Max handed it over and let Randle study it for a moment. Then he plucked it back from her and slid it into his leather folder. “Satisfied?”
“Follow me,” Randle said. She led them through the door she’d emerged from, down a long white corridor carpeted in industrial gray fabric, and into a small conference room with a table and six chairs. A manila file folder sat in the center of the table.
Afton and Max sat down, and then Max pulled the file across the table and flipped it open. He took his time, going through the various papers, turning them over carefully. From the look on his face, Afton knew there wasn’t much there. Maybe some shredding had gone on. Or at least some sanitizing.
“Miss Randle,” Max said. “We also put in a request to talk to the employee involved in the Darden harassment issue.”
“I’m not sure that’s possible,” Randle said.
Max glanced at Afton, who dutifully pulled out her cell phone. “Miss Randle, I’m going to dial the number of the state attorney general and let you speak with him directly.”
Randle shrank back. And for the first time, her composure seemed to slip. “That won’t be necessary,” she said. “I’ll bring Ms. Winters in.”
“Thank you,” Max said.
They heard Eleanor Winters’s protestations even before she came through the doorway.
“This is ridiculous,” Winters sputtered as she followed Randle into the conference room. She glared at them and reluctantly sat down at the table. “I had assurances that this absurd misunderstanding was over and done with.”
Afton studied the outraged Eleanor Winters. She was pencil-thin and raven-haired with an almost unnaturally narrow face. The type of woman who might get labeled “high strung” by the men she worked with.
“Miss Winters,” Max said. He extended a hand, but Winters chose not to respond. She crossed her arms and fixed him with a steely gaze. Unfazed, he went ahead with cursory introductions.
Randle glanced at her watch and said, “Time is at a premium, Detectives. If you could please ask your questions?”
“You realize, Miss Winters, that Richard Darden’s baby daughter has been kidnapped?” Max said.
“I read the newspapers,” Winters said.
“Since you had a tertiary involvement with him, we’d like to ask you a few questions.”
Winters’s lip curled. “Then ask.”
Afton and Max had rehearsed their questions on the way over. They started with gentle lobs, asking Winters how long she’d worked at Novamed, what her job entailed, like that. Then they moved on to the more hardball issues. That is, had she sexually harassed Richard Darden?
“Those allegations are utterly preposterous,” Winters spit at them. “The whole episode was something his overachieving, macho male ego dreamed up.”
“Yet your company took it seriously enough,” Afton said, “that both parties were afforded arbitration. What was the technical term they used? Oh yes, a grievance committee.”
“People file grievances around here when the water bubbler doesn’t work,” Winters snapped.
“But there was a grievance,” Max said. “Between you and Richard Darden. Is that correct?”
“Yes,” Winters said.
“Yet you say it was baseless,” Afton said.
“Asked and answered,” Randle said.
Max held up a hand. “You seem quite upset, Miss Winters.”
“I am upset,” she said. “You have no right to come in here and question my ethics or morality.” She started to stand up. “In fact, I’m not about to—”
“Sit down!” Max shouted. “Sit down and listen to me.”
Reluctantly, Winters sat back down in her chair.
“We can go over these questions in the comfort of this office . . .” He glanced around at the sterile white walls. “Well, relative comfort. Or we can go down to police headquarters and find a nice cozy interview room.”
Winters stared at him, her eyes hard as obsidian. Then she turned to Randle and said, “Will you please call Security?”
That was enough for Max. He slammed his hand down on the table, causing it to tremble and papers to scatter.
“Enough,” he shouted. “There’s been a kidnapping, a murder, and an extortion attempt, so everyone better start cooperating right now!”
“What is it you want to know?” Winters asked through tightly clenched teeth.
Afton and Max resumed their good cop, bad cop routine. They asked questions about Winters’s relationship with Darden, and about the grievance he’d filed against her. Winters barely gave them one-and two-word answers.
Until they asked for her side of the story.
Then Eleanor Winters opened the spigot. Darden had come on to her, she claimed. Subtly at first, and then escalating his interest in her until it was no longer possible for her to comfortably get her work done. The grievance had been filed, arbitration ensued, and Novamed had resolved things by assigning her to a different department. She made it clear how unfair the resolution had been and how unhappy she was.
“But things are on an even keel now,” Max said.