Free The Witchfinder by Loren D. Estleman

behind the statue was made of the same grade of rock, but without holes, and wore a tan uniform with brown leather patches reading I.V. SECURITY embroidered in red. He shifted his attention from a bank of closed-circuit TV monitors to my ID, found my name on a clipboard, and told me to go to the fourth floor. He gave me a plastic tag with a big numeral 4 to hang on my handkerchief pocket.
    Another guard at the elevator, this one female and hewn from softer igneous, checked out the tag and rang for the car. When the doors opened, technology kicked in: A video camera mounted on a heat-sensitive swivel near the ceiling tracked my progress down a hall carpeted in soundproof gray.
    Assuming that the late Vernon Whiting had had anything to do with the security in the building, that brief trip laid to rest my curiosity as to who had stolen from whom in the Furlong-Whiting relationship. Crooks buy the best locks.
    Lynn Arsenault’s name was lettered in gold on a rosewood door near the end of the hall. I opened it on yet another reception room, overgrown with tropical plants in hammered copper pots. The woman who would go with the kidney-shaped desk, coming on sixty with a light blonde wash to cover the gray and glasses with octagonal gold rims, stashed an oversize watering can behind one of the plants and took her post. She had on a tailored suit and a man’s silk necktie. “Yes?”
    I showed her the ID. “I’ve got an eleven o’clock with Mr. Arsenault.”
    “Oh, I’m sorry, Mr. Walker.”
    “That’s okay. I get a new picture taken next month.”
    “No, I mean Mr. Arsenault had to go out. There’s a problem with one of his buildings.”
    “Can’t he find someone else to hold it up?”
    “Imminent Visions’ designs do not fall down.” She tilted her head toward a wall tiled with plaques and framed certificates of merit.
    I put away the ID folder. “Where is the building? Maybe I could meet him there.”
    “He didn’t say which building. He took a call. I gathered it couldn’t wait. Would you care to reschedule? He has an opening next week.”
    “I don’t.”
    “I’m very sorry. Normally Mr. Arsenault never misses an appointment.”
    “Seriously?”
    “He’s the youngest chief executive officer in the industry. You don’t get to be that kind of success without a reputation for keeping commitments.”
    “You said he took a call. Did you put it through?”
    “No, he took it on his private line.” She looked at me over the top of her glasses. “Are you asking all these questions as part of an investigation?”
    “I’m just stalling. I like the smell of African violets.”
    Her face brightened. “Do you know much about them?”
    “A little. I did an undercover bit behind the counter in a nursery for a week. One of the employees was smuggling hydrangeas out the back door.”
    “Hydrangeae, actually. Latin plural.”
    “It was only a week. I had coffee yesterday with a woman who grows dahlias.”
    She might have sniffed. “Dahlias are just sunflowers with a superiority complex.”
    “The woman’s name is Karen Furlong.”
    “Oh, yes.” She punched her glasses back up her nose. “We’ve never met. But the name is well known here. Our founder, Mr. Vernon Whiting, used to work with Jay Bell Furlong.”
    “Did you know Mr. Whiting?”
    “I was his secretary for twelve years.”
    Furlong’s name had brought down the temperature. The room was no longer safe for tropical plants.
    “I’ll call.” At the door I looked back. The octagonals were still on me. “Does Arsenault drive a green Porsche?”
    She found a smile. “Did he almost run you down? He’s a maniac in that thing. We’re all worried he’ll wrap it around a telephone pole.”
    In the lobby I returned the plastic tag to the guard at the monitors. “Do they think someone’s going to sneak in and steal a building?”
    “Hard to fence.” He hung up the tag.
    I went back out into the heat. The shade was shrinking on the west side of