by Diane Kelly
I took a seat on the swivel chair and glanced around. On his desk was a framed photo of Sakhani—still not smiling—and a pretty woman I assumed was his wife. They were surrounded by seven beautiful dark-haired girls, ranging in age from toddler to late teens. Hmm. Living with eight women couldn’t be easy. Maybe I should cut the guy some slack. Or buy him a box of condoms.
I spent all of the morning and most of the afternoon reviewing the records. My interest was piqued when I noticed various problems, including breaks in the numerical sequences for traveler’s checks and money orders. Over fifteen grand in traveler’s check sales were undocumented and at least a dozen money orders were unaccounted for.
No wonder he’d been reluctant to give me access to the files.
I called the company that had issued the money orders and requested further data. I needed to know where the money orders were cashed and in what amounts, as well as whether they had any information that might identify the parties who had purchased or redeemed the money orders. Unfortunately, it was late in the afternoon and they wouldn’t be able to get the data to me until the following day. Ditto for the company that had issued the traveler’s checks.
I called Agents Wang and Zardooz to let them know what I’d discovered. Depending on what type of information the issuers of the money orders and traveler’s checks came back with, both agreed it might be worth their time to interrogate Sakhani themselves. So far, he was the only potential lead in the case other than Jesús, and God knows where that man ran off to. I promised to let them know as soon as I received the data.
Despite the suspicious data I’d found, I didn’t have enough evidence yet to arrest Sakhani. Nonetheless, I crossed my fingers he was the one we’d been after. Eddie and Agent Wang had finished their visits to the MSBs on their lists and found nothing. There were only two more MSBs on my list.
My cell phone chirped as I stood to leave. I didn’t recognize the number but answered anyway.
I was glad I did. Madam Magnolia was on the line.
“I’m afraid I was too harsh with you the last time we spoke,” she said. “My apologies.”
“No worries,” I said, though honestly I’d been quite pissed.
“Do you have time to come see me?” she asked. “I had some visions you might be interested in.”
“Great. I can be there in half an hour.”
“I’ll accept a fee this time,” she said. “Without the Tax Wizard’s rent, things have been tight.”
I ended the call and stepped out of the office and into the shop. Sakhani was behind his counter helping a customer. I pointed a finger at him. “Don’t leave Dallas without notifying me first.”
The customer looked from me to Sakhani, who was throwing daggers at me with his eyes.
What can I say? Sometimes it’s fun to throw my weight around.
chapter twenty-eight
Crystal Balls
Since it was already after five o’clock, I rounded up Alicia from my town house and took her with me to visit Madam Magnolia. Maybe ol’ Maggie could give Alicia some hope that things would work out with Daniel. If not, maybe Maggie would give Alicia some hope they’d work out with someone else, maybe one of the guys from the Big D Dating Service who had expressed an interest in meeting my friend. Heck, as long as we were going to see the woman, maybe I should ask her about my love life. Not knowing how things would be resolved was killing me. I could end up with Nick, or I could end up with Brett, or I could end up with neither of them.
When we arrived, Madam Magnolia told me she’d seen glimpses in her ball that seemed to relate to the Beauregard case. She hoped that with me here the visions would gel, become more complete. She led us through the curtain and into her back room, which was painted a deep shade of purple. The dark space was lit only by a single scented candle, sandalwood if I wasn’t mistaken. I paid her hundred-dollar fee in cash, wondering if I could deduct it as a legitimate business expense. As the three of us took seats around the circular table I made a mental note to research the matter.
What looked like a garden-gazing ball rested in the center of the table. Madam Magnolia began to make a humming noise and waved her hands over the ball as if to activate it. If she hadn’t already provided us with information that was spot-on, I would’ve laughed at the hokey ritual. Instead, I concentrated on the ball, hoping maybe I’d see a vision there, too. All I saw was my reflection. Definitely time to get my eyebrows waxed.
The humming stopped. “I see Richard Beauregard again,” she said. “He’s been sleeping in the back of a large SUV in the parking lot of a twenty-four-hour grocery store.”
“Which one?” I asked.
She squinted at the ball. “I can’t say for sure. The sign is blurry.”
Although her information narrowed things down somewhat, Dallas and the surrounding suburbs encompassed over 340 square miles of real estate. There were probably two hundred or so twenty-four-hour grocery stores in the area. It could take days to visit them all. And if Beauregard was constantly on the move as I suspected, we could miss him entirely.
“Anything else you can tell me?”
She shook her head again. “Sorry. That’s all I’m getting.”
A hundred bucks doesn’t buy much psychic information these days.
As long as I was there, I figured I’d ask her about the terrorist case. I told her the basic details. “Can you get me any information on that investigation?”
She gazed into the crystal ball, then suddenly flinched and cried out. “I see what the men have done. They’ve sent money overseas. It was used by other men in their terror cell to buy bomb-making materials.” Tears formed in her eyes. “They’ve killed hundreds of people, dozens of children. I see some of them being pulled from a school bus.”
She turned her head away, as if she didn’t want to look at the ball anymore. I couldn’t blame her. I’d felt the same way when I’d seen the photographs of the school bus in the file.
“I need to cut off the terrorists’ money supply,” I said. “I need to know who helped them transfer the funds.” Presumably that person might also be helping other terrorists who had yet to be discovered. “Can you take another look? Can you tell me if it’s an angry-looking guy with a thick mustache?” After the rude way he’d talked to me today, I’d really love to bust Sakhani’s balls.
Madam Magnolia closed her eyes for a moment, took a deep breath, then opened her eyes and returned her focus to the ball. Her face was intent but unchanging. Finally, she looked up. “I’m not seeing anything now,” she said, “but I seem to smell flowers. Roses, maybe?”
My mind immediately went to the pink rosebushes Brett had planted in front of my town house. Their lovely scent welcomed me home after work every day. Well, except when Brett had fertilized them. At those times I was greeted by the stench of composted cow manure. P.U.
“In that case,” I asked, deciding to see how far my hundred bucks would get me, “what can you tell me about my love life?”
Madam Magnolia smiled now. “Are you sure you want to know? It might be more fun to wait and see how things work out.”
I shook my head. I was tired of waiting. I wanted to know whether Nick and I would end up together or if Brett was the man I should be with. Surely I’d end up with one or the other, right? I refused to accept the possibility I’d lose them both.
She glanced at the ball again. Her eyes flickered up to my face. “Your heart is split between two men.” Her gaze lowered to the crystal. “One is boyish, very sweet.” A lascivious smile crossed her face. “The other is hot.” She blew out a breath as if to cool herself.
“Which one do I end up with?” I asked, my voice frantic as I leaned toward her. “I need to know.”
She stared at the ball for another moment, blinking several times as if trying to focus her vision. “Sorry. The ball won’t give it up.”
“What does that mean?”
“Sometimes the ball shows me things; other times it doesn’t.”
> I fluttered my hands around the glass orb. “Can’t you reposition it or something?”
She gave me a placating smile. “It’s not a television antenna. I can’t just move it around to get better reception.”
“Dang.” I sat back and crossed my arms over my chest. Ugh!
“What about me?” Alicia sat up and scooted her chair closer to the table. “Can you see how things will work out in my love life?”
Madam Magnolia looked back into the ball, staring at it for several seconds before speaking. “I see a dark-haired man. He’s picking up a pillow from a double bed and holding it to his face.”
“Good,” Alicia snapped. “Maybe Daniel will suffocate himself.”
Magnolia shook her head. “No. He’s smelling the pillow. I sense his sadness. The scent reminds him of the person who used to sleep there.”
Alicia seemed to choke up a bit. “What side of the bed was the pillow on?” she asked softly.
Magnolia glanced back at the ball. “The side by the ugly silver lamp.”
Alicia made a gasping, sobbing sound and turned to me. “He misses me. Daniel misses me.” When she’d regained some composure, she turned back to Madam Magnolia. “That lamp cost two hundred dollars at Horchow’s.”
Magnolia shrugged. “I don’t care what it cost. It’s still ugly.”
I was with her. I’d always thought the lamp was ugly, too.
Though she tried again to conjure up an image, the woman wasn’t able to see anything more. We thanked her for her time and the information and went next door for more chocolate coconut cupcakes. We ate them in my car on the way home.
For the first time in days, Alicia seemed happy and optimistic. I hoped the crystal ball was right. If Daniel didn’t come back to Alicia soon, maybe I’d have to force fate, kick Daniel in his crystal balls until he realized what a fool he’d been to let Alicia go.
* * *
Late afternoon on Tuesday, I received information via e-mail from the companies that had issued the money orders and traveler’s checks. They’d also sent images of the back and front of each instrument. All of them had been cashed by the same individual, someone purportedly named Albert Strohmeyer, Jr. All of them had been cashed in the Dallas–Fort Worth area.
“Damn!” The fact they’d been cashed locally rather than overseas meant they weren’t related to the terrorist financing. The odds of Sakhani being the man we were looking for now seemed slim to none. I wished the crystal ball had been able to tell me that. It would’ve saved me some time.
According to both companies, all of the instruments had been reported by Sakhani as stolen. The companies had issued replacements and sucked up the loss.
Had Sakhani committed some type of fraud? Was that why he hadn’t wanted me to look at his records?
I forwarded the data to Eddie, Agent Wang, and Agent Zardooz. The next step would be finding out something about this Albert Strohmeyer, if indeed he even existed. For all I knew the name had been concocted as a cover.
I logged into our research system and found out that not only did Albert Strohmeyer actually exist, but also that he was a grade-A loser. He was in his early sixties and had been terminated from dozens of menial jobs over the years. Fry cook at a diner. Elementary-school custodian. Garbage collector. He also had a criminal record, including three convictions for petty thievery at retail stores, two convictions for writing bad checks, and one for theft of services after he’d left a Supercuts without paying for his trim.
The most interesting tidbit I learned about Albert was that he currently worked the evening shift at JS Shipping.
I printed out Strohmeyer’s rap sheet and employment history and headed down the hall toward Eddie’s office. I passed Josh’s digs on the way, backtracking when I realized he had his head down on his desk.
I rapped on his door frame. “Hey, lover boy. You all right?”
Josh lifted his head. He’d removed the gold ring, but his nose still appeared inflamed. “Kira broke up with me.”
“What?” I stepped into his office. “Why?”
By all appearances, things between the two of them had been progressing nicely. They’d met for lunch several times, attended a book signing for their mutual favorite spy novelist, engaged in something called geocaching that Josh described as a high-tech scavenger hunt. Heck, they’d even begun to build some type of supercomputer together. If that didn’t spell commitment, I don’t know what did.
“I don’t know why she dumped me,” Josh said, his face miserable. “I thought she’d like my piercing, but she took one look at it and said she thought we should move on.”
“Is she squeamish?” Maybe she’d been creeped out by his swollen nostril. The thing had been quite revolting. My breakfast had turned cartwheels in my stomach when I’d seen it.
“I don’t think so,” Josh said. “We babysat her little brother one night and she yanked his loose tooth out with her bare hand.”
So not squeamish, then. Hmm.
“Would you talk to her for me?” Josh asked. “I really like her and I thought she liked me, too.”
Did I really want to get in the middle of Josh and Kira’s relationship? No. But did I want to watch Josh mope around the office for weeks? No. The twerp had grown on me a little bit.
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll talk to her.” I wasn’t sure whether it would do any good. I couldn’t seem to get my own relationships in order. How was I supposed to help someone else fix his love life?
Josh’s face brightened. “Thanks, Tara.”
I continued down the hall to Eddie’s office and plopped myself down in one of his chairs. I handed him the paperwork and gave him a few minutes to look it over.
“Whaddya think?”
Eddie frowned. “I think there’s some monkey business going on at JS Shipping. But I don’t think it’s the monkey business we’re interested in.”
My thoughts exactly. Still, MSBs fell under our purview. Might as well figure out what was going on, right?
Eddie grabbed his suit jacket and I grabbed my purse and we headed over to JS. On the drive over, I put in calls to Agents Wang and Zardooz, letting them know Eddie and I were on our way to JS and that it appeared to be a dead end as far as the terrorism case was concerned.
When Eddie and I arrived, we spent several minutes interrogating Sakhani about the missing money orders and traveler’s checks. He grew more and more enraged with each question.
“What are you accusing me of?” he shouted, waving his hands wildly. “I do not steal.”
“Albert Strohmeyer does,” I said.
Sakhani’s head snapped my way. “What are you talking about?”
I pulled the rap sheet from my briefcase but held it close to my chest. “Did you run a background check on Strohmeyer when you hired him?”
“Of course I did,” Sakhani said. “I run a background check on every new employee.”
Eddie jumped in now. “Any chance you’ve got a copy of it handy?”
Sakhani retrieved Strohmeyer’s employment file and showed us the background check report. Sure enough, none of the convictions showed up on Sakhani’s document.
We spread the paperwork out on the desk and tried to make sense of the situation.
“Wait a minute,” Eddie said as he looked over the reports. “The clean background check is for Albert Strohmeyer. Our rap sheet is for Albert Strohmeyer, Jr.”
Looked like Junior had used his father’s Social Security number when applying for the job at JS in order to slip through the cracks. Naughty boy.
Sakhani began shouting in what I assumed was Urdu. I couldn’t blame him for being upset. With seven kids to feed, the man didn’t need an employee taking advantage of him. He explained that Strohmeyer had claimed someone came into the shop and pulled a gun, demanding he turn over the traveler’s checks and money orders. In reality, the man had stuffed them in his own pocket.
“Why hasn’t he been arrested?” Sakhani asked.
It was the s
ame question every victim wanted to know. “Police departments are inundated with these types of crimes,” I told him. “Dozens of armed robberies take place in Dallas every night. If the issuers even bothered to contact the cops when the checks and money orders were cashed, it’s not likely Dallas PD had enough manpower to carry out an investigation.”
Now that Eddie and I could hand local law enforcement an open-and-shut case, however, it was far more likely Strohmeyer would be rounded up and justice would be served.
The front door of the shop opened and an older, white-haired man walked in. Sakhani looked up, issued what can only be described as a banshee cry, and flew across the room, launching himself at the man.
Eddie and I exchanged glances.
“I’m guessing that dude would be Albert Strohmeyer, Jr.,” Eddie said.
By this time Sakhani had Albert on the ground and was giving the guy what for.
“Yep,” I said. “I’m guessing that, too.”
We took our sweet time making our way to the door, letting Sakhani exact a little justice of his own before we ordered him off Strohmeyer. The thief deserved a walloping.
Sakhani stood, leaving Strohmeyer on his back on the floor. Sakhani looked at me, ducked his head in a small bow, and thanked me for protecting his business. He offered what was probably his first smile ever.
“Anytime,” I said.
chapter twenty-nine
Come Fly with Me
On my way to work Wednesday morning, I received the call I’d been waiting for. Jesús Benavides had been pulled over for a broken taillight. When the police officer had run his license, he’d noted the flag on Benavides’ record.
The officer agreed to try to hold Benavides there until I could come question him. Without an arrest warrant, the officer couldn’t force the guy to stay put, but, fortunately, most people were not aware of their rights and did what a police officer asked of them without questioning the officer’s authority.
