at those invoices, the more concerned she became. It had to be something significant for Albert to spend this kind of money. And the way he’d hidden the folder behind the divider also meant something. Was there a problem with the house? A fraudulent claim to the title? Albert’s daddy died in 1943; could the investigation have something to do with the old man’s partnership in the firm? It wasn’t like Albert to hold onto meaningless bits of paper. If he kept these invoices and hid them as he did, they had to be important. But why?
Lost in thought, she was startled when the telephone rang. Jeffrey gave her a hurried hello then got to what he’d called about.
“Have you given my proposal any thought?”
“What proposal?” she asked, still preoccupied with the mysterious invoices.
“Regarding your shares of the firm. I hope you’re not talking to anyone else. I’ve already offered you a buyout, and I’m willing to match any other price. You do realize that, don’t you?”
“Yes, I know,” Margaret said absently. “I just haven’t made any decisions yet. I’ll get back to you as soon as I do.”
She was about to hang up when the thought that Jeffrey might know something about the invoices crossed her mind.
“Wait a minute, as long as I have you on the line, can you tell me why Albert would have been working with a company called Bateman Investigative Services?”
“Was this recently?”
“No, back in forty-four.”
“The name doesn’t ring a bell. But I was fairly new with the firm back then. It’s possible he was working on something I wasn’t in on.”
“Would you have Eloise check his files? Maybe ask around the office to see if they’ve done work for anyone else at the firm?”
“Anything that far back would be housed in storage. Getting the files brought up would take a week, maybe longer. If you want to tell me what this is in reference to, I might be able to help. I could ask around, see if there’s something more recent.”
Margaret could have been mistaken, but she thought she’d detected a bit of reluctance in his voice. Perhaps he wasn’t the one to ask. This might be something she should look into herself.
“I doubt it’s worth the bother,” she said. “Just chalk it up to a wife’s curiosity.”
He laughed. “Well, if you want me to take a look…”
“No need,” she said, “but thanks for the offer.”
After she hung up, she sat there for several minutes studying the mysterious pieces of paper and wondering what secret Albert was keeping. Unable to come up with even the most remote possibility, she picked up the telephone and dialed the number at the top of the invoice. On the second ring, a recording clicked on saying the number had been disconnected.
Thinking she might have misdialed she tried again, this time speaking the number aloud as she dialed. The recording clicked on a second time and repeated the same message.
Hitting a brick wall as she had only increased Margaret’s curiosity. She pulled the county telephone directory from the bookshelf and searched Bateman Investigative Services. Nothing. She tried searching Bateman Detective Agency, Bateman Surveillance, Bateman Security, and the yellow pages. Still nothing. Returning to the residential listings, she ran her finger down the long list of Batemans. It began with Alfred Bateman and continued on until it reached Yolanda Bateman. Two columns in all.
It would take a day, possibly two, for her to call every one of these listings, and even then she could come away with nothing. Not discounting the idea altogether but wondering if what she found would be worth the effort, she replaced the directory on the bookshelf.
First, she had to finish cleaning out Albert’s desk. There was only the top drawer and a few more file folders to go. Once those were done, she’d go back to searching for Bateman. Pulling the last of the folders from the drawer, she began leafing through them.
While she’d gone through the earlier folders page by page, careful not to miss a thing, these got little more than a cursory glance. A few prospectuses from companies he’d considered a solid investment, his daddy’s death certificate, a copy of last year’s income tax return. None of these things interested Margaret. She was still wondering about those invoices and what it was Albert needed to keep secret. She tossed the outdated prospectuses in the waste basket, closed the drawer, and returned to the telephone book.