Hangover

I was such a space-case yesterday. I wrote up my entry and forgot to Update the journal. Thank goodness for LJ autosaved drafts! So, here is what happened in my miserable life on Friday. I'll write up Saturday later on and get it up.

7:00 a.m.

I never should have done that. What on earth inspired me to drink god-knows-how-much wine with Teri, Angel, and Cinnamon yesterday? I woke up in the bathroom with Teri pounding on the door. She had to get ready to go to work. Oh! How could she do it?

There was already coffee made in the kitchen and I started rummaging through the shelves for painkillers. I don't keep many, but I have aspirin in my purse. Don't ask me why. I always carry aspirin and bandaids. I got back to the kitchen and Teri shoved a glass of milk at me. I popped the aspirin and took a big glug of milk then headed back to the bathroom.

"WTF was that?" I asked when I re-emerged five minutes later.

"Milk & Cayenne," she responded nonchallantly. "It's the best cure for a hangover known to man."

"It was a waste of two perfectly good aspirin," I said, though to tell the truth, I did seem a little clearer.

"Look, you can go back to bed, or sleep on the bathroom floor all day if you want, but some of us have to go to work." Work. I guess that officially I don't have a job anymore. My employer--my best friend--is dead. Stupid leaky eyes. I suppose I need to go into the office today and clean up, anyway. I'll do it later today.

"And don't forget your bet," Teri said as she was grabbing her coat and heading out the door.

"What bet?" I asked. Oh no. This is one of the many reasons I don't drink.

"You bet Angel and Cinnamon and me that within the next month you could have an interaction with each of us in which we had no idea who you were. You were bragging about how good you are at disguise. So, by Christmas you have to show us evidence that you had direct contact with each of us and we didn't know who you were. Should be pretty easy for a master of disguise," she smiled. "Toodles!"

Me and my big mouth.

11:00 a.m.

I got to the office after taking most of the morning to sober up. Last time I drank was after my parents died five years ago. Any pattern there? Never again.

I got dressed and started for the office, but I was halfway out the door and realized I was wearing jeans and a T-shirt. Well, I might not have a job anymore, but it was still Dag's office. I went back in and changed into a black business suit--slacks, white blouse, jacket. I put on the same blonde wig that I've come to identify with since I started wearing it a couple of years ago. I knotted a scarf around my neck and went out to catch a bus downtown.

The office seemed cold and empty when I walked in. Silent. I didn't bother to open Dag's door. I couldn't bear to look into his office without him there. I sat at my desk in the front office and opened my computer. First I'd check e-mail and come to think of it, there was paper mail lying on the floor inside the door that needed to be checked. I wondered if there was a protocol I should follow about opening company mail, but since no one had actually told me that I was fired, I decided that since it was part of my usual job, I'd function as much as possible in a normal mode.

That meant throwing away the junk mail and opening the one remaining piece. It was a check from FINCen for the work Dag did last month on a laptop Silas brought him. As usual, it was made out to D.H. Investigations for Computer Forensics. I could take it to the bank and deposit it like normal. I slid it in a desk drawer to deal with on the way home tonight, or on Monday if need be. I'd not gotten far into the e-mail, which was mostly just subscriptions and a couple of messages regarding my research thesis, when a man showed up in the doorway.

"Excuse me," he said. "I'm looking for Miss Deborah Riley?"

"How may help you," I said, straightening behind my desk.

"I'm John Allen of Allen/Jackson Attorneys at Law," he said presenting a card. It looked legitimate. In fact, now that I thought about it, that was the name of the law office I took Dag to last week.

"I suppose you want me to vacate the premises," I said. "I just came in to clean out my desk. I'm not taking any company property."

"No, no," he answered. "You completely misunderstand me. "Lars Andersen is the executor of Dag's estate. And I am quite certain he wants you to stay on and continue working. I'm sure he will be in touch with you shortly. I'm actually on my way to meet with him now."

"I don't understand." I'm pretty dumb when I don't want to listen.

"Dag came to my office last week and made revisions to his will. I'm not at liberty to discuss them with you because that is the responsibility of his executor. But I am confident that after he reads Dag's will he will want you to remain here and keep this business functioning until it is properly distributed to Dag's heirs. But there are things that lie outside Dag's will that I agreed to execute on his behalf without it being a part of his will. The thing that I have for you is completely within the legal rights of the deceased, so you don't need to worry about this being illegal." I was intrigued. Did Dag leave me some instructions that he wanted me to keep working on? Well, yes. He wanted me to collect the other code from the tattoo and put them together for him. But I assumed that would come to an end with his death. The attorney was plunging ahead. That's one thing about attroneys--you don't really have to hold up your end of the conversation.

"Dag asked me to personally deliver a letter to you," he went on. I nearly choked. "I do not know the contents of this letter, but I have some non-official advice for you. I strongly suggest that whatever its contents, you keep them to yourself until after Dag's estate has been settled. It is personal correspondence between Dag and you and does not have any bearing on how the estate is settled or how it is accounted. No doubt it contains information about his feelings for you, or since you were his employee, some people he wants you personally to notify or perhaps even how he would like to be buried. In any case, read it in private, and should you have questions about any portion of its content, you may contact me and discuss the matter under attorney/client privilege. Is that clear?"

"Yes," I said. Frankly I didn't understand a word of what he said, but it sounded like he was going to give me a letter and I should keep my mouth shut about it.

"Here you are," he said, and handed me the letter. Then he left.

I sat for a long time with it in my hands just staring at it, not sure that I wanted to know its contents. Dag was sending me a letter from the grave. Opening it would hurt.

I decided to put it away until later, perhaps when I was at home and in private. I shoved it into my purse and went back to cleaning up the office.

3:00 p.m.

I finally convinced myself that I needed to find out if Dag had left any kind of list or directory of people who should be contacted in case of his death, and that I could still access the network remotely. I had cleaned out his desk and made sure there were no notes paper notes around and I was sitting on the sofa just looking out at the Sound when I heard a sound in my office. A moment later, I heard Silas's voice.

"Deb? Are you here?"

"In here," I called back. In a moment Silas's frame filled the doorway and he came into the room.

"How are you doing?" he asked gently. JFC! I'm not a china doll. I'm not going to break. It sounded so patronizing.

"Fine."

"Must be tough to come in here and not have Dag here," he said. I realized that he wasn't just comforting me, but that he missed Dag's presence as much as I did. I waved him to a chair. "Brenda has a bail hearing on Monday. It's pretty likely that she'll be released," he said. That was like a blow in the gut. She tricked Dag into killing Simon. Dag went to the grave with that knowledge, and it was devastating. It was so unfair that she might be released after all the harm she's done.

"We have Simon's computer and the back-up disks that Dag made from the raid on the Condo. I just had a funny feeling, though that maybe the computer was tampered with--not by you or Dag, mind you--by someone before it was brought to you. If that were the case, I'm betting that there are backup disks for the computer someplace. Dag taught me a long time ago to always look for the backups. People delete things from their computers if they think someone is going to look at them. But they don't change their backups," he said and paused. I just nodded. Something about what John Allen said earlier made me think that even with Silas I shouldn't say anything about what Dag and I were doing. Self-preservation told me that I shouldn't admit to having the backup disks he was talking about, whether he knew or not.

"I've gotten a search warrant for Brenda's house to look for backups. I'm thinking that I'll hold onto it for a couple of days. It would be much more impressive to let her get home on Monday and serve the warrant then. I'd like her to be home when we come after the disks so that she has a little extra fear to deal with." He paused again and looked out the window at the ferry pulling out of the terminal. "I'll look a royal fool, though, if there isn't anything there to find." He let the words trail off, then added, as if to himself, "Yep. A real fool."

Okay. With the remnants of a hangover headache and admittedly unclear thinking, I was detecting that Silas was throwing me a bone. If I could get the backup disks back in Brenda's house before he went in with a search warrant, he would not be coming after me.

"I'm sure you'll find them," I said. "You guys are really thorough with your searches. I'll bet you won't have any difficulty finding them. She's so conceited that she probably has them in her desk drawer." There. I basically told him exactly where to look.

"Do you think so?" he asked. "It's good to get a second opinion on these things. I mean, you were a big help in examining the container that had CDs in it. If it hadn't been for you and Dag telling us to follow it, we might have missed the whole bust."

I smiled at him. It was a bit of a sad excuse for a smile, but I like Si and if I can help him nail Brenda's hide to the door, I'll do it.

"If you need anything, Riley, you've got my number. Maybe after things settle down a little I could take you out to dinner as a thank you for all the help you were on this case. There's a good possibility we might work together again in the future, don't you think?"

"If I can get a job someplace, sure," I said. "By the way, do you know of anyone else that should be contacted? I was just looking through Dag's address book, but there aren't that many people. He went to visit cousins in Sweden in September. I'm just trying to put together a list."

"I don't know, but I'll bet that someone over at the Swedish American Club would know. Maybe they'd even post a notice."

Of course. I dropped Dag there and he spent every Saturday afternoon there. I'd even joined him for Thanksgiving. Everyone there knew him and was his friend. I knew right then what I'm going to have to do tomorrow.

If I've got the courage to do it.