it started off as just Phyllis I think, but then Barlow got involved.”
“What was she doing?”
“Stealing shit. But then so was Barlow. That’s how his company was built. He built it as a shell company to run a bunch of other shit around and through this place.”
The words just spilled from her mouth, and Johan stared at her in shock. “And you know that how?”
Doris shrugged and didn’t say anything.
“If you know something,” Joy said, “please speak up.”
“Why the hell should I?” she said. “Speaking up doesn’t do any good.” With that, she grabbed her purse and sweater, then said, “I’m taking the rest of this day as a sick day. Obviously I’m overcome with grief,” she said sarcastically; then she turned and walked out.
Johan stared at Joy.
“I’ve never heard her speak like that before,” Joy said. “And how would she know any of this?”
“She wouldn’t,” Johan said. “Unless she’s involved in something.”
“Well, that doesn’t mean she’s involved in the thefts.”
“Maybe she was involved in something else though.”
“The blackmail?” she asked. “Does that mean Phyllis was doing the blackmailing too?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I guess it depends on who shows up for the money tomorrow. If anybody does.”
“Right. So who else then?”
*
Johan didn’t like what was happening. Things were coming to a head, and it wasn’t in a good way. He headed back to his desk and started researching Doris. A bit of an enigma was involved in that woman. He went through the staff records, pulling open her personnel file. She’d asked for some shrink time at one point, and, other than that, she seemed to be a model worker. She’d worked for the company for five years. So why the hell was she still working in the basement?
He knew other people would say that it wasn’t a punishment to be down here, but, as far as he was concerned, it was. There were a lot nicer places to work in this huge building. Unless she wanted to be close to where the smuggling was happening? The fact that she’d accused Phyllis of theft and Barlow of smuggling almost made sense. Even if it was a shell company, Barlow would need somebody, like Phyllis, to give him a hand moving stuff. She was also his accounting spy.
Johan looked up to see Galen walking in.
“Any news?” Galen asked, sitting down at his desk.
“Yes,” Johan said, “but the cops will be here anytime now. According to Doris, Phyllis and Barlow were into theft and smuggling, using the company as a shell.”
“In that case, it sure would be nice to get into her laptop before the cops get here.”
“That’s what I was thinking.”
Galen opened his laptop and said, “Give me a minute.” Very quickly he managed to access her laptop remotely.
Johan stood behind Galen as they went through her folders, and everything appeared to be pretty standard. “So there’s nothing jumping out at me. How about you?”
“Hmm. Look at this.” Galen pointed out a folder on one of the servers that had a naming pattern inconsistent with the rest. He clicked on it, and it took him to several more folders, and, by the time he finished clicking through, he found pictures of a little girl. Pictures of a girl growing up but always just pictures of the girl, never with a parent. “Do you think that’s Phyllis’s daughter?”
“It’s possible.”
Another folder had pictures of the child at school. The photos had clearly been separated into groups and kept in different folders. One for home, one for school, and one for visits. They found a few pictures of Phyllis with the little girl.
“Visits,” Johan said. “Probably registered visits, so maybe the child was raised by an adoptive family or a foster home.”
They got to the end of the pictures, when Johan reached out. “Hold it. Look right there.” They looked at the last photo. “Does she remind you of anyone?”
Galen sat back and whistled. “Yeah, the woman who just left.”
They bolted back to Joy’s office to see Joy still sitting there, working away. Johan sighed with relief. “So, we have another connection,” he said. “It looks like Doris might very well be Phyllis’s daughter.”
Joy stared at him in shock, her gaze going from one empty desk to the other. “Seriously?”
He nodded. “But we don’t know for sure. We only have photos of her when she was quite a bit younger.”
“I don’t think she’s all that old,” she said slowly. “I think she dresses dowdy to unimpress, if you know what I mean.”
“What?