rueful face.
“None of the old-line telephone types have my background
in computers,” she continued. “Russell deals with ideas for
applications and products, what customers need and want,
rather than the actual means of making these things possible
through technology. Frank’s never understood the whole
computer concept—he’s still living in the sixties. Anyway,
he tried to pass off his attack as a fit of temper. Maybe he
heard you outside the conference room—I had no idea anyone was there, I was too horrified. But something suddenly
stopped him. That was when he promised me Ward’s job.”
Renie, who had settled into the other armchair, nodded.
“A bribe. But what about Ward?”
Ava leaned her head back in the chair. “The implication
was that Ward would succeed to the corner office. But I knew
better. Frank wasn’t going anywhere, he had no intention
of retiring. His whole scheme was to get the by-laws changed
and stay on for at least another five years. Frank, you see,
couldn’t let go of OTIOSE. It was his company, he’d founded
it, he’d staked everything he had on its survival.”
“And something he didn’t have,” Judith said wryly. “Money.
He’d used his wife’s fortune to bankroll OTIOSE, hadn’t
he? Is that why Patrice was going to divorce him?”
Ava sighed. “I’m not sure about that. Andrea and Patrice
were rather close. They’d gotten together several times lately,
apparently so Patrice could vent her rage.”
Judith thought back to Andrea’s daily planner noting the
luncheon and dinner dates with the boss’s wife. Though
Patrice Killegrew was a shadowy figure, Judith could imagine
the woman’s fury.
Ava continued. “Andrea told me that Patrice only recently
discovered how little money she had left. Mrs. Killegrew was
the kind of corporate wife who did nothing for herself. A
housekeeper, cook, maid, chauffeur—the whole bit, including,
of course, financial advisors to handle her fortune. The Killegrews could afford all the help they wanted, because in the
beginning, they relied on her wealth, and later, when Frank
became a CEO, his base salary was around three hundred
thousand a year. But Patrice’s mistake was letting Frank hire
the advisors in the first place. In effect, he handled her
money, and ended up robbing her blind. When she found
out—I think it was at the end of the year when she actually
got off her elegant behind to talk to their accountant—she
went crazy. Patrice couldn’t bear to be poor. It was one thing
to have Frank be unfaithful to their marriage, it was something else for him to steal from her. I guess she threw him
out.”
“I guess she did,” Judith said. “We found some notes Nadia
had written to herself. There were references to someone
moving. It wasn’t her—she’d lived forever in an apartment
