Name Withheld : A J.p. Beaumont Mystery (9780061760907) by Judith A. Jance

any children?”
    â€œNone that I know of. He and Lizbeth haven’t been married that long—only a matter of months. There could be kids somewhere from a previous marriage, but I wouldn’t know about that. Again, that might be in a personnel file as well, especially if the children were listed as beneficiaries under the group insurance policy.”
    â€œHow much insurance?”
    â€œTwo and a half times his annual salary. A quarter of a million, less some change.”
    â€œYou paid him a hundred thousand a year, then?”
    Whitten nodded. “Salary plus.”
    â€œPlus what?”
    â€œA finder’s fee on the new investment dollars he brought in.”
    â€œIf he was making that kind of money, there shouldn’t have been any financial difficulties. Were there any other problems?”
    Whitten gave me a sidelong glance. “You meanproblems with anyone other than me?”
    â€œLook, Mr. Whitten, let’s don’t make this difficult. At this point, I don’t regard you as any more of a suspect than I do anyone else. If you’d like me to Mirandize you and let you have a lawyer present when we talk, I’d be happy to oblige. For right now, I’m just gathering general information.”
    By then, we had arrived back at the D.G.I. garage and pulled into a parking place. I opened the door to get out. When Bill Whitten made no move to exit the car, I settled back in my seat, closed the door, and waited. For almost a full minute, neither one of us moved or spoke. Whitten seemed to be pondering something important, and I didn’t want to rush him. Finally, he made up his mind.
    â€œI believe I already told you Don Wolf wasn’t a nice man,” he said.
    â€œYou did mention something about it.”
    â€œWell, I wasn’t just blowing smoke,” Whitten said defensively. “I have proof.”
    â€œWhat kind of proof?”
    â€œMy father was a pioneer in the in-store security business. He started his company—the company I started out with—back in the mid-forties, right after the war. In the economic boom that followed, shoplifting became a rising phenomenon. Stores that were large enough to pay the freight hired their own in-house detectives and security, but lots of companies were far too small to handle that kind of expense on a full-time basis. My dad’s company provided roving bands of detectives for hire who went from store to store on a needs-only basis.
    â€œIn the sixties, as soon as the technology became available, Dad became a pioneer in installing in-ceiling or wall-mounted security systems. Later on, we branched out into scanners as well.”
    â€œVideo cameras, you mean?” I asked.
    â€œYes, among other things. My dad died of cancer a number of years ago. When I sold the whole thing off a couple of years ago, I made out like a bandit. So did my mother.”
    â€œWhere’s all this family history lesson going, Mr. Whitten?”
    â€œD.G.I. is my baby,” he said. “I’m the one who started it. I’m the one who brought in the scientific expertise to do the research and who raised most of the money that built this building yet Don Wolf thought he could walk in here and take it away. Instead of just letting him have it, I decided to fight him with all the tools at my disposal.”
    â€œSo?” I asked, although I had a reasonably good idea of where Bill’s seemingly rambling tale would end up. “Are we talking employee surveillance here?”
    Whitten nodded. “It’s the same kind of system we had in our old corporate headquarters before we sold it off. This one is newer, of course. More bells and whistles. There’s a hidden camera and microphone in every office,” he explained. “I don’t necessarily use all of them all the time.Some of them, the ones at the front of the building and in the garage and elevators, are on twenty-four hours a day.