Uncharted Waters

by Rosemary McCracken

  So Lukas was at Optimum from three until 6 p.m.

  “It must’ve been quite the showdown,” I said.

  The static died down. “You could say that. Lily Ambrose, the client, is an elderly woman who had given Lukas money for the down payment on her new condo. As you know, that money should have been deposited in a trust account. Lukas could have faced criminal charges for misappropriating client funds.”

  “But he didn’t.”

  “We caught it in time. The order didn’t go through, thank God. I wanted to fire Lukas, but our operations VP was a friend of his father.” He sucked in a breath. “I’m glad to be rid of Lukas.”

  Lukas Monaghan was a liar and an all-around nasty piece of work. But he hadn’t killed his father.

  ***

  I didn’t sleep well again that night. I might have put a stop to Lukas’s lies, but Lukas could find some other way to get back at me. And Dean and Riza’s killer was still out there. I was certain the business I had bought was tied to their murders. The identity of the killer—or killers—and the motive for the murders had to be cleared up, or I’d have a black cloud hanging over my business.

  The one thing I could now be certain about was that Lukas had not killed his father.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  I called Ilona first thing the next morning and told her about our meeting with Lukas on Saturday. I spun it as a caper that I’d masterminded.

  “I’ve drafted a cease-and-desist letter,” Ilona said when she’d stopped laughing. “I’ll e-mail it to you. Let me know what you think.”

  “Will a letter stop the Monaghans from stealing my clients?”

  “Pat, you will be standing so far above your competition that your clients wouldn’t dream of leaving you. Have you given any thought to the party?”

  I sighed. Parties were the last thing I wanted to think about. “I was busy this weekend.”

  She was instantly curious. “What did you do?”

  I was happy to report that I’d spent Sunday with Ben Cordova in Blairhampton. I knew that would distract her from client-appreciation parties.

  “Ben Cordova, eh? When will I meet this man?” She paused, clearly waiting for me to name a time and place.

  I didn’t.

  “Well, now that the weekend is over,” she said, “give your client event some serious thought. Remember, you need to spend money in order to make it.”

  ***

  Sam set a mug of coffee on my desk and placed a plastic container of butter tarts beside it. “Mom made these. They’re addictive.”

  I helped myself to one. It was yummy, with plenty of raisins and a gooey texture. “How did the family dinner go?” I asked between bites.

  “Gabe didn’t show, so it was just the four of us. We avoided the land mines, so it was a pretty good evening.”

  “What are your sister and her husband up to these days?” I asked.

  “Becca didn’t say what Gabe is doing. Which means he’s not working, at least not legitimately. But she’s selling houses.” Sam grinned. “Upper-end residential real estate. Mom and Dad think that’s pretty cool.”

  So it was Becca’s listing that I’d passed on Parkside Drive a few days earlier.

  The door phone buzzed. “Tierney Financial,” I said.

  “Hardy here.”

  In no time at all, Detective Hardy was seated across from me, biting into a butter tart. Sam brought him a mug of coffee.

  He wiped his mouth with a tissue. “We found a car that Santos may have been using at the Newmarket GO station. It’s registered under another woman’s name at an address outside Cannington. The people who live there have never heard of Santos, or the woman named on the registration.”

  Newmarket, a town just north of Toronto; Cannington, a 40-minute drive northeast of Newmarket. Riza had been living in the hinterlands. She’d driven to Newmarket and taken a train from there to Toronto. Easier than battling traffic into the city.

  “And we spoke to the niece.”

  “Mindy didn’t know that her aunt…?”

  “No, she was pretty upset.”

  “I’m sure she was,” I said.

  “She said she’d met Dean once. She was looking for help with her finances.”

  “I showed you her appointment in Sam’s office planner. They met on September 5.”

  “Santos asked you to work with her niece.”

  “The day before she was murdered, Riza asked me to work with Mindy. She may not have had time to discuss it with her.”

  Hardy looked wistfully at the butter tarts. I moved the box closer to him, but he shook his head.

  “Dean, who may have become Mindy’s financial advisor, and Mindy’s aunt were murdered a week apart,” I said. “Mindy seems to be a link between the two murders.”

  It was too much of a coincidence that Riza had referred her niece to Dean. There must have been another reason, one she may not have confided to Mindy. I figured that, if I could talk to Mindy, I might be able to find out what it was. But I knew better than to suggest that to Hardy.

  He dug into his jacket pocket and handed me an envelope holding a single flash drive. “The last of the e-mails from Monaghan’s computer. These were in a password-secured folder. Our computer guys cracked the password last night.”

  “What was the password?”

  “Katarzyna.” He spelled it out.

  “Catherine Monaghan’s mother calls her Katarzyna,” I said. “It must be Polish or Czech for Catherine.”

  “Take a look at the e-mails. See if anything strikes you about them.”

  Dean had protected these e-mails with a password, so there had to be something special about them. I plugged the flash drive into my computer.

  More correspondence with Gabe Quincy. I’d gone through a dozen or so messages when several words jumped out at me.

  Home-equity loans, Gabe had written.

  No way! Dean had replied.

  “Take a look at this,” I said.

  Hardy brought his chair behind my desk.

  “A home-equity loan is a way of borrowing against the value of your home,” I told him.

  “What do you make of that?”

  “They may have been discussing a home-equity scam. Setting up lines of credit in homeowners’ names, then draining the equity in their property.”

  “Our financial-crimes unit will look into it,” he said. “By the way, we’ll need to hang on to Monaghan’s computers a bit longer.”

  “We have brand new computers here. We don’t need anything from Dean’s office.” I held up the flash drive. “Only data like this.”

  As soon as he’d gone, I entered Mindy’s phone number on Canada411’s reverse telephone lookup. I was given an address in Etobicoke, one of Toronto’s western suburbs. I was about to punch the number into my phone, then decided to drop in on her instead. Take her by surprise.

  I had a client arriving at 10:30, and a luncheon at noon. My afternoon, however, was clear, thanks to the two clients who had canceled without a reason. I decided I’d go home after the luncheon to get my car.

  While I waited for my 10:30 client, I called up Rebecca Quincy’s property listings. With a start, I recognized the address of one of the homes she was selling. It can’t be. Surely not. But that’s the neighborhood… I made a printout of the listing and slipped it into my briefcase.

  The door phone sounded, and I heard Sam buzz in my client. Then the telephone rang on my desk. I answered it.

  “Pat, it’s Roz Ramsay.”

  I thought I’d heard the last of the Ramsays.

  “There’s a terrible rumor going around,” Roz said. “Tell me it isn’t true.”

  There was nowhere I could hide in this nightmare. “I did not skim client accounts at Norris Cassidy,” I told her.

  “I have a good idea who started that story.” She sounded relieved.

  “Who told you this rubbish?”

  “Your client, Kimberley Wilson. Kim’s a friend of mine.”
r />   Kimberley Wilson, who had told me that she was taking her business to the Monaghans. “Who did Kimberley hear it from?”

  “Let me get back to you, Pat. I have a few things to check out.”

  Lukas’s lies had already spiraled out of control.

  ***

  I’d visited the Toronto Professional Club on many occasions, but I never tired of the old-world elegance of this bastion of the city’s business elite: the stained-glass windows in the front hall; the massive stone fireplace in the lounge; the oak-paneled dining room with its five-star menu; and Miles, the Irish doorman, who always remembered my name.

  For many years, it was a men’s club, but now a quarter of the Professional Club’s members were women. One of its most high-profile women members was Deborah Donovan. Deb had lived across the hall from me in the women’s residence when we were freshmen at Queen’s University, and I had been following her career for years. She had served on corporate boards in a range of business sectors; she’d been a director on the Conference Board of Canada; and, two years before, she’d landed the chief executive’s job at Torshore Investments. We’d met at a conference shortly after that, and caught up with each other’s lives since university. A few fun-filled lunches followed, and recently I had received a note from Deb in the mail. She congratulated me on opening my own practice and invited me to attend her annual Toronto Women of Influence luncheon at the Professional Club.

  On this visit to the club, I was surprised that Miles had forgotten my name. “Pat Tierney,” I told him. “I’m here for Ms. Donovan’s luncheon.”

  He scanned the list on his clipboard. “Wait here please.” He pointed to a bench in the entrance hall and disappeared down a corridor. When he returned a minute or two later, he didn’t meet my eyes. “Follow me,” he said.

  He took me into the dining room and led the way to a table in the corner farthest from the stage. A sign with the word Media stood in the center of it.

  “I’m not with the press,” I told him.

  He shrugged and pointed to an empty chair. I sat down.

  The people around the table smiled and nodded at me. “I’m Dana Jeffries from the Toronto World,” said a thirtysomething woman in a black trouser suit. She introduced me to reporters from the Globe and Mail, the Financial Post, and two financial trade publications.

  “Who are you with?” the lone man at the table asked me.

  “I’m not media,” I said. “I’m a financial planner. Pat Tierney’s my name. I’m surprised Deb Donovan seated me at the media table.”

  Waiters appeared with our starters. When we all had plates of smoked salmon in front of us, Dana said to me in a low voice, “If Deborah invited you herself, I’m surprised you’re seated here, too. The media table is the lowest spot in the pecking order at events. We’re here on sufferance…in the hope that our articles will get good play.”

  I smiled at her. “It really doesn’t matter. It was nice to be invited.”

  After our main-course plates had been cleared away, Deb took the podium on the stage. A tall blonde, she looked stunning in a navy silk sheath, with her hair swept up in a chignon. “I hope everyone has eaten well,” she said. “After dessert, we’ll take a short break so you can stretch your legs. Then we’ll begin the awards presentation.”

  I got up and made my way to the head table at the front of the room, where Deb was seated. Crossing the room, I spotted several familiar faces. But I might as well have been invisible, because no one met my eyes, smiled, or showed any sign of recognition.

  A well-known lawyer who had written several acclaimed reports on securities regulation reform was seated beside Deb. They both looked up when they saw me standing in front of them.

  “A great lunch,” I said. “Thanks for inviting me, Deb.”

  She looked flustered, but recovered quickly. She nodded at me, then looked at the lawyer beside her. “Emily, have you met Pat Tierney?”

  “We’ve never met before,” the lawyer said, “but I’ve heard a lot about you.”

  Deb rose from her seat. “Excuse me. I need to check that everything’s in order for the presentation.” She quickly left the table.

  I extended my hand to the lawyer, but Emily was giving her dessert her full attention.

  I slunk out of the dining room and headed for the ladies’ room. I was washing my hands when a financial planner I had met a few times looked up from the sink next to me. “Pat Tierney,” she said, “I can’t believe you’re here today. I’d be hiding my head in shame.”

  “I have nothing to be ashamed of,” I said. But I left the washroom without drying my hands.

  I breezed past Miles before he could ignore me, and jumped into a cab that was cruising the street. I gave the driver my home address.

  “Fasten seat belt!” he barked.

  Numbly, I snapped on the belt. Then I closed my eyes and rested my head on the back of the seat. The nightmare wasn’t over. Lukas’s lies had taken on a life of their own.

  I felt tears on my face. The woman in the washroom was right: I should be hiding my head under a pillow on my bed. I stifled a sob.

  The taxi screeched to a halt, jerking me forward. I was restrained by the belt across my chest and lap.

  The driver vented a torrent of Italian. “See that cyclist?” he called back to me. “Idiot went through red light. Now you know why I tell you fasten seat belt.”

  He turned to look at me when he stopped in front of my house. “You all right, lady?”

  “I’m fine,” I said, and handed him two bills.

  “I don’t like to see pretty woman cry.”

  I gave him a wobbly smile.

  But my mind was made up as I climbed the front stairs to my home. I had just been publicly flayed, but I was not going hide. I would hold my head high, and fight Lukas and Catherine with every bit of strength I had.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Traffic was heavy on the Gardiner Expressway, the highway that runs along the shore of Lake Ontario linking Toronto’s southern neighborhoods. That gave me time to focus on what was ahead. I hoped Mindy would tell me about her meeting with Dean. I might pick up on something unusual, something that didn’t usually happen in first meetings with clients.

  I made my way across four lanes of traffic, just in time to take the exit ramp I needed. Five minutes later, I pulled up in front of a red-brick bungalow on a quiet residential street.

  An attractive woman in her early 30s came to the front door. Long black hair tied back in a ponytail, bright red lipstick, dressed in a white smock over black tights and a black turtleneck. I introduced myself and asked if she was Mindy Manuel.

  When she nodded, I added, “I’d like to talk to you about your late aunt, Riza Santos.”

  She looked surprised, then wary. I thought she was going to close the door on me, but she pulled herself together. “Are you with the police?” she asked. “I’ve already spoken to an officer.”

  “No,” I said.

  She held the door open, and I stepped inside. Walls had been removed, turning much of the house into a large studio, illuminated by skylights and track lighting. Worktables held computer monitors and sketches. Large sheets of paper displaying stylish ads for art exhibits and travel destinations were clipped to long wooden beams that ran along the ceiling.

  “I’m a graphic designer,” Mindy said. “This is where I work. It’s also my home.”

  She led me to a brown-leather sofa facing two glass doors that opened onto the back lawn.

  “I met your aunt up north last summer. And again last week,” I told her when I was seated. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  Mindy’s dark eyes filled with tears. “Who would want to kill her?”

  Riza could be abrasive, and she was known to walk on the wild side. She may have provoked any number of people, but I wasn’t about to say that to her niece. I shook my head.

  I told her that I had purchased Dean Monaghan’s business, and I was working with his former clients.


  “Dean was murdered, too,” she said. “Do you think the two murders are connected?”

  Of course, they were, but I told her that I had no idea.

  “Your aunt told me that you went to see Dean,” I said.

  “Yes, I did. A few weeks ago. I told Riza that I wanted some financial advice, and she said Dean was the best in his field.”

  “Would you be interested in working with me?”

  “I liked what my aunt told me about fee-only financial planners. Are you fee-only?”

  “I am. That’s why I bought Dean’s business. I knew it would be a good fit for me. What did you want him to do for you?”

  “I wanted investment advice. Keeping my money in the bank won’t make it grow, but the stock market scares the heck out of me.”

  She hadn’t answered my question about whether she’d like to work with me. But I knew better than to push her into an important decision like that. “Is there anything Riza suggested that you ask Dean?”

  Mindy appeared to think about that for a few moments. “She told me to ask about his fees, and how often we would meet. And what he thought about tapping the equity in my home.”

  I leaned forward on the sofa. Taking money out of a home is a strategy that older people sometimes use to finance a comfortable retirement. But it’s rare for someone Mindy’s age to consider it. Most young homeowners want to pay off their mortgages as quickly as they can.

  Unless Mindy was strapped for cash. “Is that something you need to do?” I asked. “Business debts to pay down?” And credit-card debt with sky-high interest rates might be another reason to take money out of her home.

  She shook her head vigorously. “No debts. I pay my bills on time. Riza just wanted me to ask Dean about freeing up money for investing. Just a suggestion she made, no big deal.”

  It was a big deal. A very big deal. Investing money from her home could be risky. I wondered how Dean had reacted to her suggestion.