Chapter 3 – The Message
After the
excitement of seeing letters begin to appear on the now slightly browned piece
of paper, Fred felt a little bit of a letdown. That was it? Just the word “CALL”
and a phone number? He recognized the area code as being one that had been
introduced lately – one of those overlay codes that they’d been releasing in
order to handle the increased number of cell phones that were proliferating. He
turned the page over to see if there were further messages but did not find
any.
Disappointed,
he nearly forgot to turn off the now glowing hot plate just a few inches below
his hand. Now doing so, he made a mental note to replace the coffee pot once the
hot plate was cool enough. Then, getting back into detective mode, he carefully
copied the phone number onto a scrap of paper as he knew the original paper
would be a bit fragile from the browning action it had been subject to.
He wondered
how long the piece of paper had been on the floor. He knew it hadn’t been there
when he left the office on Friday afternoon. Although he normally worked until
5:00, he had left around 4:30 that day in order to stop by the grocery store on
his way home. His food supplies had gotten a bit low, and he also needed to
stock up on cans of his favorite diet Pepsi.
The building
was generally open from 7:00 am until 10:30 pm each day. While the busiest occupant,
O'Brien's Office Services, was a typical 8-5 business, there were other
offices in the building that had different hours – especially the Christian
Counseling Center at the far end of the second floor who tended to see their
clients in the evenings and weekends. None of the other offices on his floor
were open much after 6 pm M-F. But the stairwell was not locked and there was
only the guard who made periodic passes at night. The tenants had approached
the building owner last year about installing security cameras, but since no offices
had been broken into yet, the owner felt such an expense was not justified.
It was now
about 9:20 – time for Fred to call the number on that piece of paper. He pulled
out his flip phone and punched in the digits. After only one ring, the person
on the other end picked up. It was a female voice.
“McCloud’s Answering Service, how may I help you?”
“This is
Fred Forchelli, do you have a message for me?”
“Let me check … Yes, Mr. Forchelli, can you verify your full
legal name and date of birth?”
Fred quickly
responded.
“Thank you, Mr. Forchelli. Here is the message I have for
you. ‘Please meet a courier at the Prudential Tower on the corner of Front
Street and Third Avenue at 11:00 am today.’ The message also has underlined, ‘Do
not be late.’ Do you need me to repeat the message?”
“Prudential
Tower, 11 am. Correct?”
“Yes, Mr. Forchelli. Thank you for using McCloud’s Answering
Service”
Hearing the
click of the woman hanging up, Fred added to the piece of paper where he had
written down the address, “Do not be late!” and underlined it.
It was then
that Fred realized that he should have asked if the operator had any other
information about the person who had left the message for him. He picked up his
phone and quickly dialed the number again. But instead of the friendly voice of
the operator, this time it rang three times before he heard the computerized
voice say, “I’m sorry, the number you have dialed is not in service, please
dial again.”
Annoyed with
himself for misdialing, Fred dialed again, this time looking at the screen to
ensure that he did not make any mistakes. But once again, he heard that same
computerized voice. Putting down the phone, Fred stared at it. What was going
on? How could a phone number be discontinued so quickly?
Although he knew
that they charged for the service, Fred decided to call directory assistance.
He could have looked it up on his laptop, but that was still packed in his
briefcase. So, he punched in 4-1-1 and asked for the number of McCloud’s
Answering Service. The response he got from the operator just added to his
confusion when he was informed that they had no record of a business by that
name. He gave a dazed, “Thanks anyway,” and much more slowly this time, folded
up his phone and returned it to his pocket.
The
Prudential Tower was only a short 15-minute walk from Fred’s office, so that
meant that he had over an hour before he needed to leave. But he didn’t want to
get started on any of the other things on his agenda so that he would not get
distracted and miss his “Don’t be late” appointment. Still puzzled and shaking
his head, Fred decided to do a little straightening of his office.
Shortly
after 10:30, Fred stopped and looked around his office. He’d filed all the
manila folders in his desk file drawer or in the bookcase – with the exception
of the active cases he was still working on. He’d even cleared the ones from
the visitor’s chair. The coffee pot was back on the now cooled hot plate. He’d
also gotten all his pencils sharpened and they were neatly standing in the
pencil holder on his desk. Maybe, he thought, I should do this more often. Looking
at the top folder on his desk, which now held the piece of paper that he had
found on the floor as well as his note from the answering service call, Fred
realized that he needed to put something on the tab of the folder to make it
identifiable. Not yet having a client or even knowing what this was about, he
simply wrote “The Mystery” on the tab and then placed it back on the pile.
But now it
was time to make the short walk down to the Prudential Tower. He picked up his
briefcase, took one last admiring look at his newly cleaned office, then closed
and locked the door before striding down the hall toward the stairwell.
Arriving at
the appointed place, Fred checked his watch. It was now 10:53. The courier had
not yet arrived, so Fred leaned against the building and watched the people
going by. He wondered if any of them were part of this mysterious case that he
was involved in – but not knowing what it was about he didn’t even know what he
should look for. Two minutes later, at precisely 10:55, Fred observed a courier
coming toward him. He’d used this courier service himself, so the color-matched
hat and jacket with the sewn-on badge were quite familiar to him. He didn’t
recognize this particular courier, but that was expected as the company
employed a lot of students from the local colleges so one seldom saw the same
courier twice.
Stepping
forward, Fred approached the courier and said, “I’m Fred Forchelli, do you have
something for me?” The courier reached in his company-logoed satchel, pulled
out a large manila envelope, and handed it to Fred. Not to be thwarted this
time, Fred took the opportunity to ask the courier the questions he had wanted
to ask the answering service earlier that morning.
“Do you know
anything about the person sending this?” Fred queried. “I’m sorry, but I don’t,”
the young man replied. “It was in the bin of items to be delivered when I got
to work. I grabbed it because the instructions clipped to it said that it was
to be hand delivered between 10:55 and 11:05 and that if it was not picked up
by 11:05 it should be given back to my supervisor and be destroyed. But it also
said that the courier would receive at $50 bonus if the directions were followed
exactly. And I could certainly use that extra $50!” Thanking the young man,
Fred watched him walk off.
Fred was anxious
to see what was in the manila envelope that he now held in his left hand. But
somehow, going back to the office didn’t seem the right thing to do. There was
a small café in the building next door to the Prudential Tower that was pretty
deserted as it was not yet time for the weekday lunch crowd. Fred went in,
found a corner table away from the few other diners, and ordered a diet Pepsi
from the friendly waitress. Once she had delivered it and moved away to one of
the other tables, Fred held up the envelope and examined it closely.
The 9”x12”
envelope had the same “Fred Forchelli, Esq.” in the same flowing script as the
message that he had found under his door a few hours earlier. His name also
appeared on the courier company label that partially obscured that script – but
of course the courier label was written in block letters to conform to the character-sized
spaces on the label. There were no other markings on the envelope.
Fred
carefully peeled back the sealed end of the envelope and extracted the
contents. There were several 8.5x11 pages held together with a paperclip. He began
reading.
No comments:
Post a Comment