Forgotten in Death(11)

“Mr. Geraldi is in Mr. Singer’s office at this time. You’re cleared to go up. Elevator bank A, fiftieth floor. Someone will meet you. Please sign in.”

Eve scrawled her signature with her finger on the pad, then moved to the A bank of elevators.

“That was easy,” Peabody commented.

“Let’s see how easy the rest is.”

Eve waited for a trio of suits to hustle off an elevator, then stepped inside. “Bolton Singer, floor fifty.”

Enjoy your visit to the Singer Building, the computer told her. Singer Family Developers is dedicated to building a vital and vibrant New York.

“A couple people might disagree.” Eve slid her hands in her pockets as the elevator headed up.





3





The elevator doors opened on fifty to a spacious reception area that continued the dignified theme in tones of navy and cream and dark, glossy wood. Two people manned stations at opposite ends of the tall counter backed by the floor-to-ceiling company logo.

Eve heard the one on the right chirp cheerfully to a caller on her station ’link, “Good morning! Singer Family Developers! How can I assist you?”

The woman who waited to greet them didn’t look as if she’d chirp, cheerfully or otherwise.

She wore her ink-black hair in a kind of skullcap with the ends honed into keen spikes. While her lips curved in polite greeting, her eyes—a tawny gold that made Eve think of various unpleasant reptiles—stayed as keen as those spiked ends.

Her dress, blue as cobalt, skimmed down to the knees of a tough, athletic body and showed off well-cut arms.

“Lieutenant Dallas.” She offered a ringless hand and a very firm grip. “Detective. I’m Zelda Diller, administrative assistant to Mr. Singer. He and Mr. Geraldi are meeting in Mr. Singer’s office. I’ll escort you back.”

“Okay.”

She started back and through a wide doorway to the left of the counter. Open doors on either side showed outer offices where admins or secretaries or both worked busily at stations with closed inner doors where Eve assumed the execs did what execs did.

“Due to the unfortunate circumstances”—Zelda flicked a glance at Eve—“I’ve cleared thirty minutes of Mr. Singer’s schedule for you. I assume that will be sufficient.”

“We’ll find out, won’t we?”

As expected, the big boss’s offices boasted double doors.

Dignity continued its reign with a sand-colored carpet, dark wood, chocolate leather visitors’ chairs, and the central desk, where a man in a navy pin-striped suit worked his comp.

Through the open door on the left, Eve saw a man in shirtsleeves pacing as he held a conversation on his ’link. The firmly closed door on the right had the admin’s name on a brass plaque.

Zelda moved straight to the double doors behind the central desk.

She knocked briskly before opening one side.

“Lieutenant Dallas and Detective Peabody, sir.”

“Yes, thank you, Zelda. Please, show them right in.”

Bolton crossed the wide space from desk to door in his sharp gray suit as a second man in work clothes rose from a chair.

“Lieutenant, Detective. Bolton Singer and our project supervisor Paul Geraldi. A difficult day for all. Zelda, could we get some coffee, please?”

“I’ll arrange it.”

She stepped out, closed the door behind her.

And, Eve would’ve made book, started the thirty-minute timer.

“Please sit.” He gestured not to the chairs facing his desk, but to the two-seater sofa in that chocolate-brown leather, then waved Geraldi to one of the forest-green chairs facing it. Bolton took the other rather than the power position behind his desk.

Eve figured an office told you something about the person who worked in it. The vibe, her oldest friend, Mavis, would’ve called it.

This one struck her as friendly—the comfortable seating, the thriving plant in a cheerful pot at the corner of his window wall. Involved, as she spotted several framed wall photos of Bolton Singer in hard hats at job sites as well as more formal ones of him at ceremonial first shovels or ribbon cuttings.

Busy, most likely. She couldn’t see his comp screen, and the wall screen pulsed on holding blue, but she’d spotted a legal pad and some handwritten notes on his blotter.

“Paulie’s been filling me in,” Bolton began, “as best he can. My first questions are do you know what happened, and what can we do to help?”

“We’re at the very beginning of our investigation. We appreciate your cooperation thus far, and continuing that cooperation aids our investigation.”

“You can count on it.” He paused when the knock came again. This time Navy Pin-Stripe came in, wheeling a coffee service.

“Thanks, Terry. I’ll confess I read Nadine Furst’s first book, and have already started her second, so it’s black coffee for Lieutenant Dallas, coffee regular for Detective Peabody.”

He had a strong face, clean-shaven, that just missed handsome. Direct, pale blue eyes took it over the line into appealing, as did the dark honey hair curling over his ears and collar.

He wore a thick, ridged, white-gold wedding ring, a slick and sleek black-banded wrist unit, and a single stud in his left ear.

Beside him, Paul Geraldi looked tanned and burly with his barrel chest in a black T-shirt, his scarred work boots, his small, scruffy beard and gray-streaked brown hair clipped militarily short.