Beads of Doubt

by Barbara Burnett Smith

  Nate added, “He actually paid off a lot of them, but when the government did an audit they discovered he’d returned so much money that he was bankrupt.”

  “Part of it was,” Lauren said, “that he’d never purchased all the stamps or international reply coupons to make the plan work.”

  “Which,” Nate concluded, “is why his last name, Ponzi, is synonymous with pyramid schemes. End of story.”

  Beth looked at me. “Do we get college credit for this?”

  “I already knew it,” I said. “Pretty interesting, though, isn’t it? Ponzi always maintained his innocence, and I’ve wondered if he could have pulled it off if he’d been just a little bit quicker on the uptake.”

  Lauren shook her head. “It wasn’t possible. He was collecting too much money. We did the calculations in one of my business classes and if you start with just eight people, by the time you reach the ninth level, or maybe the eighth, you’d have to have everyone in the United States investing.”

  Beth put up her hand to halt the discussion. “Very interesting. So Nate, you’re thinking that Andrew was doing a Ponzi scheme instead of legitimately investing the money?”

  “Something just suggests it to me,” he said. “Lauren, you know more about his business than the rest of us. Was he? Could you tell?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I was hired to help Houston when Rebecca was sick, and so primarily I handled Houston’s correspondence and his clients. Once we got caught up I did research on commercial real estate and potential subdivisions for him. Andrew was my go-to guy when I had questions. It wasn’t until a couple of weeks ago that he talked about other investments—I guess the ones that were just his. He was researching something in Corpus Christi or Galveston. And something at the lake here.”

  We all stared at the computer screen with its lines and rows of numbers. They all represented Andrew’s money. Or perhaps his clients, but in either case, we were peering into his private world. It gave me a very odd feeling—as if we were being voyeurs and we couldn’t even apologize to him for being so rude.

  “You know,” Beth said, “almost every account in the world has money going in and out, so that shouldn’t be odd. We have to find out where the funds were going, don’t you think?”

  “That’s our next step,” I said. With some regret I added, “If only we’d gone into that meeting Andrew was having on Thursday.”

  “He invited us to come in afterward,” Beth corrected. “Not during it. I thought I heard arguing in there.”

  “There was,” Lauren said. “The Yancys were furious with Andrew. I was afraid Mr. Yancy was going to have a heart attack. I was sitting at my desk and I could hear him yelling.”

  “Really?” I said. “What were they so mad about?”

  “Money. I didn’t hear the whole story, but I think their statement had an error on it. Andrew kept saying that it was a simple computer error—some kind of glitch in the program, but they either didn’t believe him, or they were using it as an excuse, because they demanded their money back. Andrew told them it was too early and they’d have to wait, which really set them off.”

  Nate leaned forward to ask, “Did it ever get resolved?”

  “I don’t think so,” Lauren said. “They did finally leave, and they seemed calm by then. I asked Andrew if they were okay, and he said something like, ‘Oh, sure.’ He said it was all a misunderstanding. How were they during the cocktail party?”

  “They were here?” I asked.

  “Andrew gave them tickets last week, and Mrs. Yancy said she was looking forward to seeing the Manse. I don’t know if they actually came, after the argument, but it would seem silly to waste the tickets. And they didn’t have to talk to Andrew.” She looked at me. “Did you meet them?”

  “No. I wish I had.” I tried thinking back to the party and the dozens of people I’d spoken to, not to mention all the faces I saw in passing. In retrospect I felt like I’d spent half the night in the closet and the other half in my room being lectured by my mother. “What did Mrs. Yancy look like?”

  “White hair. Pretty old. Taller than me. Kind of thin, but rangy looking,” Lauren said.

  I thought back through the evening and remembered Andrew talking with an older couple. They could have been the Yancys.

  “Are you done with this?” Lauren asked, pointing to the computer. “I’d better plug it in or the battery is going to go dead. I’ll keep looking, though.”

  Beth yawned. “I’d better go in, too. I’m tired, and tomorrow is going to be another long day.”

  Except neither of them moved, and the computer screen flashed of its own accord, creating temporary darkness, then came back on at the screen saver—a beach and palm trees.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  Lauren was frowning. “I don’t know. Probably just lost the wireless connection.” She put her index finger on the touch pad, moved it around a bit, and once more the screen changed. “That’s strange. I’m still connected—” Then her mouth opened and she made a little sound.

  “What?” I said.

  “I just had this weird thought of Andrew coming back from the dead to stop us from looking at his information.”

  I put an arm around Lauren. “Luckily we know that’s not possible. I’m betting you have a more logical explanation.”

  “Well, it has happened a couple of times before. At the office. Andrew had asked me to edit letters for him, and I was, but then I got kicked off. Just like this time.”

  Nate said, “Wait a minute, I think I missed something here. This is your computer and it’s linked with Andrew’s?”

  “Uh-huh. I could sit at my desk and work on his things. It’s really convenient.”

  “Yes, but why would you suddenly stop being connected?” I asked.

  “Well, if someone locks me out from his computer. Andrew would do that sometimes—I guess if he was working on something private. But the other way is when he shuts down.”

  “Turns his computer off?” Beth said.

  “Yes.”

  “Okay,” I said, “we know that Andrew didn’t lock us out, so we can dismiss that possibility.”

  Lauren said, “Then someone just turned Andrew’s computer off.”

  “But why would it be on?” I asked.

  “He always forgets—forgot, I mean—to turn it off,” Lauren said.

  We silently thought about that, watching the computer that remained eerily glowing. I felt like a peeping Tom who’d been caught; it was almost as if the screen was watching us.

  “It could be Houston,” I said. “On the way home from the police department he stopped and turned it off.”

  “Or,” Lauren countered, “it could be the police. If they decided to take the computer with them.”

  I stood up, which felt wonderful. I’d been inactive for too long. “There’s only one way to find out.”

  “Are you kidding?” Beth demanded. “You’re going to break into Houston’s office?”

  “You wouldn’t!” Lauren said.

  Nate was smiling.

  “Break into his office?” I said. “It’s up a flight of stairs and I don’t pick locks.” I shook my head in disbelief. “Of course, I’m not going to break in. If we were going to Houston’s office, then presumably Lauren has a key.”

  “I do, but—”

  “But we aren’t going to the office. I’m going to call him on the telephone and see if he’s home.”

  Nate started laughing.

  Since I’d been so adamant that Rebecca take a sleeping pill, I called Houston on his cell phone and discovered that he was safely at home, getting ready to take a shower.

  “How is Rebecca?” I asked. Nate, Lauren, and Beth were standing behind me in the upstairs office, not quite listening over my shoulder, but close.

  “She’s just fine. I think she took something to help her sleep, so she should be out in a few minutes.”

  “That’s good,” I said. “Well, I was just checkin
g. Have a good night.”

  “You, too. ” And he hung up. Of course, he didn’t know how he’d gotten away from the police, and I wasn’t going to tell him.

  “You realize what this means?” Nate said as I hung up the phone.

  “That Houston Webber is an even more rotten SOB than I’d thought?”

  “Maybe, but it also means that you can’t get any more information on Andrew’s investment business. Even if Lauren downloaded everything we saw, it isn’t much help.”

  “I didn’t,” Lauren said. “Shit.” We all looked at her in surprise. “I mean, damn. Uh, sorry.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” I said. “There are other ways to get information. In fact . . . I already have some ideas . . .”

  Lauren looked at Beth. “Is she always like this?”

  “Always,” she said, and punctuated it with a yawn. “I’m sorry, but I’ve got to get some sleep.”

  “Me, too,” Lauren said. “But I would like to hear what you’re going to do.”

  “Tomorrow I’m going to call Bruce, the contractor next door. I have a feeling he knows about Andrew’s investments.” I smiled at Nate. “And I’ll track down the Yancys, and someone will go to the office.”

  “But what if Houston is there?” Lauren asked.

  Nate reached over to slide an arm around me. “Then we should go when he’s not there. Like right now. I hope there’s a light on.” He turned to me. “Are you driving, or am I?”

  “Oh, I can. But, Lauren, we’re going to need your keys, too.”

  “My keys? But if you go in there, isn’t that illegal? They’ve sealed off Andrew’s office.”

  “We won’t touch anything,” I assured her. “And if you’re not comfortable about this, just tell me where your purse is and I’ll borrow the keys and bring them right back.”

  Lauren started into detailed descriptions of what I needed to do when I got to the office and how, if the police had just turned the machine off, I was going to have to get into certain programs and do certain things to be able to get information. I could see why Houston had hired her. She was as detail oriented as anyone I’ve ever met.

  After about five minutes she went to get paper and pen to write instructions down, and after another five minutes I gave up.

  “Won’t work,” I said. “Either you come with us, or I’ll have to steal Andrew’s computer and bring it here.”

  Lauren was appalled by that, especially since there would be no sign of forced entry, which would, of course, point to her complicity. And we had to make sure that her computer was properly prepared to accept things, because she certainly didn’t want to send anything by e-mail, which would leave a trail.

  Nate looked at me. “I’m just waiting for her to say that the moon has to be in the second house—”

  “And Jupiter aligned with Mars?” I finished.

  Beth pulled her bead bracelets off and began shaking them like a tambourine. “Then peace will gui-ide the planets—”

  Together we sang, “And lo-ove will steer the stars . . .”

  Before we could really get rolling, Lauren stood up and said in what I thought was a rather prim manner, “I will get my computer set up here, and then I’ll go with you. However, I want you to know that my father will not be happy if I end up in jail.” When none of us responded, she added, “I think one of you should go start the getaway car.”

  Thirteen

  We took Nate’s Lincoln Navigator because it had an innate respectability that Beth’s PT Cruiser couldn’t match; it was also cleaner than my Land Rover Discovery. When Nate started up the car, the radio came on, playing eighties rock and roll. “Walk Like an Egyptian.”

  “Might be good advice,” Beth commented.

  The rest of the trip was spent reassuring Lauren that we were not doing anything foolish, and that we were not going to go to jail. It was her office and she had a key. Houston had never specified that she was not to come back to work after five o’clock.

  “Who are you trying to convince?” Beth asked. “Lauren or yourself?”

  “Slow down and drive past the building,” I said to Nate. “We can check on lights, first.”

  Which we did, and there was a faint haze from the back, but no cars in the parking lot. Nate pulled in and parked as close to the stairs as possible.

  “Why are we parking here?” I asked.

  “If we’re not doing anything wrong, then we shouldn’t be hiding,” Beth reasoned.

  “Makes sense, I guess,” Nate said.

  I wasn’t sure if I agreed, but I didn’t want to do any additional backseat driving. One does not get another date that way.

  After some discussion I suggested that Lauren and I go up while Nate and Beth waited in the car. Nate wasn’t particularly thrilled with letting us go alone, but I reminded him it was just an empty building. And if the police should drive up, he and Beth could make some excuse as to why they were sitting in the dark in a parking lot. They could also hit the horn a couple of times so Lauren and I could find a place to hide.

  It was Beth who vetoed that plan. “You two go up. I’ll stand at the back corner of the building and play lookout. Nate can park on the street behind the building, and if the police come, I’ll whistle.” Beth can whistle louder than a steam engine. “If you hear the whistle you two hide, and Nate can—”

  “Tell me again how there is nothing wrong with this,” Lauren said.

  We went with Beth’s idea. Lauren and I gathered our things and headed to the unobtrusive door on the side of the building, with Beth right behind us. Once we had it open, Beth waved and left. Lauren and I slipped on our gloves. Mine were black leather; hers were bright yellow dishwashing gloves, because that’s all I had that would fit her hands. We also had a flashlight, which we weren’t going to use unless we had to.

  The inside of the building wasn’t what I would call pitch-black, but it was dark. The streetlights outside gave us some very bright spots and lots of shadows.

  We paused long enough in Lauren’s office to let our eyes adjust, and then I followed her around the corner to Andrew’s door. It was closed, and there were half a dozen crisscrossings of crime-scene tape. I tested the knob.

  “Locked,” I whispered. “Do you have the key?”

  “In my desk.”

  It’s funny: when you’re in a dark office after hours, all your primal preservation instincts kick in, whether you need them or not. We were whispering and tiptoeing like it mattered, but I doubted anyone would have heard us if we’d screamed.

  Back in the front office I watched Lauren fumble to open her desk drawer because of her bulky gloves.

  “Just take them off,” I said. “The police would expect to find your fingerprints, remember?”

  “Oh, right.”

  Finally we were opening Andrew’s locked door. His blinds were closed, so it was like looking into a cave; I couldn’t see anything. We spent a minute or two studying the tape. Removing it was going to be a dead giveaway, in case anyone looked.

  “We could crawl under,” I said.

  “I have another idea.” She flicked on the flashlight just long enough for us to see Andrew’s desk. There was no computer. “Well that stinks,” she said, clicking off the light.

  “I’ll say.” Neither of us moved, still standing near the door staring into the black hole like there was something to see. “Who do you think took it?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Houston?”

  “Could be. Or the police.” I had an idea. “Let me borrow your flashlight.”

  I put my hand over most of the lens and clicked it on, running the light along the doorframe. The paint had been lifted off in a couple of place, as if the tape had been moved. Or maybe removed and replaced, which I’d have to think about later.

  “Where are Andrew’s files?” I asked. “Contracts, papers, and things like that?”

  In shadow I saw her shrug. “The police took the files on our clients. I told them that Houston w
as going to be unhappy, because we use those all the time. Andrew didn’t have any separate files that I knew about. Well, maybe there were a few in his office on investments that he was still researching. Or his apartment.”

  A sharp whistle pierced the air as a graze of light touched the blinds in Andrew’s office.

  I grabbed the door and pulled it closed. Lauren dashed off, and by the time I rounded the corner she was already reaching for the knob of the side door. “Get down,” I snapped.

  “What do you mean?”

  Another loud whistle. “No one out front can see the door, but they will see you. Crawl out. Flat, on your belly.”

  “These are my new jeans—”

  “You can’t wear them in jail.”

  She opened the door, which luckily swung inward, and then she crawled out. “This hurts.”

  I was right behind her, inching over the doorjamb and onto the cement walkway on my stomach, partly pulling myself with my elbows. It did hurt. I could see the car in the parking lot, its lights shining toward the building, but we were far enough away from it that I didn’t think the occupants of the car could see us.

  I couldn’t get the door closed. I didn’t dare stand up and grab the knob, and I couldn’t shut it with my foot. Not only that, I was lying on several large acorns.

  “You go ahead,” I whispered.

  She had already covered so much ground I didn’t think she heard me.

  Which still left the open door. I was going to have to turn around, close the door with my hand, and then crawl like a centipede to get out of there. I didn’t cuss, but I did consider it. My body was beyond the age when crawling was acceptable, and it certainly wasn’t comfortable. Just as I was halfway through the maneuver, the car in the parking lot swung around. I watched, not moving, as the lights went from pointing toward me, to away from me. The car stayed in the driveway facing out for a few seconds then pulled into the dark street.

  Slowly, stiffly, I stood up and brushed myself off.

  “Are you all right?” Beth called from the darkness nearby.

  “Of course.”