"You're wrong!" Emmett shouted triumphantly. Beaming his flashlight at something in the ditch, he bent down and picked it up.

"The hell I am! I'm telling you somebody beat the hell out of this guy and then dumped him out of a moving vehicle."

"Not about that," the sheriff replied, walking forward. "I did find somethin'. I found a wallet."

The coroner tipped his head toward the body. "His?"

"Let's have a look," the sheriff replied, and after beaming his flashlight at the picture on the driver's license, he bent down and pulled the blanket off the victim's face, studying it for comparison. "His!" he pronounced emphatically. Holding the license up to his light, he said, "He's got one of them foreign names you can't hardly pronounce. Stanislaus . . . Spyzhalski."

"Stanis—" the coroner uttered. "Isn't he that fake lawyer they busted down in Belleville?"

"By God, you're right!"

Chapter 49

With his briefcase in one hand and his coat over his arm, Matt stopped at the desk of the secretary who'd helped him prepare the conference room the day Meredith came. "Good morning, Mr. Farrell," she said.

Displeased by the sulky hostility in her tone and face, Matt made a mental note to transfer her to another floor and instead of pleasantly asking her if she'd had a nice weekend, which he'd been about to do, he said coolly, "Eleanor Stern called me at home this morning to say she isn't feeling well. Fill in for her, will you?" It was an order, not a request, and they both knew it.

"Yes, of course," Joanna Simons replied, and she gave him a smile that was so genuine, so gleeful, Matt almost wondered if he'd misjudged her.

Joanna waited until Haskell's new—and unwanted— president had disappeared into his office, then she rushed over to the receptionist's desk. She'd been hoping to take it easy while her new boss was out of town. This opportunity to work for Farrell, however, offered her an unexpected and exciting opportunity. "Val," she whispered to the receptionist, "did you keep the name and phone number of that reporter from the Tattler who called you to get some info on Farrell?"

"Yes, why?"

"Because," she said triumphantly, "Farrell just told me I'm supposed to fill in for hatchet-face today. That means I'll have the keys to her desk." She glanced up to make certain the other secretaries whose desks fanned around the reception area in a broad circle were all busy and preoccupied. Most of them didn't share her animosity for Matthew Farrell, they hadn't been here as long, and their loyalties had been more easily transferred from the old team to the new owner. "Tell me again what that reporter wanted to know."

"He asked how we felt about Farrell and I told him some of us couldn't stand him," Valerie said. "He asked if I ever put calls through to him from Meredith Bancroft or if she came here. He was especially interested in whether or not they're really as friendly as they acted in their news conference. I told him I didn't take Farrell's calls and that Meredith Bancroft had been here only once, for a meeting with Farrell and his attorneys. He wanted to know if anyone else had been in on the meeting, and I told him I knew hatchet-face had been in there, because I had to take her calls out here. He asked if I thought she sat in on it to take notes. I told him she takes notes on almost every meeting he has, and he asked if I could get my hands on those notes from the Bancroft meeting. He said they'd pay for any info on that meeting that we could get for him. He didn't say how much he'd pay though."

"It doesn't matter. I'd do this for free!" Joanna said bitterly. "He'll have to unlock the old bat's desk for me to use today. Maybe he'll unlock the file cabinets too. Those meeting notes should be in one of those two places."

"Let me know if I can help," Valerie said.

When Joanna walked into Eleanor Stern's office, she found that Farrell had already unlocked his secretary's desk and left it open for her to use, but that the file cabinets were still locked. A brief sketchy search of the desk revealed nothing but supplies and a drawer full of nonconfidential files on Haskell's operation. There was nothing about Bancroft. "Damn," she said under her breath, swinging around in her chair and glancing through the door that connected this office with Farrell's. He was standing, looking at the computer on the credenza behind his desk. No doubt he was checking on Haskell's production reports from its factories over the weekend—or some massive stock portfolio he owned, she thought with growing hatred for the man who couldn't be bothered remembering her name ... who had fired their bosses and changed their benefit packages and salary structures.

Leaning farther back in her chair, Joanna could see the front of his desk. His desk keys were protruding from the lock in the center drawer. The keys to the files would either be on that ring or in one of his desk drawers.

"Good morning," Phyllis said, following Meredith into her office. "How was your weekend?" she asked, then she bit her lip and looked mortified by her question. She had obviously heard about the fistfight Saturday, Meredith realized, and at that moment she didn't care. She was so happy, she felt buoyant. Pausing in the act of unlatching her briefcase, Meredith sent her a wry, laughing look. "How do you think it was?"

"Would exciting be the right word?" Phyllis ventured, smiling back.

Meredith thought of Matt's lovemaking, the things he'd said and done to her, and her whole body felt deliriously warm. "I'd say that's a pretty apt word," she said, hoping she didn't sound as dreamy as she felt. With an effort she pulled her thoughts from the weekend and made herself think about the work she had to do before she could see Matt again tonight. "Any phone calls this morning?"

"Just one—Nolan Wilder. He wants you to call him back as soon as you get in."

Meredith froze. Nolan Wilder was the chairman of Bancroft's board of directors, and she had little doubt he was calling to demand an explanation of Saturday night's debacle. Which, in the clear light of morning, struck her as being an act of monumental gall, given that Wilder's own divorce had been so ugly and bitter that it had taken two years to get through the courts. "Get him on the phone for me, will you?" she asked.

A minute later, Phyllis buzzed her. "Wilder's on the line."

Pausing a few seconds to compose herself, Meredith picked up the phone and said in a bright, firm voice, "Good morning, Nolan. What's up?"

"That's what I was going to ask you," he said in the cool, ironic tone he used during board meetings and which Meredith particularly loathed. "I've had calls from board members all weekend demanding explanations for that business Saturday night. I shouldn't have to remind you, Meredith, that Bancroft's image, the dignity of its name, is the foundation of its success."