“What?” Judith asked.
Ava’s expression was wry. “Where did Nadia get all that
information she was spouting at the dinner table? Especially
the old stuff about Gene and Max and Russell? She was
about to start in on me, as well. Where did she get her data,
and why bring it up now?”
Judith thought back to the conversation, though the word
was only a euphemism for wrangling. “Frank was needling
people, too. Surely military records would be common
knowledge.”
“It doesn’t work that way,” Ava said. “People lie on their
resumes, they omit things they’d rather not have in their files,
they add accomplishments that didn’t happen. But somewhere along the way, particularly when someone is being
considered for a big promotion, a company will do a background check. It’s usually done by the security people who
fall under human resources at OTIOSE.” Ava gave Judith a
meaningful look.
“So Andrea would have been privy to all the dirt?” Judith
asked.
Ava nodded. “That, and what she’d pick up from rumor
scavengers like Barry Newcombe. But my point is,
Did Andrea bring her files with her? Did Nadia get a look
at them and pass the information on to Frank?”
Judith tried to recall what she and Renie had found in
Andrea’s room. There
been so thick that the cousins hadn’t taken time to peruse
them. Judith, however, couldn’t admit as much to Ava; no
one must know they’d searched Andrea’s belongings.
“If that’s true,” Judith temporized, “Nadia must have found
those files after Andrea died.”
Ava gave a single nod. “The question is, how soon after
she died?”
Judith’s eyes widened. “You think Nadia is the killer?”
Ava made a helpless gesture with her hands. “No. Not
really. Unless…” She bit her lower lip.
“Unless what?”
“Nothing. It’s all so…difficult.” Ava started for the dining
room. “Let’s finish cleaning up this mess.”
Judith decided she might as well change topics. “You
started in on Nadia’s background,” she remarked, removing
glassware from the table. “I take it you weren’t referring to
the personnel files.”
“I wasn’t,” Ava responded. “The story I’ve heard is that
Frank met Nadia when he went back for his tour of duty at
AT&T. It used to be that anyone from the associated companies who was on the rise spent a couple of years at
headquarters in New York. Nadia was a clerk-typist in what
they called the plant department then. Frank was already
