Dying to Remember

By James M. DiClerico

When a drug company CEO disappears in the hills of New England, his wife hires neophyte P.I. Harley Napoleon to find him. The plot deepens when Napoleon has a gun stuck in his face at the CEO's hunting cabin. Then the executive perishes in a questionable auto incident and patients at a nearby clinic die after getting a new Alzheimer's drug made by the CEO's firm. While solving the mystery, Napoleon winds up in the clutches of rogue G-men, dodges the local police chief, and teams reluctantly with an over-the-top female reporter.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Apr 13, 2012
• ISBN: 9781468564792

James M. DiClerico

James M. DiClerico is a resident of Florida who lives in Stowe, Vermont, during the summer months. A graduate of Lehigh University, he concluded after a few years of practicing engineering that the world would be safer without his involvement in bridges, dams and tall buildings. He reinvented himself as a public relations writer, eventually becoming an executive with one of the largest firms in the field; his postings included New York City, Brussels and Washington, D.C. He later owned his own company for ten years. Upon retiring, he began to pursue a lifelong ambition to write books. In addition to a non-fiction book on baseball and a memoir of his grandfather, this is his third mystery.

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Prologue

A man and a woman sat arguing across a desk. The woman, hard-faced, her black hair severely drawn back to give her an even harsher look, was having the better of the verbal combat.

Don’t be a fool, she was saying. We’re not going to stop this now.

But the deaths, the man said, his tone between pleading and whining.

The woman shot him a look of disdain. You weren’t so concerned about the first one, she said, a mirthless grin exposing her white teeth. Oversized canines and heavy eyebrows gave her a wolfish look, accentuated by the fluorescent lighting overhead.

That was an accident, he said weakly. His jowls seemed to quiver in his fleshy face. The sides of his large nose were tinged in purple, telling of one too many drinks on one too many days.

And the next one? she asked, her tone an unmistakable jibe. She thrust her head forward, challenging the man to answer. Veins stood out in sharp relief on her forehead. She was gripping one wooden arm of her chair with such force that her knuckles had turned white. Her thin, unadorned lips were drawn back so tightly that they seemed to disappear altogether.

The man sank deeper into his high-backed leather executive throne. His lips parted briefly as though he meant to speak, then closed in a thin line, the edges turned down. His eyes cut to the right, unable to meet the woman’s glare. His gaze locked on a large ficus dominating a corner of the room, as though imploring the plant to provide an answer to the woman’s question.

Well? she said.

When he spoke, the words came out haltingly, like a single file of defeated soldiers slogging back from the front, each with his eyes locked on the heels of the man in front of him. I … you … uh, he said.

Yes? she prompted sharply, her voice a razor cut, not giving the man a moment to recover.

You, he blurted, turning back in her direction, but not meeting her gaze. You said one more was it. Just to confirm what happened. You said it was important to know. So we could issue a warning.

The woman laughed at this. Oh, come on, even you are not so naïve that you’d believe that. She laughed again, the high-pitched sound contrasting sharply with her aggressive words and gestures.

The man suddenly found his backbone. We’re going to stop this now, he said. Or else … or else ….

Or else what? she said, her voice now like a slap in the face. Alert the media? Alert the authorities? She paused, settling back in her chair as though to let her words sink in. You do that, and you can kiss this place and your ass goodbye.

The man’s mouth opened and shut, opened and shut, like a fish out of water gulping air in a vain attempt to acquire life-giving oxygen. But no words came out.

Okay, the woman said finally. Here it is. When I married you and followed you to this God-forsaken place, I figured I could use my old contacts to push some lucrative contracts our way. And I did.

Now the man, getting back a little of his own, gave a weak snort. Like you had a lot of choice.

She ignored his interruption. So now this thing falls into our lap and you get all faint-hearted and goody-goody. Well let me tell you, you try to blow this up on me and you’ll wish to hell you hadn’t. She grinned at him, the expression a contorted slash across her lupine face. You’ve met some of my friends from the past.

The man’s ruddy complexion suddenly faded. He had, indeed, met a couple of the woman’s old friends. Earlier the same day, in fact, during a discussion about clearing an ‘obstacle’ from their path.

There came a knock on the door. Enter, the woman said. The door opened and a face topped with frizzy blond hair appeared. The casual observer would have had trouble deciding whether the owner of the face peed standing up or sitting down.

Yes? the woman said without turning.

We have another one, said the person at the door in a gender-neutral voice that matched the face. Only it came out, Ve haf anudder vun.

The woman rose from her chair, silently pointed a finger at the man, and moved for the door. The man sighed and slumped in his chair.

One

I was sitting in my office, feet up on my desk, jiggling ice cubes in a glass with Bushmills engraved on the side, thinking that trout season would soon be coming to an end, when this broad walked through the door. She was tall, blonde, curvy as hell and her lips curled in a salacious come-hither smile. The part of me I don’t fully control began to salute.

The broad was my wife.

The cubes in my glass hadn’t been icing Bushy or even Chivas or Jack. The brown residue in the bottom of the glass was pure Diet Pepsi. There was no smoke curling languidly toward the ceiling from a half-smoked Lucky Strike or Camel in the ashtray. No cigarette. No ashtray. No-smoking building.

The tall, curvy blonde reached for the top button of her blouse and began undoing it. Jesus, Maggie, I said, glancing toward the door that stood open behind her and the hallway beyond. This is a business office.

Oh, pooh, she said, sweeping her gaze around the room. If it’s a business office, where’s all the business? Then she undid the second button of her blouse and took a hip-swinging step closer to me.

I couldn’t help it. I broke out laughing.

She stopped, legs apart, hands on hips. Glared. You dare to laugh, she said in a haughty tone that would have put Zsa Zsa Gabor to shame. She pronounced laugh with a middle-European accent. Leff. Then she broke out laughing, too, came around the desk and plopped herself in my lap. As she leaned forward to plant a kiss on my forehead, I got a wonderful view of the canyon down the front of her chest and the slopes of the creamy hills rising up from it. Yum. I recalled first watching dawn break over the rosy tips of those hills more than twenty years ago.

Things were heading in a magnificent direction.

And then the phone rang.

Two

The sign on the door my wife had come through said, in gold leaf letters:

Philip J. Napoleon

Investigations

I’m not Philip J. Napoleon. I’m Harley P. (for Philip) Napoleon, son of Philip J., which is how I happened to be sitting in that office on that warm, early autumn day. When Philip J. died three years earlier, he posthumously got his long-held wish, namely that his only son would come into his business. Sadly, I came into it in the manner of a last will and testament instead of the father-son camaraderie my dad had hoped for. Whoever said it’s never too late didn’t know what in hell they were talking about.

I once had an office much larger than the one in which Maggie intended to seduce me that day. It was a corner office high above Fifth Avenue in midtown Manhattan. Downstairs in the lobby, the tenant directory told visitors that the floor I was on belonged, along with two other floors, to the firm of Trubach & Napoleon, Public Relations & Public Affairs. This expensive space represented the highwater mark of T&N, reached not long before my partner and I sold out to one of the giant ad agencies for several million dollars. A few months later, Dad died, launching me into my current career.

My partner, Bob Trubach, and I had struggled for half a decade early on, trying to help companies — invariably small ones — market their goods or services. We issued press releases, wrote and placed articles, set up media interviews. We made just enough money to, as they say, keep the wolf from the door. Then lightning struck twice in one year. A small crude-oil tanker owned by one of our clients collided with a wharf while docking at Bayonne, New Jersey, opening a gash in its hull below the waterline and releasing many gallons of the black, sticky stuff into a narrow waterway named Kill van Kull. At about the same time, another client — a small but rapidly growing pharmaceutical company — decided to issue public stock.

Bob and I knew next to nothing about crisis communications or investor relations. But the owners of the oil tanker and the drug moguls didn’t know what we didn’t know. We sold the idea that communications was communications, no matter the issue at hand. We hammered the fact that we knew their businesses inside and out. We could hit the ground running, while any specialist firm they might hire would be floundering around trying to get up to speed.

We got lucky. The giant firms across the street and down the block — including the one where Bob and I had cut our teeth — must have been distracted by bigger fish and overlooked our two minnows. Sharks they may have been, but they stayed out of our waters. So we got the work. And we were smart enough to go out and hire experienced free-lancers to help us get it done.

Here’s the bottom line: We got the media to keep the oil spill in perspective, even earning our client some applause from normally cynical reporters for the rapid and effective clean-up operation. The fact that the master of the ship had been drunk during the docking never came fully to light. Meanwhile on Wall Street, in a heyday for pharma firms, our little client’s stock issue was wildly oversubscribed, thanks mostly to the clout of the lead investment banker but with attributed help from us. Our client never reached household-name status, but it made a lot of money for its shareholders — and for Trubach & Napoleon.

The most valuable thing we learned while launching these new practices was not the techniques for providing them. Rather, it was how well they paid compared to flogging products and services. When a company’s business is circling the drain due to some disaster, money is no object. And when a company is floating a stock offering, money is precisely the object.

Using these two victories as leverage, Trubach & Napoleon succeeded over time in making crisis communications and investor relations the drivers of our firm. Bob proved to have a real flair for the world of money and soon was writing a column for a leading investor relations journal. I found a rare excitement in helping clients negotiate crisis, even the part about staying awake for forty-eight hours straight in the thick of it. Soon the media were seeking my comment on practically every calamity that came along, up to and including the sexual scandals of assorted politicians; I became a frequent talking head on the networks’ flagship stations and cable.

Actually, lighting struck a third time in that year of the oil spill and the stock issue: Trubach & Napoleon hired a leggy blonde administrative assistant by the name of Maggie Birch.

Three

Maggie Napoleon, nee Birch, slid reluctantly off my lap as I reached for the phone on the third ring. I really didn’t need any more business — grabbing the phone was a conditioned response to those early years of struggle when Bob Trubach and I sat around begging for it to ring.

Napoleon Investigations, I said, quickly adding my standard, We don’t do divorces.

Are you the same Harley Napoleon who used to run Trubach & Napoleon? said the voice on the phone, ignoring my churlish disclaimer.

It was a woman. With a breathy, seductive voice that made me feel almost adulterous just for listening to it. I glanced quickly at the object of my affection, hoping that my face didn’t show what I was feeling. She smiled warmly, so I guessed I was okay. The top buttons remained undone.

Guilty as charged, I said, trying to put a jaunty tone in my voice, knowing that Bob wouldn’t mind my taking full credit for running the old firm. What can I do for you?

I have a problem, she said. I didn’t respond. I knew from experience that my caller didn’t need a prompt at this point. The time for asking questions would come.

Uh … can we meet? she said. I’ll pay for your time just to listen. I have money. Words I always like to hear.

Silence wouldn’t cut it now. She’d asked a question. I don’t do my old thing anymore, I said, thinking her problem might involve the media.

I believe my situation might lie at the confluence of what you used to do and what it appears you’re doing now, she said. Confluence, eh? I have to admit she was piquing my interest.

Well, then, why don’t we discuss this at my office?

Oh, no, she said. No, no. That won’t do. She paused. I need this to be very private.

My office is very private.

Except for all those people milling about outside who might see me entering.

All those people? Milling about? This was Abenaki, a small New England town. Sometimes on Saturdays there might be enough people on the sidewalks — mostly tourists — to be thought of as milling about. But this was a late Tuesday afternoon. That old saw about firing a cannon down the sidewalk and not hitting anyone could apply. But I wasn’t going to argue with her.

Where, then? I said.

Here, she said. Then recalling that she hadn’t revealed her location, she added,

At the Abenaki Inn.

She also hadn’t revealed her name. Oh, she said when I reminded her. I’m Amanda Milhaus.

A little bell tinkled, but if there was a dossier on Amanda Milhaus in my memory, it failed to open. The tone of her introduction implied that I should know her, but I let it pass. In due time, I’d find out how she knew what I used to do and if we’d had any connection. Okay, I said. How about I meet you in the bar in fifteen minutes?

Oh, no. No, no. That won’t do. I’d heard this song before. She went on, I’d very much appreciate it if you would come to my room. It’s two-twenty-three.

My head swiveled towards Maggie without any conscious order from its owner to do so. Meet a strange woman in her hotel room? Maggie trusted me. I trusted her. But this could stretch the limits of trust.

Uh … okay, I said. Better give me twenty minutes.

She probably thought my five minute extension was odd, but she didn’t comment on it. Fine. I’ll be waiting.

Maggie was waiting, too, a quizzical look on her face that had deepened as she listened to my end of the conversation with the mystery woman. It had deepened most perceptibly at the words meet you in the bar.

New client, I explained. Then quickly added, Maybe.

Maggie dipped her head and gazed at me with eyes nearly hidden under the brows. A woman, I take it. she said. How did I give that away? Or do women really have this exquisite radar that no electronic wizard has ever been able to duplicate?"

Uh … yeah. But she sounded old.

Maggie rolled her eyes. So you’re going to meet her in the bar at the inn.

Oh, boy. Well, no, I said with a hesitation that spoke volumes.

No?

Uh … no. Big pregnant pause. In her room.

She just stared at me inscrutably for what seemed like half an eternity. Then she began fastening the two top buttons of her blouse.

Well, okay then, she said, getting up and sashaying toward the door, hips swaying, reminding me that I was looking at the sexiest butt in town, if not in the entire state. Just remember to be polite to your elders. With that she looked back over her shoulder and gave me a full-face grin.

Whew. She trusted me. I didn’t need the extra five minutes after all.

Four

The Abenaki Inn is classic New England. Three stories of white clapboard topped by a dark-gray slate roof with red-brick chimneys at each end. A few discreet vent caps fail to spoil the lines of the roof; the ugly satellite dish that used to poke up there came down when cable arrived in town. A columned porte cochere paved with native granite welcomes guests, as does a bellman for those with luggage and plans to stay overnight or longer. Through a deal with the private Abenaki Lakes Club, guests of the inn may enjoy the club’s two championship eighteen-hole golf courses. Tennis-playing guests may use the inn’s two all-weather courts or arrange to play on one of the Abenaki Lakes Club’s dozen Har-Tru courts. In winter, skiing guests have access to a small hill owned by the inn or may chose one of several big-time mountains nearby.

Despite Maggie’s understanding send-off, I must admit to a certain nervousness as I walked into the lobby. I know many of the staff, some by name and many others by sight, and they know me. I often lunch in the inn’s grill room, and I occasionally put visitors up. None at the moment, however. So why would I be going to the elevators, one might think, though I was sure none would have the temerity to ask.

Nevertheless, I waved to the desk man — Fred something or other — as I passed and then pointedly headed down the hallway toward the restrooms instead of to the elevators. Fred would assume I needed to visit the facilities before perhaps meeting someone in the bar, which could be reached via the same hallway. What I really wanted from that hallway, though, was the stairwell that gave onto it. I figured the chance of meeting anyone on the one-story climb up the stairs was miniscule by comparison to that of having someone I knew jump onto an elevator with me.

No one was near the door to the stairway when I got there. I quickly pushed through and made my way two steps at a time to the second-floor landing. I opened the door a crack and peeked through. Nobody in sight. I was relieved to find that room two-twenty-three was only two doors from the stairwell.

I knocked. Bounced up and down on the balls of my feet as I waited. Brushed a few crumbs of my breakfast muffin off the right leg of my trousers. Nothing happened right away. I hoped she wasn’t in the bathroom drying her hair or something. I knocked again.

At last the door opened a crack, the security chain restraining it. I saw a brown eye surrounded by tasteful makeup giving me the once-over.

Mr. Napoleon? The breathy voice, accompanied by a faint aroma of mint.

Guilty, I said, thinking I was starting to overuse that wise-ass response.

The door closed. I could hear the security chain rattle as she removed it. The door swung open and she waved me in.

She followed me into the suite, closing the door behind her. She extended her hand and I gripped it, trying for just the right amount of pressure — not a macho bone crusher nor a wimpy dead fish. I needn’t have worried. Her hand was soft but her grip would have put many a man to shame. I glanced quickly around, noticing a closed door that must have led to the bedroom. The room was furnished much like the other few I’d been in, a clear grade or two above your cookie-cutter chain hotels, even the upscale ones. I knew the inn had a schtick about putting one extra-fine piece in every room, and I soon picked it out: a Chippendale slant-lid desk that had to be closing in on its three-hundredth birthday.

Thank you for coming, Amanda Milhaus said in her sexy voice, a thin smile creasing her face.

Glad to do it, I said, smiling in return. I knew at a glance that she’d spoken truth when she said she had money. I’m no expert on women’s fashion, but the clothes she wore surely hadn’t come from Target. Nieman-Marcus, maybe, or somewhere even higher up the scale like a boutique specializing in bespoke. Her outfit consisted of a wide-lapel, open-neck blouse in a shade of shimmering bronze, with flared cuffs to match the neckline, over a simple skirt in a deep brown. A gold pendant in an abstract shape hung just below her pale throat, its pointed bottom dipping toward the darker crevice of her deep cleavage. Her long legs were covered in beige silk, her feet encased in heels of deep chocolate leather.

She wasn’t old, either. But I hadn’t been exactly honest when I described her voice that way to Maggie. Sometimes I can be a little slithery when I don’t want to confront something. Amanda Milhaus wouldn’t see the sunny side of fifty again, but no man in his right mind would label her old. She was, in fact, quite striking in a Mediterranean way: Eyes so brown they looked almost black and ebony hair cut short (and most likely colored) by a top-notch stylist.

Please sit, she said, waving her hand vaguely in the direction of a couch and an armchair, giving me the choice. I took the armchair.

We sat there taking measure of each other for several seconds. Then she said, Well. My problem.

Yes?

It’s my husband. He’s missing.

An obvious question came to mind. So I asked it. Have you informed the police?

Oh, no. No, no. That won’t do. Here we go again, I thought.

I decided to shift gears. You seemed to know of me in my previous incarnation. How is that? She answered obliquely, with the hint of a testing smile on her lips. You don’t recognize my name?

The little bell tinkled again, but my memory continued to short circuit. Sorry, I said.

How about the name Prentigen Pharmaceuticals?

Gong! There was a name I’d never forget. It was the very drug company Trubach & Napoleon had helped take public, with a most salubrious effect on the fortunes of both client and agency. The dossier in my mind flew open. Hancock Prentice — who went by the juvenile nickname of Skip — had been the genius behind Prentigen. I’d met him, of course, but I hadn’t been much involved in our work for Prentigen. And now I remembered that his wife, Amanda, had gone by her maiden name of Milhaus as she pursued her profession of fashion design. I’d never actually met her, though, and I would never have come up, unaided, with the name Milhaus.

Of course, I said rather lamely. Then I moved on to my second big question. And how did you happen to come across me in my current business? Abenaki is hardly the crossroads of the world.

She smiled just enough to let me know she recognized my irony. Stumbled across you would be more accurate. When I got to Abenaki, I inquired about private investigators and was told of a firm run by someone named Harley Napoleon. How many Harley Napoleons could there be in the world?

It was a rhetorical question, so she went on without waiting for an answer. And now you want to know why Abenaki, correct? Staying ahead of this woman wouldn’t be a walk in the park.

Um … yeah.

Because this was the last place Skip was seen.

Five

I will never get used to the idea of multi-millionaires — or billionaires — named Skip. Or Biff or Buff. Or Chip (though that, at least, makes some sense if the millions or billions come from the manufacture of those little bits of silicon that make computers run). I’m sorry … Skip just doesn’t roll easily off my tongue when talking about anyone over the age of ten.

`I was a bit nonplussed when Amanda Milhaus said her husband’s last known location was Abenaki. How did he come to be in a place like Abenaki from which to go missing, I wondered. I asked her as much.

Again, she answered a question with a question. Do you know Big Firestone? Now there was a nickname I could reckon with, for it was nothing if not descriptive. Some men of Firestone’s great size might have been nicknamed Tiny … if they happened to be part of Tony Soprano’s mob or a similar milieu. Never would have worked in Firestone’s circle of hard-driving and wealthy business types. Firestone also had a second reason for the nickname: His middle name was Bigelow.

Sure, I said. I know Big Firestone. Actually, he’d personally hired me to run a background check on a woman who’d applied for a sensitive position in the company’s research department. Then, a year or so ago, the Firestone family was much in the news around Abenaki — and farther afield — when Big’s son Lance — actually Lance Bigelow Firestone III — managed to get himself brutally murdered.

She read my mind again. Yes, such a tragedy. After a pause she continued, Big and Skip are great friends. Roomed together at Dartmouth and stayed in touch after. Helped each other out with contacts. You know … the old-school-tie thing.

Actually, I didn’t know, having commuted to Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, on a partial scholarship. Things had been rough in the Napoleon family in those days. Probably explains why rich guys named Skip stick in my craw.

So your husband — no Skip for me, thank you — was visiting Firestone.

Well, not exactly, though he may have stopped to say hello if Big was in town. Big Firestone had, in effect, saved this town many years ago when he brought one of his divisions here and also developed the Abenaki Lakes Club. He had a home here but often was off visiting other parts of his empire, consorting with financial types in New York, giving testimony before Congress, attending the World Economic Forum in Davos, and like that.

So he wasn’t here primarily to see Firestone.

I’m sorry, she said. I’m being circuitous.

No kidding, I thought. But the clock’s running, so take your time.

I only mentioned Big Firestone because that’s how Skip came to Abenaki in the first place. You see, Big used to rave about this place and insisted we come to see it. We came, we liked, we joined the Abenaki Lakes Club and we built a second home here.

I could imagine what that looked like. Probably one of the places up on the ridgeline that could be mistaken for the Trapp Family Lodge. All exposed timbers and native stone and great expanses of glass looking down the valley. Throwing off eye-piercing reflections. This without doubt was one of the places referred to when a less affluent and long-time resident of town, in his cups on a Saturday night, became enraged to the point of yelling, Fucking flatlander bastard!

But you’re not staying there, I noted, just to let her know