boom Boom’s meticulous handwriting. The sight of it suddenly made me want to cry. Little notes he had written to himself to remind him of what he’d learned or what he had to do. Boom Boom planned everything very carefully. Maybe that was what gave him the energy to be so wild on the ice—he knew he had his life in shape behind him.
His desk diary was filled with appointments. I copied the names he’d entered in the last few weeks of his life. He’d seen Paige on Saturday and again on Monday night. For Tuesday, April 27, he had written in John Bemis’s name and Argus with a question mark. He wanted to talk to Bemis on the Lucella and then—depending on what was said—he would call Argus? That was interesting.
Flipping through the pages, I noticed that he’d taken to circling some of the dates. I sat up in my chair and started through the diary page by page. Nothing in January, February, or March, but three dates in April—the twenty-third, the sixteenth, and the fifth. I turned back to the front cover, which displayed a 1981 and 1983 calendar along with 1982 at a glance. He had circled twenty-three days in 1981 and three in 1982. In 1981 he’d started with March 28 and ended with November 13. I put the diary in my handbag and looked through the rest of the office.
I’d covered about everything there was—unless I looked at each sheet of paper—when Janet reappeared. “Mr. Phillips has come in and he’d like to see you.” She paused. “I’ll leave those files in here for you before you go … You won’t say anything to him, will you?”
I reassured her and went over to the corner office. It was a real office—the heart of the castle, guarded by a frosty turnkey. Lois looked up briefly from her typing. Efficiency personified. “He’s expecting you. Go on in.”
Phillips was on the phone when I went in. He covered the mouthpiece long enough to ask me to sit down, then went on with his conversation. His office contrasted with the utilitarian furnishings elsewhere in the building. Not that they were remarkably ornate, but they were of good quality. The furniture was made out of real wood, perhaps walnut, rather than pressed board coated with vinyl. Thick gray carpeting covered the floor and an antique clock adorned the wall facing the desk. A view of the parking lot was mercifully shrouded by heavy drapes.
Phillips himself was looking handsome, if a trifle heavy and stiff, in a pale blue woolen suit. A darker blue shirt with his initials on the pocket set off the suit and his fair hair to perfection. He must make a good packet: the way he dressed, that Alfa—a fourteen-thousand-dollar car, and it was a new one—the antique clock.
Phillips disengaged himself from the phone call. He smiled woodenly and said, “I was a little surprised to see you down here this morning. I thought we’d taken care of your questions the other day.”
“I’m afraid not. My questions are like Hydra’s heads—the more you lop off the more I have to ask.”
“Well, uh, I hear you’ve been going around bothering the folks here. Girls like Janet have their jobs to do. If you have questions, could you bring them to me? I’d sure appreciate that, and we wouldn’t have to interrupt the other folks’ work out there.”
I felt he was trying too hard for a casual approach. It didn’t fit his perfect tailoring or his deep, tight voice.
“Okay. Why was my cousin discussing last summer’s shipping contracts with you?”
A tide of crimson washed through his face and receded abruptly, leaving a row of freckles standing out on his cheekbones. I hadn’t noticed those before.