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Brax turned in and they started down a long dirt road. They finally pulled up to a rickety old shack that looked like it had been built before the Civil War.
They parked in front of the house, then Brax knocked on the door. No one answered. Mateo went and peeked through one of the grimy windows, then shook his head.
“Let’s look around back,” Mateo suggested.
Brax nodded.
When they got to the back, they found Roy Jeckel, who looked nothing like the buttoned-up executive that they had seen in his picture. Instead, they found a relaxed man in old jeans and a flannel shirt, sitting on an upside-down milk crate. He was cutting up fish bait, and looked happy as could be.
“Mr. Jeckel?”
“I might be,” he said when he looked up. “Depends on who you are.”
“I’m Chief Petty Officer Braxton Walker, and this is Chief Petty Officer Mateo Aranda. We’re here to ask you a few questions about Jenny Rivers.”
Roy squinted up at them. “Were you two part of the team who rescued her?”
Brax nodded.
“You did good. I never met Jenny, but sometimes she’d be on a conference call with me and some others. Liked her. She had a sparkle. I will tell you that you’ve come to the wrong man if you want to know anything that came down regarding her. I don’t know shit.” The old man shook his head. “It was above my pay grade, but I was expected to spin things to make the company look good. You tell me, how in the hell was I supposed to spin a steaming pile of dogshit into gold?”
“Seems like it was an impossible task to me,” Mateo said.
“Damned right it was. In my opinion, Ronald fucked up.”
“Who’s Ronald?” Brax asked.
“He’s the Chairman of the Board. Was the CEO last year. He got up off the milk box and picked up his fishing rod.
“How did Ronald fuck up?” Brax tried to keep Roy on topic.
“He should have paid the ransom. I know for a fact we had Kidnap and Ransom insurance. That’s how we paid for a team to go in and rescue her. Why Ronald didn’t just pay the ransom is beyond me. The company line was that we weren’t sure who to pay the ransom to, and that’s why it was withheld. You saw how well that went down with the media. Nobody bought that shit. If you want to know the truth, I think he withheld the money on purpose. Can’t prove it. But two of us got multi-million-dollar retirement packages within two weeks of one another. VP of Security and me.”
Brax looked over at Mateo, who nodded at him.
“I have just one more question. Do you know a guy by the name of Edgar Travis?”
“Never heard of him. Who is he?”
“Somebody Jenny worked with in London.”
Roy threw back his head and laughed. “Now isn’t that interesting.”
“What?” Brax asked.
“Not many people know, but Ronald likes to fish even more than I do, only thing is, he does it in the company pond. I heard a rumor that he’d caught something in London.”
“A woman named Fiona?” Mateo asked.
“Nope, he’s not interested in women. But an Edgar might just be up his alley.”
“We hear Edgar was embezzling money in London.”
Roy grinned. “Even better. Ronald would have that over him, and he’d be able to keep him on a short leash forever. Ronald is ruthless. He would kill his own mother to come out on top, and he’d enjoy it. He’d love the idea of having something hanging over Edgar’s head so he’d be at his mercy.”
Roy baited his hook. “Still don’t understand how this might have anything to do with Jenny, unless she was in on the embezzling or she was going to blow the whistle.”
“It’s complicated,” Brax said. “Thank you so much for all of your help. You’ve been great.”
