Clawback

by J. A. Jance

  “Good work,” Ali said. “He’ll need to go through channels to get this, but I’ll let him know.”

  “Wait,” Stu said. “That’s not the best of it. Just wait until you hear.” Stu was so excited, he could barely contain himself.

  “What?”

  “We’ve got him! We’ve got lines on McKinzie’s money—all of it—or at least on whatever’s left.”

  “How?”

  “Your parents found it, or at least they figured it out.”

  “Found what out?” Stu was so wound up that he was talking in circles.

  “They cracked the encryption code. Or, rather, your mother did.”

  “Are you serious? How?”

  “When we tried to open one of the encrypted files, there was a hint for the code—you know, something to prod your memory in case the user has forgotten it. The hint said Lincoln, GA.”

  “Lincoln, Georgia?” Ali asked.

  “I tried that,” Stu said. “I found a place called Lincolnton in Georgia and a Lincoln County there as well, but neither of those seemed to help. Then your mom remembered something she read late this afternoon. Jason McKinzie came from humble beginnings, something he didn’t care to bandy about. He grew up dirt poor in Morenci, Arizona. The Arizona Historical Society has spent millions of dollars digitizing all the state’s hometown papers to make them accessible. One of the links I sent to your dad was from the Morenci Miner. Your dad located it and printed it, but your mother is the one who sorted it, and she doesn’t just sort them—she reads them as well.”

  “And?”

  “When Jason McKinzie was in the seventh grade, he won a fifty-dollar prize in a Chamber of Commerce–sponsored oratorical contest for reciting the Gettysburg Address. Sure enough, ‘Four score and seven years ago’ does the trick. And what’s in those encrypted files? Banking information—names, locations, amounts, account numbers. And a complete listing of leased properties—condos and houses—including the one on Par Five Drive.”

  “This is amazing. Does B. know about any of this?”

  “He’s sleeping right now,” Stu said. “I’ll let him know in the morning. Or you can.”

  “Where are my folks?”

  “On their way home. Your mother gave Bob a choice. Either he promised not to backseat drive or she was leaving him here with me. I’m sure she was kidding about that. They were both over the moon about finding the money, and I don’t blame them. I am, too. Jason McKinzie may have robbed them blind, but they worked their butts off today, trying to get back some of their own.”

  “And they did,” Ali said. “And not just for themselves, either. A lot of other people will benefit as well.”

  Call-waiting buzzed with an unknown number showing on the caller ID screen. “Sorry, Stu,” she said. “I’ve got another call. With everything that’s going on, I’d better take this.”

  She switched over to the other line. “Please hold the line for a call from Eugene Lowensdahl.”

  It was late—after nine by then—but Ali recognized the voice of the sweater-wearing receptionist from Eugene Lowensdahl’s office. The fact that Lowendahl was calling her was unexpected, but the fact that he couldn’t be bothered to use his own fingers to punch in her number was not.

  “All right,” Ali said. “I’ll hold.”

  He came on the phone sounding only slightly less arrogant than he had earlier in the afternoon. “Ms. Reynolds?”

  “Yes.”

  “It has just been brought to my attention that all data was removed from the OFM computers in the hours preceding the bankruptcy filing.”

  “I was aware of that,” Ali said.

  “You were?”

  “Yes,” Ali said. “The hard drives were wiped by some kind of worm. I didn’t mention it because I was sure you already knew about it.”

  “Well, I didn’t,” he said. “I had no idea. There are paper files, of course. Everyone is required to maintain those, but scanning and searching through that much paper just to do the accounting will be an impossible task. Not only that, I don’t even have a complete listing of the clients.”

  Thanks to the stolen memory card, Ali was quite sure High Noon was already in possession of such a list. And a whole lot more besides—direct trails to Jason McKinzie’s embezzled funds. She also knew how painful it was for someone like Lowensdahl to ask for help, but she didn’t make it easy for him. She wanted him to spit it out.

  “So what’s the purpose of this call, Mr. Lowensdahl?” Ali asked.

  “Is your offer of trying to recover funds still on the table?”

  “I suppose,” Ali said, “at our standard fee of twenty percent.”

  “Absolutely,” he said. “That’s more than fair.”

  Of course, Ali thought, it’s easy to strike that kind of deal when you’re busy spending other people’s money.

  “Very well,” Lowensdahl said. “I’ll have my office draw up a suitable agreement tomorrow. Is it safe to assume that you’re one of High Noon’s principals?”

  “Yes,” she said. “B. and I are full partners in this endeavor. He happens to be in Switzerland at the moment, but I can sign a letter of agreement just as well as he can.”

  “All right, then,” he said. “We’ll be in touch.”

  Ali pumped air and gave herself an audible “YES!”

  A clerk seated on the far side of the room glanced up from her computer keyboard with a wary look. She probably thought Ali was having some kind of spasm, but Ali didn’t care.

  Bob and Edie Larson were winning. Jason McKinzie and Jessica Denton were losing. What could be better than that?

  62

  Turn in here,” Bob said, directing Edie into a grocery store parking lot.

  “You promised you wouldn’t backseat drive,” she said. “And why a grocery store? We already ate dinner with Stu.”

  “Sharing pizza with Stuart Ramey isn’t exactly what I’d call fine dining, but just let me out. You can stay in the car. I’ll only be a minute, but I’ll need to borrow your wallet.”

  It was after nine. The store was practically deserted. He was back out in less than five minutes carrying a paper bag with a rather distinctive shape.

  “You bought booze?” Edie asked.

  “Not booze,” he said. “Champagne. You and I are going to go home, watch the news, and celebrate.”

  Back at Sedona Shadows, Bob got down the ice bucket and cooled the champagne while Edie polished off the dust that had accumulated on a pair of seldom used champagne glasses. By the time the local news came on at ten, they were in their respective recliners and holding their respective flutes brimming with chilled champagne.

  The first story on Headline News was about the arrest of fugitive financier Jason McKinzie, CEO of the failed investment firm Ocotillo Fund Management. Also arrested was his accomplice, former OFM employee Jessica Denton. McKinzie was found driving a stolen vehicle while trying to flee. A local crop-duster pilot from Casa Grande is being questioned in regard to his part in the plot to spirit the pair out of the country in order to escape prosecution.

  “Peoria Police Department is releasing no further information about the arrests at this time due to the ongoing nature of the investigation. An anonymous source close to the investigation indicated that, in addition to stolen vehicle charges, there is some speculation that the two suspects may have been involved in a possible kidnapping. Details on that are sketchy at this time. We’ll be following this story throughout this newscast. As more information becomes available, we’ll be sure to pass it along.”

  “The details are sketchy, all right,” Edie sniffed. “What about their implication in four homicides? When is someone going to mention that?”

  “Soon enough,” Bob said. “They’ll figure it out.”

  “Are you including Eric Drinkwater in that ‘they’?” Edie asked.

  “I guess,” Bob said, picking up the remote and turning off the TV set. “But that’s not what I want to talk about tonight.” He raised
his glass and they toasted. “Here’s to you and me, babe. Turns out the two of us are pretty damned smart, smarter than the average bear.”

  “How smart are bears?” Edie asked. “Ali told me this morning that they needed our help because we’re ‘wise.’ I think what she really meant is that we’re old.”

  “Old or not, we gave Stu a run for his money today. He never would have come up with the Gettysburg Address, never in a million years.”

  “That was fun,” she agreed.

  “But now let’s talk about us. Yesterday when I saw the news that our money was gone, I really thought our lives were over. Whether we get all of it back or none of it, I learned a big lesson. You and I are in this together.”

  “Hear, hear,” Edie said with a smile.

  “So I’ve been thinking about those life insurance policies we have on each other.”

  “The ones we bought from Dan?”

  Bob nodded.

  “What about them?”

  “I think we should take some of the money out of those and spend it on us,” he said. “We’ve made a deposit on this fall’s cruise, and I think we should go regardless. I want to bet on us and on the belief that some of the money we lost is going to come back to us. And if it doesn’t, we may be poor as church mice, but we’ll be church mice together who’ve just come back from a cruise.”

  Edie studied him for a second or two, then she raised her glass and smiled. “Amen to that,” she said.

  “And I also wanted to say thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “For being there for me when I was at my lowest ebb. I don’t know how I would have gotten through this without you and my guys.”

  “Your guys?” Edie asked. “What did they have to do with anything?”

  “They lit a light for me last night. Just when I needed it most, they lit a light that got me to straighten up and fly right.”

  The phone rang then, their landline, interrupting their conversation and startling them both. Edie put down her glass to answer. A moment later the smile on her face dissolved into a frown. “He’s here? Now? All right, we’ll be right down.”

  “Who’s here?”

  “That was Bridget. She says Detective Drinkwater is down at the desk.”

  Bob rose from his chair.

  “Shouldn’t I go with you?” Edie asked.

  “No,” Bob said. “You stay here. You’ve done enough for one day. Whatever it is, I’ll handle it. Besides, given your opinion of Eric Drinkwater, I’m afraid you might just rip into him.”

  It was a long walk from their unit at the end of the corridor to the front lobby. Eric Drinkwater stood with his hands in his pockets, staring out through the glass front door toward the parking lot.

  “You wanted to see me?” Bob asked.

  Drinkwater turned. When he did, Bob saw that the distinctive Bronco’s key ring was dangling from the detective’s fingers. “You heard about what went on down in Phoenix tonight?”

  Bob nodded. “Some,” he said.

  Thanks to Stu Ramey, Bob knew a good deal more about the investigation than “some,” and far more than he should have, but he didn’t let on.

  “Two more people are dead besides Dan and Millie Frazier and two suspects are currently in custody,” Drinkwater continued, “including Jason McKinzie. He and a female accomplice are being transported to the Yavapai County Jail in Prescott, where Dave Holman and I will be conducting our interviews with them tomorrow morning. The two dead victims found shot to death north of Sun City early this morning are thought to be the doers in the Frazier homicides. A vehicle found nearby, a truck belonging to a Phoenix-based landscaping company, contained items believed to have been stolen from the Fraziers’ home in Paradise Valley.”

  “The Sun City victims were hitmen hired to murder Dan and Millie?”

  “That’s a reasonable assumption,” Drinkwater said. “And once they finished the job, they were murdered by the people who hired them. Which means, sir, that you’re no longer a suspect, and I owe you an apology. I also owe you these.” He held out the key ring and dropped it into Bob’s outstretched hand. “I had a guy from the impound lot drive the Bronco over. It’s waiting out front.”

  Bob took a moment to digest those words. Dan and Millie Frazier were both still dead, but thanks to B. and Ali and Stu Ramey and Cami Lee, Bob’s part in that nightmare was over. He looked at the keys for a long moment before slipping them into his pocket, then Bob Larson held out his hand.

  “Okay,” he said. “Apology accepted.”

  63

  Haley Jackson was standing in the shower when she remembered the mess in the kitchen. By the time she and Gram had finally made it home late last night after yesterday’s very long day, she hadn’t been able to face it. Now, rather than do the cleanup in her work clothes, she hurried into the kitchen, only to find that Gram was already there and the coffee was almost done.

  “Surprise,” Gram said with a grin, pointing toward the stove, where a brand-new set of shiny pots and pans sat on display.

  Haley stopped and stared. There was no evidence of the old charred pan anywhere in the room. “How did you manage these?” she asked.

  “I asked that very nice Carmen Rios—she’s a treasure, you know—to go pick them up from the hardware store while we were in Cottonwood. I had told her about the mess, and she offered to come by after work, drop these off, and get rid of the dead one. Because of all the stinky smoke, I asked her to put several of those plug-in air fresheners throughout the house. Look what she found behind our couch.”

  Gram picked up a small black object from the table and handed it to Haley. She studied the item—something small and electronic. “A listening device?” Haley asked. “Another bug?”

  Gram nodded. “That would be my guess. Remember how, just as Jessica was leaving the house, something happened—like she tripped over something and spilled her purse? All of that happened on the far side of the couch. I’m willing to bet the whole thing was a ruse so she could plug this in without our noticing.”

  “Well,” Haley said, reaching for the pan that would work best for oatmeal and giving it a fast soapy wash under running water. “I just heard on the news that both Jessica Denton and Jason McKinzie are currently being held in the Yavapai County Jail in Prescott.”

  “Good riddance,” Gram said pleasantly. “May they both rot in hell.”

  Once Haley got to work, it was a relatively quiet day. Admittedly, a few still-irate customers came in to formally cancel their policies. Haley spent the better part of an hour on the phone with Morgan Whitney. Dan and Millie’s bodies had been released to the funeral home, so the arrangements could be finalized. By the time the call was over, the paid-in-full service was set for 2:00 p.m. on Friday afternoon. She was finishing that call when an anxious Carmen appeared in front of her desk.

  “What’s wrong?” Haley asked.

  “That Agent Ferris is here again,” Carmen said. “He’s asking to speak to you.”

  Haley shook her head in resignation. “All right,” she said. “I’ll speak to him in Dan’s office. Bring him there in a few minutes.”

  Haley stood outside the door for a moment, preparing herself to enter the office. At some point, she supposed, this would become hers. For right now, though, it was still Dan’s. By the time Carmen ushered Agent Ferris in, Haley was seated behind the desk.

  She rose and held out her hand. “Good morning, Agent Ferris. What seems to be the problem this morning?”

  “No problem,” he said. “I came to express my apologies and also my condolences.”

  Haley sank back into the chair and studied the man. “Apologies for what?” she asked.

  “For the way you and your people were treated. Dan Frazier was a good guy, Ms. Jackson. He approached our department two months ago, concerned about the solvency of OFM. We asked him to gather evidence for us. In the process of doing so, he told us that he thought someone was spying on him. He believed it was someone in the
corporate offices down in Phoenix. I suggested it might be someone close to him up here—you, for example.”

  “Me?”

  “Dan wouldn’t hear of it, of course. But that’s why we took the files and the computers. The files were cover. What we really wanted was access to employee e-mails to see if someone here had turned on him.”

  “And we hadn’t.”

  “No.”

  “Dan had learned that Jason had a laptop that he was absolutely hyper about keeping apart from the company’s network. Dan felt sure there was critical information stored on that, and he didn’t want us to make a move against McKinzie until he managed to duplicate the files. He downloaded them onto a memory card sometime overnight on Thursday and called on Friday to let us know that he had them. I thought we should move in immediately, but no one would authorize a full weekend of overtime. The raid was moved to Monday. Dan died on Tuesday. So far we’ve not found any trace of the file.”

  “I have it,” Haley said. “Or at least a copy of what was on the card. The drive itself was left in Dan and Millie’s safe-deposit box. I found it there. When I realized it was encrypted, I turned it over to a company called High Noon Enterprises.”

  She tore of a sheet from a note pad, consulted her phone, wrote down a number, and passed the paper to him. “Ali Reynolds is one of the owners,” Haley said. “You should probably speak to her.”

  Agent Ferris looked at the note and then slipped it into his pocket. “About the funerals . . . ,” he said.

  “There will be one service only,” Haley said. “A memorial service at two p.m. on Friday afternoon at the Whitney Funeral Home here in town.”

  “Since I feel personally responsible for what’s happened,” Agent Ferris said, “I’d like to send some flowers and perhaps even attend, but only if you think that would be appropriate.”