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“Miss Sullivan, this is my daughter, Lucille. Yes, honey, I’m afraid Gil.... No one’s seen him since Monday. Miss Sullivan is a detective. We’ve hired her to find him.”
Collingswood looked even more miserable than he had a moment earlier when I’d told him Tremain might have been snatched. His daughter was shaking her head as if it might somehow negate the words.
“Since I wasn’t able to talk to you yesterday, I wonder if you could show me some things in your office,” I said to Scott.
He took the hint.
“Poor girl,” he murmured as we crossed the hall to his office. “They’d been seeing each other. Gil and Lucille.”
“Your partner wasn’t keen on it, apparently.”
“Wasn’t he? I didn’t know.”
Scott’s hand swept in an invitation to sit. His office wasn’t as tidy, or as sterile, as his partner’s. A large seascape hung on the wall facing his desk; another, smaller, where it caught the eye of anyone entering. A copy of Life magazine peeped out from a stack of clipped together pages next to his phone. Next to the desktop baskets marked In and Out sat a pair of dice.
“Do you come from someplace with ocean?” I asked to put him at ease.
“No, I just like to look at the pictures. Daydream occasionally. Look, I do apologize again—”
“Forget it. People shopping for a detective often doubt my ability.”
“A mistake on their part, I begin to suspect.”
His smile was forced, but that might have to do with the headache that had flattened him the previous day. I had some sympathy at the moment. As if well practiced in the maneuver, he took a capsule from a prescription bottle and swallowed it dry. The shadows under his eyes looked more like bruises.
“‘Disaster’ might be the best description of what Gil’s disappearance is for us. I suppose Loren told you about the meeting? That we might even have an offer to buy out our company? Might have had, anyway.”
I nodded.
“What do you think might have happened to him, Mr. Scott?”
He hesitated just a second
“I have no idea.”
“If you had to speculate?”
“I couldn’t.”
“Your partner told me Tremain was closer to you than to anyone else here.”
“Loren would consider any type of conversation apart from work closeness,” he said drily. “We went to lunch together now and then, but those were mostly spent picking at something that was stumping us in the project of the moment. I’m still heavily involved in actual engineering. Loren mostly oversees now, checks over results as a project progresses, brainstorms with us now and then. Splendid mind, Loren, but he has his hands full with management and keeping abreast of what’s going on in the field. We all try to do that, of course.”
I waited. He sighed.
“If I had to guess about Gil... Very well. I guess I’ve begun to wonder exactly what you suggested, if he might have sold out to a higher bidder. Not that I have any reason to think such a thing, and I haven’t even hinted as much to Loren. He’s fond of Gil.”
Not fond enough to want him courting his daughter, I thought.
“He wasn’t in debt? Didn’t gamble?”
“No. As far as I know. The idea he might have run off and deliberately left us with flawed calculations — it was the only explanation I could come up with. But if someone was tearing his place apart yesterday... Do you really think someone might have nabbed him?”
“As you just said, theories are in short supply. The question is, would it be one of your competitors or someone from the America First crowd? If there’s a chance it’s the latter, then you need to talk to the police again, or maybe the F.B.I.”
“No. Oh, God no!”
Scott flung out his hands as if to fend off my words. His face had gone white. America First was headed by luminaries like the Lindberghs and Kennedys and the Nazi-sympathizing radio priest Father Coughlin, but the group also included thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of ordinary people. Some were volatile. They ranged from wanting to keep America out of the war in Europe to out-and-out supporting Hitler.
“That’s simply absurd!” Scott insisted. “It has no military application whatsoever — nothing to attract people like them. The chance one of our competitors is behind it is at least a possibility. After Gil presented that paper, several companies contacted us within days. And we hadn’t even achieved our breakthrough yet. Outfits doing work similar to ours would recognize right away it was something to interest the big fish.”
“‘Big fish’ being the companies that you all sell to.”
“Yes.”
“I’ll look at competitors then.”
How, I wasn’t quite sure. And why did Collingswood think their project might have military uses while Scott didn’t?
“What else can you tell me about Tremain? What did he do when he wasn’t working?”
“I’m afraid I don’t know. I think he said something about a concert once. Mozart or something like that.”
“Did he ever mention anyone he might confide in? Or go to in a jam?”
“No. I don’t think so. Gil was like Loren. Most of his mind stayed on work.”
“Had there been any changes in his behavior lately? Did he seem worried about anything?”
“No, although....” He frowned and picked up the dice, fixing his gaze on them.
“What?”
“He... he might have acted a bit odd of late. Jumpy.”
“Any idea why?”
“No.”
He said it too hastily.
“Mr. Scott, I need every scrap of information I can get. His life could depend on it.”
Scott swallowed. He let the dice slide from his fingers; picked them up; did it again.
“It’s just... he told me in confidence. If it turns out to have nothing to do with his disappearing, it could cost him his job.”
“Better his job than his life.”
He drew a breath.
“Yes, of course. You’re right.” His lips hovered indecisively over words. “Before he came here, when he was first out of school, Gil used heroin. He became so habituated that he had to spend time in a clinic to kick the habit.”
Several moments passed while I absorbed the unexpected bit of input.
“You think he might have started again?” I asked slowly. “Gone off on a jag somewhere?”
“It... crossed my mind. Crescendo — the project — we’ve all been under considerable stress.”
This additional angle was as unexpected as the attack in Tremain’s apartment. It was also one I’d never had to factor into a case before.
Across from me, Scott had put the dice down. He massaged the bridge of his nose. I could sense his uneasiness.
“Has he ever said or done anything that suggested he might be?”
“No, no. I’m sure that... problem was well in the past.” His conviction sounded on the weak side, though. “Look, I suppose you’ll have to look into it, but unless you find a connection, could you please not mention it to Loren? If something has happened to Gil, if he’s dead I mean, there’s no point smearing him, is there?”
“No.”
His concern moved him up a notch in my estimation. He stood. “If there’s nothing else, I do need to get back with Loren. We have to plan.”
“Of course.” I rose too. “I need a photograph of Tremain. And a list of any competitors you think are likely candidates.”
He picked up a pad from his desk and wrote quickly.
“I don’t think these are candidates, particularly, but they’re our main competitors. Feel free to use my office if there are other people you didn’t get to talk to yesterday.”
He came around and shook my hand again, then hesitated.
“There’s something else I should mention, in case someone else does and you get the wrong impression.”
I waited.
“Before Lucille and Gil began going out, she was seeing me. We were all but engaged.”
My eyebrows raised.
“Did you resent that? The two of them getting together?”
“Of course I did.” He gave his lapels a snap. “But I’m a grown man.”