Wipe Out

by Jeff Shelby

  I sat quietly while she cried. It wasn't my place to comfort her and I didn't think she wanted it from someone who'd insulted her. I felt badly enough, and I didn't want to make it any more awkward for her than I already had.

  After a minute, she reached for her purse and pulled out a small packet of tissues. She dabbed at her eyes.

  “When I was a teenager, my dad wasn't around,” I told her. “He was a criminal. I didn't know it then, but he was and that's why he wasn't around. I don't remember exactly when I met your husband, but I do remember a day where everything was bad and I was wishing I had a dad and Mitchell was down at the beach. He told me he had sandwiches up at the motel and I walked up with him. I didn't tell him how bad my day was, but it was like he knew.” I shook my head. “That exact day, I wished Mitchell was my dad. I remember it.”

  Rose Henderson was still staring at her closed computer. “He was like that with everyone. Everyone.”

  “I know,” I said. “I'm sorry he's gone. I'm sorry you miss him.”

  “Me, too,” she whispered.

  I thought about asking her about the Porsche in the street cameras, but decided against it. She was still clearly struggling and the last thing she needed to hear from me was that someone might've somehow been involved in his death.

  I stood up. “I'm sorry for the accusations. And I'm sorry for taking up so much of your time.”

  She set the laptop on the sofa next to her and forced herself to stand up. Her eyes were red, but she was too proud to sit and have me walk out.

  “Why are those two files so different, Mr. Braddock?” she asked. “Help me understand.”

  “I don't have an answer,” I said. “Not yet. But I'm going to get one. And when I do? You will be the first to know.”

  THIRTY EIGHT

  “Noah, it's Eric Gentry.”

  I'd left Rose Henderson's house and stopped at the gas station for gas. I heard my phone ringing inside the car while I was pumping.

  “Hey, how are you?” I said, pinning the phone between my ear and shoulder.

  “I'm well, thanks for asking,” he said. “Just wanted you to know that I just forwarded our offer for the Pacific Beach property to you via email. Wanted to make sure you got it and ask if you wanted it faxed anywhere else?”

  “Do people still do that?” I asked, tipping the pump out of the tank and setting it back on the rack. “Fax?”

  He laughed. “Believe it or not, they do. Dinosaurs, perhaps, but they do.”

  “Weird. No, email is fine. I'll check my phone as soon as we hang up.”

  “Great,” he said. “I think you'll be pleased.”

  I slid back into the car. “Not me you need to please.”

  “Of course. I think your seller will be pleased.”

  I stuck the key in the ignition, but didn't turn it. “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “How long have you been after this specific property?”

  “Excuse me?”

  I watched a guy in a Chevy Impala give the finger to a truck that cut him off trying to change lanes adjacent to the gas station. “How long have you been interested in the land that The Blue Wave is on?”

  The line buzzed for a moment. “If you're looking for an exact date, I'm not sure I can give you one.”

  “Ballpark.”

  “Um, alright. I'd say roughly three years ago? I think I was actually down in Pacific Beach for something else and I was driving on Mission and noticed the motel.”

  “And then?”

  “I'm really not sure what you're after here, Noah,” he said.

  I wasn't either. “Just trying to gauge how long it's been on your radar. More curiosity than anything else.”

  “I see,” he said, sounding like he didn't.

  “Did you call the motel? Ask if it was for sale? What do you do when you see a property you're interested in?”

  “Typically, I'd first look at the property records,” Gentry explained. “Find the sales history, name of the owner, info like that.” He paused. “But I didn't do that with The Blue Wave.”

  “No?”

  “No. I actually pulled into the motel.”

  I shifted in my car seat. “Why's that?”

  “I don't know, to be honest,” he answered. “I had some time to kill, if I remember correctly. It was the off-season, the parking lot wasn't full. I just thought I'd see what was up.”

  “And what was up?”

  “I met Mr. Henderson,” he said. “He was behind the desk. Unbelievably nice guy. I didn't hide who I was or why I was there. He was very nice about the whole thing, but he made it clear he wasn't interested in selling and didn't think he would be in the future. I appreciated his honesty, left him with my card, he gave me his, and that was it.”

  “That was it,” I repeated.

  “I checked in with him maybe once a year?” he said. “Just an email to say hello and give him a soft sell.” He chuckled. “He was always quick to respond and quick to say he still wasn't interested in selling.”

  “But you did send him an offer,” I reminded him. “At some point, you worked up an offer and sent it to him, correct?”

  “Ah,” he said. “Yeah, I sure did. I was a little full of myself. The coastal commission had changed some of the zoning restrictions and from a development standpoint, that was a favorable move. But I had absolutely zero coastal property under control. So I couldn't sleep one night and when I can't sleep, I sometimes do dumb stuff. I typed up the offer and sent it to him. I sent him an email to let him know it was in the mail. He emailed to tell me thanks for sending it, but he wasn't interested. Was totally polite about it.” He paused. “That was the last time we communicated, I believe.”

  “You didn't push any more on it?” I asked. “Just took the no?”

  “I didn't push on it,” he said, his tone gaining an edge that hadn't been there before. “And I'm really confused by your questions. Care to clarify?”

  I wasn't sure what I was looking for. But I knew that Gentry had rubbed me the wrong way since I'd first set foot in his office. He's almost seemed prepared to seize on the opportunity provided by Mitchell's death. It felt off to me.

  But maybe I was just pissed that I'd already been wrong about Rose.

  “Just curious,” I said, turning the key in the ignition. “I'll check my email and we'll be in touch. Thanks for the call.”

  THIRTY NINE

  I called Kirby Renfroe's office, the attorney that handled Mitchell's estate and was working on the transfer of the motel to Anne. I asked if I could come by and he said he'd be waiting on me.

  The drive back up to La Jolla was slow and irritating, as I seemingly hit every light and managed to get behind every rental car in the city.

  Or maybe my mood was just sour.

  I figured that no matter what Anne decided to do, she'd need to start with Renfroe. He was far better versed than I was to wade through the legalese of the offers for the motels and either guide her through the process or direct her to someone who could. I felt like I'd hit the wall in terms of what Carter and I could offer her. We could certainly keep people away from her if they wanted to harm her or her property, but our ability to handle her financial affairs had been exhausted.

  And the more I talked about money and thought about money, the more self-centered I became.

  I was worried about me.

  I'd spent several days helping a friend and I'd never turn a friend down. But I wasn't doing anything to fatten up my own bank account. Sure, I'd returned some emails on a couple of leads that had shown up in my inbox, but that wasn't much of anything. It wasn't creating long-term security. It wasn't going to pay the short-term bills. I'd made the decision not to sell Liz's house and I was getting some rental income, but it wasn't going to cover everything. The anxiety was creeping in on me and it was starting to bother me.

  A lot.

  I'd been on a treadmill since I'd returned to San Diego, just existing mor
e than anything else. I wasn't capable of much more than that when I'd first returned, but I'd struck my deal with Benavides to ensure I wouldn't go to jail. I'd made my peace, as much as I could, with Liz's death.

  I needed off the treadmill and to start moving forward in every way.

  Carter and I joked about my being a professional.

  Maybe it was time to start treating my job as something other than a joke.

  The traffic finally thinned as I went through Bird Rock and it took me several minutes of looking before I found a parking spot a couple of blocks down from Renfroe's office. I checked my email on my phone for Eric Gentry's email. It was there, right at the top of the inbox. I hesitated for a moment, then clicked on the attachment, and scrolled through the pages until I found the offer price.

  It was significantly greater than Henry Nixon's and I didn't see how Anne would be able to turn it down.

  I closed the email, took a deep breath, and got out of the car.

  The traffic in La Jolla was always thick. It didn't matter the time of year or the time of day. The narrow streets combined with an area that everyone wanted to be in was a recipe for gridlock. I crossed the street between a line of cars waiting to turn right, then headed up the block toward Renfroe's corner office.

  I crossed in front of the narrow drive that led to the small, full parking lot adjacent to his building.

  I slowed my pace and took in the whole parking lot.

  Seven cars.

  No empty spaces.

  Each one taken up by an expensive car that was owned in pairs by La Jolla residents. It wasn't unusual to see Ferraris or Teslas or Lamborghinis or the occasional Lotus.

  And lots of Porsches.

  “On your left!” a guy on a bike shouted at me as he whizzed by a moment later, looking back at me, annoyed that I'd blocked the sidewalk.

  I looked in his direction, held up a hand in apology, and made my way to the front door of the office.

  Kirby Renfroe was behind his desk, looking straight out of East Egg, clad in a white dress shirt and baby-blue bow tie.

  He smiled as I pulled the door closed behind me. “Mr. Braddock. So nice to see you again.”

  I nodded. The ceiling fan was moving in a lazy circle and an air conditioning unit buzzed from someplace I couldn't see. The interior of the office reminded me of Rose Henderson's living room, meticulously maintained and clean.

  Renfroe gestured at the seat on the opposite side of his expansive desk. “Please, have a seat. Can I get you anything to drink?”

  “I'm fine, thanks,” I said, sitting down in the chair.

  “It's warm out there,” he said, fanning himself with his hand. “I walked to lunch a bit ago and I came back drenched.”

  “I'm sure.”

  He cleared his throat. “So, how can I help you?”

  “I have two offers for The Blue Wave,” I told him. “To purchase.”

  He raised his neatly trimmed eyebrows. “Really?”

  “Really. Anne asked me to act as a go-between to explore her options,” I said. “I got in contact with two of the developers who'd made overtures in the past and they both were still interested. I have formal offers from both.”

  “Well,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “That's tremendous, if she's looking to sell the property.”

  “I think she is,” I said. “And since you're handing the transfer of ownership and I'm not an attorney, we figured we'd bring them to you.”

  He nodded slowly, thinking. “Certainly. I'm not necessarily her attorney of record, but I can vet the offers and help move her through the process, if she'd like.”

  “Terrific.”

  We sat there quietly for a moment.

  “Do you...have the offers?” he asked, smiling.

  “Oh, right,” I said. I pulled my phone from my pocket and held it up. “I've got them both in here. Can I send to your printer?”

  He nodded and gave me both the WiFi network name and the password. I'd scanned in the offer from Henry Nixon, as well, leaving the original with Anne. I found the network in my settings, connected to it, and pulled up Nixon's document first. I sent it to the printer that popped up and a laser printer next to Renfroe's desk hummed to life. The pages came off slowly.

  Renfroe picked up a pair of horn-rimmed glasses off his desk, a different pair than what he’d worn before, and set them on the bridge of his nose. He plucked the sheets from the top of the printer, examining them before setting them in a neat little pile.

  “I'll send the second one now,” I told him and scrolled through my phone.

  “Of course.”

  I found Gentry's offer and sent it to the printer. The machine hummed to life again and Renfroe watched it come off the machine.

  “I have a question for you,” I said.

  He watched the paper being printed. “Yes?”

  “Who worked up the set up financials you gave to Anne? Was it you?”

  The corner of his right eye twitched ever so slightly and he pulled the first few pages of Gentry's offer off the printer. “That was me. What I gave her was based on the information I had from Mr. Henderson.”

  “Really.”

  He glanced at me and dipped his head so he could see me over the reading glasses. “Why do you ask?”

  “Because they were bullshit.”

  Kirby Renfroe didn't seem like the kind of guy who was used to hearing profanity inside of his office. He blinked several times as the printer continued to run.

  “Excuse me?” he said after a moment.

  “The papers you gave her were bullshit,” I said. “They weren't accurate. I'd like to know why.”

  The engine on the printer died off and he removed the final few pages of the offer from the tray. His eyes scanned the last page for the offer number and when he finally saw it, he couldn't help but stare an extra second at it.

  “Big number, huh?” I said. “I was surprised, too.”

  “Um...yes,” Renfroe said, shuffling the papers into a second neat pile. “It's quite a sum. I didn't expect to see that.”

  “What did you expect to see?”

  “I'm sorry?”

  “Let's go back to my original question,” I said. “The bullshit financial numbers. How and why?”

  Renfroe was clearly off balance. He adjusted his glasses, then his bow tie. He folded his hands and set them on top of his desk. He was buying time.

  I let him do it.

  “I don't think I understand,” he finally said, trying to force a confused smile.

  “I think you do,” I said. “Rose Henderson provided me with a set of financial documents. Straight from her bank and from her own hand. I checked them against the online accounts. They were on the nose. But when I checked them against what you provided Anne, not a single figure matched.”

  He removed the readers and set them down carefully next to the two offers. “I can't...imagine how that would be true.”

  “Me, either,” I said. “But it is.”

  The ceiling fan spun above us, but beads of sweat appeared just beneath Renfroe's neatly combed hairline.

  “Well, I'll need to take a look and see—”

  “No, just tell me the truth,” I said. “I'm also curious about what kind of car you drive.”

  He squinted at me. “The kind of car I drive? Mr. Braddock, I'm not sure what you're getting at here, but I don't think I like your tone.”

  “You don't like my tone?” I said, leaning forward. “Then maybe you shouldn't have given my friend a set of falsified financial docs. I know they were garbage, so don't sit here and tell me otherwise. I want to know why and you can tug on that bow tie all day long, but I'll eventually tighten it enough that you won't have enough oxygen in your body to do anything but fall over.” I stared at him. “What did you give her?”

  The beads of sweat were forming at a rapid pace and the color was draining from his face just as quickly. “Mr. Braddock, I think you should—”

  “Kirby,�
� I said, cutting him off. “Kirby. Start talking or I'm going to start working on that tie. While you're still wearing it.”

  He touched the tie, like he'd forgotten it was still on his person. “You don't need to threaten me.”

  “Don't think of it as a threat,” I told him. “Think of it as what's going to happen to you in the next thirty seconds if you don't start talking.”

  He pulled a tissue from the small box on his desk and dabbed at his forehead. He wadded up the tissue and dropped it in a wastebasket I couldn't see. He refolded his hands and tried not to appear scared shitless.

  “I doctored those financials,” Kirby Renfroe said.

  FORTY

  After I'd embarrassed myself in Rose Henderson's living room, I'd started thinking from the other direction. Renfroe was the person who gave the first set of documents to Anne. I wasn't sure where they'd originated from, but I knew it hadn't been from the business accounts Rose had given me access to.

  Renfroe made the most sense.

  I just wasn't sure why.

  Renfroe looked like a kid at a haunted house who didn't want to be there. He fidgeted in his chair and kept touching the bow tie.

  “I didn't change anything that wasn't necessarily true,” Renfroe stuttered. “Mr. Henderson was underwater and the documents I gave Anne reflect that.”

  “Changing one figure is a crime,” I said. “You know that, right? You're a lawyer, so I'm thinking that you know about...the law. Right?”

  He took a deep breath and tried to steady himself. “I'm sure we can reach some sort of agreement here, Mr. Braddock.”

  I laughed. “Are you already trying to bribe me, Kirby? Wow. This is going to be great.”

  The sweat was now racing down his cheeks, the tissue not having done much to stop the rush. “That's...that's not what I meant.”

  “What exactly did you mean?”

  “I...I...meant that...” he stammered.

  “Kirby, cut the bullshit,” I said. “Tell me what the fuck's going on here before I get impatient.”