Troubleshooter

Chapter 36 - You Can Even Touch It

AMY HAD concluded her briefing, and they discussed some details.

Paul rubbed his eyes and glanced at his clock. "Okay, this is what we will do: Amy, Tom, you finish the money retrieval activity. That has absolute priority. I will update Henry Daven. He should be happy about the first part of the outcome. Afterwards, I will check out my theory regarding Brady's car."

Amy and Tom nodded.

Tom raised his hand. "Can I make a suggestion?"

"We are not in class, Tomtom," Amy reminded him.

"Sorry, old habits die hard. I suggest that we hold a personal wake for our partner in crime, Brady."

"A pub-crawl?" Amy sounded delighted.

"Paul, you knew Brady. You guys have worked together before. What would he have liked?"

Paul looked up, surprised again by the personal question. "I...." Paul's memory flashed to the time had spent with Brady in restaurants, usually before jobs in the preparation phase. He remembered sitting in a German Braustuben, in McDonald's restaurants in various parts of the world, and once in a while in pubs. "We worked together," he began, and then paused before continuing, "Though I liked Brady tremendously, we were not close. The ... job didn't allow it. But I remember one particular stakeout job in Berlin that was right in the backyard of an Indian restaurant. We went there for food two times a day for two weeks so that we wouldn't need to show our faces on the street. Brady, without fail, always had lamb vindaloo."

"Oh yummy, the hot stuff," Amy said.

"Okay, about five minutes away is a small restaurant called Tale of India that opens at 5:30. Will you be back by then?" Tom asked Paul.

Paul did a mental calculation and nodded. "I need about two hours, so let's say 6:00?"

"How do you know that there is an Indian restaurant without consulting your smartphone?" Amy whispered.

Tom whispered back, "Amy, remember: You show me yours, and I'll show you mine. You pulled this trick several times during the last day, so don't complain if I catch up with you."

Amy patted his back. "You've grown up so fast, Tomtom."

Paul hesitated before picking up the phone. Now for the bad news for the boss.

Henry Daven came to the phone right away. "Paul, what's the news?"

"Bad news first, Sir. One of my team was killed last night. To make things worse, his body was found in the home of Tess Herbert."

"Killed. And Ms. Herbert is involved," Daven repeated. He didn't sound shocked or appalled, more like astonished that the simple project had turned out so differently from his expectations.

"From what I understand, the police will issue a statement soon. Something along the lines of a dead body had been found in her house and that the circumstances are still under investigation. We have no idea what happened last night."

"What do you think, Paul? She is on our list of money suspects, so why shouldn't she kill for it?" For a businessman, Daven had a pretty bad opinion of his employees' ethics—and he hadn't even asked how Brady had turned up in Herbert's house in the first place.

"I doubt it, Sir. Even if she is guilty of stealing the money, she would have had a hard time killing Brady. No, Brady was killed by a professional, not by a scared, cornered, white-collar thief. And why would she leave Brady's body in the house for the police to find? Stuff Brady into the freezer to gain time and get away with the money—that's what I would have done. But when Ms. Herbert discovered the body, she did what every normal person would do. She ran out of the house, screaming for help."