by Julie Hyzy
“Of course not,” I admitted. “When I went over all this stuff tonight at home, I could see something wasn’t right. I had an idea, but I needed help figuring it all out.” Shrugging my uncertainty, I continued. “I had to ask somebody . . . either you or Owen, and since Mrs. Vicks had your home phone number written on her notes, I took it to mean that she wanted to get in touch with you outside of work. She must have had faith in you. Plus,” I added, “I’ve met you and I’ve met Owen. I asked myself which one of you I would trust.” I shrugged. “And here I am.”
She smiled at that, and a couple of quiet beats passed before we both sat forward, getting back to work. A gentle bubble of camaraderie had enveloped us, ready now to face the task of dismantling the scam together.
* * * * *
When we finished sorting through it all, we were confident we had the details worked out. “Line of Affluence” accounts had been opened for the one hundred and seventy-three people Mrs. Vicks had listed on her ledger sheets, for varying amounts, all under ten thousand dollars. Compiled in chronological order, the first accounts had been opened six months earlier. I was sure hundreds more had been added to the list since then.
Maya explained that the “Line of Affluence” account was a pilot program. A brand-new idea to bring in customers, it had generated a buzz even more intense than they’d hoped. Professionals everywhere were clamoring to sign up. A checking account with credit privileges, it offered a super-low rate on overdrafts. Not ordinary overdrafts, these customers could, in essence, write themselves a loan up to their assigned credit limit with no collateral—nothing but a signature to guarantee future repayment.
I gave a low whistle when she’d first explained the program. “Nice setup. At least till the bills start.”
“That’s the thing.” She sifted through the paperwork for several minutes while I watched, trying to read her expression. Tiny frown lines deepened between her dark brows and when she finally looked up again, her lips were pursed in thought. “This printout was dated three weeks ago,” she said. “But it lists each individual approval date. Every single one of these accounts was funded on the very day they were approved.”
“So every one of these people,” I held up Mrs. Vicks’ yellow sheets, “have the same address and opened identical accounts?”
“Yeah,” she said with a wry look.
“And we can safely assume these people don’t know one another.”
Maya finished my thought. “Which means that it looks like one person is controlling all the accounts.”
“But why?” I asked. “Why go to all the trouble? Wouldn’t the pattern become apparent the minute the loans weren’t paid back?”
She shook her head, staring upward in apparent disbelief.
“What?” I asked.
“This is perfect,” she said. “This is beautiful. I get it.” Sitting up and leaning forward as though the words might come out more quickly if she were closer, she explained. “I’m going to bet that not one of these people paid back a single penny.”
“I’m not understanding.”
Maya shook her head. “The world is a strange place and the world of banking is sometimes even stranger. Since none of these people borrowed more than ten thousand dollars, our loan department can choose to write the losses off rather than send them to collections.”
“Oh, come on,” I said, disbelieving.
Her eyes were bright. “It’s true. We’re having such success with this program that we’ve extended six-figure credit to most of our client base. Six-figures,” she emphasized. “These,” she indicated the list, “are small potatoes. Very small. And, if I can guesstimate, even all put together, they don’t make up more than three percent of our asset base. All of these are within tolerances, and definitely within a loan officer’s limit to write them off without approval from David. And, the argument can be made that ten grand isn’t worth the trouble to go after it.”
“So what happens?”
“Whoever wrote these checks, knew that the bank wouldn’t follow up, so Owen,” she raised her eyebrow and pointed to his name on the paper before us, “came up with hundreds of fake borrowers. Not one of them is large enough to go after, but put together they total a real nice haul.”
“But, who are they?” I asked.
Maya squinted, and I could tell she was thinking aloud as she continued. “We can’t do anything without a person’s social. As long as we have that and their name, we have enough to run a credit check.” Her gaze on the ceiling, she spoke slowly. “My guess is that elderly folks in high-priced retirement homes . . .” she indicated a couple of the group home names that lined the top of the lists, “have money. So, when we ran a credit report on them, they came up as excellent prospects. Owen must have seen them as an untapped resource—he borrows money in their names, never pays it back, and when they go past due, he writes off their small balances as a loss.”
“And if anyone ever questioned the accounts,” I said, “like the FDIC doing this audit, Owen had you all set up to take the fall.” Maya let loose a sigh that might have been a sob, and I bit my lip for a long moment, before putting the final bit of information together. “And it might have worked, except Mrs. Vicks’ apparently recognized one of the account names.”
Maya nodded. She fingered the letter we’d found from Ursula Siewicz, a resident of one of the nursing homes heavy with Banner Bank customers. “I can’t believe this,” Maya said. “I’d like to go confront Owen right this minute with this. This is the thing that seals it.”
I read it again.
Dear Evelyn,
I was pleased to receive your lovely letter yesterday. It is always wonderful to hear from old friends, particularly when I feel so far away home. I was, however, puzzled by your question about a bank account in Chicago. I made certain to have all my accounts transferred to a local savings and loan when I moved here five years ago. The thing that worries me was that the social security number you wrote in your letter is definitely mine. I’m sure I didn’t leave any accounts in Chicago. And even if I’d forgotten one, I never banked downtown, I always kept my business local, as you know. I’m very concerned about this. Unless Richard opened an account before he died and forgot to tell me about it, I can’t imagine how my social security number could have gotten into a downtown bank’s records. But then again, with all the bank name changes going on, I suppose anything is possible.
Would you be a dear and check into this for me? If there’s any money in the account, you can have them mail me a check, and then I’ll send you something for all your trouble. But honestly, I think it’s really just some clerical mistake. My best to you—When are you going to retire to enjoy the sun?
I tapped the cream color stationery. “Mrs. Vicks must have recognized Ursula’s name and wondered why her old friend was applying for such a significant line of credit. But how would Mrs. Vicks have come across this information?”
Maya leaned back in the wooden chair and crossed her arms and legs. “Evelyn Vicks worked for me, you know,” she began. “But things have been slow in my department lately and Owen’s assistant Nina has been so busy with this new program that he asked if I’d mind if Evelyn would run credit reports in her spare time. I said that’d be fine.”
“Do we think Nina is in on this?”
Maya scrunched up her face in thought. “I can’t say for sure.” Shaking her head, she shrugged. “But I wouldn’t rule it out.”
“Mrs. Vicks obviously recognized her friend Ursula’s name,” I said, picking up the thread. Maya nodded. “But, what? She started to investigate?” I tried out the scenario in my own mind. Maya understood my question.
“Yeah,” she said. “Why wouldn’t she have asked Owen about it directly? It seems more her personality to tell someone about her friend saying the application was fake.”
We were both silent, staring without seeing, at opposite corners of the room.
When our eyes met again, I could read that she’d come
to the same conclusion I had. Quietly, I said, “Maybe she did tell someone.”
“Oh, God,” she said.
“What?”
“If I wouldn’t have let her take on the extra work, Evelyn might still be alive.” Maya’s dark eyes welled up and her mouth twisted as she looked away.
“You can’t think like that,” I said. “And we’re talking about murder, here. Do you really believe Owen is capable of killing another person?”
Her face clouded as she shook her head. “I don’t know what to think anymore. I’ve always found him to be a little weasel, but you’re right. I don’t see him as violent.” Heaving a weight-of-the world sigh, she added, “But I never thought he’d embezzle either.”
“You couldn’t have known,” I said, reaching across to place my hand on hers. She grabbed it, and squeezed, hard, before meeting my eyes again.
“Thank you for saying that,” she said.
“We might be jumping to conclusions, you realize.” I stood up and began to pace, tapping my lip with an index finger. “Mrs. Vicks was killed at home, and I distinctly remember bunches of Banner Bank statements on her kitchen table when I saw her that night, and I know they were still there when I went back the night I was attacked.”
Maya shook her head, not understanding.
“If Owen killed her, wouldn’t it stand to reason that he would’ve taken all the Banner Bank files with him when he left?” I asked.
She considered this. “Can you swear that every single paper was there? That none of the files were gone?”
“No,” I admitted. “But still, why leave any?”
“Maybe somebody came before he could take them all. Maybe that’s why he went back the night of the wake. You were there yesterday, right? Were the bank statements there, too?”
I didn’t know. Feeling stupid for not thinking about that sooner, I knew I’d have to call Lulinski and see what he knew. I said as much.
Maya had that look of concentration again. “No matter what, we still need to be able to prove this is what’s going on.”
“So, we need to find out if these accounts are past due?” I asked.
“Exactly. I mean,” she said, “what we need is a good long look at Owen’s files.”
“Can you do that?”
Both elbows on the table, she leaned forward, rubbing her temples. “That’s going to be tough. This ‘Line of Affluence’ program is Owen’s baby. He keeps everything on his side of the loan department. There’s no way I could spend much time searching through them without somebody wondering what was up.”
“If all this falls under his jurisdiction, then how could he claim you approved any of the applications?” I asked.
Her eyes were weary as she lifted one slim shoulder, resigned. “It’d be my word against his, I guess, and there are a couple of girls in that department who he’d easily be able to influence.”
I thought about Nina Takami, and nodded.
Rubbing a thoughtful finger along her temple, she closed her eyes for a long moment. “What I need to do is to find out the status of these accounts. See if payments have been made on any of them.” Opening her eyes again, she rubbed an eyebrow. “And if we could pull up the original application for Ursula Siewicz, we could compare handwriting.” She flashed a weary grin. “I’d have to depend on your expertise for that.”
“I don’t see how I’m going to get a look at that anytime soon.”
“Yeah,” Maya said, letting the word drift. “Unless . . .”
“Unless?”
“We could go in tomorrow, when nobody else is there.” Complicit eyes searched mine.
“On a Sunday?”
“I have keys, and as an officer of the bank, I have the alarm codes, too. This way nobody sees what we’re up to, right? We could both go in, make copies of everything we need and then we’d be all set.”
“Don’t you guys have security cameras?” My hands splayed out in front of me, I tried to think. “And how will we explain about me being in the bank during off hours?”
“Cameras are set up only in the bank lobby and in the vault areas. You and I won’t be going anywhere but the loan office. And anyway, I’ll be there with you. I have a right to go in anytime I need to.”
What Maya suggested sounded all perfectly legal, safe, above-board. But it sure the heck didn’t feel that way. I took a deep breath.
“Okay,” I said. “I’m in.”
Lulinski had called me Nancy Drew. I remembered how cautious he’d been about Mrs. Vicks’ mail. He’d probably tell me to back off until he got a warrant. But I didn’t think we had enough here to get one. Not yet. A tight ball of exhilaration bounced around between my jittery stomach and my eager brain and I couldn’t wait to get in there and find the answers.
“And no one will be there on Sunday night?” I asked.
“Nobody but us.”
“Good.”
Tomorrow, I thought. Tomorrow we’d have this all wrapped up.
“Oh,” I said.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m taking my sister downtown tomorrow.” Damn it all to hell.
“Well, maybe she can just meet you later, or something.”
I shook my head. “She’s handicapped.” I hated using that expression when talking about Lucy, but it cut through an otherwise drawn-out explanation. “Can we do this maybe after four or five?”
“Sure,” she said. “It’s already late and I want to go to church tomorrow anyway.” Her gaze swept over the table. “Lotta prayin’ to do.”
My cell phone buzzed, making me jump. I’d forgotten about the message I’d left Lulinski until I saw his number there. “Hi George,” I said, using his name for the first time. I knew by the split-second delay in his response that I’d probably taken him aback, but I didn’t think Maya knowing I had a detective on the phone would preserve the open lines of communication she and I had established.
“Got your message,” he said. “Everything okay? I’m nearby. I can be there in five minutes.”
“Just fine,” I said, “but I don’t think we’ll be able to get together tonight.” Maya continued to shake her head, staring down at the tabletop. I hoped Lulinski trusted me enough to cut me some slack here and not show up, badge in hand, at Maya’s door. “But I’d really like to talk with you tomorrow about a couple of things. Do you think you’ll have time?”
Too late I remembered my promise to Lucy. How could I keep forgetting about her? If they ever awarded a ‘worst sister’ trophy, I was a shoo-in.
“I’ll make time,” he said, then asked again. “You’re sure everything’s okay?”
“Yeah, absolutely. I’ll talk with you tomorrow, then.”
We both hung up and Maya tried to smile. “Boyfriend?”
“No,” I said automatically, then wondered what excuse I’d come up with if she pressed me to know who “George” was.
“I didn’t think so,” she said, then shot me a quizzical look. “The scuttlebutt around the bank is that you’re seeing David Dewars.”
I held up my hand, staving off that idea. “We went out twice, but it was definitely more business than pleasure,” I said.
Maya’s eyes teared up. “He’s the one who hired me. Straight out of grad school. Said he saw that I had promise. What’s he going to think if he sees all this?” She gestured over the paperwork strewn before us, and a raw, hiccupy sound jumped out of her throat. “What do I do?”
I didn’t know how to answer that.
In this quiet dining room, near midnight, I tried to shake off a sudden vulnerable terror—as though Owen would have some omniscient knowledge of what we were doing and would burst through the door any moment, prepared to kill us both.
Chapter Twenty-four
The next morning, I called my aunt early, thanking her profusely for keeping Lucy overnight yet again.
“Anything to help,” Aunt Lena said in her chipper voice. Bacon sizzled in the background and my stomach grumbled so forceful
ly that I was afraid she’d hear it over the phone line. “Were you able to find out anything at that girl’s house?”
“A little.” A bit of a fib. Although I’d told my aunt last night that I needed to follow up a lead by visiting someone from the bank, I didn’t want to go into detail with too many people before I talked with Lulinski. “What time do you think Lucy will be ready to go?” I asked.
She laughed. “That girl likes to sleep late. I’ll wake her up when breakfast is ready. She’s really looking forward to spending time with you, Alex.”
“I’m looking forward to it, too,” I said. “How about I come by at ten? I still have to get ready myself, and call a couple of people.”
“Better make it a little later,” she said. “Moose wants to show her the dove’s nest he found outside the garage last night. You know how Lucy is with animals.”
I did. “Okay, I’ll be by closer to eleven, then.”
After showering, I sat at the kitchen table, my hands wrapped around my hot mug of coffee, watching the steam curl upward in mesmerizing grace. I’d left a message on Detective Lulinski’s voicemail to call me as soon as he could.
Every sip of the searing coffee that traveled hot down the back of my throat felt like a catharsis of sorts. God, I felt good.
I shut my eyes for a restful moment, picturing Lulinski’s face when I gave him the story. The fact that he hadn’t answered meant he might still be asleep and I was glad for that. There hadn’t been a moment over the past ten days that he hadn’t been busy with some aspect of the case. He deserved a break.
So did I. And today, Lucy and I were going to get it.
They’d predicted a high of fifty-three degrees and the sun poured through my back porch windows. With a burst of feel-good anticipation, I cracked one open in order to smell spring in the air. Life was fun again, for the first time in a while. Things were definitely looking up.
Staring out the windows, feeling the light breeze twist past me into the house to chase away the winter mustiness, I took a deep breath to clear my head.
