When Graver got back to his car, he looked at his pager. The call-back number was Paula’s at the office. He made his way back through the neighborhoods to Holcombe and then headed north on Kirby Drive. By the time he got back to the CID offices it was just after four o’clock. He stopped in front of Lara’s opened office door.
“I’m sorry about lunch,” he said.
She stopped typing on her computer and looked at him. “No problem.” She shook her head. “I ate as much of it as I could.” She grinned. “Did you finally get something?”
“I ate a very bad hamburger on the way. Listen, would you check with me before you leave this afternoon?”
“Sure,” she said, looking at him with dark-eyed curiosity, hoping he would elaborate.
“Thanks.” He turned and walked away. But instead of going to his office, he started down the long corridor of doorways. Ahead of him people meandered in and out of their cubicles, and as he passed opened doors he heard snatches of conversations, telephones ringing, clicking of fingers on computer keyboards. The door to Besom’s office was open and Ted Leuci was sitting in Besom’s chair with a cardboard box on the floor between his feet It was half-filled with a miscellany of knickknacks. Besom liked knickknacks, little stuffed animals with suction cup feet, a ceramic log-cabin with a pencil sharpener in the chimney, a little wooden outhouse that suddenly popped apart into half a dozen pieces when you pulled the tiny door handle, a jokey fisherman’s yardstick with an exaggerated scale, a roadrunner made of nuts and bolts and wire welded together. The place was a junk shop.
“How’s it going?” Graver asked.
Leuci sat back in his chair. He looked around the office. “Okay,” he said, arching his spine. “I got rid of the paperwork first, to keep it moving.” He looked down into the box. “Now this… stuff.” He shook his head. “He had more crap…”
Graver nodded and moved on down the hall, past a few closed doors until he came to Paula’s, which was open. He stopped. She was sitting with her back to the door, her swivel chair rocked back with her feet propped on the low windowsill. She was writing on the legal pad which was resting on her thighs.
“You have something?”
She swiveled around. “Yeah,” she said, and motioned for him to come in, which he did, closing the door behind him.
Paula was definitely in her end-of-the-day mode. The belt of her shirtwaist dress was undone and hanging loose, and her hair was pulled back in a tacky little wad and held in place with a blue rubber band. Her lipstick was gone hours ago, and she wasn’t wearing shoes. The expression on her face reflected some irritation. Graver leaned one shoulder against the door and put his hands in his pockets. The only other chair in the room was stacked with books and ring binders and catalogues and directories. It was too overloaded and had been that way too long for Paula to pretend anymore that the chair had been designed for sitting.
She rested a bare foot on the shield of one of the chair’s ball casters and crossed her legs, again tilting back the chair.
“I went to the Red Book and checked into the bank,” she said. “Gulfstream National Bank and Trust is owned by a holding company, Gulfway International Investments. I managed-after considerable hassle-to get a faxed copy of Gulfway’s Annual Franchise Tax Filings. In addition to the bank’s officers, there are five board members listed. Two live out of state, in California. I started checking into the local three. One is a petroleum engineering company executive. It turns out he’s a huge donor to a Cistercian monastery operation out in the mountains of New Mexico-odd but true. I put him on the back burner.
“The second local is the founder of Hormann Plastics, a plastics manufacturing company, guy named Gilbert Hormann. Hormann’s business raised a flag from the get-go because of the chemicals and drug combination of the Seldon deal.
“And the third local guy… Colin Faeber.”
“Son of a bitch,” Graver said, straightening up.” Have you talked to Neuman?”
“I’ve paged him. He’s gone down to the courthouse.”
“When did you page him?”
“Just now; just a minute ago.”
Graver looked at his watch. “He can’t be there much longer. The place closes in a few minutes.” He looked at Paula. “What do you have on him-on Faeber?”
“Minimal: home address, business address. I didn’t go any further because I knew Neuman was on it, and I didn’t see any use in duplicating work. So I dug up this stuff on Hormann.”
“Okay, fine. Look, if he calls tell him to come on back here and then the two of you come down to my office. We’ve got some planning to do.”