by Bob Blanton
“You know, this was kind of fun.”
“Running from the cops?”
“I guess. Really, having to change things up on the fly so we could get away was exhilarating.”
“I think you’re weird.”
“Hey, you get to do all the cool stuff because you have that portal. It was fun to be part of the action.”
“Fine. Can you drop me off at home?”
“Sure. I figured I had to anyway. The gardener is going to come by tomorrow to get his truck.”
“What you think Jerome’s going to do?”
“I’m curious what his dad’s going to do. He really went off on him when he learned about the heist.”
“You should keep an eye on him tomorrow.”
“Like I don’t have plenty of other things to do.”
“Come onnn.”
“Okay, I’ll keep an eye on him, but there’s not much I can do.”
“Maybe, but I am curious why his dad made such a big deal out of it.”
“It is curious.”
Chapter 10
Settling In
On Wednesday, the school was abuzz with questions about the statue’s return. Everyone was delighted that it was back, but they all wanted to know how it was recovered and by whom.
The sheriff came around and asked a few questions, but he wasn’t really interested since nobody was hurt and few if any laws had been broken. In his and everyone’s opinion, a wrong had been righted, simple as that.
“Can you believe we got it back?” Brianna asked as they settled in for lunch.
“Why not, it’s ours,” Emily replied.
“Yeah, but who?”
“Yes, I wonder who it was. Em, did you notice anything when you were out last night?” Alex asked.
“No, why would I, it wasn’t like I was hanging around the school looking for someone to bring it back.” Emily smiled at Alex. She must have noticed that Emily had gone off in the gardener’s pickup. She’d been out with Jason until late, but she was home when Emily got back and had to explain to her parents that she and her friend, Ashley, had lost track of time after they had dinner at the country club. Emily hoped that Ashley would cover for her if Alex asked any questions; she’d agreed to cover for her with her parents, but Emily hadn’t thought to include Alex.
“Are you two ready for your play? Don’t you have a dress rehearsal tonight?” Matthew asked in an attempt to divert Alex from Emily’s late-night sojourn.
“Yes, we’re ready,” Jason answered for the pair. “Are you coming tonight?”
“No, I don’t want to take anything away from opening night.”
“Are you going to sit with us?” Brianna asked.
“Sure, if you want me to.”
“Definitely.”
◆ ◆ ◆
That evening Matthew checked in on Jerome. He was wondering what Mr. Graham’s reaction to the statue being returned would be. He wasn’t sure what he would do if it turned violent. It was obvious by the nervous energy Jerome was giving off, that he was worried about the same thing.
Matthew tried to see if he could zero in on Mr. Graham. He hadn’t tried to get a read on him before, but sometimes he got an automatic read on people that evoked a strong emotional response in him. Sure enough, Mr. Graham was one of them. Matthew's portal found him just leaving a small shopping center in Temecula. It looked like he was pointing his truck home, he’d just turned onto the freeway and was heading south.
Matthew set his watch for twenty minutes, about how long it should take Mr. Graham to get to Fallbrook, and returned to doing research for his poli-sci term paper.
When his watch alarm went off, Matthew checked in and saw that Mr. Graham was just about three minutes from home, so he went downstairs and got a glass of water. Jessie was watching a Disney movie on the TV before bedtime and his mother was at the kitchen table grading papers.
“Hi, Mom.”
“Hi, Mattie. Can you put Jessie to bed?”
“Sure, when’s the movie over?”
“Thirty minutes.”
“Okay, I’ll come back down in twenty-five to get her.” Matthew figured that would be plenty of time to see Mr. Graham’s reaction. He headed back upstairs to his room so he would be able to use his portal undisturbed.
When Matthew checked on Mr. Graham again, he was parking his Expedition in the garage. He got out and wrestled a big metal catalog case out of the truck. It was like a big briefcase but at least three times thicker. It must have been heavy the way a big guy like Mr. Graham struggled to get it out of the footwell of the passenger seat. He lugged it into the house where he set it down so he could roll it. Matthew guessed it must weigh sixty to seventy pounds.
Mr. Graham wheeled the case to the door to his office, then unlocked the office and wheeled it inside, locking the door behind him. “Curious,” Matthew thought.
Mr. Graham wheeled the case over to a big gun safe mounted to the floor in the corner of the office. He opened the safe and started unloading the case into it. The case was full of shipping packages the size of a big paperback book, or maybe two smaller ones. He stacked them in the bottom of the safe. As Matthew looked at what else was in the safe, he saw stacks of money. There must have been thousands of dollars in it. Maybe more, depending on the denomination of the notes. Matthew also noticed a money counter like they had at the bank. It was on a shelf beside a laptop computer.
“Really strange,” He thought.
Mr. Graham locked the safe, then left the office, locking the door behind himself.
“Jerome, what did I tell you?!”
“Dad, they had already stolen it back. I heard from a friend that nobody knows who did it.”
“You’d better hope that they don’t. Like I said, if that stunt comes back to bite us, I’m kicking you out.”
“I’ve got it.”
“Now, go get dinner out of the truck.”
◆ ◆ ◆
Opening night was Thursday and Matthew, Brianna, and Emily had fourth-row seats, right next to Mr. and Mrs. Winthrop. Everyone had been amazed at the effort that Jason and Alex had put into studying for their parts, the two weren’t noted for their dedication to anything but having fun.
The theater was packed; everyone was riding high on the recovery of the statue, so school spirit was fueling participation in school events.
Finally, the curtain went up and the play began.
“Where’s Jason?” Brianna asked in a whisper a few minutes into the play.
“Shhh, he and Alex don’t show up until after the big kerfuffle,” Emily said. “Didn’t you read the play?”
“No!”
“Shhh!”
◆ ◆ ◆
After the curtain fell on Act I, everyone rushed out to the concession stand.
“They’re really good,” Emily said.
“Yes, can you believe it?” Brianna added.
“Of course they would be good. Those two have been acting their entire lives,” Mrs. Winthrop said.
“What, the only other play Jason has been in is the third-grade production of Peter and the Wolf.”
“You don’t have to be onstage to act. Think about the Winter Ball last year. The next morning you described their entry to me in great detail. Wasn’t that acting?”
“Oh, I guess you’re right. Jason is always putting on a show.”
Mrs. Winthrop just smiled.
◆ ◆ ◆
When the final curtain fell, Jason and Alex came out still in costume. They planned to go out to dinner with everyone while still in costume.
“Well, how was it?” Jason asked.
“You were wonderful,” Mrs. Winthrop said. Mr. Winthrop simply nodded his agreement.
“Alex, you were amazing, all those lines, and you were perfect,” Emily said.
“I just wish Mummy and Daddy could have been here.”
“You’ll have to send them the video.”
“Video?” Matthew asked.
; “Didn’t you see the camera in the lighting booth?” Jason asked. “They’re filming all the plays this year. Pretty cool, huh?”
“So, does that mean we’re movie stars as well?”
“Alex, you’re too much.
◆ ◆ ◆
During the weekend and week before the homecoming game, Mathew committed to keeping tabs on Dante and Emilio, Frankie’s replacement. After constantly checking in on Dante, on Sunday night he had caught him packaging up the money inside a book. Then on Monday, he’d been able to watch him shipping the package to an address in Temecula, The Book Exchange, but he still hadn’t been able to determine who was picking it up. He assumed that Dante sent the package out each week. But it wasn’t like he could keep a constant lookout on the mail store where the address was, he did have a life after all.
His attempts to check in were continually preempted by his ‘real’ life. He set up a pattern of time to check for the package being picked up, but after a week of casing the package store, he hadn’t had any luck. He didn’t have time to search through the store’s haphazard filing system for packages to figure if all the packages that had slips in the mailbox were money packages. He did determine that the slips were all gone on Thursday morning, so he assumed the packages were picked up the day before, but by Friday, there were several more slips in the box.
He had been able to determine that Dante was running out of pills. So after Homecoming, Emily and he would have to talk about how to catch Dante’s supplier.
◆ ◆ ◆
Everyone at PCA was pumped for the Homecoming game against Fallbrook. The return of the mascot statue had the school believing that they would be victorious on the field. Matthew and Emily attended so they could put an ending on their story about the mysterious disappearance and reappearance of the statue, they hoped with a victory over the Fallbrook Warriors.
At halftime, the score was tied, 10 all. Matthew rushed to the concession stand to get in line before it got too long.
“Damn,” he said as he got there only to be eighth in line.
“Hey, Matt, isn’t it?” Cicely asked.
Matthew turned to see the girl from the party in Fallbrook.
“Yes, and you’re Cicely, right?”
“Yes, and I’m guessing by the colors you’re wearing and the fact that I haven’t seen you at school that you actually go to PCA.”
“Busted, we were trying to figure out where our statue was.”
“That’s what I figured. How come you guys didn’t finger Jerome?”
“I would guess that whoever figured out where the statue was thought that Jerome might have enough problems already without siccing the cops on him.”
“Oh, . . . That was pretty nice of them. He’s a bit of an ass, especially since his mother left five years ago. I can see why someone would be willing to cut him some slack. So where’s your sister, or is she really your girlfriend?” Cicely asked as she looked around for Emily.
“Emily’s not really my sister, she’s just a friend. But, the story about the license was true.”
“Are you really a junior?”
“No . . . actually, I’m a senior; I skipped a grade.”
“Well, at least we know you’re smart. Evan had a fit when he realized you’d snuck out.”
“Great. Just a sec,” Matthew turned to order two chilidogs and fries along with two Cokes. “Are you going to a party after the game?”
“No, after that scene with Evan, I’ve decided that going to a party where everyone plans to get drunk is probably not the smartest move. I’ve decided to skip the parties and focus on finishing school.”
“That sounds like a good idea.”
“Maybe some of your smarts are rubbing off on me.” Cicely grabbed Matthew's hand and wrote a number on it. “Call me.”
The lady behind the counter called out, “Matt, two orders of chilidogs.” Matthew realized it was the second time she’d called his name.
“Sure,” he mumbled as he grabbed his stuff and started out. Cicely gave him a finger wave and a smile as he moved on.
Matthew found his way through the crowd back to their seats.
“What took you so long?”
“There was a line.”
“Oh, and what’s that on your hand?”
“Cicely’s phone number, I think.”
“Right, a long line. Are you going to call her?”
“Should I?”
“Why not? Now give me my chilidog.”
◆ ◆ ◆
On Saturday, after Matthew’s martial arts classes and Emily’s weekly tennis game at the country club they met up. They were able to meet at Emily’s house since Alex was at Jason’s going over lines before their play that evening.
“I can’t believe that they just ship the money via UPS.”
“It’s pretty brazen, but I figure it’s also pretty safe. Packaged up in the books, and labeled as books, who would wonder about the packages.”
“And you still haven’t figured out who picks the packages up?”
“Not for sure. The packages look like the ones I saw Mr. Graham putting in his safe. But, the mail room is open for ten hours; it’s tough to catch him in the act. I’ll try to narrow the time down next week by monitoring the pickup slips in the mailbox.”
“You know, since they use kids to do the handoffs, maybe he has kids pick up the packages for him.”
“Why, they’d still have to give them to him?”
“But that way he can avoid being seen in the mailroom.”
“Okay, and the thing about the kids makes sense. He could have them pick the packages up for him while he’s doing something else. That way nobody could testify that he went to the mailroom to get them. I’ll focus my check-ins after school is out.”
“What else have we learned?”
Matthew bristled a little at the ‘we,’ but didn’t make a comment. “I’ve learned that Dante is almost out of pills. He’s got to be getting a new shipment next week. He only has enough to last him through the week, and unless they’re being really tight on the timing of the delivery, he’ll need to be getting them soon.”
“Well, they have been keeping everything else loose. You said that each of the users is buying a two-week supply and that Emilio has his users spread out over two weeks. So half one week the other half the next.”
“Right, minimizes contact and self-selects for users that have money.”
“So other than the bag man being in Temecula, we don’t know anything else about where the money goes?”
“I’m going to check on Graham’s calendars tonight. See if I can figure out where he goes. It looks like he was out of town last weekend.”
“Have you studied up on money laundering?”
“Not that much. You’re supposed to be researching his business background.”
“I am, but it’s not easy. He’s been doing real estate development for the last four years. But that’s hard to research. I did find an L.A. Times article that implied he wasn’t the most honest real estate broker or developer, but there were only a couple of transactions cited.”
“Well?” Matthew asked.
“I know, but you’re the computer genius. I’m slow at searching through online records. This would be much easier if you could loan me your portal so I could do the surveillance and you could do the searches.”
“Well, we’ve tried that and it doesn’t work.”
◆ ◆ ◆
On Sunday, Emily talked Matthew into driving with her to Mission Viejo to watch Brianna’s final in the tournament.
It was a great final; Brianna won the tournament by breaking Mariam’s serve on the last game in the third set after having sets one and two settled by tiebreakers.
“I’m so glad you came,” Brianna gushed as she gave Matthew a hug and a kiss. “Can you believe I won?”
“I never doubted it. So, what’s your next tournament?”
“I’m hoping to get into the Phoenix Classic in Novem
ber. It’s a full week, starting on the 8th.
◆ ◆ ◆
On Thursday of the following week, Matthew saw that Dante suddenly had four new bags of pills. He searched the apartment, but couldn’t find anything that was new. There wasn’t any packaging material in the trash and Matthew wasn’t about to search the dumpster behind the apartment building, even using his portal that was a nasty assignment.
By the end of the week, Matthew had confirmed that Graham was getting the money. He’d caught him shredding books with the cut-out pages like he’d seen Dante stuff the money into. He had a stack of packages that he later ran through the counting machine. Matthew watched as he made careful notes on a spreadsheet. He was surprised that he was simply adding a small number next to the column with what Matthew suspected was the expected amount. The numbers varied from minus 2 to plus one. Probably an error by the distributor in counting with the calipers.
◆ ◆ ◆
Matthew got ready for the Halloween party. He was going as a fairytale prince. He’d tried his best to get Jessie to pick Peter Pan for her costume so he could go as Captain Hook, but no amount of cajoling could get the six-year-old to change her mind. Matthew finally gave up, realizing that all he would accomplish was to make Jessica cry. And he didn’t want to show up at the party with a little girl who was shooting daggers at him every time she got a chance.
“Oh, don’t you look handsome,” Mrs. Brandt said as Matthew made it downstairs. She was fitting the tiara on Jessica’s head, trying to keep her still. Jessica, of course, wanted to get a look at herself in the mirror in the hallway, which was almost impossible anyway due to her height.
Matthew picked her up and held her in front of the mirror so she could see the tiara. His mother made one more adjustment to it since Jessica was being still and then pinned it into place.
“Okay, you’re ready. Let’s go,” Mrs. Brandt said.
“Yeah!”
The party was at the Winthrops’ house. Last year after the kidnapping and recovery of Sonja Stevenson, the Winthrops had opted for a party that would keep the kids from going out trick-or-treating. They’d divided the house into a small-kid upstairs party and a big-kid downstairs party. It had been so successful that they had decided to do it every year.
