Todd Manning: Enigma, Ch. 19

Chapter 19

Todd had his chauffeur drop him off at the Banner and walked into the lobby. He was anxious to see her. He had come to rely on her in a way he had never thought possible. He opened the door to her office and stood, watching her. She was in the middle of something with one of her reporters and didn’t notice him. In the past, he would have interrupted, but for now, he just wanted to look at her.

“Okay Gerald, this will work, but make sure we get signed waivers before printing it.” Vicki looked up from the paperwork just as Gerald left her office and saw him standing there.
“Todd?”

“Yep, just me.” He grinned, he always got a kick out of surprising her.

“But when did you get back? How are you?” Vicki walked toward him, wanting to give him a hug but holding herself back.

“I’m fine, maybe a little thinner. A coma kind of puts a crimp in your eating habits. So how’s business?” he sauntered past her and into the room. He picked up a copy of the current story and took a hard look at it.

Vicki grabbed the paper, “The Banner’s doing great.” She wanted to scream, he was so frustrating sometimes.

Todd looked startled, “What’s the matter? Why are you mad?”

Vicki tossed the paper down. “You, your attitude. You almost died and yet you walk in here and act like it didn’t mean anything. Why do you do that? Why won’t you let me worry about you?”

He hadn’t meant to get her upset. She knew how he was.

“Hey, calm down,” he held up his hands in mock surrender. “Look, I’m sorry. I’m glad you care. I need you to care. I’m just not great when it comes to mushy hellos.” He met her eyes. “I came here because I wanted to see you. I missed you, Vicki.”

She shook her head and gave a small laugh, her anger evaporating as quickly as it had appeared. “Oh, Todd” She couldn’t say anymore.

“Can I have a hug?”

“But you hate hugs.” She studied his face to see if he was serious.

“Well, I’d take one now, as long as you keep it between us.”

Vicki acted quickly before Todd changed his mind. What surprised her, even more, was the hug she got back. She held him at arm's length. “Does your being home mean it’s over?”

“I don’t know. The contract on Samuel was withdrawn. So there are no more attempts on my life. I’m not sure it’s over though. There’s trouble concerning The Sun.” He slipped free of her arms and her piercing eyes.

“What kind of trouble?”

“Nothing I can’t handle now that I’m home.” He moved a little bit away from her. “You look good, sis.”

“You’re evading my question. Don’t go off and do something impulsive.”

“Give me a little credit, Vicki. I just found out about it. Even I can’t get into trouble this fast. Stop worrying.”

“That’s what I do, remember?” she smiled lovingly at him.

“Oh yeah, “ he grinned a little sheepishly at her. “Look, I got the word down in Savannah from the managing editor. There’s been a rash of foul-ups and small catastrophes that have hit the paper in the last couple of weeks. One whole issue was printed backward and shipped before it was spotted. Three separate incidences of shipments of issues arriving at the outlets late. It’s like someone has pulled strings to make The Sun look bad.”

“It’s been in a bit of a flux with Jake dying. There were bound to be a few problems with no one at the helm.”

“Damn, how could Kelly just go off and leave like that.”

“Todd that’s unfair, she wanted to go home to her son. You know what it’s like to be separated from your children.”

“I didn’t have a choice, Vicki. Kelly’s been away from her son all this time and now all of a sudden she’s feeling motherly.”

“Todd, enough! Kelly just found her way back with Joey and she wanted to reconnect with her son, too. You’ll manage without her. You and Blair were a good team once before, you can do it again.”

“Alright, I’m sorry. I’m not sure if I want Blair involved. These complications at the Sun are just too convenient.” His cell phone went off suddenly and Todd answered. “How bad? I’ll be right there.”

“What is it, Todd?”

“There’s been an accident and injury. Something to do with the press. I’ve got to go.”

“By all means, you should go. Todd, I’m glad you’re home.”

He took the moment to kiss her cheek before rushing out.

Vicki touched her cheek, that little gesture by Todd always moved her. She walked to the window and looked over at the Manning building. Todd was right. This accident on top of everything else wasn’t a coincidence. Someone was definitely causing trouble.

…

Todd walked into the building noting the ambulance already in place at the curb. There was a large crowd of onlookers by the printing press. “Everyone clear out. Give these guys some room.”

The group looked to see who had just spoken and amid murmurs, they hurriedly left.

Todd joined the EMTs as they worked on his employee. Todd recognized the man as one of few people who had been employed by him when he started The Sun. “How is he?”

“He’s alive, sir.”

“Good.” Todd noticed the man awakening. “Is he out of danger? I need to talk to him for just a moment.” Someone had started playing for keeps and this poor guy had gotten caught in the middle.

“Give me one minute.” He moved closer to the man and read his name tag. “Phil, take it easy. Do you remember anything?”

“Do I know you?” Phil asked groggily.

“You tell me?”

The face above him came into focus and Phil recognized a man he had known from long ago. "Mr. Manning? Is it really you?”

“The one and only, Phil. They’re going to be taking you to the hospital, but I need to know what happened?”

“All I remember was turning the machine on like always, then nothing.”

Todd nodded. “Okay, We’ll figure it out. You just recover.” He looked at the EMTs. “You should probably go now.” He backed up and got out of the way as they wheeled Phil out the door. Todd wandered over to the press. The switch was charred where Phil’s hand had been in contact with it. Suddenly there was a spark and Todd caught a whiff of smoke. He saw some sort of vapor rising from behind the switch. He placed his hand on the wall thinking to get a closer look at the mechanism but quickly pulled it back away again. The wall behind the switch was hot to the touch. Great, a fire. If he didn’t get it stopped quickly, it would probably make it impossible to find the sabotage. He walked to the fire alarm and pulled it, then went in search of an extinguisher. Employees were streaming from the building when the firemen arrived. They found Todd standing with an extinguisher in hand, spraying down the switch.

“Sir you need to leave. We’ll take it from here.”

“I can’t leave, I need to know if the switch was tampered with.”

“That’s our job sir, you need to go.” Just then smoke billowed from the ceiling tiles above and Todd found himself being escorted from his building.

He stood out on the street and thought back to the day he had bought the building from Asa. The old coot had gotten a handsome amount for the Omega building, but it had been worth it to Todd. That day Blair had been happy. Now someone wanted to take that away. Deep inside, he felt a cold anger building and this time he didn’t try to stop it. Whoever was behind this had gone from dirty tricks to endangering lives. Okay, you want a fight, you‘ve got it.

Now you’re talking Todd, but you know who’s behind this as well as I do. This is Daimler’s handiwork.

The Monster was right. Daimler had made his first move. I’ll handle this.

You’re kidding yourself, you need me.

I said I’ll handle it.

  The voice went silent, but the cold rage remained. Todd came out of his reverie, just in time to see the Fire Marshal headed towards him.

“We got it put out before it got out of control inside the walls and ceiling, one of my men said you were concerned about sabotage. You were right. The switch that started all this, was definitely tampered with. It appears this was a deliberate act. We found evidence that someone stripped the wires and rerouted them to the “on” position. Whoever pushed that switch would receive a dangerous shock. Your quick thinking with the extinguisher kept that wiring from being damaged by the fire.”

“Thank you, I think. Is it okay to return inside? I’d like to see the inside of that switch.”

“ I believe you should wait for the police. My men still need to do a thorough run-through of the entire building to make sure there aren’t any hidden fires we don’t know about. There’s still a lot of smoke in the building.”

Todd was deep in thought and waiting on John to make an appearance when he felt a hand on his elbow and looked into the concerned eyes of his sister.

“My God, Todd, what happened?”

“Isn’t it obvious, the joker has upped the game from pranks to attempted murder. A guy who’s worked for the paper since I built it was almost killed today. It was odd Vicki, I saw him laying on the gurney and knew him. The years seemed to drop away for a moment. That guy was hurt because someone is out to get me, only this time he’s using my paper.”

“Todd, talk to the police. Promise me you won’t try and handle this yourself.”

“I can’t make that promise Vicki. Here comes John, you should go. I’m afraid you’ll be in the line of fire next and I don’t want that.” He put his hand over hers. “Go home.”

He watched as she left, looking around trying to see if anyone was showing any interest in her. He relaxed a little seeing everyone’s attention was still on the building.

John raised an eyebrow as he approached Todd. “When did you arrive back?”

“Yesterday. As you can see, someone knew about it, too.“

“How do you figure that?”

“Everything was fine here yesterday. This was just done last night. It was a welcome home to me.”

John took a minute to talk to the fire marshal and then he and Todd entered the building.
Todd was disgusted. The printing room was a disaster. No paper would be going out today. His only hope would be if Vicki allowed him to use the Banner’s Presses. He and John made their way over to the wall and switch where it had all started.

“This looks like the place,” John remarked facetiously

“You’re a riot, John.”

John picked his way past the remains of the wall until he could get an up-close look at the switch. He noted the scorch marks on the inside of the box. “I’m guessing this is where your employee was shocked”

“Good guess. There were also marks on the outside of the wall but those are now destroyed. The EMTs had just removed Phil when I came to look at the switch. I smelled smoke and saw the sparks, that‘s when I pulled the alarm. Whoever did this could have hurt a lot more people if I hadn’t stopped to take a closer look.”

“So I’m guessing you have someone in mind for this, Todd”

“I’m leaning toward someone, but I've got nothing concrete to go on right now.”

“Would you care to share?”

“Not yet John. I just don’t have enough information.”

John had an inkling who Todd had in mind but he didn’t want to push. There was the matter of the sabotage and injured employee to work on now. He called Natalie and told her to bring down the forensic team, they might be able to secure some fingerprints from inside the switch box and wiring. It would give them a starting place. “Natalie will be here soon. How did you find out about it?”

“I got the call from the managing editor while I was at the Banner. I came right over and the rest you know.”

“Can I speak to this editor?”

“I guess. I'll get him here.”

Todd knew the guy but not well, he had been hired by Jake. Still, he was able to point him out to John, when the guy walked through the doors. “Len, it is Len, right? Could you give the lieutenant and me the short version of what took place here when Phil got hurt?”

“Well, it’s just like I told you on the phone, Mr. Manning, they were getting ready to run the front page, when the copy editor noticed a glitch in the main article and called me down to double-check it before we printed. I gave the okay to the change needed and Molly, that’s the copy editor, reset the page. She gave Phil permission to run the page and then all hell broke loose.”

“What do you mean?” asked John.

“Well Lieutenant, Phil reached for the switch and all of a sudden he was jerking and unable to let go. The lights in the room dimmed and one of the copy boys had the presence of mind to tackle Phil breaking the link. Some of the guys went to work trying to revive Phil, Molly called 911, and I called Mr. Manning”

“I see and all of this stuff worked just fine yesterday?"

“Yes, sir. Mr. Manning, what do we do now?”

“Are there any employees still here?“

“Everybody but the printing room staff is still here.”

Todd made a quick call. “Thanks, Sis, I’ll owe you one.” he hung up and looked at Len. “Okay, the Banner is allowing us the use of their printing facility, paper, and ink for today’s run. Get the staff and get over there. We can still get a paper out. Get moving Len."

Len knew from his voice that Manning was serious. He hadn’t worked for this Manning but he had heard stories. If he still wanted to have a job he needed to get this paper out. “I’m on it, Sir.”

Todd looked at John, “I’d like to be kept informed if Natalie finds anything. Not that I think you’ll get anything, but everyone makes mistakes. I ought to know. I’ve made my share over the years. I’ll be at The Banner.“

John watched Todd leave, knowing one mistake Todd wished he could take back. He had made an enemy of one man he might not be able to beat.