She glanced at Rick. Damn, pretty alpha for her beta friend.
She returned her attention to the angry warehouse worker and did a double take of recognition. Well, well. Tattoo Guy was all attack dog without Mikhail around to beat him into submission.
“Fuck this.” Tattoo Guy stormed away.
She slid out her cell and took a quick picture. Whew. No flash. The light wasn’t great inside the warehouse, but the edit function on her cell was terrific. She waited until he reached the end of the row and turned toward the door, then snapped another photo. It was in profile, but it would do.
“Why’d you do that?” Rick’s eyebrows twitched.
“Remember me telling you about the parts Mikhail put back in the van at Boulder Bounders?” She pointed in the direction Tattoo Guy had taken. “That’s the guy who was driving the van and hauling the parts around. There’s something odd about him. He was like a whipped puppy with Mikhail.”
“I’d say he was pissed because he isn’t out drinking with his friends, and we made a convenient target. But we can guess at least some of what’s going on with those parts.” Rick shot another glance at the forklift driver. With Tattoo Guy’s departure and the end of the diversion, the driver had refocused on moving the mountain of boxes on the shelf. Rick turned his back on the driver and lowered his voice. “Someone in Mexico has to be in on the scheme, if it is a scheme. That’s the only place all the components are together prior to assembly.”
“The subassembly goes directly from the subcontractor to the Mexican factory?”
He nodded. “There’s no reason for the sub to ship it here and then for Precision to ship it to Mexico. Inventory control with that subcontractor tracks with George’s records, but you can be damn sure I’ll insist on a full accounting of the subassembly materials. But those lightweight parts were supposedly complete, and were shipped here in a Cascade box. Who’s the person on this end? Who had the balls to set up a vendor account for that second SKU and sell the damn things out of the warehouse?”
She frowned. “Back up a minute. We don’t know that these parts are our missing weight. We don’t know that they came from Mexico. We don’t know who made them. We don’t know if these are knockoffs or if someone tampered with more of the genuine parts.”
“You’re right. We shouldn’t jump to conclusions. As tempting as it is.” He glanced over his shoulder toward the pallet holding the second SKU parts. “Damn. Think this is like the Tylenol tampering? A batch was randomly poisoned and distributed to whatever poor schmuck bought the bottle?”
“It will destroy Cascade Precision,” she said grimly. “So, the first question is, are those parts genuine or knockoffs?”
“If they’re not George’s, who could make them?”
“Who has access to the design drawings? I think we can safely take Tate and George off the potential suspect list.” She hoped she could take George off the suspect list. Why would he destroy his own company? “What do we know about Mikhail?”
“He knows a lot of people.” Rick folded his arms and frowned. “Appears to be a successful businessman.”
She paced away from the desk, then returned. “Who else has access? Draftsmen? Shoot, everybody on the design team.”
“We need to—George needs to—get his test people involved, and find out how the weight discrepancy occurs between those two parts. Find out if these parts have been tampered with the same way the one pulled from Shaw’s wrecked truck was—”
She stared at him, the reality of the possible carnage hitting her. “A whole pallet of parts intended to break? That’s beyond horrible.”
“Worst case scenario.” Rick’s mouth had a grim set. “If they aren’t more of those tampered-with parts, George needs to find out if someone’s making knockoffs. If all the components in those parts are cheap copies of the originals, or if just portions of it are substandard.”
She stared at the tote bag that held the two hidden parts. “Either way, this is a disaster.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Working Man Blues (Merle Haggard)
Holly didn’t bother to change out of her grubby jeans before she drove to George’s office. Random questions spun through her mind as she followed George and Rick across the reception area. Had she ever visited a client wearing jeans? How were they going to present the damage they’d discovered to George? Why was she so happy to have found these crappy parts?
Because it offered an alternative to JC’s theory that Tate sabotaged Shaw’s rig.
George unlocked the door to his office. “I thought we were talking on Monday.”
“We’d planned to,” Rick said. “But we found something we wanted to discuss before then.”
“That sounds ominous.” George flipped on lights and headed to his desk and chair.
Holly pulled the two, boxed parts from her tote bag and laid them on his desk.
He studied the two boxes, then glanced up at her, a quizzical expression twisting his forehead. “And?”
“Check the SKUs.”
He turned the boxes to expose the codes. An eyebrow twitched. “The printer made an error? The digits are transposed.”
Rick cleared his throat. “Take a look at the parts.”
She nudged the genuine Cascade Precision part forward. “Open this one first.”
George gave her a long, measuring look before unfolding the box’s end flaps and sliding out the suspension. “Okay.”
“Now the other one.”
He extracted the other part. As soon as he picked it up, he froze. A flush climbed his neck as his jaw tightened. “Where did this come from?”
“Your warehouse,” she said. “We found a pallet of them. The warehouse workers skipped it during the inventory count since the SKU was different. We happened to notice the similarity of the packaging. Rather than draw attention to the discrepancy, we wanted to let you know and find out how you want to proceed.”
“So there could be more?” His flush deepened.
“Potentially.” Rick leaned forward. “What we found—the one pallet—wouldn’t cover the shortage in the inventory. With your authorization, we’d like to follow up on this.”
“I’ll have Jennings personally scour the warehouse for any more of these...things.” George pushed the offending part away from him.
“We can’t help you with the warehouse search, but there may be other avenues,” Rick said.
“Dammit.” George’s fist slammed his desktop. “How in the hell did this happen? Are you telling me someone sabotaged an entire pallet of our suspensions?”
She and Rick shook their heads. “Not sure.”
“I’ll have my team take this”—George picked up the too light part and shook it angrily—”this thing apart first thing Monday. Dammit, I’ll get them in here tonight to start investigating. I want to know exactly how it’s put together and if it’s the same as that part from the vehicle that wrecked.” He dropped the box and scrubbed a hand over his bald spot. “At least with that damn different bar code, I know we didn’t sell any of these at Boulder Bounders. The computer would’ve kicked it out as an unknown code.”
“I’d like to follow up on that SKU,” Holly said. “If you’ll allow me access to the vendor records, I can pull that file. I may be able to track down who’s behind it from that side.”
“Or at least figure out who’s trying to sell them,” Rick said.
“They may have hidden behind a corporation,” she warned. “It may take time to track down.”
George gave one sharp nod of his head. “I wouldn’t know where to start beyond pulling the file. You already have access to our inventory records. I’ll send you an access code for all the records.”
He powered on his computer. All three silently waited for the machine to load.
Moments later, he clicked around on the keys and then slammed down the lid. “I want to know everything you find.”
“Lisa put me on your Monday schedule,” Holly said. “If she di
dn’t change it when we got together on Friday, we can still plan to update you then.”
George reopened his computer and checked his calendar. “Two thirty. I don’t know how much my team will have uncovered on the design side by then, but let’s plan to debrief. I need to talk to my people and decide how to handle this longer term. When to call in the police—if that’s the appropriate path.”
Holly blinked. Why wouldn’t he talk to the cops?
With a start, she realized she hung out with JC too much. She was thinking in crime terms rather than financial risk terms. If the exposure from the fraud was considered small, most likely George would prefer to absorb the financial hit and avoid the negative publicity.
A sound strategy, but it felt wrong.
She inhaled sharply. It was Tate setting off those vague alarms. Not reporting the pallet of either sabotaged or knockoff parts would leave too many people suspecting her cousin.
A band of tension squeezed her chest. Where did her loyalty lie? To her cousin, her client…or law enforcement?
“I want to discuss it with our insurance company too,” he continued. “I’ve already spoken with my attorney about the sabotaged part from the wreck and any liability we may have there. I’ll ask her about these parts, if they’ve been altered the same way.”
Rick cleared his throat. “You may need to consider the financial statement impact, as well. Unless this clears quickly, it might depress sales or force a significant price reduction in the legitimate product.”
George grimaced. “That’s what I’m afraid of. I have to be at Boulder Bounders tomorrow. It’s the final day and the trophy events are scheduled for then—but I’ll get started tonight. I want to know exactly what we’re dealing with here.”
She was glad he was all over this.
Too bad finding out what was going on with the parts wouldn’t tell them who did it.
Or who killed Danny Shaw.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Mo Money Mo Problems (The Notorious B.I.G.)
Holly rounded the raised planter in her building’s atrium early on Sunday morning. Arriving at the office at o’dark-thirty was getting old. She’d started to go to JC’s house after leaving George’s office last night. Fatigue and not being able to tell him about the bad parts and the possible fraud made her turn it into an early evening instead.
An early evening. At home.
Alone.
At least it wasn’t an early evening due to an argument.
Her phone rang. Unknown stared up at her from the screen.
Great. Same idiot or a new one?
With a sigh, she accepted the call. “What?”
Who needed to be polite to someone rude enough to mask their identity?
“You stupid bitch.” It was the same voice as before. “I told you to leave it alone.”
She scanned the lobby. No lurking bad man. “You’re the idiot. Cell phones can be tracked.”
“Not throwaways.” The line went dead.
Couldn’t they? She had no idea. And she wasn’t about to call JC to find out.
She unlocked Desert Accounting’s front door, flipped on the lights, then relocked the door. With the end of the year looming, more of the staff would be in that afternoon, but for now she was alone.
With a purposeful stride, she headed for her office. A coward who hid behind a cell phone wasn’t on her top ten list of Things to Worry About.
Still, she wished she had a techno-geek friend who could hack into everything and figure out who was behind the calls.
Maybe Sammy knew somebody.
In her office, she logged into George’s accounting records, then accessed the vendor files. Squinting at her notes, she typed in the second SKU and pulled up the related vendor record.
Hmm. She studied the file.
An LLC set up…where? The listed address was a PO Box in Lewiston, Idaho, but there was no listed contact person. She wouldn’t get information on who rented the PO box without a search warrant—which she had no standing to request.
She scrolled through the file. There was banking information—the bank routing number and an account number. Same issue trying to get to the owner of the bank account—no search warrant.
No payments to or invoices received from the vendor, according to the history.
Still, setting up the vendor file had to be an inside job. No one else would have access. And whoever set it up was an idiot. Did they really expect to get paid for those parts?
There was no indication when the record for the vendor file was set up. Could have been months ago, could have been yesterday.
She leaned back and studied the screen. So, what was he—assuming it was a he—planning to do? Sell the parts under the table, at flea markets like Rick mentioned? Then why go to the hassle of setting up the vendor account?
Quality Distributing wouldn’t sell defective parts in bulk for this person.
Unless Mikhail was in on the scheme.
The stray thought stuck in her head.
Could he be?
That was unlikely. Just look at the way he’d exploded on Friday when he thought he had a bunch of unsalable merchandise. He had as much at stake, well, nearly as much at stake, as George.
She drummed her fingers. If George decided to go to the cops, they could follow up on the post office box and the bank information. She noted the information and saved it to a file.
She opened an Internet browser, and entered the IRS website. When the screen loaded, she ran the EIN—the employer identification number—for the LLC and got a completely different company.
Well, maybe the jerk who set it up wasn’t a complete moron. A quick Google check showed that company—the one associated with the EIN—operated a landscaping business in Maryland.
Well that’s a dead end.
Okay. She wiggled her fingers above the keys. There were other ways to find the principals.
She pulled up the Washington Secretary of State website, clicked over to the corporate search page, and entered the company name.
Nothing by that name.
Damn.
With a sigh, she tried Oregon and Idaho’s Secretary of State websites.
Nothing.
Next she tried the tax haven states—Nevada and Wyoming.
Bingo.
But damn. The LLC was registered in Wyoming, which meant the shareholders weren’t disclosed, and a proxy could be listed as the registered officer.
Another dead end.
She returned to George’s accounting database, re-opened the vendor records and drilled down, searching and cross-referencing.
The details behind the LLC vendor filled the screen.
Blood drained from her head and her fingers clenched the mouse.
It couldn’t be.
The screen blurred as tears flooded her eyes. She still saw the damning information.
The contact person listed for the vendor was Tate Price.
Please, dear God, don’t let Tate be involved.
No. He couldn’t be. She shook her head. It made no sense at all. There was absolutely no way Tate would do this to George. To himself. This vendor listing had to be a set-up. Whoever set up the record file could put any name they wanted on that line. She refused to believe Tate would be part of a fraud. He was an honest person. He didn’t have it in his nature to cheat.
Besides, if it was him—which it wasn’t— no way would he write in his own name, incriminating himself.
She spun away from the computer and paced her office. She realized she was giving Tate the benefit of the doubt. She had to believe he was innocent until there was definite proof he was involved.
JC would tell her to let him find the proof. He might say he dealt only in facts, but he’d been a cop too long. Jaded, he assumed the worst about everyone. He would start with the assumption Tate was guilty and look for evidence to support that theory.
That cynical outlook was one of the things driving a wedge between them.
> She couldn’t change her belief in Tate—but she could choose how to act on her doubts.
And dammit, she was going to find proof Tate was innocent.
Returning to the computer, she searched the rest of the information. Buried at the bottom of the file, another name was connected to the vendor account.
An unfamiliar name.
Adrian Mazur.
If he was the person who set this up, he was either an employee at Cascade Precision or Quality Distributing. Or else he had an inside person helping him. Someone who could funnel any money that came in from the defective parts to this account.
She flipped back to Google and typed in the man’s name.
“Adrian Mazur” produced links for an Aboriginal activist, a class action attorney and an engineer working for the Department of Defense, but nothing on a guy working in a warehouse for a car parts company. That Mazur had no social media presence, which was weird.
She stared at the screen. How was she going to find him, much less find out anything about him?
She prayed Mazur was George’s employee. If he was, she would hunt him down. She wasn’t sure exactly how. Cascade Precision wasn’t a bookkeeping client. Neither was Quality Distributing. And if Mazur wasn’t officially connected to one of the companies, it would make him even harder to find.
It didn’t matter.
She would find the guy.
And nail his ass.
Chapter Thirty
Accident (Lisa Loeb)
Holly slammed her car door behind her and slung the sponsor badge around her neck. Sunday afternoon, last day of Boulder Bounders. Both the general and VIP parking lots were full, and people swarmed the course and vendor area. She wasn’t sure where to start looking for Tate, but by God, she was going to find him. If he was involved in the fraud, she’d kill him.
Not literally. But she would unload on him like only a sister—or a cousin like a sister—could.
She slipped through the crowd around the beer and burger stands. Everyone seemed to be talking about last weekend’s wreck, Shaw’s murder, and the sabotage.
In It For the Money Page 20