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The case of the disappearing document

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ghost



Joined: 06 Nov 2005
Posts: 2828
Location: MIA
The case of the disappearing document

Part 1

Jack Faure stared in disbelief at the bottom drawer of his desk. It was empty. He rubbed his eyes, willing himself back in time to yesterday afternoon, when he had placed the blueprint for his design in the drawer. He saw himself closing the drawer… locking it with a small key on his key ring…testing it to make sure it was locked… putting the keys back in his pocket where he always kept it… He opened his eyes again.

It was still gone. The only copy of the electronics design he had been working on for months. Jack had purposely not done anything on his computer, spending hours behind his drawing table, shredding the rough drawings, his notes, everything that could possible be used to copy the design.

Faure was 49 years old. He had earned his electronics engineering degree by working in a video store part-time, fixing the video recorders and TV’s that were brought back as irreparable, his brain somehow being able to read circuits like some people read books. Starting small, in the back of a second-hand store, he had built up his business slowly but surely. Today, he was the CEO of a multi-million dollar corporation, listed on the stock exchange, designing and selling electronic parts for just about anything and everything.

The company was known for innovations in the field of electronics. Jack’s latest brainchild was a supreme example – an electronic microchip that would revolutionise the way people saw the world. Patenting the design would mean huge profits for the shareholders, billions of dollars in profit and a changed world. For the better, or so Jack believed. The problem was, it had better be in production soon, because Jack had overextended the company’s line of credit to branch out into household products. The financial year-end was approaching and the shareholders were getting extremely nervous about the interim audit results.

And now it was gone. He would have to start from scratch, and that would take months. Which he didn’t have. He slowly got up from his chair, feeling like a very old man. Moving into his private bathroom, located at the back of the huge office taking up half the top storey of the tallest building in town, Jack stared into the mirror. A pasty gray face, dominated by bloodshot eyes, stared back at him. “What in the world am I going to do…?” he asked himself.

Jack went back to his desk, picked up the intercom phone and called his secretary.

“Yes, Mr. Faure?” Jane Symington answered.

“Please come through to my office, Jane. And bring the headache tablets with you…” Jack said.

Jane entered the office. She had been Jack’s secretary since the early days, and knew him well. An extremely capable woman of 39, she was a spinster who lived for her work. Try as he might, she would not stop calling him “sir” and “Mr. Faure”, even though Jack had asked her many times to please call him by his first name.

“Jane, has anybody been in my office this morning, or last night after I left? I am missing something from my desk… something very important,” Jack asked.

“Andy was here just after you left at six to prepare for the dinner party, sir. He came to collect those papers you asked him to take a look at for you,” she replied.

Andy Brixton was the junior designer whom Jack had taken under his wing over the last few years. Coming from an underprivileged part of society, he reminded Jack of himself when much younger. The young man was trying to work himself up in the ranks of the company and showed a lot of potential. Glenda, Jack’s wife of 24 years, had insisted that Jack invite Andy over to their house for dinner a few times, including a dinner party held to celebrate the company’s 25th year of existence the previous evening.

“Are you sure, Jane?” Jack asked again. “This is very, very important.” He couldn’t believe it. Surely Andy wouldn’t have taken the blueprint? Andy didn’t have a key to the desk drawer… but the only time Jack left his key ring lying around was at home. And from what Jack could see, the drawer had not been forced open.

Jane gave him two headache tablets and poured a glass of water from the bureau.

“Did you knock over the water jug last night, sir? There is a wet patch here on the carpet,” she said.

Jack looked over to where she stood near the bureau next to the wall facing the windows.

“No, Jane, I didn’t. Was Andy in here alone?” Jack wanted to know.

“Sorry, sir, but yes… I had been to the kitchen to get more milk, and when I came back, Andy had left a note to say he had collected the papers and would get back to you about it. I was gone for just a few minutes… but surely you don’t think Andy…” Jane was horrified. “What is missing, Mr. Faure?” she asked.

Apart from Jack, there were only a few other people who even knew what Jack had been working on. Jane and Andy both knew, as well as Jack’s wife, in whom he had always confided with all his new business ideas. Jack had asked Andy for some input on one little problem with the design he had a few months ago, and Jane knew everything. As far as business was concerned, there were no secrets between Jack and his secretary.

Jack didn’t answer her. She gave him a long stare… and then slowly she spoke, stumbling over the words.

“You…you… don’t say… oh no… not the blueprint?” she wailed. “You left it in your desk? Jack….”

This was the first time Jack had ever heard her speak his name, betraying her real shock and horror over the incident.

“Jane, my drawer was locked. This office of mine is locked when you or I leave. Your office is locked. This floor can only be reached by using the executive lift or the emergency stairs. The building has a 24-hour security guard with controlled access to the building. Of course I left it here. It was perfectly safe here!” Jack stated.

“Except that now it’s gone. All those months of work, fallen into the hands of someone who is now capable of destroying me, the company, and making a bundle of money while doing so. You know the corporate world, Jane, it is dog-eat-dog. Anything goes in the industrial espionage racket,” Jack ranted. “Nobody else but Andy, Glenda, you and myself knew about it. Oh and Cyril too. I had to tell him something to get him off my back,” he added.

There was no love lost between Jack and Cyril Woods, the company’s financial director. Jack regretted the day he appointed the man but Cyril carried a lot of clout with the Board, and Jack could not get rid of him. They had clashed over a number of issues before and this would be the last straw.

“Let me call that friend of mine, Logan Manicera, of the CSI department, Mr. Faure. You cannot report the theft to the local police, when this gets out the newspapers will have a field day. He will be very discreet…” Jane said.

“Get him on the line for me, thanks, Jane,” Jack replied.

The conversation with the CSI detective was very brief. Manicera listened for a few seconds, and then told Jack not to say anything to anyone, he would be right over.


Part 2

The two CSI detectives, Logan Manicera and Marina Conegal, Logan’s assistant, arrived at the building twenty minutes later. They signed in at the reception desk in the lobby and made their way to the bank of elevators, accompanied by the security guard who had to activate the executive lift for them.

“This is almost like getting into Fort Knox,” Marina remarked on the way up to the twenty-second floor. Logan just grinned at her.

“That’s what they all like to think, Marina,” he quipped.

They exited from the lift and walked to the end of the passage, where they found Jane’s office behind a solid-looking wooden door. Logan glanced at the door lock before letting Marina enter ahead of him.

“Good morning, detectives,” Jane greeted them. “Logan, good to see you again… but not under these circumstances, though,” she added as he entered the office.

“Same here, Jane,” he answered.

They stood waiting while Jane buzzed Jack on the intercom. She nodded on hearing him ask her to bring them through and stood up from her desk to let them into Jack’s office. They trailed after her, Logan again looking at the door lock as he passed through the double doors.

Jane made the introductions and they all sat down on the low chairs arranged around a coffee table in the corner of Jack’s office. Jane left to arrange for some tea to be brought through from the kitchen, but returned a few moments later and took her seat as well. Jack glanced at her before taking a deep breath and relating the morning’s discovery to the pair of detectives.

“This is an awful state of affairs, Captain Manicera,” Jack said after telling his story. “I cannot believe something like this has happened, and I also cannot believe what my mind tells me is the only logical explanation.”

“Please call me Logan, Mr. Faure,” the burly detective said. “And relax, I am sure there must be a way to solve this mystery. Things are not always what they seem,” he continued. Logan then asked for Andy to be called up to the CEO’s office.

When Andy arrived, Jane showed him into a small office next to her own and called Logan. The detective sat down behind the desk after shaking hands with Andy, and looked at the young man seated in front of him.

“Andy, I need you to think back to yesterday afternoon very carefully and tell me exactly what you did when you fetched the papers from Mr. Faure’s office,” Logan said to him.

Andy looked at Logan nervously before clearing his throat and started talking…

“I came up to Jane’s office at about ten past six last night, to collect the documents Mr. Faure asked me to look at. When I got here, she wasn’t here and I was in a bit of a hurry, so I tried the door to Mr. Faure’s office and it was open. I walked over to his desk, saw the papers, took them and left the office. I did leave a little note for Jane to say I was there, and took the documents. Then I left,” the young man said, taking off his glasses and wiping them nervously with a tissue.

“I see,” Logan said. “How did you get to the top floor?”

“Well, some trusted staff members, like myself, have a special pass key to activate the executive lift. My office is on the eighteenth floor, so I took the lift and came up,” Andy replied. “I went back to my office the same way.”

“Do you always carry the pass key on your person?” Logan asked.

“Umm, no… I normally keep it in my desk... but the desk and my office are locked when I am not there, we are very strict on security measures here, you know,” Andy stated.

“Do you always stay so late at the office, Andy?” Logan fired the next question at him.

“Yes, I do. I am not the only one, there are several other staff members who always work late, let’s see… Brian and Laurie on my floor, Mr. Woods, the financial director, also, the finance department is on the same floor as us… I actually gave him some headache tablets this morning… some others that I know the faces of, but not their names… we are a big company, Captain Manicera,” the young man gushed.

“Thank you, Andy,” Logan said. “That will be all… oh, but don’t leave the city for a while, would you?” he added as he got up to go to Jane’s office.


Part 3
In the meantime, Marina had completed the sweeping of the office. She collected the plastic bags from the wastepaper bins, dusted for fingerprints, took some samples from the carpet below the air conditioner shaft grille, looked very carefully at the grille and took some samples of hair she detected on the edge of the grille. She also retrieved a small thread of material, snagged on the corner of the desk drawer.

Marina asked Jack for his key ring. She examined it under a small microscope and then requested him to take it off the ring, so that she could take it to the CSI lab for further examination. He did as she asked, and Marina put the key in a little plastic bag, dropping it into her satchel with the other evidence samples.

Logan came back into Jack’s office looking for her. They decided to first get the evidence to the lab, and then decide how to proceed. They said goodbye to the worried-looking Jack and Jane, and left the office with Andy, who had anxiously waited in Jane’s office to accompany them down to the lobby.

As they were descending, Marina asked Andy if he was going on lunch, as it was nearly noon by the time they had finished.

“Oh no,” he said, “I need to take my son to the doctor’s, he has to have some tests done… my little boy is three, and has a heart condition, so he needs a transplant. My medical aid doesn’t cover all the costs, so we are a little worried because the operation needs to be done very soon...” Andy gushed and then let his voice trail off. “This upset at the office is all I need right now…and I am having a disciplinary hearing this afternoon,” he added a moment later.

Marina and Logan looked at each other for a moment, and Marina murmured her sympathy to Andy. They reached the ground floor and stepped out of the lift. Andy waved goodbye as they left the building together.

In the car on the way back to their office, Logan and Marina discussed the case.

“Andy has a motive, Logan… he needs money for that operation, and blackmail will provide it… if not blackmail, then selling it to a rival company will also do the trick,” Marina said. “And if that isn’t soap on the desk key, my name isn’t Marina,” she continued.

“Maybe so, Marina, maybe so, but I don’t know…I smell a rat somewhere,” Logan replied before getting out of the car when they stopped in the CSI parking lot.


Part 4

Together with the samples, Marina had also collected a copy of the previous week’s Board meeting’s minutes. Sitting down at her desk, she took them out of her briefcase and started reading. After she had finished reading, she went down to the lab to check on the progress made with examination of the samples.

“Hello, Steven,” she greeted the technician. “Find anything for me yet?”

“Sigh… Marina, how often must I tell you these things take time?” the young man replied with a laugh in his voice. “Well, I still have to look at the samples, but I have taken a look at the key, and you were right…it is soap. Well spotted, Marina, do you want to transfer to the lab?” he said.

“No thanks, Steven, I am quite happy where I am, thanks,” she laughed.

Marina left the lab and went back upstairs to find Logan. She found him at his desk, staring out the window.

“Have you thought about the motive again, Logan? We now have method too… the key had been copied by pressing it into a soft bar of soap, Steven just confirmed it. And Andy had been to the Faure’s home, he could easily have lifted the keys for a moment there… what do you say? Do we take him in again?” Marina asked.

“Not so fast, Marina, I am still thinking this is too easy…” Logan replied. “What did you make of the Board minutes?”

“Not much there, the normal blah-blah about year-end results and branching out and how much it’s costing and so on. The meeting did get a bit tense, I assume, from the remarks made by the financial director directed at Jack. Maybe you should speak to Jack and get his thoughts on what really went on in there… it’s difficult to judge from just reading the minutes,” she said.

“I have a better idea… I think I will ask Cyril Woods for a bit of his time,” Logan said, as he picked up his phone.

Logan got an appointment with the financial director and left the office to meet him at the Faure building.

“Thanks for your time, Mr. Woods,” Logan said when he was shown into the financial director’s office.

The interview didn’t take long. Logan asked Woods about the meeting, but got a very non-committal answer in reply.

“The Board meetings are held every month, Captain, and the last one was very much the same as the previous one. Jack Faure is taking this company down, and I said so at the meeting. It’s all there in the minutes, which I assume you have read. Now was there anything else? I am a very busy man,” Cyril said abruptly.

Logan noticed a small bottle of painkillers on the financial director’s desk.

“The position comes with a headache, Mr. Woods?” he asked, pointing at the bottle.

Woods flushed and flashed Logan an angry look.

“Nothing I can’t handle, detective,” he almost snarled.

Logan was a bit taken aback by the rudeness, but did not say anything as he looked at the man seated behind the massive desk that was covered in papers.

“Now if that is all, you will have to excuse me, I have a disciplinary hearing to attend,” Woods said.

“I am happy so far, thank you again, Mr. Woods,” Logan said in a mild voice.

The two men left the eighteenth floor together, Woods leaving the lift on the tenth floor. Logan continued down to the lobby and left, frowning as he looked up at the building when he reached the pavement.



Part 5



Logan and Marina met back at the CSI office. They went through the evidence, looking at the forensic report that listed the samples and the conclusions of the technician. Logan sat back in his chair and stared at the ceiling.

“I have some concerns over the fact that Andy is so obviously connected to this case, Marina. We found his fingerprints on the drawer key, his access key records showed that he used his pass key to use the executive lift late last night… so he had opportunity, motive, everything… but something worries me,” he said in a low voice.

The phone rang. Logan answered, listened for a few minutes and said thank you and goodbye to the person on the other side.

“That was Jane,” he said to Marina. “Andy has been dismissed, pending the outcome of our investigation. The disciplinary hearing was chaired by Woods, and apparently he made no attempt to listen to Andy’s defense, just railroaded the whole thing… I wonder…

“Take a closer look at him, Woods I mean, Marina. I got a distinct smell of rat when I interviewed him this afternoon. I want to know everything… his hobbies, his connections, everything. And I want his office searched. Now. I will be back at the office in an hour, and expect some rather interesting results from you,” Logan said, grabbing his jacket and leaving a stunned Marina still sitting at his desk.


* * *

A few weeks later, Logan and Marina were invited to the opening of the new production line for the microchip at the Faure Electronics plant. There were several important guests there as well, and Jack introduced the detectives to everyone, smiling secretively as he did so…

Who do you think was not at the party?

Jane Symington
Andy Brixton
Cyril Woods
Both Andy and Cyril
Both Andy and Jane
Both Jane and Cyril
_________________
MIA

Post Mon Jul 10, 2006 3:27 am 
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desert-fish



Joined: 13 Apr 2006
Posts: 2777
Location: deleted


Am geussing really.
think both cyril and andy are in on it- that cyril lured andy into it and then framed him after getting the document himself

when do you relieve us of the suspense????????? Question

Post Thu Jul 20, 2006 4:56 pm 
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lostgrl913



Joined: 21 Apr 2006
Posts: 153
Location: PA


Cyril Woods this is totally just a guess but it's my guess and i am sticking to it. when are you going to let us in on it???
_________________
i am rage, i am sorrow and grief
all alone in my way
i know humor and heartbreak
and people are life
if i keep my eyes closed
i'll be open to strife
-Ferron STAND UP

Post Sun Jul 23, 2006 9:50 pm 
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Eiregirl



Joined: 21 Jul 2005
Posts: 10230
Location: Chasing a pink bunny


Hmmmmm

Smile

Eiregirl Arrow
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All poems and stories posted by Eiregirl are Copyright 2005 - 2008 Aoibhegréine These literary works are my property under copyright. If you wish to use my work for any purpose please ASK FIRST.

Post Sun Apr 15, 2007 12:24 am 
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desert-fish



Joined: 13 Apr 2006
Posts: 2777
Location: deleted


when do you relieve us of the suspense?????????
_________________


taps fingers

well? Very Happy

Post Mon Jul 02, 2007 9:22 am 
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shanelvr



Joined: 18 Mar 2007
Posts: 1078
Location: pennsylvania


Who did it? Please tell us!

Shanelvr Exclamation

Post Sat Jul 07, 2007 7:31 am 
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Alpenglow



Joined: 02 Feb 2007
Posts: 607


end

Last edited by Alpenglow on Wed Sep 17, 2008 9:52 pm; edited 1 time in total

Post Wed Jan 16, 2008 10:35 pm 
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desert-fish



Joined: 13 Apr 2006
Posts: 2777
Location: deleted


I wonder if ghost even remembers writing this...let alone who dunnit...

Post Sat Jan 19, 2008 5:51 pm 
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Alpenglow



Joined: 02 Feb 2007
Posts: 607


end

Post Sat Jan 19, 2008 7:27 pm 
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