by J. D. Robb
No criminal, but a shitload of traffic violations, she noted. And, hmmm, the second kid had some juvie knocks. Shoplifting, illegal possession, underage drinking, vandalism. A long stint in rehab. Private rehab. Pricy.
His wife had recently given up her professional parent stipend to go back to work as a paralegal.
While finances balanced, as far as she could tell, money had to be tight. How did it feel, poring over all those accounts loaded with cash, stocks, trusts, whatever, while you had to work and calculate just to make the mortgage?
Interesting.
Chaz Parzarri, age thirty-nine, single, no offspring. He had the kind of dark, sulky looks some women went for. Chiseled bone structure, a lot of wild curls. He didn’t, to her mind, look like an accountant. But he, too, had the advanced degree and the government experience—was all that required?
She glanced up, over to Roarke, wondered if he knew, but didn’t think it was important enough for the interruption.
His education advanced largely on scholarships—Chaz was a bright boy, she mused. Born in New Jersey to a waitress and a cab driver, with three siblings. Tight money again, at least in his background.
He’d turned that around, steady work, smart investments—she assumed—and had himself a condo on the Upper East Side only blocks from work.
No criminal. Traffic knocks, too, but not in Jim Arnold’s league. Mostly speeding.
Some people were always in a hurry. Maybe Chaz was in a hurry to get rich.
She put them aside to let them stew and read Peabody’s report on her interview with Jasper Milk, then Carmichael’s on her and Santiago’s interview with the interior designer.
Still letting it stew, she got up, programmed coffee, and came out to set a mug on the desk for Roarke.
“Thanks.” He leaned back to look up at her. “What’s the cost?”
“A couple of answers and/or opinions.”
“I can afford that.”
“Are you getting anywhere?”
“Of course.” He smiled, picked up the coffee. “Let me tell you up front, this is unlikely to be a snap. Two of these are big companies with subsidiaries, charitable foundations, payrolls, expenses, depreciations, and so on. I’ll need a basic overview on all of them. Don’t expect I’ll find a handy column marked Monies I’ve Embezzled or Misappropriated or That Were Never There in the First Place.”
“What does that last one mean?”
“That sometimes companies or people within them fudge in the opposite direction to mollify stockholders, potential clients, or investors and their BODs—and hope to make up those numbers. It’s . . . optimistic cheating,” he decided. “And usually flawed.”
“Okay.”
“I’ve one audit here due to a potential merger, another due to bylaws, another by court order. It appears your victim had done the same as I’m doing here. She got a feel for them first. She has some questions noted, on all three of these. Nothing major, but she hadn’t worked on them very long.”
“Is your opinion she didn’t—at least at the time of her death—know anything particularly damaging?”
“I can’t say absolutely, but I think that’s probably accurate.”
“Okay. I’ve got a handful of suspects. Let me run one by you. This guy owns his own company, a generational deal. About a dozen years ago, things got very, very thin. He held out, but barely. Had to take out loans, sell off some assets. He took a lot of smaller jobs, and sometimes lost money on them.”
“Keeping his hand in. Employees?”
“Yeah. They’d built up to about fifty, and in the thin went down to about twenty. I’m no business expert, but it looks like he’d have been smarter cutting that by half. He wouldn’t have had payroll eating up the profit so he lost money on some of those jobs.”
“He kept as many of his people as he could working. It may not be sound business in the short-term, but it is in the long. You know who’s working for you, they know they can count on you.”
“All right, I can get that. He’s got thirty-two employees now, and some of them are from before the thin, ones he had to let go.”
“Loyalty? He’d done well for them while he could, brought them back in when work picked up.”
“Maybe.”
“Is the company private or public? Are there stockholders?” he asked.
“No, it’s his deal. His family’s deal. The construction guy.”
“Ah. About a dozen years ago things were thin in that area. In real estate, in housing. The bubble burst.”
“What bubble?”
“The housing bubble. And not the first time. People lost their homes, and when that happens people who service homes and buildings, who rehab them, repair them, build them don’t have the work. It’s a hard time for many, and for those willing to take the risk, an opportunity.”
“For what?”
“For taking some risks and reaping rewards—long-term. I acquired a lot of real estate during the thin. You don’t think this man killed your victim.”
“No, at least I’m not sold on the idea. But like you said he or one of the crew could’ve been paid to pass on the code.”
“You don’t like that one either, less now that you’ve looked into this man more thoroughly.”
“No, I don’t like it. Not enough time, as far as I can see, to find the right person, offer the right incentive. Unless they were already involved, and I can’t see that connection.”
She edged her hip on the corner of the desk as she sampled her own coffee. “I get the same, basically, from the interior designer. Good rep, up front with the cops I set on her, what appears to be a good relationship with the construction guy, and with the clients—the partners.”
“Then even if you don’t—or can’t—absolutely eliminate them, they’re well down the list.”
“Yeah, unless inadvertently they passed the codes.” She shifted around to look at her board. “That leaves me, so far, with the three partners and the accountants whose work the vic took over. Or one of the others in the accounting firm, but from what you just told me, that doesn’t hit the mark.”
“They’d have known she had nothing to speak of, and there was no reason to kill her. Arrange to mug her and take the briefcase, the handbag in case she took files home. Then, if they had access to the offices as employees, it’s not that difficult to access a locked office after hours, corrupt files on her comp. Easier, cleaner than murder.”
“That’s my take. That leaves me with the partners, clients who cross, and the two accountants in Vegas. One couldn’t talk to her as he was in a coma, and the other could only speak to her in a limited way. Too much curiosity, and it looks off. Plus he’s pretty banged up.”
“Hard for either of them to order the hit.”
“Yeah. I can’t quite see some accountant calling in a hit from his hospital room in Vegas. The hit came from somewhere else, but if it came due to the files, one or both are in this. They’re too good at what they do not to have seen something off.”
“Have you looked at their financials?”
“Yeah, and one of them lives close financially. Two marriages, three kids, one with a hefty college tuition, another who’s been in some trouble and did a stint in expensive private rehab.”
She pointed to her board and Arnold’s photo.
“He’s got a house in Queens and three vehicles he’s paying for. To want something you have to know about it, see it, imagine it—and if you see it a lot, deal with it a lot, and it’s always someone else’s?”
“You want it more, or some do. I did.”
“Yeah. On the surface, he looks like an average guy, but that’s surface. The other’s single, came from blue-collar, hard-scrabble, studied. Got a good ride on scholarships.”
Again she gestured, zeroing in on Parzarri.
“He�
�s made money with his money, which you ought to be able to do when you know money, I guess. He’s not swimming in it like a money pond, but he’s solid. Scholarship kid, going to good schools, really good schools and coming home to a tough neighborhood in Jersey. You see how the other half lives, and that can be rough. You’re the one who’s there because you’re smart, not because you’ve got money. You don’t have the nice clothes, you take the bus instead of driving the car Daddy bought you. It can piss you off.”
“So you’ll make sure you’ll eventually be the one with money, with the nice clothes and the fancy car?”
“Maybe. They look clean, but . . .” She tapped her computer. “There’s something there.”
“But no pressure.”
She laughed, shook her head. “You’ll find it. But meanwhile, I need some input. You’re the expert.”
“On greed and avarice?”
“On how the greedy and avaricious work. If there’s something in there, and there damn well has to be, would the accountant in charge of the account know, or am I just assuming and suspicious?”
“You’re suspicious, but yes, almost certainly the accountant in charge would know. There’s some wiggle room there if the person—if it isn’t indeed the accountant skimming, cooking or finagling on his own—who’s finessed the numbers managed to do so without having it show. A thorough audit’s bound to turn over some of those rocks.”
“So the person doing the audit would know, or find what’s under them.”
“In a firm like Brewer? You could count on it.”
“Would the financial guy—the money managers, brokers, whatever term you use for WIN—would he know?”
“Again, there’s that wiggle room, particularly if the client and the accountant worked it together. But to make more? To keep it smooth, and actually simpler? You’d want the money manager in the pocket as well.”
“At least three people,” she considered. “Simpler maybe, but it gets sticky. The more people who know, the easier for something to slip.”
“Didn’t it?” he returned. “Someone’s dead.”
“Yeah.” She looked back toward the board. “Someone is.”
“It’s business,” he continued. “As you said about the murder itself. Not personal, just business. Cheating, stealing, shifting funds, kickbacks, payoffs, burying profits—whatever it might be—it’s business. To do business, and do it well, to do it profitably, you need advisers, managers, workers. And, to keep it smooth, again simple, you’d want those people to have a foot in each door—the legal business, and the criminal.”
“Yeah, okay, that’s how I was leaning. I thought about Oberon, how she ran her department, all those cops—and used her handpicked to run her dirty cop sideline. You need some in each camp, to keep the legit business going, and to use that legit business for the dirty one.”
She considered it as she finished her coffee. “And if it runs like that, if that’s a good comparison, the money guy, the accountant, they’re not in charge—they’re tools. The one in charge,” she tapped her computer again, “is in there.”
“But no pressure,” Roarke repeated.
“You eat pressure for breakfast, ace.”
“Some days a man just wants a full Irish.”
“Me? I get that every day.” She rose, walked back to the board. “He—or she—or them. Not up here yet. Not yet. But the tools are. I just need to figure out which ones up here do the cooking.”
She went back to her auxiliary, and back to work.
• • •
He saw the moment she started to flag, how she rubbed at her eyes, scrubbed at her hair, as if it would keep her awake and alert.
He thought he could manage another hour or so. It was all so bloody interesting, how others set up their businesses, their books, their investments. He’d find what she needed, nothing else would do the way she’d put her faith in him. Challenged him, of course, very purposefully, he knew. Put his ego and his competitive spirit on the line.
He wouldn’t have it, or her, otherwise.
But he wouldn’t find it tonight. He’d found some potential questions, but as he wasn’t a shagging accountant, he’d have to check some tax codes.
Tomorrow.
For now, he rose, walked over, pulled her to her feet.
“I’m just—”
“Going to bed. With the exception of your short nap, you’ve been up and doing nearly twenty-four hours. And so have I. We both need some sleep.”
“Did you get anywhere?”
“I need to check some codes tomorrow, and I want to start a separate search for secondary, unreported accounts. That would be fun.”
“Anybody stand out?”
“Not as yet. And for you?”
She shook her head as she fought to stay upright on the way to the bedroom. “The accountants haven’t been cleared, medically, for travel. Parzarri’s had some BP spikes, and some other medical crap I don’t quite get. But they’re both stable, just not cleared for travel for another couple days. I want face-to-face.”
“We can go to Vegas. Sweat accountants and gamble.”
“I don’t have enough to sweat them. Yet.” But boy, she’d enjoy making them sweat. “If I made the trip, whoever’s in charge would know or suspect I know, and I want him thinking he’s clear.”
In the bedroom she undressed, dragged herself to the bed. And realized as soon as she hit the sheets, he was right. She needed some sleep.
Dreamless, she hoped, though the last hadn’t been bad, hadn’t been a nightmare. Those were fading again. But it was still death and dying and murder. And mothers, she mused, trying to turn it off as Roarke slid in beside her, drew her in.
But it nagged.
Who was right? Was she right claiming Marta had thought of her kids, of her family, when terrified, when hurt? Or was Stella right, and she’d only been able to think of herself and survival?
It didn’t matter, and the answer couldn’t be known.
Put it away, she ordered herself.
Then it came so clear. She’d missed it, too wrapped up in the rest of the investigation.
“She thought of them.”
“Hmm?”
“Marta—the vic. She thought of her kids, her husband, when they had her. She thought of them because she didn’t tell them everything. I figured she’d told them everything, but she didn’t. She didn’t tell them she’d copied the files to her home unit. They hurt her, they scared her, they threatened her and in the end they killed her. But she protected her family.”
“What she loved most,” he said and brushed his lips over her hair. “Sleep now. Rest that brain.”
For reasons she couldn’t understand, knowing she’d been right, the mother had protected the children, she closed her eyes and slipped into a deep, dreamless sleep.
SHE WOKE TO THE SCENT OF COFFEE AND A quietly simmering fire—and to Roarke in one of his slick dark suits monitoring the stock reports from the sofa of the sitting area.
She considered it an excellent way to start the day. Or it would be as soon as she had that coffee and cleared the fog from her brain.
She rolled out, shuffled over, and poured a large mug from the pot Roarke had on the table.
“You look rested, Lieutenant.”
“Feel that way. Mostly.” She gulped coffee on her way to the bathroom.
When she came out, wrapped in a robe she suspected was cashmere, bowls of berries, rashers of bacon, and plates of French toast sat on the coffee table. Grateful he hadn’t decided, as he often did, she needed oatmeal, she dropped down beside him.
“Nice.”
“I thought we both deserved a bit of a treat.” Roarke lifted his eyebrows when she broke off a piece of bacon and offered it to the cat who sat staring holes through her.
“For him, this is makeup sex
. That’s all you get,” she said when Galahad inhaled the bacon then affectionately butted his head against her calf.
“Just FYI, if you let another man rub up against you, and I sniff it out, you won’t be able to buy me off with bacon.” He handed her the syrup pitcher so she could drown her French toast.
“So noted. What’s on your slate today?”
Once again, Roarke lifted his eyebrows.
“What? I can’t have an interest in how you bring home the bacon?” She bit into a piece, smiled. “And okay, I’m trying to get a feel for what these guys do on any given day. The money guys, the guys with the money. I’m going to have to look at the big shots in the companies the vic was auditing. You’re the biggest shot around, so . . .”
Saying nothing, Roarke took out his appointment book, keyed in the day, handed it to her.
“Seriously?” She shook her head as she ran through his day. “You’ve already had a holo-conference with these dudes in Hong Kong, and talked to this other guy in Sydney?”
“And fed the cat, that’s not in there.”
“Ha. Later this morning two more ’link conferences and an R&D meeting on something called Sentech.”
“Would you like me to explain Sentech?”
“No. I really don’t. Later, another holo about the Olympus Resort. How’s Darcia doing?” referring to Roarke’s police and security head on Olympus.
“Very well.”
“You know I hear Webster’s gone up there twice since she was here, and they . . .”
“Developed a relationship?” Roarke suggested.
“Yeah. Weird. Anyway, then you’ve got this lunch deal with these other dudes, a note to ’link up for this auction thing. What are you buying?”
“You’ll find out, won’t you, once I do.”
“Hmm. More meetings, more conferences, more ’link shit. I’m getting a headache just looking at this.”
She forked up some French toast, cleared her head. “You could assign people to do half this stuff. Probably more than half.”
“And often do.”
“So you’re up before dawn doing business, and you come in here and check this out.” She gestured toward the reports scrolling on the screen. “You’re looking at what your stocks are doing—your companies, your investments, and your competitors.”
