Dead Broke (Lana Denae Mystery Series Book 1)

by Bruce A. Borders

  “The way I see it,” he said, “if both parties, or ever how many parties there are, are willing to state their opinions and argue their points, that means they are comfortable in the relationship. They don’t have to sugarcoat their words or pamper each other. They don’t worry about saying what they think because they aren’t afraid of offending anyone.”

  Lana nodded thoughtfully. What Damien had expressed actually made sense. She was just surprised that he had said it. To hear something of an emotional and sensitive nature coming from the big guy was a little strange to say the least.

  Jamie wasn’t so magnanimous with his reaction. “You been sneaking around and seeing a therapist or something? Taking psychology courses on the side?”

  “No,” Damien said. “I just listen when people talk. People who know about this stuff. You can learn a lot by listening. You should try it.”

  “Oh, I get it,” Jamie smirked. “That was one of those little digs meant to demonstrate how you feel totally at ease insulting me. ’Cause you know I won’t get mad, right?”

  Damien smiled. “Something like that.”

  “Well guys,” Lana interrupted their friendly squabble, “this has been, uh, enlightening but I think we need to get back to the case. We still have a killer to catch.”

  “Isn’t that how we got on this in the first place?” Jamie asked. “With you trying to run the show? Just kidding,” he quickly added, seeing the serious expression on Lana’s face. “I assume you have something in mind?”

  Nodding, Lana said, “Mr. Holloway has informed me that his IT department was unable to find an ISP or any other identifier associated with the remote login of the accounts. This guy hid his tracks very well so we still don’t know anything more, other than whoever the guy is, he may have had some IT training. Earlier, I asked Holloway to monitor the accounts that were approaching maturity, but I really doubt that will get us anything. By now, the killer probably is aware we’re on to him. If he’s paying attention at all—which I’m sure he is—he’s seen us come and go from the apartments. He likely knows we went to Cascade Global and talked with Devin Holloway as well.”

  “And?” Jamie asked.

  “I have an idea that may flush him out if Mr. Holloway will agree to it.”

  “Why do we need his okay?” an impetuous Jamie wanted to know.

  “Because it involves large sums of money and I’m living on a detective’s salary. So, unless you’re volunteering...”

  Jamie shook his head. “No, I’m more than happy to use Mr. Holloway’s money.”

  “Actually, it involves more than just his money,” Lana said, explaining the general details of her plan to draw out the killer.

  Favoring the simple over the elaborate, Lana’s idea was to run a basic con. They would set up a fake account for a non-existent investor, with a date of maturity at least a couple of weeks in the future—to give the killer time to plan his next murder.

  “We’ll need to keep it simple,” Damien said, instantly warming to Lana’s idea. “With minimal opportunity for things to go wrong as they are prone to do.”

  “Agreed,” Lana said. “But there’s no need to let things progress beyond the initial contact. The idea is just to dangle the carrot in front of him. If he shows, we can arrest him.”

  “But you already said the killer must know we’re coming for him,” Jamie said. “And he hasn’t accessed the Cascade Global network in days.”

  “That’s why we’re going to set the payout at a quarter of a million dollars; make it more enticing; impossible for him to resist,” Lana said.

  Damien said, “And how do you expect him to even know about it, if he’s not accessing Cascade Global’s computers?”

  Lana smiled. “I’m sure the Oregonian would be happy to have something to print in their newspaper about the latest local success story gone wrong. And maybe one of the Portland TV stations is itching for an interview on the on-going investigation into our jumpers.”

  “Except none of our victims actually jumped,” Jamie reminded her.

  “I don’t plan on mentioning that,” Lana told him. “If we can keep the killer thinking we still believe these people committed suicide, we might have a better chance of catching him. What I would say,” she paused, feigning a look of charitable concern. And then in a fretful voice, continued. “All of the jumpers have one thing in common; they were about to receive a large investment payout but a software malfunction at Cascade Global Investments, caused their account page to display their balance as zero. This computer glitch and he resulting angst it caused, may have contributed to them taking their own life and we are now worried because several other investors are in the same situation. Most have been contacted but there is one individual we’ve been unable to reach. Mr., whatever-we-decide-his-name-is, is set to receive upwards of a quarter million dollars in just two weeks.”

  Seeing her impromptu narrative had duly impressed the guys, Lana had to smile at her own words. “Then, I’ll make an impassioned plea for the public’s help in finding him, and hope our killer takes me up on the offer.”

  “That just might work,” Damien said when Lana had finished.

  “Yeah, you nearly had me convinced you were telling the truth,” Jamie said in a rare moment of seriousness.

  * * * * *

  Mr. Holloway was not quite so enthralled when they told him of the plan the next morning. “So far, I’ve lost nearly half million dollars! And you want me to give this guy even more? You said a fake account but it would have to be real, or at least part of it would. If we want to convince him this is a genuine account, we’d need to use a legitimate payout number and maturity date, as well as link it to an actual bank account for the bogus investor. That makes me vulnerable.”

  “It may be our only way of catching him,” Lana persisted, trying to convince him to give her plan a shot.

  “And if you don’t catch him? He gets away with a quarter million dollars of my money.”

  “Mr. Holloway,” Damien said. “We do have an advantage. We know the killer’s method. We know what to expect. We plan to make it easy for him to find the ‘investor.’ And when he does, we’ll be there to nab him.”

  “And, worst case scenario,” Jamie added in his unique manor of blunt candor. “If we don’t get there in time, and he kills the guy we have playing the part of the investor, well, you’ll have plenty of time to cancel any payment. You’re not the one taking the risk, we are. Your money never has to leave your bank.”

  That seemed to pacify Holloway but only for a brief moment. “I have a better idea,” he suggested. “I assume the guy has re-directed all communication from us to these accounts. We could send out an email to all account holders—so as not to single him out—advising them it’s time to change their password. See if he responds to that.”

  Lana was silent for a moment, thinking. “Do you normally send out such emails?”

  “No,” Holloway admitted. “But a lot of places do. I’ve gotten them myself.”

  “Yeah,” Lana replied. “So have I. The problem is, usually when a company sends out an email telling you to update your password, it’s because their security has been breached and their servers compromised. That’s not stated directly, but unless they have a prior policy in place that requires changing passwords periodically, that’s what it means. Our suspect might know this and see your email for what it is. We don’t want to take that chance.”

  She was right. Holloway knew it. Reluctantly, he had to admit Lana’s plan, however unappealing, was probably the best way to draw the killer out. Maybe the only way. Still, he wasn’t quite ready to give in.

  Lana could see he was coming around. “I know this would be risky for you but we’re kind of up against the clock. This guy kills someone every three to four days. We need to find him; let us do our job,” she urged.”

  “I don’t know,” Holloway dithered, stalling a bit longer. “I’d rather not have a news story put out centering around my company hav
ing these types of glitches. That could—no, that would be bad for business. People get squeamish when it comes to their money.”

  “You know what else is bad for business? Murder,” Lana said bluntly. “If we don’t catch this guy, your business will soon run out of clients.”

  “And word will spread that investing with Cascade Global is the kiss of death—literally,” Jamie said.

  They made a good case. Holloway still was hesitant but he’d run out of arguments. Although far from comfortable with the prospect of risking a substantial sum of his own money, he finally relented. “I’ll have my IT guy set up the account.”

  “If this guy we’re after is any good, and he must be,” Damien put in, “won’t he recognize that the account is new?”

  “I’ll have Davie set it up as a transfer from another investment group to Cascade Global and then backdate it. The AI-GLIS fund is national,” Mr. Holloway explained. “We’re not the only investment firm with clients in the fund, we just happen to be the only one the killer hacked.”

  Jamie shook his head and cringed. “Those last two words shouldn’t go together,” he said. “Conjures up a rather ghastly visual.”

  Chapter Nine

  “So I heard the jumpers were actually victims of a serial killer,” Sophia Davis said, sashaying into the room.

  “Mm-hm.” Lana nodded, wishing she had seen the psychiatrist coming in time to make a hasty exit.

  “Well, I’m not too proud to admit you were right,” the woman told her.

  Lana offered a wistful smile. “That fact hasn’t helped much though. We still have no idea who the murderer is.”

  “Maybe I can help,” Sophia offered. “I’ve worked up a profile of the killer.”

  Lana was not smitten with the woman’s “charm,” convinced the doctor was a quack, but tried to keep her opinions regarding her colleague and psychiatry to herself. “Okay,” she said.

  “Your murderer will be someone who is poor, or at least views himself as poor. He’ll no doubt feel he’s been cheated by life because he doesn’t have things that others do. In his mind, this is justification for what he does; he’s just correcting the balance of things in the world. Probably comes from a low-class family, raised with religious notions and primitive ideas of right and wrong—you know, a redneck. I suspect when you find him, he will have a big cache of weapons tucked away in his trailer house.”

  “Wow,” Lana said, unable to hide her disdain. “Did you attend college to learn how to stereotype like that?”

  “Just saying that’s the type of person who becomes a serial killer.”

  “Actually, it’s not,” Lana said. But then shrugging, she let it go. It was no use. Nothing she could say would change the woman’s warped opinions.

  “You’ll see,” Sophia said, turning to go.

  “I guess we will,” Lana said, glad the psychiatrist was leaving.

  When the door closed, Jamie was the first to voice his reaction. “Somebody put too much wine in that woman’s liquor.”

  Damien shook his head. “I don’t think she’s drunk, she’s just messed up. I doubt her ‘profile’ is accurate at all.”

  “They never are,” Lana said.

  A smiling Ray spoke up. “Well, she certainly knows how to derail the good mood in this place. Just when we were starting to get somewhere.”

  “We’ll be back on track tomorrow,” Lana said. “I hope.”

  “Anything else we need to look at tonight?” Jamie asked.

  “No, I think we’re at a standstill until Holloway gets the account set up,” Lana said. “Might as well take the night off.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Damien answered. “My wife is cooking leg of lamb tonight and said you are all welcome. I’ve already invited Jamie and Ray, you want to join us?”

  Lana shook her head. “Thanks, but I have a prior engagement this evening.”

  “A date?” the three of them chorused.

  “Don’t sound so surprised,” Lana said with a laugh. “Would that be totally out of the realm of possibility?”

  “For you? Yes,” Jamie said.

  Lana gave him a glaring frown. “What’s that supposed to mean? I can get a date if I want.”

  Jamie suddenly looked like he’d swallowed a gnat. “I didn’t mean that.”

  “I think what Jamie was trying to say is that you never stop working long enough to go on a date,” Damien spoke up, bailing his partner out.

  “You do work too much,” Ray agreed.

  “Well, maybe I’ve decided to change that,” Lana replied, straightening up the files she’d been looking through. Standing, she said. “I’ll see you all tomorrow.”

  “After all that you’re still not going to tell us who your date is?” Jamie protested.

  Lana turned back, giving him a mysterious smile, then without a word, slipped out the door.

  * * * * *

  When Lana met Kurt Stabler at the Portland International Airport that evening, she was surprised by two things. First, from his appearance, she would have never guessed he was forty-five, he looked older; more aged. The second thing she noticed was his very ordinary physique. Despite the large body build, he had the passive and proper look that identified him as an enervated hireling, a deskbound nine-to-fiver, an anemic pencil pusher. He was definitely not the kind of guy you’d expect to go camping or hunting with.

  Lana had called Kurt again the night before, offering to meet him when he flew in. He’d graciously accepted, relaying his flight information to her by text.

  She stood now by the baggage claim console for the six p.m. flight arriving from Paris. Although she didn’t know the man, she’d seen his picture at the precinct two days before and thought she would be able to recognize him—hoped she’d be able to recognize him, for he surely didn’t know her either. She certainly wasn’t about to stand there holding a little cardboard sign with his name sprawled across it. That just wasn’t her style.

  Seeing a man in a gray sweater vest that resembled the guy in the photograph, she approached him as he made his way to the conveyor. “Mr. Stabler?”

  “Yes,” the man answered with a quick smile that appeared warm and genuine. Yet, he seemed a little hesitant. Uneasy. Almost unsure of himself. And his face looked a little peaked.

  Lana recognized it for what it was; travel sickness. Some people couldn’t handle air travel well—especially, long international flights.

  “And you must be Detective Lana Denae,” the man said.

  Lana nodded.

  “Thanks for picking me up. But it really wasn’t necessary. I could have rented a car.”

  “You still can if you like, because I don’t plan to drive you all over the city while you’re here.” Lana didn’t mean to sound rude but knew it probably came across that way. Tactfulness wasn’t her strong suit—or so she had been told.

  “So, why did you pick me up then?”

  “I thought it would give us a chance to talk; for me to fill you in on where our investigation into your aunt’s murder stands.”

  As the conveyor started up, and bags began tumbling from the chute, Kurt stepped closer to the moving suitcases, watching as the luggage made its way around the track. Waiting only a couple of minutes, he retrieved a single black suitcase, checked the tag, and gave Lana a short nod that said he was ready.

  Riding the escalators up to the ground level, they walked toward the parking garage.

  “Feel like getting something to eat or does your stomach need more time to settle down?” Lana asked.

  The brief look of surprise on Kurt’s face quickly faded. “Is it that obvious? I do tend to have difficulty when flying. It’s why I haven’t made it back to visit my aunt; I’m ashamed to say. And now, it’s too late.”

  Lana noticed he seemed to have forgotten her question. She dismissed it—for the moment. “I’m sure your aunt understood.”

  Kurt nodded. “She probably did but that doesn’t make it right or ease my guilt any.”


  Paying the parking fee at the self-service kiosk, Lana directed Kurt to her car. “From what I gathered, you had a good relationship with your aunt, visiting her often when you lived here. I don’t think you have anything to feel guilty for.”

  “Thanks,” Kurt said. “That’s kind of you to say. But I still should have made more of an effort to come back regularly.”

  “Hind sight is twenty-twenty, as the saying goes,” Lana told him. “There’s no way you could have known what would happen.”

  As they drove down the circular ramp and away from the airport, Kurt suddenly remembered Lana’s earlier question. “I never answered you about eating. Now that I’m off the plane, I am a little hungry.”

  “Any particular place you’d like to go?” Lana asked, realizing her passenger, having lived in the area most of his life, would be just as familiar with the restaurant choices as she. He hadn’t been home for nearly a year, and he might have a place in mind; someplace he’d been missing.

  “Anywhere, as long it’s not a French restaurant,” he said with a touch of distaste.

  Lana laughed out loud. “Paris not treating you well?”

  “It was great when I first arrived. But after three months, it’s getting a little old. Every restaurant, every café, serves French food. Wasn’t exactly my favorite before, and now...”

  “There’s no American food?”

  “There is, at least what they call American food, but—let’s just say I’ve been craving a real cheeseburger for quite a while.”

  Pulling into the parking lot of a local sit-down restaurant, Lana said, “Is this okay?”

  “It’ll do fine.”

  As soon as they were seated, Kurt said, “So, I assume you haven’t found the killer or you would have told me by now.”

  “No, we haven’t. Not yet.”

  “You mentioned you wanted to fill me in on where the investigation stands,” Kurt said. “Do you have any suspects?”

  “Unfortunately, no,” Lana confessed. “But we are definitely making progress.” She brought him up to date on the case while they waited on their order and they continued talking as they ate.