Uncharted Waters

by Rosemary McCracken

  “What did Dean say about that?” I tried to sound neutral.

  “He was surprised at first, but he said we could discuss it at our next meeting.” She toyed with the silver bracelet on her wrist. “It wasn’t anything serious. Just the general kind of talk you have at a first meeting.”

  I know all about know-your-client meetings. They rarely include discussion of specific investment strategies. Why would Dean seem open to letting Mindy take money out of her home?

  “Had you become Dean’s client?” I asked.

  “I liked him; he was definitely someone I could work with. But I was concerned about the distance I’d have to travel to see him—I don’t have a car, you see—so I didn’t commit to anything that day. When I decided to go for it a week or so later, his number had been disconnected. Then Riza told me he’d been murdered.”

  She frowned. No doubt she was thinking about what had happened to her aunt.

  “You only saw him that one time?” I asked.

  “Only once.”

  “Are you still planning to take money out of your home?” I asked. “Or have you already done that?”

  She shook her head. “I’m fine as I am. My home is paid for, thanks to Riza’s help. And my work brings in good money. I’d like to invest some of my savings, but there’s no rush for that.”

  “So you only brought up tapping your home equity because Riza suggested it.”

  “That’s right. She wanted me to ask about it.”

  She leaned back on the sofa and closed her eyes. “That was the last time I talked to her.”

  She looked small and sad. I reached over and patted her hand. We sat quietly for a minute or two, then I scribbled my home number on one of my new business cards and handed it to her.

  “Give me a call if you’d like to work with me,” I said. “My office is in the Annex, on the same street as Dean’s office, but I can come here for our meetings.”

  “Riza didn’t want Dean to know she’d sent me to him,” Mindy said as we walked to the door. “Then they both got killed.”

  I tried to hide my surprise at what she’d just said, and shook her hand at the door.

  Traffic was just as heavy on the drive back, giving me plenty of time to replay my conversation with Mindy. Riza had wanted her to ask Dean about tapping the equity in her home. But why? Mindy said she had savings she wanted to invest; she didn’t need to take money out of her home.

  Chapter Thirty-three

  It was nearly 5:30 when I put coins in a parking meter on Bloor Street. I was halfway up the stairs to the office when I heard knocking on the glass door behind me. Returning to the door, I saw Catherine Monaghan standing outside.

  “We’re closed for the day,” I told her when I opened the door.

  She pushed her way inside. “I need to talk to you.”

  She was wearing jeans and a baggy gray sweater. Her hair needed styling, and it was the first time I’d seen her without makeup.

  “Pat,” she said as she followed me upstairs, “what did you do to my son?”

  “Do to your son?” I shot back. “What did your son—or was it you and your son—do to me?”

  Inside the suite, I gave her a piece of my mind. “I was at a luncheon today, and everyone in the room had heard Lukas’s lies. I’ve spoken to my lawyer about suing for defamation.”

  Her eyes widened, and she lowered herself into a chair.

  I sat on Sam’s desk. “Lukas has put out a story that I was skimming client accounts at Norris Cassidy.”

  I dug into my handbag and took out an envelope holding a copy of the recording we’d made in Rose’s daughter’s office. “Here’s what your son has been saying,” I said, handing her the envelope. “Were you behind it?”

  “I wouldn’t be that stupid.”

  “Meaning that Lukas is?”

  She ignored that. “You spoke to him about this story?”

  “Damned right I did. When I caught him telling it to a former colleague.” I pointed to the envelope she was holding. “That’s your copy. Listen to what he said.”

  Catherine closed her eyes for a moment or two. “He has a list of Dean’s clients he planned to pitch our services to.”

  “A list of my clients, you mean.”

  “Now he’s backing off.”

  “Because I won’t let him spread lies that will destroy my good name and my livelihood. You must realize, Catherine, that your plan to run a business with your son is doomed to failure.”

  She dropped the envelope into her purse and set the purse on the chair beside her. “Lukas has faced a lot of challenges,” she said, toying with the rings on her hands. “As a child, he had a learning disability. Dyslexia. He had problems decoding words, matching letters to sounds. He wasn’t reading at the expected grade level, and he got tripped up by the words in math problems. Dean thought he lacked discipline and drive. He pushed him to get over it.”

  She was playing for my sympathy. “Don’t expect me to buy into your excuses for your son,” I said. “He tried to ruin me.”

  She went on as if I hadn’t spoken. “Dean never understood his condition, but I got Lukas to a speech pathologist and a reading specialist. His reading and math gradually improved. He got through high school and earned a university degree with reduced course loads. He always wanted to be a financial planner like his dad.”

  None of this made me like Lukas any more, but I warmed slightly to Catherine, the mother bear protecting her young. Sounded as if she had done her best for her son with little help from Dean. “Lukas achieved that,” I said. “He’s was a financial planner at Optimum. But he blew it.”

  She frowned. “There were misunderstandings there. And when I realized how much Lukas wanted his own business, I thought we could run one together.”

  “Catherine, you know your husband sold me his business, fair and square. Why can’t you accept that, and find your own clients?”

  “I don’t see anything wrong with going after Dean’s clients,” she said. “The agreement you signed didn’t have a non-solicitation clause.”

  “A court won’t look at it that way. Dean wanted to retire, so I could safely assume that he wouldn’t come after his former clients.”

  She sagged in the chair, looking defeated. “Pat, please don’t go to court. I admit that Lukas went too far, and I’ll do what I can to set things right.”

  I thought of the luncheon I’d attended that day. “I don’t know if you can set things right. Too many people have heard Lukas’s lies.”

  “I’ll speak to everyone he’s talked to.”

  Catherine was terrified that I’d sue her son. That was the only card I held. “It may be too late,” I said.

  “Let me see what I can do.”

  I wasn’t sure that she could clear up the mess Lukas had created, but I couldn’t come up with a better solution. I locked eyes with her and nodded.

  She looked relieved, but I had a question on another topic. “Your husband’s killer hasn’t been found.”

  She was instantly defensive. “Lukas didn’t kill his father.”

  “I know that. He was in a meeting at Optimum when Dean was murdered.”

  “I told the police everything they wanted to know. Everything that might be helpful.”

  “Was Dean under a lot of stress before he was killed?”

  “He was stressed out for months. Constantly preoccupied, had trouble sleeping. After his heart attack, he decided to sell the business. I wanted him to retire, but I thought he should give his practice to Lukas. Keep it in the family, let his son have his own business to run.”

  She bowed her head. “I was putting Dean under more stress, I know. He wouldn’t hear of Lukas taking over his practice.”

  “What was troubling Dean before his heart attack?”

  “He refused to talk to me about it. Not that I didn’t try to make him.”

  “His anxiety and sleeplessness—that had gone on for some time?”

  “A year. Ever since
that real-estate agent came to the house.”

  “Real-estate agent?”

  “She turned up at our front door one Sunday afternoon last September. Dean took her into his study. When she left, he was deathly pale and shut himself up for hours.”

  “What was her name?”

  “Michelle Blake. I told the police about her after Dean was killed, but I never heard whether they talked to her.”

  Michelle Blake, who had told me she seldom left her home, was selling real estate. And she was supposed to be Dean’s client. Why had she visited him at home, and why had her visit sent him into a tailspin?

  As soon as Catherine took her leave, after assuring me again that she would put an end to Lukas’s smear campaign, I went straight to my computer. I did a search for Michelle Blake, Toronto real estate, but nothing came up. Mind you, Michelle could have left the real-estate business after visiting the Monaghans’ home a year ago. Perhaps after developing her mysterious illness.

  But she hadn’t been at home when I’d arrived for our appointment three days before. I hadn’t believed then that she’d forgotten our appointment, and now I had doubts about everything else I knew about her.

  Then there was the matter of Rebecca Quincy’s real-estate listing. I called up client files I’d acquired from Dean and clicked on one. Bingo! The client’s assets included a Bridle Path mansion, and the address matched the one on Rebecca’s listing.

  The client? Ben Cordova.

  ***

  I locked up the office and drove north to Michelle’s home.

  I entered the condo building with a couple who had a keycard. In the lobby, they waved at the young man at the reception desk. “Don’t work too hard, Frankie,” the woman called to him.

  “Frankie doesn’t believe in hard work,” her companion said.

  I followed them onto the elevator and pressed the button for the 23rd floor.

  It was almost 6:30, dinnertime for many people. There was a good chance that Michelle would be at home. I rapped on her door.

  A man in faded jeans, a white T-shirt, and bare feet opened it with a lazy swagger. Slim, mid-40s, brown hair thinning on the top of his head.

  His brown eyes burned with fierce, almost hypnotic, intensity. “What is it?”

  “Is Michelle here?” I asked.

  “There’s no Michelle here.” Behind him, Jefferson Airplane was singing “White Rabbit.” Michelle’s kind of music.

  “Michelle Blake. I met her here last week. I’m Pat Tierney—”

  “You have the wrong the unit. Or the wrong floor.” He closed the door.

  I moved closer to the peephole. I hoped Michelle got a good look at me.

  I waved at Frankie as I walked through the lobby.

  Back in my car, I reached Sam on her cell. “You’re at home?” I asked.

  “Just got in.”

  “Would it be okay if I came by for a few minutes? I have something I’d like to show you.”

  “Right now?”

  Did she sound hesitant? I knew I shouldn’t be bothering her after work hours. “If you’re not busy,” I said. “If you are, it can wait till tomorrow.”

  “Sure, come by. You’ll be here in, what, 10 minutes?”

  “More like 20 at this time of day.”

  ***

  Sam lived in a large Victorian sandstone that had been divided into flats. I pressed the button for Reiss and Watson beside the front door, and Sam buzzed me in. On the third floor, a bicycle was locked to the staircase railing. Sam stood waiting for me at her apartment door. She took me into her living room, made cozy with colorful throws on the sofa and armchair, and candles lit in hurricane holders in the dormer windows. A table at the back of the room was set for two.

  A marmalade tabby was stretched out on the sofa, so I took the armchair. I pulled Rebecca Quincy’s listing out of my briefcase. “I came across a property in the Bridle Path neighborhood that Monarch Realty has up for sale. This is your sister’s listing, right?”

  Sam pulled up a straight-backed chair, and I handed her the printout. “Yeah,” she said, taking it. “That’s Becca’s name at the top. The Bridle Path, that’s where the zillionaires live.”

  “It’s supposed to be the most affluent neighborhood in Canada. Some call it Millionaires’ Row. Strange there’s no photo of Becca on the listing.”

  Sam snorted. “Must’ve been a bad-hair day.”

  I pointed to the photo of the house. “Any idea who owns this house?”

  “No. Should I?”

  “This is Ben Cordova’s home.”

  “What!” Sam bent over to read the printout. “Holy crap, this place is a rockpile! Six bathrooms and tennis courts. And Ben wants huge bucks for it.” She looked up at me. “Why does he want to sell?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know why.” I paused before going on. “How did Becca get the listing? Did Ben meet her through Dean?”

  “I don’t think so. I told you that Ben dropped into the office now and then. But Becca never came by. Why would she?”

  “Her husband was a financial planner before he lost his licenses. And he was corresponding with Dean.”

  She shook her head. “I still don’t get it.”

  Neither did I. I had read the first of those e-mails 10 days earlier, and Hardy had given me more that morning. But I had no real idea what they were about—only vague suspicions.

  “Ben probably hooked up with Becca through a friend of a friend,” Sam said. “Word of mouth. That’s how it usually works, right?”

  Not this time. It would have been too much of a coincidence if Ben had found Rebecca Quincy through a friend or a neighbor.

  I told Sam about my visit to Michelle’s condo.

  She shook her head. “Pat, I’m not trying to tell you how to do your job.”

  When people say that, it’s usually exactly what they’re planning to do.

  “I mean this Michelle is, like, seriously weird. Do you really want her as a client?”

  I shrugged.

  “How did your meeting with Mindy go?” Sam asked. “Will she become a client?”

  I said Riza had told her niece to ask Dean about tapping into her home equity.

  “You think that’s important?”

  “Yes,” I said, “because it was such an odd thing to have Mindy ask about. She owns her home outright, so she’s way ahead of the game for someone her age. Borrowing against it to play the stock market could be risky.”

  “She could lose her home, you mean.”

  “Yes, that would be the worst-case scenario.”

  “Maybe Riza was addicted to investing. One of those Type-A day traders who gets an adrenaline rush from buying and selling. She may have needed more cash to play with.”

  “Maybe.” I could picture Riza logging long hours in front of a computer researching and trading stocks. And, for that, she would have needed a cushion of capital. No one can generate profit consistently. Intermittent—sometimes extended—losses are part of the game.

  “But Riza steered Mindy to Dean,” I said, “and he would have had her do her investing through brokers. No, Riza sent Mindy on a scouting mission.”

  Sam looked thoughtful. “Mindy went on her scouting mission. Eight days later, Dean was killed. A week later, Riza was dead, too.”

  I stood up. “See you in the morning, Sam.”

  On my way down the stairs, I heard Janis Joplin belting out “Piece of My Heart” in Sam’s flat.

  At the front door, a young woman was wheeling a bike inside. Cropped pink-and-blue hair, nose ring, black-leather jacket. A shopping bag was in the bike’s front basket. I could see a bottle of wine, a loaf of crusty bread, and some leafy vegetables peeking out of it.

  “Hey! You must be Sam’s boss,” she said. “I’m Amy.”

  “Hi, Amy,” I said. “I’m Pat Tierney.”

  She gave me a big smile. “Sam is, like, totally jazzed about working for you.”

  Chapter Thirty-four

  The ne
xt morning, I dressed carefully in a silver-gray suit and a plum-colored shirt. Call me conflicted, but I wanted to look good for my meeting with Ben, even though I was at the end of my patience with him. Why hadn’t he told me his home was up for sale? He’d had plenty of opportunity on our outing to Blairhampton. How could I act as his financial advisor if he kept me in the dark about major financial events in his life?

  And there was even more to it than that. Becca Quincy was the agent who was selling Ben’s home. Becca, whose husband, Gabe, was a convicted con man. When I’d asked Ben if he knew Gabe, he told me that the name sounded familiar, but he couldn’t place him. Couldn’t place him, ha!

  I got to the office early, and printed out the latest batch of e-mails Hardy had given me. I sipped coffee at my desk as I flipped through the printouts. They were all correspondence between Dean and Gabe. Short messages in terse, clipped language.

  The telephone rang, and I answered it.

  “Pat, it’s Kimberley Wilson,” the woman at the other end of the line said. “I had a call from Lukas Monaghan last night. He’d told me some terrible things about you, but he retracted them last night. He said his information was incorrect.”

  I was speechless. Kimberley had told me that, if Catherine and Lukas were operating a fee-only business, she would join them. She’d e-mailed me later confirming that was what she had decided to do.

  “I can’t work with someone who’d spread malicious rumors without checking them out,” Kimberley went on. “So, if it’s okay, I’d like to work with you.”

  I couldn’t find the words to reply, especially given that Kimberley had spread those same “malicious rumors” to at least two of my other clients.

  “Pat, are you still there?”

  I pulled myself together. “Yes, Kimberley, I’m here.”

  “I—I’m sorry about all this. Will you take me on?”

  “Let’s start over,” I said.

  We made an appointment to meet the following week. Before we disconnected, Kimberley said, “You’ll be hearing from Roz Ramsay. She and Phil have decided against the Monaghans, too.”