‘If they weren’t all dated in the last four months,’ Leo said, ‘I’d think we’d found an archive from thirty years ago.’
‘Maybe that’s the genius part, though,’ Sarah said. ‘Everything low tech. He’s not putting anything on a computer so he can’t get hacked.’
‘What a great plan for the future,’ Jason said. ‘Back to pencils and carbon paper, right? How far do you suppose he was going with this? We gonna be finding buggy whips in another crawl space?’
‘Maybe we should all start riding mules to work,’ Ray Menendez said. ‘We get in sync with this guy’s zeitgeist and we might be able to sniff our way to the money pile.’
Leo Tobin began to speculate about finding a still out in the desert somewhere.
Jason said, ‘Oh, and you’ll know what it is right away?’
‘Sure,’ Leo said. ‘Didn’t I ever tell you about my years with Eliot Ness?’
Then Delaney came out of his office, fresh from another round of phoning, and introduced the man with him as, ‘Don Belgrave, from the Phoenix ICE office. I heard he was coming to town today and I asked him to stop in and take a look at what we’ve got here.’
Don Belgrave was quietly dressed and barbered, presentable but not flashy, and had, Sarah thought, that edgy patina that well-placed Feds tended to get – the aura of worries too big to be shared. What the hell was he doing taking time to look at their two-bit murder case that didn’t concern him at all?
Leo Tobin, filled with the expansive good cheer of the short-timer, said, ‘Pull up a chair, Don. Any number can play this game.’ He handed over a fistful of paper. ‘Here’s your first brainteaser: why would anybody keep chits from casino slots in with paperwork from home sales? Which, by the way, I thought I understood flipping houses, but some of these deals—’ He was too intent to notice that his sentence had run completely off the rails.
‘Here’s a house on Valencia Avenue that our man bought in April, for instance. As near as I can tell it was paid for with eighteen thousand in cash, a land swap from over by Benson, two used cars from the indie dealer on Auto Mall Road and a truckload of wine from a vineyard in St David. He sold it in June to a buyer in Tijuana.’
Jason’s face lit up with delight. ‘An eighteen-wheeler full of wine from the monastery? Really?’
‘I’m not sure yet about the size of the truck, Jason. We’ll have to pin that down.’
‘And here in my box,’ Sarah said, ‘is this sheaf of orders for machine tools from a manufacturer in China.’
‘Ah, China.’ Don Belgrave looked pleased. ‘Shipped to where?’
‘A maquiladora in Sonora.’
‘Uh-huh,’ he said, nodding. ‘There you go.’
‘There I go doing what?’
‘Looks like your victim’s been running a funnel account.’ He pulled a smart phone out of an inner pocket and began scrolling through numbers. ‘There’s a young woman in our DC office, links up with my section when we need her. She’s been working on these things almost full-time for a couple of years. She’ll be able to help you figure this out.’ He paused with his finger poised above the speed-dial button. ‘You got the bank records all in order?’
‘We haven’t found any bank records,’ Sarah said. ‘What’s a funnel account?’
‘No bank records? Well, but how can you—’ He looked around the table. ‘You people haven’t seen a funnel account before? Where you been?’
‘We’re homicide,’ Ollie said. ‘We hardly ever get to play with the money.’
‘Except sometimes in home invasions,’ Jason said, ‘there’ll be some bloody cash mixed in with the corpses.’ His face had put on its iron-hard, step-out-of-the-vehicle look. He’d had a tough year – killed a man to save an old woman’s life, did it the way he was trained to do it and got a commendation but still had nightmares about it. Sarah could almost hear him thinking, Ain’t no slicker-than-snot Fed guy gets to mark us down as a bunch of candy asses just because we don’t know about some downtown accounting dodge with stupid funnels.
‘Where we’ve been,’ Sarah said, ‘is right here investigating the death of an elderly man named Calvin Springer, who by all accounts lived a quiet life in his small house under Signal Mountain for fifteen or twenty years until this Fourth of July holiday, when somebody walked into his house and killed him. So if the paper in these boxes gives you some idea of what he was doing that might account for that, we’d all like to hear about it.’
Don Belgrave looked around the long table and saw six homicide detectives watching him with the cold blank stares they usually put on for shackled nogoodniks about to hear their Miranda rights.
He stood up. ‘Tell you what,’ he told Delaney, ‘let’s go in your office and sort out the jurisdiction on this thing first.’
So they did that and the homicide crew went back to piecing together the oddball deals Calvin Springer had been making, or at least documenting, in his solitary hours on Alameda Avenue. In half an hour Belgrave was gone and Delaney came out of his office looking cheerful.
‘OK, I made the deal,’ he said.
‘Good,’ Sarah said. ‘What do we get?’
‘A woman named Lois Johnson, how’s that for plain and simple? Belgrave says she matches her name but don’t be fooled by her appearance – she’s wicked smart.’ He passed the note to Sarah. ‘She spends most of her time in New York and DC but she’s scheduled for a visit to Phoenix next week. Belgrave’s going to try to get her to carve out a day or two to look this stuff over and decide if they should take the case.’
Sarah turned a protesting face toward him but he held up a hand. ‘Just the money laundering part, that’s all they’re interested in. The homicide will still be ours.’ He sat down in the chair Belgrave had abandoned. ‘You still haven’t found any bank records?’
‘Because they’re not here to find,’ Tobin said. ‘We’ve been to the bottom of all these boxes – of course there are notes on the money but no checks or copies of checks, nothing you could take to court. I see the initials FSCU in several places, though. I’m pretty sure that means First Southwest Credit Union. We could go there with a subpoena and bring back whatever they’ve got. What do you think?’
‘Sounds like a good plan but I’ve got a better one,’ Ollie said. He looked at Sarah. ‘You still got the keys to the house?’
Handing them over, Sarah said, ‘You’re thinking about that hot bathroom, aren’t you?’
‘You bet. And I don’t want to listen to any more belly-aching about your back muscles, so how about it, boss, can Jason come with me and help carry what I think I’m going to find?’
Jason, who had been trying for some time to think of an urgent chore that would get him out of looking at any more handwritten records, was ready to go in five minutes flat.
He looked a little less enthusiastic when they came back, two hours later, pushing another cart containing four cardboard boxes. In the boxes, which they heaved on to the counting table together, were eight family-size coffee cans, each one bulging with tightly-packed paper.
‘We had to kind of pry this last one out,’ Ollie said. ‘It was right where the conduit turned. Shee! Wonder he had any air in there at all.’
Leo was already scanning the bank slips that cascaded out of the cans. ‘It was First Southwest, by God. Hah! Betcha these babies make that Fed lady smile.’
‘Smiling or not,’ Delaney said, ‘she’ll be here first thing Monday morning. Don Belgrave just called.’ He did a funny thing with his eyebrows. ‘He asked me to say what a pleasure it was to meet you folks.’
‘Denny,’ Sarah said that night as they filled the dishwasher after dinner, ‘could we talk for a few minutes when we’re done with this?’
‘Oh, please, Aunt Sarah.’ Denny was growing a new look this summer – Sarah privately called it her Bunkered Chipmunk look. Maybe it was just tough days with the new braces and a couple of zits that heralded the approach of puberty. Sometimes her whole body seemed to flinch and her s
mall face grew a contemptuous sneer that said the world was not even close to good enough for her. Sarah was trying to decide if this was a phase of near-twelve development that just needed patience, or maybe for the first time since they’d lived together her beloved Denny needed to be told to stuff it.
She’d had good reason for the Dubious Denny look she’d worn when Sarah had adopted her. Her last year with her drug-addicted mother had been scary enough to make any kid insecure. But she was basically good-natured and had bounced back quickly, Sarah had thought, as soon as she got regular meals and a reliable support system. She’d kept her grades up with no urging and done more than her share of household chores without complaint. But this summer she had days when she seemed to be turning into Witchy Denny.
In the dry, snappish voice that went with the new look, she said, ‘We went over all that female anatomy stuff a month ago in school. If I promise not to get pregnant for years and years could we please skip the cycles of the moon tonight?’
Sarah managed a laugh. ‘Poor Denny. Do you feel like you’re getting carpet-bombed with information on sensitive topics?’
‘For sure. And most of the teachers are even more embarrassed than you are.’
‘I’m not – well, yes, I guess I am a little. You’re still not quite twelve and this all feels much too soon.’
‘To me too. But what can I do?’
‘Same thing we all do, I guess – grin and bear it. Actually I wasn’t even thinking about sex education when we started this conversation. Something a colleague said at work made me think I ought to ask you if any of your peer group was getting into drugs yet. Is marijuana circulating freely in the halls? Anybody toking in the showers?’
‘Oh – a little sampling going on, I guess. Here and there.’
‘Ever get tempted to try a sample?’
‘Omigod no. Me? Never.’
‘How come you’re so sure? Because of your mom?’
‘Yes. Watching her ruin herself – I can’t even stand to think about it. I believe I’m immune for life. Like I got’ – she laughed out loud at the irony of what she was about to say – ‘I got my shots for that.’
‘Well, at least immunity is good, huh? Would you … could we have a hug?’ With the small, firm body held close against her side, she said, ‘I’m sorry you had to get immune the hard way. And I don’t mean to be always lecturing you about something. But you know … well, you don’t know, so I’ll tell you. Peer group pressure works on parents the same way it does on kids – maybe even worse when you’re an adoptive parent. People say things and I start feeling … like I don’t know enough to raise you right. Am I being too nosy? Or not paying close enough attention? I guess you’ll have to tell me when I’m too far off the mark, won’t you?’
‘Oh, sure.’ Dubious Denny came back, looking amused. ‘Tell you you’re all wrong and then duck?’
‘I’ll try not to heave a brick at your head. But parenting is not an easy job, it turns out. I try to remember that when we talk about your mother.’
‘She used to remind me quite often.’ Witchy Denny came back and added, ‘When she could talk at all.’
Surveying Denny’s tired face, Sarah said, ‘You know, I haven’t seen you close up much this summer. We’ve been doing a lot of passing and waving, haven’t we? You’re growing a new look, kind of lean and mean. Is that swim team turning out to be a lot more work than you expected?’
‘Well … sorry if I look mean. Yeah, right now the coach says we need to, um, bear down.’
‘Oh, that’s right, there’s a meet this weekend, isn’t there?’
‘Yes. All-city. If we could get two firsts and a couple of seconds we could go to the regionals in Phoenix next month. I don’t really think we’re good enough, but we gotta try, I guess.’
‘When you made the team in May I thought you were so thrilled. Now you sound like you’re kind of sorry you took it on.’
‘I love to swim. I’m not so sure I love to compete. It all gets kind of … competitive, you know? And stressful.’
‘And who needs stress in the summer, huh? It’s supposed to be the time you stretch out and get over yourself, isn’t it? Listen, if it’s making you unhappy I won’t object if you quit.’
‘Well, you can’t quit in the middle of a season. I mean, this coach is really very good and I wouldn’t want to let her down.’
‘I suppose. Look, I’ll finish these pans. Why don’t you go have a little read before bedtime? Maybe you just need some cocooning.’
‘Oh, you sure? Well, thanks, Aunt Sarah.’ Denny made an effort – flashed a little smile before she walked away. Sarah watched her go, not liking the set of her shoulders.
When the pans were stacked on the drying board she went out the kitchen door onto the patio where Will was raking up dead leaves and trash left by the storm. Her mother was curled on a chaise in front of her casita, talking to Will and watching the hummingbirds at a nearby feeder.
The small free-standing house at the back of the lot was one of the features that had persuaded the three of them to buy this property together. It had solved the huge problem of Aggie Decker, totally compos mentis but frail after a stroke. Once a ranch wife who could help deliver a calf at midnight and still have breakfast on the table for family and ranch hands by six-thirty the next morning, during her convalescence she had faced the prospect of assisted living with dread.
‘I don’t mean to sound ungrateful,’ she said. ‘I’m glad those doctors saved my life. Sort of. But TV and card games all day – damn, Sarah, I can’t say I’m looking forward to it.’
It was Will Dietz, the new boyfriend with whom Sarah hadn’t even had time to make serious commitments let alone talk about marriage, who had pointed out that they could help Aggie and also rescue Denny from her drug-addicted mother if they all moved in together and Aggie agreed to supervise the hours when Will and Sarah were both working. About the debt the three of them took on together, he shrugged and said, ‘Everybody’s gotta live somewhere. This house is an asset.’
Sarah still held her breath sometimes when she thought how many unknowns their unconventional family had confronted. Would Aggie’s recovery continue? Will was still in recovery, too, from a near-fatal shooting. His future in the police department wasn’t secure. And Denny, after all, had survived in her mother’s turbulent household by becoming a skilled thief and manipulator. Would she adjust to normal living and supervision?
So far it seemed to be working. Will had resigned from the police department and was thriving in his new investigative job in the county attorney’s office. Sarah loved having him home at nights and weekends.
And their hand-tooled version of assisted living suited Aggie to perfection – she had given up her car and driver’s license without a whimper, knowing she could still play an important role in the new household. Will and Sarah ferried her to appointments and she supervised housecleaners and did most of the cooking, with Denny’s help.
That was the big surprise benefit of this family bargain – the seamless way Aggie had contrived to become a substitute mother to Denny. Except for this recent dust-up about computer games they never seemed to annoy each other. Aggie had pulled out all her old cookbooks and obviously enjoyed sharing her culinary skills with a willing pupil.
‘Look here, this amazing girl can even make piecrust now,’ Aggie had said, beaming, as they served up last Sunday’s dessert.
Better luck than I had any right to expect, Sarah had thought several times, watching them pull one delicious dish after another out of the oven. They were even developing a special patois in which they finished each other’s sentences, sometimes with words but often with action; if one of them said, ‘Now where did I put …’ the other’s hand would likely reach out with the needed tool.
But this summer something was making Denny as prickly as a cactus. Sarah tried to remember – did the approach of puberty bother me this much? Maybe Aggie would remember. Sarah walked across the brick patio to s
tand between Will and her mother and announced, ‘We need to talk.’
‘Oh, my,’ Will said as he leaned his rake against the trash container. ‘This sounds serious.’ They pulled three chairs together.
Sarah said, ‘Have you noticed how irritable Denny’s getting?’
‘She’s tired,’ Aggie said. ‘I’ve been waiting for a chance to talk to you about that swim team she joined. I think their instructor’s gone a little overboard about winning. She’s working them like they’re getting ready for the Olympics.’
Will said, ‘I noticed when I pick her up after practice that she doesn’t chatter on about it like she did at the beginning.’
‘What do you think she’s so concerned about? Does she think she’s not good enough? She’s always been so happy in the water. I’m really puzzled.’
‘If I had a way to get there,’ Aggie said, ‘I could go watch a practice session.’
‘I can’t get away to take you tomorrow,’ Sarah said. ‘But we could go together on Friday. Oh, but that’s your poker club day, isn’t it?’
Aggie waved dismissively. ‘Never mind that, they won’t miss me. They always have plenty of players.’
When they’d agreed on a time, Will said, ‘Then why don’t you all meet me downtown after work on Friday and I’ll buy you dinner?’
‘What a nice thought,’ Aggie said. ‘Is urban renewal all done, then? It’s safe to go downtown after dark?’
‘Oh, with two cops along I think you’ll be OK,’ Will said, not quite able to keep himself from smiling.
‘We haven’t been getting you out enough, have we?’ Sarah said. ‘Downtown Tucson is a happening place now, Ma. Great idea, Will. We could all use a treat. There’s a French brasserie that just opened, or would you like to try the new Italian place?’
‘You pick,’ Will said. ‘And this weekend I’ll see if Denny wants to ride down on the south end and do some car-spotting. That’ll cheer her up.’
‘Will it ever. She loves that cop lore you teach her,’ Aggie said. She privately thought this nudge toward street-cop thinking was a little extreme for a girl of Denny’s age but was glad the child had got over her earlier suspicion of ‘the boyfriend.’
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