Follow the Dotted Line

by Nancy Hersage

  “You want to know about Mr. Kornacky’s accounts, is that right?” she began.

  “We do,” Andy answered, a little surprised the woman hadn’t turned them away in the lobby. Even Texas had laws governing privacy, she assumed.

  “Are you Mr. Kornacky’s former wife?”

  Sandra Berry asked the question, as if she already knew the answer. Andy’s resolve disappeared, replaced by mild panic. No one had yet demanded identification. And how did the woman know Mark had a ‘former’ wife?

  “Ah,” she stammered. “Yes, actually, I am.”

  “I’ve been expecting you.”

  Could you be arrested for simply asking about another person’s accounts? Had that teller pushed some kind of silent alarm?

  “Really?” she managed.

  “Damn right. Somebody ought to be in here asking questions.”

  Nodding slowly, Andy reached down deep for an appropriate response and came up with another, “Really?”

  “Well, I’ll tell you this much,” the manager said, gravely, “that man has certainly grabbed himself a handful this time.”

  Another nod. “He has? And by that you mean—?”

  “The Trivette woman,” snapped Sandra. “Talk about a piece of work.”

  Andy leaned forward. Harley followed suit. She put her hand on his knee and pinched him just below the patella. He shot back in the chair.

  “Can you, you know, talk about that particular piece of work?” Andy prodded. “Without violating some rule?”

  “I don’t know why not. All the Kornacky accounts have been closed. So I don’t know whose privacy we’d be protecting. That woman walked out of here with a certified check made out to herself for nearly $300,000 last Monday.”

  “She did what?”

  “She drained the accounts. Just like that.”

  Harley was back on the edge of his seat.

  “Did Mr. Kornacky come with her on Monday?” he said, before Andy had a chance to muzzle him.

  The executive officer shook her head. “Nope. He put the money in our bank years ago. His life savings, he said. Seemed completely happy with our services. Then he added her name to the account after they got married. Next thing you know, she’s taking it all out.”

  Andy was still trying to get past the idea that Mark had so much money and that Tilda was the one walking around with it, when Harley followed up. “Did you talk to him about the withdrawal?”

  “I tried,” Sandy said. “But have you called his cell lately? It’s out of service. The whole thing gave me the heebie-jeebies.”

  “Did you call the police?” Andy pressed.

  “About what?” she snapped, irritated by her own powerlessness. “It was a joint account. The withdrawal was perfectly legal. Nothing I could do. Honestly, I’ve just been waiting around for someone, anyone from the family, to come into the bank and ask me what happened. Just so I could get it off my chest.”

  The trio sat in a group stupor pondering the implications.

  “It could all be totally innocent,” Andy suggested, half-heartedly. “The neighbors say Mark and Tilda moved last week.”

  “People move all the time,” the executive pointed out. “When people have that much money and decide to leave the area, they ordinarily have the funds transferred to another bank. Who gets a certified check and then walks out the door with her husband’s entire life savings?”

  It was an excellent question, Andy agreed. “You think Tilda’s up to something?”

  “Have you met her?” Sandra asked.

  “No,” said Andy.

  “Had any communication with her?”

  Andy wasn’t sure how to phrase this. “She sent my children a gift box.”

  “Oh, really? Eye of newt?”

  Andy snorted with laughter. “Pretty much.” It was another punch on her validation ticket; Tilda made other people’s skin crawl, too.

  “Well, I don’t know exactly who Tilda Trivette is or what she’s up to,” the diminutive banker concluded, “but whatever you’re worried about—I’d keep worrying.”

  Chapter 11

  Cheaper than Polyester

  Andy was a bogey golfer who drove 220 yards and insisted on playing from the men’s tees because it made most of the guys she played with uncomfortable. Except Ted, who was almost never uncomfortable with anything or anybody. Ted Leery and Andy played together once or twice a week at one of the four municipal courses in the San Fernando Valley. Ted had a nine-stroke handicap and had spent his career directing commercials and a few not-quite memorable TV series. He was pushing 60, handsome, uncomplicated, and happily married; a perfect golfing partner, who made small talk better than anyone she’d ever met and let anything that floated through his head come out his mouth.

  “So what did Mitch think about your trip to Texas?” Ted asked.

  They were playing at Hansen Dam Municipal, a sprawling course situated on the flood plain of a large concrete barricade that had been built by the Army Corps of Engineers in the 1940s. The green fees were cheap and the course was flat enough for Andy and Ted to walk 18 holes without huffing and puffing.

  “The reviews were not good,” she answered, as they ambled off the eighth tee. “All four of my kids seem more annoyed than anything else. First, they think their dad has died. Then they find out his remains were sketchy, if not all together counterfeit. And now, well, he may not actually be dead. And, whether he is or not, his wife seems to have absconded with his money.”

  “Maybe she hasn’t absconded at all. Maybe they’re together, making a break for it.”

  “A break from what?” Andy asked.

  “Beats me,” Ted said, as Andy set up for her fairway shot. He stood quietly for a moment, just long enough for her to swing the club. “Well done,” he noted, watching the line drive careen forward. “So how much do you really know about this woman?”

  “Almost nothing,” she told him.

  One of the two young Korean men in their foursome hit next. Early-thirties, the pair could have been mistaken for businessmen who just stepped off the plane from Seoul—until they opened their mouths. The Valley Girl accents screamed second generation Angelinos. Andy wondered why they were out on the course in the middle of a weekday.

  “Did you ask these guys what they do for a living?” she said to Ted.

  “Gamblers.”

  “What?”

  “Online blackjack,” Ted whispered, as the second man now took his shot. “Their mothers think they work as investment brokers. Anyway, they make enough to spend their days golfing. One of them said they’re entered in a tournament that begins at five, so they’re leaving the course at the turn.”

  Andy nodded. That meant she and Ted would have the back nine to themselves. They didn’t return to the subject of Andy’s trip until they’d stopped at the clubhouse for a dog and soda and then teed off on the tenth hole.

  “Got a next step?” Ted resumed, as they walked toward the fairway.

  “I don’t know,” she sighed. “The kids are pretty disgusted by the whole thing. Mitch thinks we’ve wasted enough money trying to track Mark down. And if he was stupid enough to sign his life savings over to Tilda, then he deserves whatever he’s getting from all this.”

  “They think you should just drop it?”

  “They’re all occupied with other things. They don’t want the drama.”

  “And you?”

  “I’m a writer. I love drama,” she shrugged. “And I’d feel better knowing what happened to Mark.”

  “I get the impression everybody thinks this Tilda person is very sinister.”

  “I think that’s what she wants us to think.”

  “Hmm,” Ted ruminated. “I’d say the lady’s got her hooks into you.”

  “Oh, my god, you don’t think I’m jealous, do you?”

  “Hardly,” he laughed. “I’ve never met anyone who’s as happily divorced as you. I don’t think you’re jealous, Andy. I think you’re bored.”

&
nbsp; “Jeez, is it that obvious?”

  “I’ve seen your TV movies, Andy. Understated you ain’t.”

  “Thank you for that review, Ted. I’ll cherish it always.”

  They each chipped onto the green.

  “Well, if I wanted to pursue this, I know what I’d do,” Ted proffered, as he lined up his putt. “I’d hire a P.I.” He let the club sway back and then forward, draining a ten-footer.

  “A detective? For what?”

  “To check out Tilda, for one thing.”

  “What could a P.I. find?”

  “You’d be surprised.”

  Andy putted and missed. “You’re upsetting my rhythm,” she said.

  “Good. Does that mean you want to hire a P.I.?”

  He replaced the flag in the cup.

  “I don’t think I can afford it.”

  “You’re not answering the question.”

  “Okay. Yes. I would.”

  “Good, because the guy you want is meeting us for a beer in the clubhouse when we finish.”

  “You called someone?”

  “While you were downing your dog at the turn.”

  “Ted—”

  “He’s my brother-in-law, Andy. Just talk to him.”

  Larry O’Dowd was a retired FBI agent living in Topanga Canyon, drawing an enviable pension, and watching college sports on ESPN. He also enriched himself by tailing the wealthy husbands of suspicious wives living on either side of the Santa Monica Mountains. At the height of his tracking powers, Larry had been the LA Bureau’s best field agent, usually assigned to follow Soviet operatives who, it turned out, made most of their drops in the public lockers at Disneyland.

  “I always kept a battery-powered TV in my car,” Larry reminisced over a plate of hot wings and fries, “along with a wig and a bunch of old clothes. My whole job was hours of sit-on-your-butt monotony interrupted by some half-ass moment of disguise. I once followed this insider trading guy into a formal dinner dressed in a tuxedo and flip flops because I didn’t have time to change my shoes.”

  “Your skillset sounds a little out of my league, Larry,” Andy laughed.

  “What? You don’t want me to use my wig?” he teased.

  “No. Nothing like that. I just want to know a little bit more about the woman married to my ex-husband.”

  Larry’s eyebrows levitated knowingly. “Ah, that age-old curiosity. What kind of things do you want to know?”

  “Who she is. Where she came from. Background stuff.”

  “Sounds simple enough.”

  “And where she is right now. If you can locate her.”

  “Possible,” he indicated. “I can do all of that from my office. No problem.” He guided a wing into the side of ranch dressing. “Anything else you want to know?”

  “Well, I guess, the thing I’d really like to know is what she did with my ex-husband.”

  The P.I. tipped his head down and looked at her over the top of his aviator glasses. “Did she lose him?”

  “Not exactly. She told us he was dead.”

  “And he’s not?”

  “There’s no record of it.”

  “Plus the neighbors saw him,” Ted added. “After he supposedly bought the farm.”

  Larry gnawed on the chicken bones and nodded, approvingly. “Sounds interesting.”

  “I knew you’d like it,” Ted beamed, jabbing a French fry at his brother-in-law. “I knew it the minute I heard it.”

  “Let me see what I can do,” Larry said, by way or sealing the deal. “Don’t you want anything to eat, Andy?”

  She declined. Unlike almost everyone else in Hollywood, Andy found she couldn’t do business and chew food at the same time. She lost her appetite whenever money was at stake.

  “Before I commit to this,” she began, “how much do you think it will cost?”

  Larry pursed his lips and wiped his hands on a napkin. “Hard to say. Ted tells me you’re cheaper than polyester.”

  Andy flushed and gave Ted the evil eye.

  “I just said you had money issues,” he clarified.

  “I do not have money issues. I just don’t like to spend what I don’t have.”

  “Well, it doesn’t matter,” Larry announced, derailing the discussion. “Teddy here is giving me his old set of Pings, and that should just about get you everything you asked for.”

  Caught off guard, Andy said, “You’re paying for this, Ted?”

  “I am,” he beamed again, as he waved another French fry.

  “With those Pings?” She sounded dumbfounded. “The ones you’ve been hoarding in your garage?”

  He looked confused. “I wouldn’t call it hoarding.”

  “I thought we talked about those Pings.”

  “No. We never talked about those Pings.”

  “I thought you were giving those to me.”

  “Andy,” he said, sternly. “Those are men’s clubs. You’re a woman. I’m not giving those clubs to you.”

  “You’re not?”

  “No. Now do you want to use this guy or not?”

  Andy knew she was being irrational, but there were times when she couldn’t help herself. Ted was right. Those clubs weren’t remotely suited to her. And yet she kept imagining that better golf clubs could transform her game, make her into the player she’d always wanted to be. But, of course, they couldn’t—any more than better software would have improved her writing career. She had pretty much reached the apex of her golf game in the way she’d reached the apex of everything else lately. She needed to focus on other things, and the only thing in her field of vision right now was Tilda Trivette.

  “Yes, Ted, I’d like to hire Larry.”

  “And may I pay for it with my Pings?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then how about a ‘thank you, Ted.’”

  “Thank you, Ted.”

  “You’re very welcome. And you owe me five bucks for the skins game.”

  Andy arrived home that evening to a blessedly empty house because Harley was still on campus. After their trip to Texas, he had returned to Tabernacle U with renewed enthusiasm that included a newfound interest in after-school activities. With a minimum of prying, she had managed to learn that her socially awkward nephew had joined his first student organization. When she asked the purpose of the club, he pointed out it was not a ‘club’ but a movement, that its purpose would be of no interest to her, and that, in order to maintain his personal anonymity, he would only refer to it as SRT.

  Naturally, she did an online search at the first opportunity. According to the school website, the group met once a week in the afternoons, but the real action went down on weekends when SRT sponsored a host of events, including rock concerts and nightclub-style dances, complete with strobe lights and music videos. The letters were an acronym for Silver Ring Thing.

  Andy was having trouble reconciling an edgy promotional poster the group recently posted for a dance called ‘Forty Funky Nights in the Desert’ with Tabernacle U’s draconian code of conduct, when she did a Google search and landed on the relevant Wikipedia page. Then she suddenly saw it all through a glass darkly. Harley was now a member of an organization ready to ‘speak honesty to him about God’s plan for sex.’ All he had to do to join was take a virginity pledge, promising to remain abstinent until marriage. Members not only earned the right to party together, but they received silver purity rings to wear on the third finger of their left hand, inscribed with Bible verses reminding them that sex before marriage was a sin.

  Pouring herself a rum and Diet Coke, Andy sat down, kicked off her shoes and smiled, secure in the knowledge that no matter where Harley was at the moment, he was sporting a shiny new chastity ring on his finger and a carrying a faith-based condom in his heart. Whatever happened, her nephew was not going to become a baby daddy on her watch!

  She was thinking about opening a box of Cheez-Its before heating up a burrito in the microwave, when the phone rang.

  “Mom?”

 
; “Lil?”

  “What are you up to?” Her daughter’s voice was taut. Few things ever constrained Lil’s expansive personality, and Andy was immediately on the alert.

  “Mom?” Lil repeated when Andy didn’t answer.

  “Ah, nothing. I swear.”

  “Good. Because we have to talk.”

  This sounded serious. Had Lil learned her mother was hiring a private investigator? But how could that be possible?

  “Um. All right. Why do we have to talk?”

  “I need you.”

  Andy put down the Cheez-Its. This couldn’t be about the P.I. It had to be worse. Lil-the-unstoppable never needed anybody.

  “You need me, Lilly?”

  “Yes. Here in Idaho. Now. We’ve got a problem.”

  “You and Joey?”

  “Of course, me and Joey. Who else lives in Idaho, Mom?”

  “Okay, honey. Okay.” Andy had rarely heard her daughter so rattled.

  “If you two had an argument . . . “ Andy tested, knowing the couple rarely argued about anything and hoping Lil would talk about it.

  “There’s no argument about this, Mother.”

  What on earth had come between them? “Joey’s not moving out, is he?”

  “No, but I will, if this goes on much longer.”

  “Lil?”

  “I can’t believe this is happening.”

  Andy could hear stifled sniffling.

  “What is happening?”

  “The boys—every last one of them—have the chickenpox. And I haven’t slept in two days.” Sniffles evolved into outright sobs. “Mom, can you come help me, please?”

  Chickenpox. Of course. Andy nearly wept with relief. Why did her imagination always insist on making a beeline for the worst disaster? Chickenpox? Big deal. And a helluva lot easier to cope with than divorce.

  “Sure. Absolutely,” mother assured daughter. “It’s no problem, Lilly.”

  “And you promise not to tell me I should have gotten the vaccinations?”

  “I promise.”

  “They don’t even vaccinate for chickenpox in the U.K. You know that? Right, Mom?”

  “I know.”

  Lil was second-guessing herself, Andy realized. That’s what was prompting the tears. Like a lot of other mothers, the thirty-something had read enough to make her question the wisdom of packing so many toxic chemicals at one time into infant vaccinations, so she and Joey had found a pediatrician who would administer them in separate doses over a longer period of time. Lil had opted to skip the chickenpox vaccine altogether.