Fic: Larger and Smaller Decisions, Chapter 4 (Numb3rs, Charlie / Colby, Don)
Title: Larger and Smaller Decisions, Chapter 4
Pair: Charlie Eppes / Colby Granger,
Don Eppes / Martin Fridegord
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Not mine, etc.
Feedback: Always Welcome
NUMB3RS Main List
Follows: Lost Cause
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Colby could feel someone watching him. He twirled around and spotted Charlie leaning against the partition wall.
“Hey.”
“How long have you been there?”
“Maybe half a minute.”
“Then I’m getting sloppy. All done with the idiot squad?”
“For this week.” Charlie smirked like a mischievous kid. “I was thinking I should borrow some of that coffee you got here and poison them all.”
“No misuse of federal coffee! We need it to keep our men functioning.”
“Federal coffee? You’re a federal agent, can’t you sneak some out?”
“Not to poison people. Outsiders don’t have the stomach or immune system for it.” Colby closed the report he had been writing. “Did you need something or did you just come to visit?”
“I was on my way home, I was just gonna check if you’re getting anywhere with those letters.”
“You couldn’t call?”
“If I had called, I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to hijack you away for dinner.” Charlie grinned. “You’re done for today.”
“Charlie…”
“What?”
“Why are you in such a good mood?” Colby’s imagination took over and he blanched. “You didn’t actually shoot your idiot class, right?”
“No, I didn’t shoot them.”
“Did you strangle them?”
“Despite the temptation, no.”
“You said you’re done with them for a week… You drugged them and they’re now tied up in some little basement at CalSci?”
“No, and what kind of a lunatic do you think I am?”
“You wanted to borrow my gun and shoot them!”
“Shout a little louder, I think there’s one people over there, who didn’t hear that. And I wouldn’t have done that, you said it yourself.”
“Not normally, but when it comes to that group-”
“I found something more effective than shooting or strangling.”
“You hired Ian to get rid of them?”
“I had a little talk with Millie over lunch and she agreed to turn most of the course virtual. I’ll mail them their assignments and we’ll only need to have couple contact lessons. Now I can flunk them with via e-mail and next year that course will be someone else’s problem.”
“What if they end up coming back to you next year?”
“They won’t. I got Millie to promise she won’t assign me mundane courses, so I can focus on more demanding ones. After all, the Sean Connery of the math department can’t be expected to go slumming with the basics that anyone could teach.”
“Sean Connery again?”
“Millie said it, not me. I’m just agreeing with my boss.”
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“Nice place you got here.” Don stated with a courteous smile on his face and took a quick look around the cramped little room. Normally he would have called it a glorified closet, but he didn’t want to aggravate a potential source of information. He pushed aside a stack of papers from the only spare chair and sat down. “Really cosy. Do all journalists get these?”
“It’s an old janitors closet.” Ms. Woods said dryly. “I’ve been working here for thirty-six years, and the first ten I spent in one of those cubicles outside. At least here I can slam a door on peoples face if they try to bother me.”
“We got cubicles too at the bureau, so I know what you mean.”
“Let’s get to the point. Why are you interested in Dejan?”
“She’s a person of interest in a current case.”
“And very conveniently hiding abroad.”
“We’re aware of that.”
“What kind of a case is it that you’re working on?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“But you want me to tell you what I know… All law enforcement people are the same…” Woods chuckled huskily. Her smoky alto seemed to grow even lower. “You people don’t know how the world turns. Give a little and get a little, that’s how it is.”
“I would tell if I could, but-”
“I’ll find out about it anyway. I got my sources in your building.”
“You got a leaker?”
“I got them everywhere.” She grinned and picked up a tick folder from one of the stacks on her desk. “I’ve worked here a long time, I got connections everywhere.”
“Do you mind if I ask-”
“I do mind. I don’t reveal my sources.”
“Even if they leak confidential information?”
“Especially when they leak confidential information. Young people do the legwork in your line of work, but the old guard still holds the reigns. They know when to give and when to ask for something in return.”
“You make the FBI sound like the mafia.”
“There’s a lot of similarities. But you didn’t come here to talk about them.” She opened the folder and pulled out several computer prints. “I asked the girls in the achieves to dig these up for me. It always makes me miss the old days.”
“Your old stories?”
“No, paper. Everything used to be on paper and those girls had to work to find everything, now they just push few buttons on the computer. It’s too easy.”
“It’s faster than the old way.”
“Faster isn’t necessarily better. How much do you know about Fashion Fury?”
The quick switch of the topic made Don pause for a minute. He shrugged and tried to think back.
“The name’s familiar, but that’s all.”
“Well, they’re glory days were in the eighties and early nineties. Clothing manufacturer, they were carried by all the larger chains from coast to coast.”
“Was Dejan involved in it?”
“Not so fast. It was bought by a company in Colorado in the beginning of the nineties and the old executives stayed on for few years. They left in nineteen ninety-eight and the company sold it to West coast investor, who sold it to a department chain located in the East coast. They were loosing their footing in the market, and the value of the company kept falling. It switched hands several times and it was finally bought by…” She paused and waited for Don to finish her sentence.
“Dejan?”
“Her company. She was kicked out of a large firm with a nice settlement. Basically they just wanted to get rid of her, but couldn’t find a clean way to do it, so they bought her out.”
“Why did they want to get rid of her?”
“She was ruthless.” Woods spit out with a crooked smile on her face. “Very good businesswoman, but willing to do anything to get her way. Got the company in trouble with some borderline legal stock trading. She took her settlement and set up her own company. Fashion Fury was very cheap by then and she thought she could bring it back from the brink.”
“Her company went down, so she probably didn’t succeed.”
“It’s more complicated than that. She put all she had into that venture and everything she could get from her investors. Then she made her mistake.”
“Child labour?”
“You’ve heard about that? She tried to cut corners in production costs, got involved with some sweatshops, that used immigrant workers, a lot of them underage.”
“Who blew the whistle?”
“Nobody. There was an accident and the foreman tried to dump the body somewhere else. He got caught and they discovered the sweatshop.”
“Near Silverlake? Old warehouse?”
“You’ve heard about it.”
“Of course…” Don shook his head in disbelief. “We handled the murder investigation, and when the case got larger we had to hand it over to another division. That’s her motive.”
“Excuse me?”
“Nothing. Was Dejan personally involved?”
“No, she was too smart for that. But it was the final blow for Fashion Fury. The story got out the month before they were supposed to launch their first line under the new leadership. None of the larger chains wanted to carry the line and most of their stock was confiscated anyway. They didn’t have merchandise to sell and no place in stores, so they missed one whole season. They were already on thin ice, and that was the final blow.”
“The rag-firm went belly up, and Dejan`s company couldn’t pay back to her investors.”
“Yes, and that was when she decided to draw all funds the company still had and flee the country. Of course she got caught before she got abroad. She was always good at planning, but she couldn’t really improvise. A lot of good planners are like that. When they have to make quick decisions, they panic.”
“And in the end skips bail and hides abroad.” Don added. “She`s a good enough planner to make sure she couldn’t be extradited.”
“I can see you got something in mind.” Woods commented and tilted her head to the side, giving Don a predatory glance. “Anything you’d like to share?”
“Nothing worth writing about. She had harassed FBI personnel connected to the original investigation about the death at the sweatshop.”
“Petty, but understandable. My sources told me she’s not doing too well.”
“Anything else you’ve heard?”
“Last I’ve heard, she works in a department store and hates it all the way. It can be tough to go from a big office to working behind the counter and playing nice to people you wouldn’t have even noticed before.”
“Are you always this philosophical?”
“I had lunch at the press club. Journalists of my generation never have lunch without drinks.” She laughed and handed the folder over to Don. “Do you know why she decided to write some love letters so long after she fled?”
“I got an idea.” Don clutched the folder in his hand. “She saw us in another context and wanted to spew some poison at us.”
“Are you going to tell me what that context was?”
“A fame-hungry mathematician and his deranged groupies.” He got up from his seat and opened the door. The noises from the hallway almost drowned his voice. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go and have a little discussion with my soon-to-be-dearly-departed brother about his fan club.”
Chapter 5