Caught (2010)

by Harlan Coben

  "Home."

  "Come to my office. I think you may need to see this."

  WIN WAS RICH. Superrich.

  Example: "Win" was short for Windsor Horne Lockwood III. His office was located on Forty-sixth Street and Park Avenue in the Lock-Horne high-rise.

  You do the math.

  Wendy parked in the lot in the MetLife Building. Her father had worked not far from here. She thought about him now, the way he always rolled up his sleeves to the elbow, the act doubly symbolic--he was always ready to pitch in and never wanted to be thought of as a suit. Her father had tremendous forearms. He made her feel safe. Right now, even though he'd been dead for years, she wanted to collapse in her father's big arms and hear him tell her that everything would be all right. Do we ever outgrow that need? John had done that too--made Wendy feel safe. That may seem antifeminist--this warm feeling of security coming from a man--but there it was. Pops was great, but this wasn't his job. Charlie, well, he would always be her little boy and it would always be her job to take care of him, not the other way around. The two men who had made her feel safe were both dead. They had never failed her, but now, with all the trouble swirling around her, she wondered whether a little voice wasn't whispering that she had failed them.

  Win had moved his office down a floor. The elevator opened up to a sign reading MB REPS. The receptionist said in a high-pitched squeal: "Welcome, Ms. Tynes."

  Wendy nearly stepped back into the elevator. The receptionist was the size of an NFL nose tackle. She was squeezed into a coal black unitard that was like the nightmare version of Adrienne Bar-beau's in Cannonball Run. Her makeup looked as though it had been layered on with a snow shovel.

  "Uh, hi."

  An Asian woman in a tailored white suit appeared. She was tall and slender and model attractive. These two women stood next to each other for a moment, and Wendy couldn't help but picture a bowling ball about to crash into a pin.

  The Asian woman said, "Mr. Lockwood is waiting for you."

  Wendy followed her down the corridor. The woman opened the office door and said, "Ms. Tynes is here."

  Win rose from behind his desk. He was a remarkably good-looking man. Though he was not really her type, what with the blond locks, the almost delicate features, the whole prettyboy persona, there was a quiet strength there, an ice in his blue eyes, a coil in his almost toostill body, as though he might make a deadly strike at any moment.

  Win spoke to the Asian woman. "Thank you, Mee. Would you mind telling Mr. Barry that we're ready?"

  "Of course."

  Mee left. Win crossed the room and bussed Wendy's cheek. There was that small delay, that awkward hesitation. Six months ago, they had knocked boots and it had been beyond awesome and pretty-boy features or not, that always stays in a room.

  "You look spectacular."

  "Thank you. I don't feel it."

  "I gather that you're going through a rough spell."

  "I am."

  Win sat back down, spread his arms. "I'm willing to offer comfort and support."

  "And by comfort and support, you mean . . . ?"

  Win made his eyebrows dance. "Coitus with no interruptus."

  She shook her head in amazement. "You're picking the worst time to hit on me."

  "No such thing. But I understand. Would you care for a brandy?"

  "No thanks."

  "Do you mind if I have one?"

  "Suit yourself."

  Win had an antique globe that opened up to reveal a crystal decanter. His desk was thick cherrywood. There were paintings of men on a foxhunt and a rich Oriental carpet. An artificial putting green covered the far corner. A big-screen TV hung on one wall. "So tell me what this is about," Win said.

  "Is it okay if I don't? I really just need to know who set up Phil Turnball."

  "Of course."

  The office door opened. Mee entered with an old man wearing a bow tie.

  "Ah," Win said. "Ridley, thank you for coming. Wendy Tynes, meet Ridley Barry. Mr. Barry is the cofounder of Barry Brothers Trust, your Mr. Turnball's former employer."

  "Nice to meet you, Wendy."

  Everyone sat. Win's desk was clear except for one huge pile of what looked like files. "Before we begin," Win said, "Mr. Barry and I both need to know that nothing we discuss here will leave this room."

  "I'm a reporter, Win."

  "Then you'd be familiar with the phrase 'off the record.' "

  "Fine. It's off the record."

  "And," Win said, "as a friend, I want your word that you won't divulge anything we say to anyone else."

  She looked at Ridley Barry, then slowly back toward Win. "You have my word."

  "Fine." Win looked toward Ridley Barry. Mr. Barry nodded. Win put his hand on the tall pile. "These are the files on Mr. Phil Turnball. He was, as you know, a financial adviser for Barry Brothers Trust."

  "Yes, I know."

  "I spent the last several hours going through them. I took my time. I also examined the computer trades made by Mr. Turnball. I studied his trading patterns, his buying and selling-his ins and outs, if you will. Because I hold you in high regard, Wendy, and respect your intelligence, I diligently scrutinized his work history with an eye toward how Phil Turnball may have been set up."

  "And?"

  Win met her eyes, and Wendy felt the cold gust. "Phil Turnball did not steal two million dollars. My estimate would be that the number is closer to three. In short, there is no doubt. You wanted to know how Turnball was set up. He wasn't. Phil Turnball orchestrated a fraud that dates back at least five years."

  Wendy shook her head. "Maybe it wasn't him. He didn't work in a vacuum, did he? He had partners and an assistant. Maybe one of them . . ."

  Still meeting her eye, Win picked up a remote control and pressed the button. The television came on.

  "Mr. Barry was also kind enough to let me go through the surveillance tapes."

  The TV screen lit up to reveal an office. The camera had been placed up high, shooting downward. Phil Turnball was feeding documents into a shredder.

  "This is your Mr. Turnball destroying his clients' account statements before they get mailed out."

  Win hit the remote. The screen jumped. Now Phil was at his desk. He stood and moved toward a printer. "Here is Mr. Turnball printing out the fake replacement statements, which he will subsequently mail out. We could go on and on here, Wendy. But there is no doubt. Phil Turnball defrauded his clients and Mr. Barry."

  Wendy sat back. She turned to Ridley Barry. "If Phil is this big-time thief, why hasn't he been arrested?"

  For a moment, no one said anything. Ridley Barry looked toward Win. Win nodded. "Go ahead. She won't tell."

  He cleared his throat and adjusted his bow tie. He was a small man, wizened, the kind of old man some might call endearing or cute. "My brother Stanley and I founded Barry Brothers Trust more than forty years ago," he began. "We worked side-by-side for thirty-seven years. In the same room. Our desks faced each other. Every single working day. The two of us managed to build a business with gross outsets that exceed a billion dollars. We employ more than two hundred people. Our name is on the masthead. I take that responsibility very seriously--especially now that my brother is gone."

  He stopped, looked down at his watch.

  "Mr. Barry?"

  "Yes."

  "This is all very sweet, but why isn't Phil Turnball being prosecuted if he stole from you?"

  "He didn't steal from me. He stole from his clients. My clients too."

  "Whatever."

  "No, not 'whatever.' That's much more than a question of semantics. But let me answer it two ways. Let me answer as, first, a cold businessman and, second, as an old man who believes that he is responsible for his clients' well-being. The cold businessman: In this post-Madoff environment, what do you think will happen to Barry Brothers Trust if it gets out that one of our top financial advisers ran a Ponzi scheme?"

  The answer was obvious, and Wendy wondered why she didn't see that
before. Funny. Phil had used that question to his advantage, hadn't he? He kept using that as proof he'd been set up--"Why haven't they arrested me?"

  "On the other hand," he went on, "the old man feels responsible to those who put their trust in him and his company. So I'm going through the accounts myself. I will reimburse all clients from my personal finances. In short, I will take the hit. The clients who were defrauded will be compensated in full."

  "And will be kept in the dark," Wendy said.

  "Yes."

  Which was why Win had sworn her to secrecy. She sat back and suddenly more pieces came together. Lots of them.

  She knew now. She knew most of it--maybe all of it.

  "Anything else?" Win asked.

  "How did you catch him?" she asked.

  Ridley Barry shifted in his seat. "You can only keep up a Ponzi scheme for so long."

  "No, I get that. But what made you first start looking into him?"

  "Two years ago, I hired a firm to examine the background of all our employees. This was a routine thing, nothing more, but a discrepancy in Phil Turnball's personal file came to our attention."

  "What discrepancy?"

  "Phil lied on his resume."

  "About?"

  "About his education. He said he graduated from Princeton University. That wasn't true."

  Caught

  Chapter 35

  SO NOW SHE KNEW.

  Wendy called Phil's cell phone. Once again there was no answer. She tried his home. Nothing. On the way back from Win's office, she stopped at his home in Englewood. No one was there. She tried the Starbucks. The Fathers Club was gone.

  She debated calling Walker or maybe, more likely, Frank Tremont. He was the one who handled the case of Haley McWaid. There was a good chance that Dan Mercer had not killed Haley. She thought that maybe she now knew who did, but it was still speculation.

  After Ridley Barry left his office, Wendy had run it all by Win. There were two reasons for this. One, she wanted an intelligent outside ear and opinion. Win could provide that. But, two, she wanted someone else to know what she knew as, well, backup--to protect both the information and herself.

  When she finished, Win opened his bottom drawer. He pulled out several handguns and offered her one. She declined.

  Charlie and Pops were still gone. The house was silent. She thought about next year, Charlie gone to college, the house always this still. She didn't like it--the thought of being alone in a house like that. Might be time to downsize.

  Her throat was parched. She downed a full glass of water and refilled the glass. She headed upstairs, sat down, and flipped on the computer. Might as well start testing out her theory. She did the Google searches in reverse-Princeton-scandal order: Steve Miciano, Farley Parks, Dan Mercer, Phil Turnball.

  It made sense to her now.

  She then Googled herself, read the reports on her "sexually inappropriate" behavior, and shook her head. She wanted to cry, not for herself, but for all of them.

  Had this all really started with a college scavenger hunt?

  "Wendy?"

  She should have been scared, but she wasn't. It just reconfirmed what she already knew. She turned around. Phil Turnball stood in her doorway.

  "Other people know," she said.

  Phil smiled. His face had that shine from too much drink. "You think I mean to hurt you?"

  "Haven't you already?"

  "I guess that's true. But that's not why I'm here."

  "How did you get in?"

  "The garage was open."

  Charlie and that damn bike. She wasn't sure what the right move was here. She could try to be subtle, hit her cell phone, dial 9-1-1 or something. She could try to send an e-mail, an electronic SOS of some kind.

  "Don't be afraid," he said.

  "Do you mind if I call a friend then?"

  "I'd rather you didn't."

  "And if I insist?"

  Phil took out a gun. "I have no intention of hurting you."

  Wendy froze. When a gun comes out, it becomes the only thing you see. She swallowed, tried to stay strong. "Hey, Phil?"

  "What?"

  "Nothing says you have no intention of hurting someone better than whipping out a handgun."

  "We need to talk," Phil said. "But I'm just not sure where to start."

  "How about how you kicked that mirror shard into Christa Stockwell's eye?"

  "You really have done your homework, haven't you, Wendy?"

  She said nothing.

  "You're right too. That is where it began." He sighed. The gun hung down by his thigh. "You know what happened though, don't you? I was hiding and then Christa Stockwell screamed. I ran for the door, but she tripped me and grabbed my leg. I never meant to hurt her. I was just trying to get away, and I panicked."

  "You were in the dean's house because of a scavenger hunt?"

  "We all were."

  "Yet you took the fall alone."

  For a moment Phil looked off, lost. She considered making a run for it. He wasn't pointing the gun at her. It might be her best chance. But Wendy didn't move. She just sat there until he finally said, "Yes, that's true."

  "Why?"

  "It seemed like the right thing to do at the time. You see, I came into that school with every advantage. Wealth, family name, a prep school education. The others struggled and scraped. I was drawn to that. They were my friends. Besides, I was going to get in trouble anyway--why drag them into it?"

  "Admirable," Wendy said.

  "Of course, I didn't know the extent of the trouble I was in. It was dark in the house. I thought Christa was just screaming out of fear. I had no idea when I confessed that she'd been hurt that badly." He cocked his head to the right. "I like to think that I still would have done the same thing. Taken the hit for my friends, that is. But I don't know."

  She tried to glance at the computer, tried to see if there was something she could click to get help. "So what happened then?"

  "You know already, don't you?"

  "You were expelled."

  "Yes."

  "And your parents paid Christa Stockwell for her silence."

  "My parents were aghast. But maybe, I don't know, maybe I knew they would be. They paid my debt and then told me to go away. They gave the family business to my brother. I was out. But again maybe that was a good thing."

  "You felt free," Wendy said.

  "Yes."

  "You were now like your roommates. The guys you admired."

  He smiled. "Exactly. And so, like them, I struggled and scraped. I refused any help. I got a job with Barry Brothers. I put together a client list, worked hard to keep everyone happy. I married Sherry, a spectacular woman in every way. We made a family. Beautiful kids, nice house. All on my own. No nepotism, no help . . ."

  His voice drifted off. He smiled.

  "What?"

  "You, Wendy."

  "What about me?"

  "Here we are, the two of us. I have a gun. I'm telling you all about my nefarious deeds. You're asking questions to stall me, hoping for the police to arrive just in the nick of time."

  She said nothing.

  "But I'm not here for me, Wendy. I'm here for you."

  She looked at his face, and suddenly, despite the gun and the situation, the fear left her. "How so?" she asked.

  "You'll see."

  "I'd rather--"

  "You want the answers, don't you?"

  "I guess."

  "So where was I?"

  "Married, job, no nepotism."

  "Right, thank you. You said you met Ridley Barry?"

  "Yes."

  "Nice old man, right? Very charming. He comes across as honest. And he is. I was too." He looked down at the gun in his hand as though it had just materialized out of thin air. "You don't start off as a thief. I bet even Bernie Madoff didn't. You're doing the best you can for your clients. But it's a cutthroat world. You make a bad trade. You lose some money. But you know you'll get it back. So you move some other mone
y into that account. Just for a day, maybe a week. When the next trade comes in, you'll make it up and then some. It isn't stealing. In the end, your clients will be better off. You just start small like that, a little crossing of the line--but then what can you do about it? If you admit what you've done, you're ruined. You'll get fired or go to jail. So what other choice do you have? You have to keep borrowing from Peter to pay Paul and hope that something will click, some Hail Mary pass will work, so you can get out from under."

  "Bottom line," Wendy said, "you stole from your clients?"

  "Yes."

  "Gave yourself a decent salary?"

  "It was part of keeping up appearances."

  "Right," Wendy said. "I see."

  Phil smiled. "You're right, of course. I'm just trying to give you the mind frame, justified or not. Did Ridley tell you why they first started looking at me?"

  She nodded. "You lied on your resume."

  "Right. That night in the dean's house--it came back to haunt me again. All of a sudden, because of what happened all those years ago, my whole world began to disintegrate. Can you imagine how I felt? I took the fall for those guys, even though I wasn't really to blame, and now, well, after all these years, I was still suffering."

  "What do you mean, you weren't to blame?"

  "Just what I said."

  "You were there. You kicked Christa Stockwell in the face."

  "That's not what started it. Did she tell you about the ashtray?"

  "Yes. You threw it."

  "Did she tell you that?"

  Wendy thought about it. She had assumed, but had Christa Stockwell actually said it was Phil?

  "It wasn't me," he said. "Someone else threw an ashtray at her. That's what shattered the mirror."

  "You didn't know who?"

  He shook his head. "The other guys who were there that night all denied it was them. That's what I meant about not being to blame. And now I had nothing again. When my parents heard about my firing, well, that was the final blow. They disowned me entirely. Sherry and my kids--they started looking at me differently. I was lost. I was at rock bottom--all because of that damned scavenger hunt. So I went to my old roommates for help. Farley and Steve, they were grateful to me for taking the fall, they said, but what could they do about it now? I started thinking, I shouldn't have taken that hit alone. If all five of us had come forward, we could have shared the load. I wouldn't be alone in this. The school would have gone easier on me. And I'm looking at them, my old friends who won't help, and they're all doing great now, all well-off and successful. . . ."