What he had seen was an abomination.
“Hey, Roger, you made it!” Hugh Bennett said in a bassoon voice, coming over from the parlor entry. “Been looking forward to this a while… heard you were finally on the way from the airport! Guess it’s been quite a haul for all of us staying here — except Tom o’ course!”
In Gabon only a few hours, Roger Gordian was not too surprised to find King Hughie waiting for him at the large colonial home of Thomas Sheffield, an expat Sedco official whose guest he would be for the next couple of days.
What did catch him unprepared was the retinue of perhaps eight or ten suited, seated Sedco executives in the parlor behind Hughie.
“Good to see you.” Gordian looked into his large, broad-cheeked face. Bushy white eyebrows ran together under the forehead like a solid raft of clouds. “Everyone’s here for dinner?”
Bennett slapped him on the back as they shook hands.
“And an informal meeting, Gabon-style!” King Hughie said. “They say people like doing business at night in these parts! And I say, great! No time beats the present for ironing out the details of tomorrow’s ceremonious occasion!”
Gordian looked at him. Did he really believe everything that left his mouth had exclamatory value?
“I hope you’ll understand that I need time to freshen up,” he said. “It has been a long trip.”
Hughie looked over at Sheffield, who had been standing beside Gordian in apparent mortification.
“Not a problem!” he said. “Tom’s got himself a damn well-stocked wine cellar… and his cook went and prepared some beee-eau-ti-ful hors d’oeuvres to tide me over while I do my sampling!”
The two police detectives arrived first thing the next morning with an attitude of impatient irresistibility.
Megan’s response was to be patiently immovable.
She had sized them up the moment they entered her office and known they were poised to intimidate. Perhaps because they were men addressing a woman, or law officers accustomed to throwing around the weight of their authority, or for some combination of those or other reasons. She didn’t really care. They had stated what they wanted. She was determined to learn more about why they had come before offering her compliance. But although they wore their game faces as well as she did, and a sense of pressing urgency could be felt on both sides of her desk, Megan thought her clearer view of their relative positions might give her a bargaining edge.
The leveler was how much their presence worried her. She couldn’t afford to let them see it.
“Ms. Breen, we need to speak to Roger Gordian about his daughter,” said the senior investigator for the third time. His name was Erickson. Probably in his late forties. Big squarish face, cornflower blue eyes, a crop of wavy, canary blond hair wet from the rain outside. He sat with his right leg across his opposite knee, wearing brown off-the-rack mufti under his open raincoat. “You say he’s traveling someplace?”
“He’s abroad on business,” she said. “In Africa. It’s no secret.”
Erickson studied Megan across her desk. “Even so, you must be able to reach him. Or his spouse.” He paused, added, “We’ve tried their residence but no one seems to be present.”
Megan converted the tension in her facial muscles to an expression of firm resolve. Erickson seemed dogged but not confrontational. He might be the one to deal with.
“I believe Mrs. Gordian is visiting with relatives,” she said. “But you have my full attention. As the senior executive at UpLink in his absence, I’m responsible for managing its affairs. They include observing Mr. Gordian’s privacy and keeping him from being unnecessarily distracted. If you’ll tell me—”
“How about you make those job responsibilities include giving us some cooperation?” interrupted the other man.
He’d introduced himself as Detective Brewer, strong emphasis on the job title. Thin, narrow-eyed, and about ten years younger than his partner. A small-town cop from Sonora who was suffering from an overkill of TV crime dramas and thought tactless and pushy equaled urban tough. He wore no topcoat over his navy suit and had left his umbrella in the stand out in her reception room.
Megan directed her response at Erickson.
“If I’m to contact Mr. Gordian, I need to know generally what brings you here,” she said.
The older cop sat very still. His eyes showing a flicker of compromise before the flat resistance dropped back over them.
“We need some information about his daughter,” he said.
Megan concealed her disappointment. It was only when she braced for the question she needed to ask that her control almost faltered.
“Has anything happened to Julia?”
Erickson took a breath, released it. Megan saw his foot move up and down over his knee.
“We have to get in touch with Roger Gordian,” he repeated again, clinging to his laconic manner.
Megan waited before she answered. Her office was silent. The double-pane glass of its windows completely deadened the lash of wind and rain against them, somehow increasing her awareness of the dark splotches of moisture on Erickson’s coat.
“So far we’ve been talking through a wall,” she said. “It’s difficult to come together that way. How about we step around it and see if it works any better?”
Brewer shook his head angrily, almost rising off his chair. “We don’t have to do anything or step anywhere. We are conducting a police investigation, and you should be aware you’re on the brink of obstructing—”
Erickson got his partner’s attention with a tap on the knee, held up a preemptive hand. He looked embarrassed.
“Consider us as having stepped,” he said.
Megan kept her eyes off Brewer’s flushed face as he settled back in his chair. Compounding his belittlement would serve no useful purpose.
“I realize that whatever has brought you here must be very serious,” she told Erickson. “And you can rest assured I’m ready to help you reach Mr. Gordian and anyone else who has to be contacted. If there’s bad news to be broken, however, I intend to be the person who does it. As a second in this company and a close family friend. But I obviously can’t until you tell me what this is about.”
Erickson sat there looking at Megan another moment, shrugged, and uncrossed his legs.
Then he leaned forward and told her.
“Still ain’t heard nothing from Africa?” Thibodeau said.
“Not yet,” Megan said. “Pete’s on his way to tell Gord right now.”
“Seems like it’s taking a while,” Ricci said.
“When I spoke to him, he was outside the city. It’s night in Gabon, and I don’t think there are any passable roads through the jungle. He’s flying back to Port-Gentil in one of our helicopters.”
“What was the problem reaching Gordian yourself?”
Megan looked at Ricci across the small conference table. “He’s staying as a guest at a local Sedco executive’s home to avoid the bugs in the hotel walls, and they’re behind closed doors having a late consultation about that affair on the oil platform. Hughie Bennett and his entire court are in attendance, and I don’t want the boss to hear this news over the phone under those circumstances.” She paused. “Better Pete tells him in person. He should be there any time.”
Ricci did not answer. His glassy calm eyes gave no clue to what he might be thinking or feeling. Megan saw her reflection in them and could not keep her own nerves from becoming exposed. That was unlike her, and she resented him for it — how much more of herself might be revealed on the mirror’s surface?