Free Judged by E. H. Reinhard Page A

back, the phone rang.
    “What is your name, sir?” the girl asked.
    I glanced over my shoulder and said, “Agent Hank Rawlings, FBI.”
    She told whoever was on the other end of the call, I assumed Mr. Prassey, my name and hung up.
    “Kevin is going to be about five minutes. There’s a lounge right around the corner, leading out to our service department. There’s complimentary coffee and donut holes.”
    I didn’t know if the donut-hole reference was meant to be a snide remark at my being law enforcement, but I thanked her and headed to the suggested lounge. There, I filled a cup of coffee, grabbed a donut hole, and took a seat beside two older women. An older man in a Hawaiian shirt sat across from me. The women were doing their best to keep quiet voices while talking about the fact that one of the vigilante’s victims had been the manager at the dealership. I tuned the women out, ate my donut, sipped my coffee, and stared at the television playing sports highlights in the corner. Moments later, a gray-suited midforties man with dark, slicked-back hair approached. He looked at the two women, the Hawaiian-shirted man, and then me.
    “I’m Kevin Prassey,” he said.
    I stood to greet him. “Agent Hank Rawlings. Is there some place we could talk?”
    “Sure, my office is this way.” He waved for me to follow and weaved between the cars on the show floor to enter a glass office tucked in behind the vehicles.
    A man stood at the office’s door, scraping a pair of E stickers from it.
    “Can you excuse us for a moment?” Prassey asked him.
    The man nodded, picked up his supplies, and walked away. Prassey waved me through and closed the door at my back.
    “Sorry about the mess in here,” he said as he rounded the desk and took a seat. “New office.”
    I took a seat across from him, noticing the boxes stacked along the wall of the room.
    “I’m assuming that the visit is in reference to Glen Scobee?” he asked.
    “Correct. This was his office, I take it?”
    “It was, yes. So what can I help you with?”
    “I’m actually looking to see if I could speak with anyone that the man would consider friends around here,” I said. “People who maybe knew him outside of work.”
    “Friends or outside of work, you’re probably not going to have a ton of luck. Alice upstairs will be your best bet—family friend, I believe. They’d go to lunch a few times a week. Not to speak ill of the dead, but the guy wasn’t the most personable. I was a sales manager under Scobee for five years—worked with him every day. I still addressed him as Mister the last day I saw him, if that tells you anything. The guy had a high opinion of himself and his position.”
    “Okay, is this ‘Alice from upstairs’ here?”
    “She is. I can take you up to her office to speak with her.”
    “I’d appreciate that. After I speak with her, I’d also like to maybe take a look at whatever video you have from Scobee’s last night here. Maybe from a camera that covers the employee parking area, if you have one.”
    “Well, we don’t really have any kind of specific parking area for staff, but Mister Scobee generally parked on the far edge of the lot—away from possible door dings would be my guess. When you’re through with Alice, I can give you a hand with looking into that.”
    “Sure,” I said.
    Prassey stood from his desk. I followed him down the hall outside his office and through a doorway that led to a stairway up. Upstairs, Prassey stopped at an empty office with the name Alice Schipper and Human Resources on the door.
    “Hmm,” Prassey said. “Why don’t you have a seat inside her office here? I’ll find her. Maybe she’s in with the rest of the administrative staff. I’ll be right back.” He opened the door for me, motioned me toward the chairs inside, and then left down the hall.
    I took a seat in one of the guest chairs and stared at the shelved wall filled with photos behind the woman’s desk. All the photos