Touch & Go (Tessa Leoni, #2)(55)

Decent-size guy, Tessa thought. She’d place him mid-forties, aging well. Not a big talker, but he had a look about him. Deep thinker, she predicted. The kind who knew a lot more than he let on. Worked the good-old-boy routine, then emptied your wallet in poker.

She made a mental note never to gamble with him, but perhaps buy him a beer. A little collegial warm-up, and he probably had some insights worth hearing.

Special Agent Nicole Adams started with general background. When had Anita first started in Denbe Construction? Her subsequent rise within the corporation?

Anita smiled, clasped her hands and placed them on the desk. “Believe it or not, I’ve been with Denbe thirty-five years. I started fresh out of school. Which gives me the dubious distinction of being the company’s longest-serving employee. Not counting Justin, I suppose, though he was just a teenager back then.”

“So you worked for Justin’s father?” Tessa spoke up.

“That’s right. I was Dale’s secretary. Business was much smaller then. Operated out of an old warehouse in Waltham. But construction is construction. One of those businesses where the more things change, the more they stay the same.”

“You went from secretary to COO?” Special Agent Adams quizzed. “That’s quite a career trajectory.”

“Well, you know, thirty-five years later…” Anita’s smile was more wistful now. The good old days. “Dale was a hard-ass. No doubt about that. Much of Justin’s management style still comes from his father—be the first on site and the last to leave. Demand the most from your employees, but also treat them with respect. Dale was famous for free-beer Fridays. The guys would wrap up for the week, then hang out in the warehouse kicking back with six-packs. You can’t do that sort of thing anymore, of course, the liability alone would kill us. But free-beer Fridays wasn’t just about rewarding the crew; it was about bonding. Making the employees also feel like part of the family. Justin has continued that tradition in his own style. He and Libby are famous for dinner parties with the crew, Sunday afternoon cookouts. Speaking as a key member of Justin’s management team, I’ve never felt that I work for him, as much as I work with him to continue the great tradition of this company.”

“Great family,” Special Agent Adams repeated evenly. “Great company. Great family company.”

Anita beamed, nodding shortly.

Special Agent Adams leaned forward and stated coolly, “Please stop wasting our time.”

The COO startled. Tessa felt her own eyes widen, while against the wall, she watched the sheriff’s detective quickly suppress a grin.

“We are not shareholders. We are not with the Better Business Bureau, nor are we prospective clients. We are here to locate and assist Justin, Libby and Ashlyn Denbe. To be even more frank, we have roughly twenty-four hours to get that job done, or chances are, you won’t see any of them alive again. Do you understand?”

Slowly, the COO nodded.

“Now, to do our job,” Special Agent Adams explained briskly, “we require information. Better yet, we need unvarnished truths. To start with, you went from secretary to COO. How do you account for that level of success, especially as a woman succeeding in a predominantly male industry?”

Anita’s lips thinned. She answered the question in the same brusque tone the FBI agent had used to ask it.

“By working twice as hard as everyone else, of course. Look, Justin’s father was hardly an enlightened male. Dale liked to have a pretty receptionist, and thirty-five years ago, I fit that bill quite nicely. But I was also smart. It didn’t take me long to see that Dale needed help with more than answering phones. He was terrible with paperwork, notorious for losing contracts and a train wreck at account management. I started with arranging his calendar, then took over organizing the entire office. While I was at it, I also started making phone calls, finding vendors who could supply us with cheaper office supplies, then better health insurance, then better workman’s comp. Dale might have been a chauvinist pig, but even he recognized that he was saving tens of thousands of dollars a year. As I said honestly before, Dale was always one to treat his employees with respect. I proved my value, and he promoted me accordingly. By the time he died, I was already running the admin side of things. As Justin grew the company, so did the complexity of our operations. I moved into chief of operations accordingly.”

“Tell us about Justin. When did he take over the company?”

“He was twenty-seven when Dale died—”

“How did his father die?”

“Heart attack. Dropped dead in the office. Dale was a work-hard, play-hard kind of guy, with the play-hard side of the equation including copious amounts of red meat and hard alcohol.”

“Women?” Tessa spoke up from the couch.

The COO flicked her a glance. For a second, Tessa thought she’d refuse to answer, but then: “Given that Dale himself hardly kept it a secret,” Anita said tightly, “yes, he maintained a pretty active social life outside his marriage.”

“How’d Justin’s mom take it?” Tessa asked curiously.

“Drank a lot. Martinis mostly. Then would come to the office and scream at Dale over the latest discovery. At which point, he’d promise her a new car, or a fur coat, or a trip to the Bahamas to patch things up.”

“You seem to know a lot about the couple’s marriage,” Special Agent Adams observed.