E is for Evidence

I parked in front of Wood/Warren and went in. Lance came out of his office in a wilted shirt with the sleeves rolled up.

"Do we need to watch what we say once we go in there?" he asked, indicating the office door.

"I don't think so. Let's let 'em know we're hot on the trail. Maybe it'll shake 'em up."

Before we started work, I did a quick check of both interior and exterior office walls on the off-chance that someone had installed a spike mike, a small probe that can be inserted between the studs, or hidden in a hollow door, the door panel itself serving as a diaphragm to transmit sound. Lance's office was located in the right-front corner of the building. The construction on those two sides was block and fieldstone, which didn't lend itself to easy instal-lation. Somebody would have had to drill through solid rock. Inside, one office wall was contiguous with the recep-tion area, where the pickup unit would have been difficult to conceal. The fourth wall was clean.

Company employees watched the two of us incuri-ously as we moved through the preliminary phases of the search. If anyone was worried about surveillance equip-ment coming to light, there was no indication of it.

We went into the office. I examined the telephone first, taking the plate off the bottom, unscrewing the mouth and ear pieces. As far as I could tell, the instrument was clean.

"I take it it's not the phone," Lance said, watching me.

"Who knows? The bug might be downstream," I said. "I don't have any way to find out if somebody's tapped into the line at the pole. We'll have to operate on the premise that the bug's somewhere in the room. It's just a matter of coming up with it."

"What exactly are" we looking for?" Lance asked.

I shrugged. "Microphone, transmitter. If you're being spied on by the FBI or the CIA, we probably won't find anything. I'm assuming those guys are good. On the other hand, if your eavesdropper's an amateur, the device might be fairly crude."

"What's that thing?"

"My handy little all-band receiver," I said. "This should pick up any sound being transmitted by the bug in a feedback loop that'll result in a high-pitched squeal. We'll try this first, and if nothing comes to light, we'll take the office apart item by item."

I flipped the receiver on and began to work my way through the popular bugging frequencies, moving around the office like someone dowsing for water. Nothing.

I tucked the debugger in the outside pocket of my handbag and started searching in earnest, working my way around the periphery of the room, then toward the center in an imaginary grid pattern that covered every square foot.

Nothing.

I stood for a moment, perplexed, my eye traveling along the ceiling, down the walls, along the baseboard. Where was the sucker? I felt my attention tugged by the phone jack just to the right of the door. There was no telephone cord coming from it

"What's that?"

"What? Oh. I had the jack moved when I changed the office around. The telephone used to be over there."

I got down on my hands and knees and inspected the jack. It looked okay. I took out my screwdriver and popped off the cover. A small section of the baseboard had been cut away. Tucked into the space was a microcassette re-corder about the size of a deck of playing cards.

"Hello," I said. The tape gave a half-turn and stopped.

I moved the microsensor button away from the voice-activated setting and placed the recorder on his desk. Lance sank heavily into his swivel chair. He and I exchanged a long look.

"Why?" he said, baffled.

"I don't know. You tell me."

He shook his head. "I can't even think where to start. I don't have enemies as far as I know."

"Apparently you do. And it isn't just you. Hugh Case is dead and Terry would have been if he'd picked up that package instead of Olive. What do the three of you have in common?"

"Nothing, I swear. We're all connected to Wood/War-ren, but none of us even do the same kind of work. We make hydrogen furnaces. That's all we do. And Hugh died two years ago. Why then? If somebody wants control of the company, why kill off the key personnel?"

"Maybe that's not the motive. It could be something wholly unrelated to the work. Give it some thought. I'll talk to Terry and have him do the same. Maybe there's something you've overlooked."

"There must be," he said, his face florid with heat and tension. He pushed at the tape recorder with one finger. "Thanks for this."

"Be careful. There could be another one. Maybe this one was planted someplace obvious to distract us from the other." I picked up my handbag and started toward the door, pausing at the threshold. "Get in touch if you think of anything. And if you hear from Lyda Case, let me know."