looked over the Mathias claim after we spoke on the phone,” he said. “It seems reasonably straightforward and aboveboard.”
“My client, the deceased’s sister, doesn’t think so.”
“She doesn’t believe it was an accidental death?”
“No. She suspects foul play-a murder-for-hire job.”
“The husband?”
“Yes. Husband and beneficiary.”
“Based on what?”
“A lot of intangibles so far. But enough to convince me that an investigation is worth undertaking.”
“I’d like to know what they are.”
“I’ll have my partner e-mail you a copy of our case file to date.”
Blaustein leaned back, elbows on the arms of his chair, fingers steepled. “So what is it you want from us?”
“Question first. Has whoever’s handling the claim for you had any personal contact with Brandon Mathias?”
“No. Given the preliminary findings, our man hasn’t found it necessary.”
“Good. What I’d like to do is interview Mathias myself, get a better handle on the man, probe him a little. I can’t just walk in and announce that his sister-in-law hired me to investigate him as a possible homicide suspect; he’d refuse to talk to me. But he isn’t likely to refuse to talk to a representative of Pacific Rim.”
Blaustein frowned. “We don’t hire outside investigators, you know that.”
“Sure. And you know my reputation, Irv. I’m not looking to cadge another fee; I don’t operate that way. Strictly a quid pro quo favor is what I’m asking.”
“I don’t know,” Blaustein said. “I can’t justify misrepresentation.”
“It won’t be misrepresentation. Call it a sanctioned smoke screen. I’ll make the approach using my own name, give you a full accounting of my conversation with him, and turn over anything my investigation might uncover that has a bearing on his claim.”
“Permission to use Pacific’s name, that’s all you’re asking?”
“Onetime usage, right. And for you to back me up if Mathias decides to make a checkup call.”
“Why should he? You plan to come on that strong?”
“Not strong enough to get his back up, no,” I said. “I’d never do or say anything that would reflect badly on Pacific Rim.”
“When are you going to see him?”
“As soon as he’s available.”
Blaustein thought it over, taking his time. At length he said, as much to himself as to me, “Double indemnity clause. Hundred-thousand-dollar payoff if the claim is valid.”
I didn’t say anything.
“Well, what the hell, why not,” he said. “Just don’t make me regret this.”
“I won’t.”
“All right. Consider yourself an unofficial and unpaid Pacific Rim employee for the next forty-eight hours. I’ll even give you one of our claims department business cards to cement the deal.”
O n the way out of the building I rang up Tamara, reported the gist of my conversation with Blaustein, asked her to e-mail him our case file and to call RingTech and make an ASAP appointment with Mathias using Pacific Rim’s name. The old secretary-calling-for-her-boss dodge tends to lend weight and urgency, true or false, to business arrangements made by phone.
She called back as I was ransoming the car from the Sutter-Stockton garage. “Four o’clock today,” she said. “He’s giving you fifteen minutes out of a real tight schedule.”
“You talk to him personally?”
“His assistant, Drax. No surprise Nancy Mathias didn’t like that dude. He’s got a bloodsucker’s voice-Bela Lugosi without the heavy accent.”
“Uh-huh. I’ll see if I can talk to him, too.”
“Keep your neck covered if you do.”
14
RingTech’s headquarters were in an upscale office park off Page Mill Road, just south of the Stanford University campus. Low-slung black granite-and-glass building surrounded on three sides by an acre or so of manicured lawn and shade trees. The fourth side was a parking lot complete with a small section whose slots were labeled Visitor.
In the lobby I had to sign in at a security desk, put on a visitor’s badge with my name on it, and then pass through a metal detector, all of which made me wonder. Sign-of-the-times precaution? Paranoia on the part of Brandon Mathias? Or did RingTech manufacture something more sensitive than business software?
The place was a beehive; lobby, elevators, second-floor hallways were all crowded with people on the move. There was a sense of urgency in the air, as if everybody was working under some sort of deadline pressure. Gearing up for the imminent IPO, maybe; when a company goes public with its stock, it has to make sure all its contracts are being met on schedule, its research and development and other divisions operating at maximum efficiency.
The executive offices were at the rear. Big anteroom with a receptionist, who checked my badge before she permitted me to pass into an inner waiting room with nobody human in it except me. There was a couch, a matching chair, a table with a coffeepot on a hot plate and a stack of cups (“Please help yourself to coffee; Mr. Mathias will be with you shortly”). No windows and nothing adorning the walls, which gave it the look and feel of a privileged prisoner’s cell in a minimum security prison.
I tried sitting down, but the couch was uncomfortable. So I paced around instead, listening to silence-ten paces from wall to wall one way, eight paces the other because of the furniture. It was five past four o’clock, and I’d been there ten minutes and reduced to reading the label on a jar of Maxwell House instant coffee when the door opened and somebody came in and got me.
Not the receptionist and not Brandon Mathias. “I’m Anthony Drax,” he said, “Mr. Mathias’s assistant. Sorry to keep you waiting, but I’m afraid he’s running a bit late this afternoon.”
“No problem.”
“It shouldn’t be too long. He asked me to show you into his office.”
Mathias’s sanctum was big, windowed on two sides with views of lawn and trees, but as spartanly furnished and functional as the waiting cell. Just the type of no-frills office you’d expect a phlegmatic, dedicated, ambitious business exec to have. Drax indicated a chair to one side of a broad gunmetal gray desk, and when I sat in it he said, “I’ll keep you company until Mr. Mathias comes in, if you don’t mind.”
“Not at all.”
He plunked himself down in a matching chair on the other side. I watched him cross one leg over the other and rest both hands comfortably on his knee. He wasn’t what I’d expected, given Nancy Mathias’s diary entry and Tamara’s phone comment earlier. The Dracula comparison was an overheated exaggeration. Tall and lean, all right, with sharp incisors and piercing eyes, but his swarthy skin didn’t seem particularly leathery and there was nothing sinister about his appearance or his manner. Rising young executive type, suit and tie, shoes polished to a gloss, fingernails manicured, thinning hair neatly barbered and combed. I didn’t much like those eyes-they looked through you, rather than at you, and the irises were a kind of subterranean black-but you can’t judge a man on that basis alone.
Pretty soon he said, “Terrible, what happened to Mrs. Mathias. Just terrible.”
“Yes, it was.”
“I imagine you see a lot of that sort of thing in your business.”
“What sort of thing is that?”
“Fatal home accidents.”
“We see a lot of alleged accident claims, yes.”
