4 - Rusalka
It turned out Clay was an accountant, a good one with a nice office, probably with good health benefits including dental I would imagine. Other than that his office didn’t give me much to go on. I mean why would anyone want to hurt a boring accountant. Definitely not for money or notoriety but if Nora was to believed his disappearance had sinister motives and other than my own cynicism I didn’t have any reason to doubt her. On the other hand accountants follow the money for living maybe he had found something he wasn’t supposed to. The people that hide their money usually isn’t the nicest people.
I still thought this case was pretty much an open and shut. Boyfriend with cold feet or a cheating bastard either way common, easy. I wasn’t looking forward to telling Nora whenever I would find my suspicion to be truth/fact. I don’t enjoy getting paid in misery but honestly it is better to know, however devastating the truth might be.
Thing is I learned a long ago, that you have to set aside your own pre drawn conclusions and feelings to find the truth, the real truth, not just your own idea of the truth.
Data is a detective’s best friend, but I didn’t have much evidence to tell me anything about Clay Brand. I had to get to know this man if I wanted to get anywhere fast.
His office was neat and sparse, practical. A nice wooden desk, not unlike my own, facing the door. A comfortable office chair on wheels behind the desk-
To the side were file cabinets and behind the desk on the wall was a whiteboard complete with coloured markers. On the desk was a couple of flat and sleek computer monitors.
Not much here. I rummaged through what I could. His laptop was not anywhere to be found. There was nothing on the desk really other than neatly stacked office supplies. No nic nacs or personal memorabilia, pictures or anything. Nothing of the man who works here other than a name plaque. I thought it was customary to have a picture of your loved ones on your desk or at least your dog or something. Even I have a picture of my mom on my desk.
His desk drawers was locked and so was the file cabinet. The whiteboard was wiped clean.
I took out my phone from my pocket, turned on the flashlight option and went over the whiteboard. Nothing, and I mean nothing. Not even a smudge of wiped off colored writing. Like it was never used. Why have a whiteboard in your office if you never use it. And yes I checked the markers, they all worked. Alright maybe the office came with the thing and Clay just wasn’t a whiteboard guy or the cleaners cleaned it and did a really thorough job. It was odd but it could be just that odd. Well then, Clay, let’s check out that locked desk of yours.
The drawers on the desk was nice thick wood with locks on each one. I could try to pick the locks, it would be a shame to break such a nice desk. In the end, after a second of deliberation with myself my impatient side won out. I admit it is not one of my best qualities. So yeah, I broke open the desk, sue me. If Clay really was in trouble I’m sure he wouldn’t mind the damage and I could always pay him back.
I found a couple of files in manilla folders, I put them on top of the desk in a neat pile. Physical papers in physical folders, old cool. I was starting to see why Nora liked this guy. Another felt marker pen was tucked into the back of the bottom drawer. I put it with the papers on the desk. Next was the file cabinet. The lock broke easily. It was full of neatly packed papers in alphabetical order. That was great if I had any idea of what I was looking for. I closed the cabinet and went to the desk. Something on floor caught my eye. A photograph, it must have falling out from behind one the drawers in the desk.
On it was two men shaking hands looking all buddy buddy. Someone had been nice enough to write their names on the back of the photograph, Clay I imagine. The man to the left was Trent Sterling of Sterling Accounts I gathered.
The other I knew before I read his name. Sure enough that was Sergey Tarasov. the man was basically the Russian mob. Friends with all the right people. The police didn’t dare to touch him. He was careful to never be directly involved in anything illegal. He was a dirtbag but basically human teflon nothing ever stuck. Okay so maybe Nora was right to be worried if Clay was looking into the russian mob and his boss was part of said mob. Ugh, Clay might be in over his head.
There was another note on the photograph. Clay had scribbled the word Russalka under the two names. I was becoming more and more curios. That was a mistake, one in a long line of mistakes. Story of my life.
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