Clawback

by J. A. Jance

  “The PA’s name is Jessica something. I have her last name in my notes, but I haven’t spoken to her. When I finish up with Lowensdahl, if it’s not too late, I’ll see if I can track her down for a chat.”

  “What are you going to do about the diamonds?” B. asked. “Are you going to tell Lowensdahl about them or not?”

  “I’ve been thinking about that. Birds of a feather flock together. McKinzie is a crook, and maybe Lowensdahl is, too. Maybe that’s the reason McKinzie appointed him as CRO, so he could sway the results one way or another.”

  “Good call,” B. said. “If he hires us to help with the recovery effort, that will be plenty of time to let him in on McKinzie’s sizable diamond collection. For right now we’re better off keeping that on the q.t.”

  Ali heard an announcement being broadcast over a public-address system in the background of B.’s voice. “Boarding time,” he said.

  The next few words of their conversation were entirely predictable. It consisted of nothing other than the sweet nothings people always say to one another when a loved one is setting out on a long journey—travel safe, do what you need to do, don’t have too much fun, and come back to me because I’ll miss you, and I don’t know how I could live without you.

  Once the call ended, Ali drove on through the parched desert, realizing that she really meant every one of those words. When her first husband, Dean, had died after a brief but terrible ordeal with glioblastoma, she’d had to find a way and a reason to survive. With a brand-new baby to care for she hadn’t been given a choice. When her second husband, the philandering Paul Grayson, had been murdered, on the other hand, it had come as no great loss. His death had revealed the depths of his many betrayals. Those had hurt, but Ali had barely shed a tear for the man himself.

  With B., it was different. They were lovers and partners, on the same wavelength, and pulling together in the same direction. If he somehow disappeared from her life, Ali Reynolds truly had no idea how she’d manage to go on without him.

  52

  Ali exited the 51 at Bethany Home and then, blocks later, turned east on Camelback, which the obnoxious female voice on the GPS insisted on calling Ca-MELL-back. A thermometer on a bank on the corner read 118—one degree worse than she’d been expecting. It had been almost twenty degrees cooler than that when she left Sedona.

  Waiting through an exceptionally long stoplight, Ali attempted to strategize on how best to tackle Eugene Lowensdahl. With what she knew of the man’s history, she’d either have to handle him with kid gloves or go for the jugular. There probably wouldn’t be a lot of middle ground.

  When she finally arrived at the Camelback Office Tower, she regarded the name on the ten-story mid-rise as a bit of an overstatement. She parked in a visitor spot on the ground level outside the main entrance. With the AC still on, she sat in her car long enough to extract Dan’s PA’s last name from her notes. A moment later she sent Stu a text requesting info on Jessica Denton, including her home address. Then, not wanting to have her upcoming meeting disrupted by buzzing message notifications or phone calls, she turned off her phone and opened the car door.

  Stepping into Phoenix’s heavy summertime heat was like walking into a wall. Inside the welcome cool of the building’s main lobby, she studied the posted list of building tenants. Unsurprisingly, the offices of Eugene Lowensdahl, Attorney-at-Law, were located on the top floor.

  Ali rode up in the elevator and opened the door to Eugene Lowensdahl’s office suite at three p.m. on the dot. The main lobby and corridor had both been pleasantly cool. In her sleeveless dress she found the temperature in Lowensdahl’s suite of offices to be downright chilly. The almost frigid air explained why the young receptionist at the front desk was wearing a sweater in the dead of summer, and it also didn’t bode well for Ali’s pending appointment. She knew the kind of overinflated ego it takes to maintain a steady 68 degrees in your office when the outside temp is a good fifty degrees warmer than that.

  “Ali Reynolds,” she said, passing her card to the receptionist. “I’m here to see Mr. Lowensdahl.”

  The young woman glanced at an open appointment book and then, frowning, looked back at Ali’s card. “What about Mr. Simpson?” she asked. “I believe he’s expected as well.”

  “He was,” Ali said, “but he’s been called out of town. He won’t be joining us today.”

  “Right this way, then,” the woman said. She rose and led the way over to a door made of some exotic hardwood, which she held open for Ali to enter.

  Ali paused on the threshold and looked around. This was the high-priced spread—a penthouse corner office. Two walls consisted of floor-to-ceiling windows made of slightly smoky glass designed to block out some of the sun. The side of the room that faced north looked out toward Camelback Mountain. The east-facing one showed the McDowell Mountains in the near distance, with the Superstitions towering hazily in the background. The two remaining walls were covered in glossy Formica, one white and one black. The white one held an immense piece of garish black-framed modern art. No doubt it came from a name-brand artist and was hugely expensive, but it looked as though the splashes of blues and magentas had been thrown at the canvas from across the room. Something about the spray of droplets reminded Ali of the blood spatter photo images she had studied in the Arizona Police Academy.

  The furniture was mostly white leather on molded stainless steel frames. As for the desk? It consisted of thick pieces of white glass supported by more of the same. The edge of desktop was trimmed with something that looked like onyx. It included a row of built-in electronic receptacles, all but one of them empty. That one held a cord connected to an old-fashioned multiline black phone. The only other item on the pristine desk was a chrome-plated laptop whose user closed the lid abruptly when the receptionist ushered Ali into the room.

  A silver-haired gentleman sat in front of the now closed computer, with his back turned pointedly on the view. His dark bespoke suit, made of some featherweight wool, his perfectly knotted yellow-and-blue tie, as well as his French cuffs and jeweled cuff links, were all designed to intimidate. He sat there, saying nothing and staring at Ali with what would have been unnerving scrutiny had she shown up in her blue jeans. Dressed as she was, however, Ali stared right back at him, giving as good as she got.

  Finally, she stepped into the room and approached the desk, holding out her hand.

  Lowensdahl didn’t stand to greet her nor did he accept her proffered hand. “I was under the impression that Mr. Simpson himself would be taking this meeting,” he said archly.

  During her career as a newscaster, Ali had met plenty of overbearing jerks just like this one, and the best way to deal with them was to go on the offensive and fight fire with fire.

  “He was unexpectedly called out of town,” she said. Without waiting for an invitation, Ali took a seat on one of the excessively modern and incredibly uncomfortable chairs. “I’m here in his stead.”

  Lowensdahl dismissed her with a wave of a carefully manicured hand. “My understanding was that Mr. Simpson wished to see me on a matter of some urgency. I don’t appreciate having him pawn the meeting off on some underling.”

  “I can assure you I’m no underling,” Ali said with a smile. “I’m actually a full partner in High Noon Enterprises, and I’m here to speak to you about Ocotillo Fund Management. I understand you’ll be serving as the CRO in the course of their bankruptcy proceedings.”

  Lowensdahl blinked and then sighed. “Yes,” he said. “That’s true.”

  “My belief is that your first duty as CRO is to determine if it’s feasible to restructure the company and help it emerge from bankruptcy. Failing that, you’re expected to assemble whatever assets remain and distribute them to creditors, including investors, correct?”

  “Yes,” Lowensdahl nodded. “That’s about the size of it.”

  “How exactly do you propose to do that?” Ali asked.

  Lowensdahl shrugged. “First we inventory all the tangible
assets—real estate, bank accounts, automobiles, personal property, whatever—and sell them off to the highest bidder. Whatever funds we’re able to obtain from that are used to pay off creditors, including the investors, who receive amounts in proportion to the monies they had previously invested.”

  “By real estate assets,” she said, “I suppose you’d be referring to the equity in OFM’s corporate building, for example?”

  “Exactly,” Lowensdahl said, nodding with a half smile as though encouraging a remedial student who had finally grasped some challenging concept.

  “Are you aware Jason McKinzie already sold the building?” Ali asked.

  That rocked him. Eugene Lowensdahl’s shock and dismay were gratifyingly obvious. “He did?”

  “Three months ago,” Ali said. “As a member of the board of directors, I’m surprised you were unaware of that.”

  “This is all news to me,” he said, “and something I’ll have to verify independently rather than just taking your word for it.”

  “Of course,” Ali said. “So if the equity from the sale of the building has disappeared, what other assets are there?”

  “Look,” Lowensdahl said. “You can’t just walk in here and expect me to discuss confidential client information with you.”

  “Of course not,” Ali agreed, “but High Noon’s preliminary analysis of Mr. McKinzie’s operation tells us that his customers have millions of dollars invested in Ocotillo Fund Management. That’s a lot of money—a lot of other people’s money. We also believe he has plenty of it tucked away in out-of-the-way places where he doesn’t believe anyone else will be able to find it. He may be resigned to being caught eventually, tried, and even sent to jail, but he also knows that once he’s done his time, he’ll have access to all that hidden cash, and no one will be able to do a thing about it.”

  “Ms. Reynolds,” Eugene said, trying to regain some ground. “At this point in our investigations, we have no indication that any of the Ocotillo funds have been, as you call it, ‘tucked away.’ More likely they’ve simply been badly mismanaged.”

  “And somehow vanished into thin air,” Ali suggested.

  “Yes,” he said finally. “I suppose you could say vanished.”

  Ali didn’t feel as though she was making much progress, so she decided to give him a glimpse of her high card.

  “Supposing I told you that some of that vanished cash may have been turned into South African diamonds?”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “Without a formal agreement of some kind, I’m not prepared to reveal any of our sources,” Ali said. “I’ll just say that we’re confident that is the case, and we’ll be working to verify that information.”

  “What kind of formal agreement?” Lowensdahl asked.

  “We’d like you to hire High Noon to try to retrieve some of those vanished funds,” Ali said. “The longer you delay in going looking for them, the less likely you are to find them. You’re hands are going to be tied up with red tape. Ours won’t be.

  “There’s been a good deal of publicity recently concerning a group called The Family up by Colorado City,” Ali continued. “Are you aware of any of that?”

  “You mean that polygamous group that was involved in child trafficking? I suppose I know something about it—whatever was on the news. Why?”

  “We know something about the group, too,” Ali told him. “High Noon has been actively engaged in tracking down funds that the cult’s leader socked away for his own benefit. We’ve used proprietary techniques that make it possible for us to locate supposedly unfindable funds. I think we could do the same here.”

  “Come on,” Lowensdahl sneered. “You’ve got to be kidding. You think you can waltz in here with some cock-and-bull story about phony diamonds and expect me to hire you to track down something that may not even exist? No, thank you. I’m not hiring.”

  “We’d do it on a contingency basis, of course,” Ali continued, “say, twenty percent of anything we recover. In other words, if we don’t find any concealed assets, we don’t get paid. It’s as simple as that.”

  “Not interested,” Lowensdahl said.

  “What about clawbacks?” Ali asked.

  “What about them?” Lowensdahl demanded.

  “How are they handled?” Ali asked.

  “For those we go to investors who have previously received disbursements and bring those amounts back into the asset side of the ledger. At the conclusion of the bankruptcy proceedings, those funds are returned to all investors on a pro rata basis. That allows us to be fair to all the investors, not just the ones who decided to withdraw funds early on.”

  “Why are you more interested in retrieving money from the poor people who’ve already been victimized than you are in retrieving money from Mr. McKinzie himself?”

  Lowensdahl sighed. “Let me remind you, Ms. Reynolds, Mr. McKinzie is nowhere to be found. It’s thought that he’s left the country.”

  “And taken the money with him.”

  “Be that as it may. I’m sure the authorities will find him in good time.”

  “When it’s too late to find the money.” Picking up her purse, Ali stood abruptly and laid her business card on the otherwise paper-free desk. “I believe we’re done here, Mr. Lowensdahl. Feel free to give us a call if you change your mind about our being of assistance in this matter.”

  She walked out of his office then, striding away exactly as her mother would have wanted—head held high, shoulders back, and definitely with her knockers up.

  53

  When Ali opened the car door, the unmistakable smell of twice-cooked meat loaf exploded out of the car. The sandwich Leland had so thoughtfully given her had spent the better part of an hour baking in direct sunlight on the front seat. She settled on the scorching leather seat just long enough to turn on the ignition and activate the AC. Then, with the fan blowing full-blast, she grabbed the sandwich bag and walked it to the nearest trash can. Even so, the steering wheel was still too hot to touch when she returned.

  She took a moment to check her phone. There was only one message, from Stu.

  Do not go to Jessica Denton’s address on Central. Call me.

  Cami’s still not here and she isn’t answering her phone. I’m worried.

  Ali dialed Stu’s number at once. “Thank God it’s you,” Stu said when he answered. Stu Ramey wasn’t someone to get overly excited about anything. Right now he sounded downright panicked.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Cami never showed,” he said.

  “She should have been there hours ago. Where could she be?”

  “I got caught up with working on the Basel thing and wasn’t paying attention to the time. When I surfaced and noticed she wasn’t here, I had just heard on the scanner that the DPS was in the process of towing a vehicle that had crashed on Beaverhead Flats Road.”

  “Cami left from the Village,” Ali said. “That’s the quickest route between there and Cottonwood.”

  “Exactly,” Stu said. “I called my dispatcher friend. The wrecked car was a stolen VW Beetle and not Cami’s Prius. There were no injuries and the driver had apparently fled. In other words, no extensive investigation was required. Wham-bam thank you ma’am, they hauled it away.”

  “Was there any sign of Cami at the scene?”

  “No, and not of her Prius, either, but that’s where we found her phone. Not right at the scene but just north of where the VW crashed. Your folks went out into the brush and found it. Because of the location info, I was able to direct your father right to it. They’re bringing it back here now.”

  “You think she’s been kidnapped?”

  “What do you think?” Stu replied. “You told me she was bringing me Dan Frazier’s memory card. Is it possible that’s why she was targeted—because of the card? If so, how would anyone else even know that she had it?”

  Ali closed her eyes for a moment, remembering the scene in the office when Haley Jackson had given her the car
d. There had been only four people present at the time, unless one of Haley’s employees had been eavesdropping on the conversation without their being aware of it.

  “I was just about to call the cops,” Stu said.

  “Let’s think about this for a minute,” Ali said. “Do you have a lock on her car?”

  “I do now. It’s currently parked inside a garage at a residence on West Par Five Drive in Peoria.”

  “What do we know about that address?”

  “Not much. It’s a rental that backs up on a golf course. The landlord won’t give me any information on the leasee without having a warrant.”

  “Cops could get a warrant, but if we bring them in, all hell is going to break loose in that neighborhood. Cami could get hurt and so could innocent people. If the car moves, all bets are off, you should call and report it. In the meantime, text me the address, and I’ll head that way. It’s rush hour. No telling how long it will take for me to get across town. The last I knew, Dave Holman was still here in Phoenix. I’ll give him a call and walk this past him as well. And what about Jessica Denton? Was there something wrong with her address?”

  “No, there’s something wrong with the person,” Stu replied. “The real Jessica Denton, the one with that Social Security number, was born in Laramie, Wyoming, in 1992 and died three years later. It’s probably just some kind of identity theft, but I didn’t want you showing up at her door without knowing she wasn’t the real deal.”

  Ali thought about that scene in the office again, with all of them gathered around an impromptu table littered with pizza boxes and coffee cups. She thought about what Carol Hotchkiss had said, something about Jessica stopping by to visit the night before and about something being off about it.

  “Text me the address in Peoria, but I’ll get back to you. I need to make a call.”

  Haley Jackson’s number wasn’t in Ali’s contact list, so it took her a moment to look it up and make her way past the receptionist who answered the phone.