Where would he go to contemplate the day's catastrophic events? I had no idea, but I had to find him.
3
Embezzlement
Stan Turner
The next day I worked a couple hours in the office and was about to leave to go to Waco when Maria advised me there was a call from Agent Lot of the FBI. A sick feeling came over me. What was I going to do? During our previous murder case we'd been in possession of one of the aliens’ memory guns. I'd put it in my safety deposit box thinking it would be safe there. Unfortunately, the aliens must have tracked the gun to the bank because the gun was stolen. After it happened I got a call from Agent Lot of the FBI asking me who would break into a national bank, not touch the millions of dollars in the vault, and take only the contents of my safety deposit box.
In the spur of the moment the best explanation I could come up with was that I represented an inventor and that he had given me a prototype of his new invention for safe keeping. That left a lot of unanswered questions, but got Agent Lot off my back for the duration of the trial. Now he was back, no doubt wanting more specific information about my client and his invention so they could figure out who had robbed the bank, but more importantly, who had been able to disable the bank's state-of-the-art security system in less than a minute. I picked up the telephone.
"Stan Turner."
"Stan. This is Agent Lot. How are you?"
"Oh. Agent Lot. Fine. Any news on Dr. Gerhardt or Cheryl Windsor?"
"No. I'm afraid not."
"Hmm. That's too bad. I was hoping you'd come up with something."
"We're working on it, but what I was calling about was your inventor client. Has he contacted you yet?"
"Ah. . . . Well, he’s not back yet. I did get a message from him, though. He's due back in the country in a month or so. I'm sure he'll call me then."
"He still doesn't know the prototype has been stolen?"
"No, he knows. I talked to one of his associates and told him. He knows what happened. Just as soon as he gets back in town, I'll bring him in so you can interview him."
"All right; but I'm under a lot of pressure to come up with an explanation for what happened. If your client doesn't come in soon, we'll have to come looking for him. This matter is of the utmost importance and our patience is wearing thin."
"I totally understand," I said. "I'll get word to my client of the urgency of the situation. I'm sure there will be no more delays in his return to the United States."
After hanging up the phone I let out a sigh of relief. I'd bought another thirty days, but this was likely my final reprieve. The next time Agent Lot called I'd have to produce a client and his invention. The only problem was I didn't have a client who was an inventor nor was there was a prototype of an instant air purifier. Unless I came up with a brilliant idea soon, we'd be screwed.
I looked at my watch and saw it was time to head for Waco to see Ben and Alice Stover. They were two of the nicest people you'd ever meet and I was worried about what I'd find once I got down there. They'd asked me to meet them at a local restaurant, the Elite Café, because they were afraid if an attorney showed up at the office the employees would get spooked. They were seated at a booth when I walked in Waco's most renowned diner. I walked over to them. Ben got up and shook my hand heartily. Alice was smiling broadly. I bent over and gave her a hug.
"It's been a while," I said as I took a seat. "Hey, I'm glad you picked this place. I've heard a lot about it."
"Yes, they say Elvis used to dine here when he was stationed at Ft. Hood." Ben remarked.
"Is that right? Wow! . . . So, you guys look good."
Ben snickered. "Yeah, well. We feel like shit."
I nodded. "So, tell me what's going on."
Ben was in his late fifties, tall, salt and pepper hair, grey eyes, and always had a smile on his face. Alice was six inches shorter, brown hair, green eyes, and usually very perky. Today, however, she looked tired and worn out.
"You want a cup of coffee or some lunch?" Ben asked.
I nodded. "Sure, I'll take a cup."
Ben motioned to the waitress and she came over. "Can we get another cup of coffee?"
"Sure," the waitress said and went off toward the kitchen. A minute later she put a cup down in front of me and poured the coffee from a glass pot. I added two sugars and a little cream and then looked up at Ben expectantly.
He sighed. "About six weeks ago we got a call from one of our long time suppliers about our account. He said we were ninety days past due and our last check had bounced."
"Oh, wonderful," I said shaking my head.
"Yes. I was shocked because business hadn't been great but it had been pretty steady. There was no way we should have been late on our bills and we damn sure shouldn't have been bouncing checks."
"Right."
"So, I confronted Ralph, our bookkeeper, about it and he said the bank had made a mistake and he'd take care of it."
"Well, I was a little too shaken to just take his word for it, so I pulled the old bank statements and accounts payable records and started looking through them. I was appalled at what I found. Each month our payables were getting a little farther and farther behind and about twenty percent of our revenue was being siphoned off into a bank account I knew nothing about."
"Oh, my God," I said. "You've got to be kidding."
"I wish. Anyway, when I confronted Ralph about the bank account he claimed I'd told him to set it up," Ben said angrily. "What a son of a bitch."
"So, what did you do?"
"I called my banker and asked him how it was that an employee could set up an account in our name without our permission."
"Yeah, really," I said. "What did he say?"
"He claimed he came in, set up the account, and then took the signature card with him for us to sign. He brought it back the next day with our signatures on it."
"You obviously didn't sign it, right?" I asked.
"No, but the signatures actually look a lot like ours, don't they, honey?"
Alice nodded. "He's a damn good forger. They almost look legitimate, but we didn't sign it."
"So, you haven’t called the police?”
“No, not yet. We wanted to talk to you first.”
“And you haven’t taken any other action?
“No, other than fire his ass," Ben replied.
"How did he take being fired?"
"He got all bent out of shape and said if we went to the police he'd report us to the IRS and tell them about our unreported income and bogus deductions."
"What? That's bullshit," I said.
"I know that, but the IRS doesn't. He also said he'd call our creditors and tell them we were skimming money from the business and planned to file bankruptcy."
"Oh, my God. This guy's a lunatic."
Alice nodded. "I'd like to go to the district attorney and file criminal charges, but I'm afraid of what he will do."
"We can't let him get away with this," Ben said. "What should we do, Stan?"
"The guy's a thief. He needs to be put away. If you let him get away with it, he'll just go do it again to someone else."
"But what if he follows through with his threats?" Alice asked.
"Hopefully, the IRS and your creditors will realize he's a lunatic."
"I don't know," Alice said. "If someone had called me and told us one of our customers was a crook, I'd have a hard time ignoring that."
Alice was right. Someone as smooth as Ralph would have the IRS drooling over the case. He’d make it sound like Ben and Alice were more despicable than Bonnie and Clyde. "Well, we could go to court and get an injunction based on his threats."
"Yeah, but would a guy like that pay any attention to an injunction?" Ben asked.
I raised my eyebrows and shrugged. "If he didn't, we could ask the court to find him in contempt. If we were successful, he'd go to jail."
Ben looked at me and then at Alice. "Okay, maybe we should call the DA, but a more immediate p
roblem is how do we make payroll, pay the rent, and make our payments to the bank this month?"
"How short are you?" I asked.
"We need about twenty-five thousand dollars by Friday just to get through the weekend and that doesn't include covering our three thousand dollar overdraft. Normally we keep a checking account balance of at least twenty-five thousand dollars as a cushion, but Ralph has taken everything."
"Well, we could file a Chapter 11," I said, "but that won't help solve your cash crunch right now. You need to borrow some money or find something to sell, I guess."
"I've already cashed in our life insurance policies. That netted almost eleven thousand. We don't really have anything else of value except some real estate, but that would take too long to unload."
"Maybe you could borrow on the real estate. Have you talked to your banker?"
"He might do it," Ben said, "but even that would take a few days plus we'd have another debt to service."
"Right, but maybe in a few months you'll get some restitution to pay off the loan."
It was one of those situations that didn't have a solution, just options to minimize the damage done and hopefully allow the business to survive. I felt helpless and frustrated. I wanted to tell them we'd figure it all out and everything would be okay, but I couldn't promise that.
"There is one other option," Ben said.
"What's that," I asked.
"There's been someone who wanted to buy the business. This might be the time to unload it."
"Really? Could they act quickly?"
"I don't know. We've never seriously considered selling it, so I've never talked to them in earnest about it."
"Perhaps you should contact them. I know you don't want to sell, but it would be a good idea to have a
Act Normal, A Stan Turner Mystery Vol 9 Page 6
