by Bill Bernico
“Albert hasn’t said anything for more than two years now,” Audrey said. “He died back in 2010.”
Terry couldn’t sit still another second and nearly bounced off the sofa. He came over to my desk with no introduction and just started right in with, “And you took the money order, gave him the title and the car and never saw him again, correct?”
Audrey nodded.
“And a few days later your bank told you that the money order bounced and that you were responsible for the entire amount, correct?”
Again the nod.
“And,” Terry said in conclusion, “When you tried to email the buyer again, your emails bounced as high as the money order, correct?”
“How did you know?” Audrey said. “And by the way, who are you?”
I stood again. “I’m sorry, Audrey,” I said. “This is Terry Belmont, one of our computer specialists.”
Terry shook her hand and pulled up a chair next to the woman. He gestured toward the laptop she was holding. “May I take a look at it?” Terry said.
Audrey handed over her laptop and turned back to speak with me. Terry flipped the laptop open and pressed the power button. As he waited for it to boot, he took it back to the sofa and sat again.
“How can a money order be faked?” Audrey asked me. “The bank accepted it, so they must have thought it was real. Don’t they have serial numbers on them?”
“This is all new to me, too,” I said. “With the advent of all this new technology, the criminals have found lots of new ways to perpetrate their crimes on the unsuspecting. Law enforcement tries to crack down on them, but they manage to stay a couple steps ahead of the law.”
Terry was still waiting for Audrey’s computer to boot, but overheard what she was saying and offered his own opinions. “Just like currency counterfeiters,” Terry said, “These criminals have found ways of duplicating actual money orders and cashier’s checks. It’s getting so you don’t trust anyone anymore. I even heard of one criminal who made phony postal money orders. And you know, people in the post office have even been fooled by them.” The computer in his lap came to life just then and Terry turned his attention to the screen. “Excuse me,” he said. “I’ll be a few minutes with this. Why don’t you talk to Elliott while you wait?”
My eyebrows arched upward at the uninhibited, forward statement made by a person who, up until yesterday, we didn’t even know existed. There was nothing shy about Terry and his opinions. Audrey turned back to look to me for answers.
“Is there anything you can do about getting my money and my car back?” Audrey said.
“I don’t know about the money,” I said, “But you can bet your husband’s Corvette is long gone. It was probably shipped out of the country or it might be right under our noses right here in Hollywood, possibly in so many pieces as part of several other Corvettes.
By now Dad and Gloria were hovering over Terry, watching as he typed away at Audrey’s keyboard. A moment later Terry looked up at me. “I think I might have something here, Elliott,” Terry said, turning the laptop’s screen toward me. Terry stood and brought Audrey’s laptop over to my desk and set it down facing her. Terry pointed at the screen. “You see this?” Terry said. “This is the ISP address and it’s a familiar company right here in town.”
“What does it mean?” Audrey said.
“It means we’re one step closer to these guys,” Terry said. “And these lines of code beneath it, that tells me that the transmission originated from some Internet café, or some other public place with Wi-Fi access. Or, it could mean that they’ve simply rerouted their signals to make it seem like that’s where they were coming from. These guys could be almost as clever as me.”
Audrey had a puzzled look on her face. “But what does all this mean to me?” she said. “Can you find these guys and make them give me my money or my car back?”
Dad walked over to my desk and looked at Audrey. “We may be able to find them,” Dad said, “But we don’t have the authority to make them do anything. That’s where we’d bring in the police. My best friend is a Lieutenant down at the twelfth precinct and we just raided another rat’s nest yesterday. Keep your hopes up. It’s not over yet.”
“That’s right,” Terry said. “I’ve seen this scam before and usually the buyer will offer a money order or cashier’s check for a lot more than the value of the item he’s buying. He’ll generally tell you to cash the money order, take out the amount of the purchases plus a little extra for your trouble and then ask you to wire him the balance.”
“But this money order was made out to me for the exact amount of my sale price,” Audrey said.
“And the scammer still got your Corvette for free,” Terry said. “And let me guess. He didn’t pick it up himself, right?”
“How’d you know that?” Audrey said.
“That’s the pattern,” Terry explained. “They always offer to buy your item sight unseen. They sometimes make out the money order for more than the amount, hoping to make even more money on the scam. And they almost never pick up the item themselves, so they can distance themselves from the whole transaction, should it go sour on them.”
“Sounds like they’ve put a lot of thought into cheating people out of their money,” Gloria said, walking over to my desk. “The ones I’ve seen usually say they’re away from home and need to send someone else to pick up whatever it is you’re selling. Some say they’re contacting you from out of the country and want a stateside friend of theirs to pick it up for them, claiming that they’re saving you the cost of shipping it to them.”
“Did they ask for your name and address?” Terry said.
Audrey frowned. “Yes,” she said, “But I didn’t give them anything else.”
“Sometimes that’s all they need to get a foothold into your accounts,” Terry explained. “The more information you give these people, the easier it is for them to clean you out.”
Dad stepped up now, his own curiosity burning. “What about one of those online escrow companies?” he said. “If they hold the money and the item, wouldn’t that be safer for both parties?”
Terry shook his head, still typing away on Audrey’s computer. “Most online escrow sites are fraudulent and are generally operated by the scammers themselves. The ones that really kill me are the sellers who act so innocent and trusting of you. For example, they may ask for only a partial payment upfront, after which they will ship you whatever it was you bought from them. They’ll say they’ll trust you for the rest of the payment, promising to ship the item right away. Some even claim that they’ve already sent it. The best rule of thumb to follow is, that if it sounds too good to be true, it usually is. A little common sense goes a long way, period.”
Audrey turned to me. “Can you get my car back, Mr. Cooper?” she said.
“We’re certainly going to try, Audrey,” I said.
“Got it,” Terry said, raising one fist in the air.
“What’s that?” Dad said.
“I found them,” Terry said. “The guy who picked up the car, he’s right here in the Hollywood area.”
I stood. “Where are they?” I said.
Terry tapped a few more keys on Audrey’s laptop and then announced, “I’ve narrowed it down to within a half mile of the Internet tower in the Hollywood Hills.”
“What is that?” Gloria said. “Something like a hundred square blocks?”
“Close enough,” Terry said. “But there’s nothing square about that whole area. Those roads up there wind around all over the place. If the four of us each take our own car and start cruising that neighborhood, we should be able to pinpoint the location where their server is sending its signals.”
“Would you excuse us, Audrey?” I said. “We have to move on this right now. And one last thing, Audrey, what color was your husband’s Corvette?”
“Fire engine red,” Audrey said. “There’s no mistaking it.”
I wrote this information down and turned back to Audrey. “I
’ll call you later if I have anything for you,” I said.
“Thank you, Mr. Cooper,” Audrey said and left the office.
“Does everyone have their cell phone on them?” I said.
We all patted our pockets and nodded.
“Wouldn’t we be better off with four walkie-talkies all tuned to the same frequency?” Gloria said.
“No,” Terry said. “If those criminals can also tune into that frequency, they’d know exactly what we were doing and they’d clear out before we even got close.”
“Terry,” I said. “Give us a starting point and we’ll branch out from there, each of us driving in a different direction.”
“We’ll all be driving in a different direction,” Dad pointed out. “Once you get up into those hills, the roads snake every which way. It’s not hard to get lost or turned around up there.”
“That’s probably why they chose that area,” I said. “It’s pretty secluded and hard to find.”
“It might be hard to find by car or on foot,” Terry said, “But we’ll be tracking their signal.”
“Let’s get moving,” I said.
The four of us in four separate cars drove west on Hollywood Boulevard and turned north on Laurel Canyon Boulevard. Terry’s car led the way and he stopped south of Mulholland Drive and got out of his car. He walked over to my car and I rolled down the window.
“We should split up from here,” Terry said. “They can’t be too far away.”
By now Gloria and Dad had gotten out of their cars and had walked up to mine. Terry was still talking to me.
Dad interrupted him. “What should we be looking for?” he said to Terry.
“Look for a secluded house, possibly with its own broadcasting tower on the roof,” he said. “They could be using an existing tower, but I doubt it.”
“And I know this sounds elementary,” I said, “But it wouldn’t hurt to keep an eye open for a red Corvette, too. Maybe they haven’t disposed of it yet. And keep your phones on and handy.”
Everyone got back into their cars and spread out, each one taking a different winding road into the hills. I turned west and followed Lookout Mountain Avenue. Gloria continued north a short way before turning east on Willow Glen Road. Dad drove north all the way to Mulholland and then took a sharp right onto Woodrow Wilson Drive. Terry turned his car around and drove south again, turning east on Laurelmont Drive. Each of our routes took us through more twisting and turning streets than one could imagine.
Twenty-five minutes later my cell phone rang. It was Terry.
“Elliott,” Terry said, “I think I may have something.”
“Where are you, Terry?” I said.
“I’m on a winding section of road where Bantam Place meets Nicholas Canyon road,” Terry said. “Do you see it on your map?”
I flipped a few pages and found the area Terry was talking about. “Got it,” I said.
“There’s a dirt road with an iron gate blocking it,” Terry said. “I’m getting a very strong signal from this area, but I can’t see any further.”
“Stay put,” I said. “I’ll call Dad and Gloria and we’ll all meet you there. Give us a few minutes, but don’t do anything until we get there.”
Terry’s curiosity and impatience got the better of him. A few minutes after he’d gotten off the phone, he decided to take his laptop and start walking toward the gate to see if his signal strength increased. He looked both ways up the road. He was alone. Terry looked at his laptop screen as he got up to the gate. It was as he suspected. He peered through the bars on the gate and leaned to one side. Further back he could see one wall of a house and part of a garage.
Although the iron gate was built to keep vehicles out of this driveway, it did nothing to stop anyone from walking around it, through some bushes, to gain access to the driveway. Terry closed his laptop and squeezed through an opening between the gate and a thick bush and found himself on the inside of the gate.
I’d called Dad and Gloria and the three of us converged on the spot Terry had described. I arrived first and pulled up behind Terry car. He was nowhere in the immediate area and I cursed to myself. I’d told him to stay put. Gloria pulled up behind my car with Dad right behind her. They both got out and met me at Terry’s car.
“Where is he?” Gloria said.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I just got here and he was gone. I think he might have gone inside the gate.”
“Let’s not take any chances,” Dad said, patting his side to let me know he was carrying.
I patted my side as well and Gloria patted her hip. “Let’s go,” I said, walking across the road. We looked over the iron gate and found the space where Terry had probably gone in. We followed his path and started up the dirt road toward the house and garage.
A moment later I heard a shot and instinctively grabbed my .38 from under my arm. Dad and Gloria did likewise. We hurried toward the house now, our guns out in front of us.
“It’s Terry,” Gloria said, pointing ahead of us and to the right.
Lying on the side of the road was Terry, still clutching his laptop to his chest. The laptop had a hole through the lid and on through the body of the computer. I lifted the laptop off him and saw blood on his chest. A small amount of blood oozed out of the wound. I turned to Gloria, “Call 9-1-1,” I said. “Get an ambulance, then call Hollister and get the police out here.” I gestured toward Terry. “Stay with him. Dad and I are going up.”
Dad hugged the right side of the road and I stayed on the left, cautiously making our way closer to the house. I could see the whole house now. There was a tall antenna sprouting from the roof, anchored by several guy wires.
Dad signaled to me with his gun, gesturing toward the house. He made our way closer just as the garage door opened and a fire engine red Corvette, probably an ‘87, roared out and down the driveway toward us. Further down the road, the iron gate was starting to swing open. Dad braced himself in a shooter’s stance and took careful aim, putting two rounds into the windshield on the driver’s side. The car kept coming. I fired twice and the Corvette swerved off the road and crashed into a large tree. Smoke poured out from under the crumpled hood and the rear tires kept spinning.
Dad and I cautiously approached the car. Through the driver’s side window I could make out the body of a man, slumped over the wheel. He was alone in the car. I pulled the driver’s door open and pointed my .38 at the driver while I pressed two fingers into his neck. He was dead. I reached in and turned off the ignition.
I could hear sirens wailing in the distance. I ran back down toward the road to meet the ambulance and Dean. The ambulance was first to arrive. The iron gate was fully open now and I directed the ambulance in, toward the spot where Terry lay. They pulled to a stop alongside him and immediately attended to his chest wound.
“How is he?” Gloria said.
One attendant wiped the wound clean and pulled a sharp piece of plastic from it. It had penetrated Terry’s chest only an inch or so. I bent over and picked up his laptop and turned it over. The tip of the bullet was just peeking out but the impact had cracked the plastic case, sending a sharp plastic shard into Terry’s chest.
“He’ll be fine,” the attendant said. “He’s lucky he was holding that computer or we’d be driving him to the morgue.”
Gloria bent down further and hugged Terry just before he was lifted into the ambulance. “I’m going with him,” she said, climbing into the back with Terry and the second attendant. You can bring me back later for my car.”
I nodded and waved as the ambulance pulled out of the driveway and out onto the road. The ambulance passed Dean Hollister and several other squad cars on their way up the hill. Dean pulled into the driveway and got out. He walked over to where I stood looking at the wrecked and smoking Corvette.
“What happened here?” he said, gesturing toward the Corvette.
I filled him in on what Audrey had hired us to do and how it had led us here to this remote location, ending
with the part where Terry got shot and how Dad and I stopped the Corvette from running us down.
“And this is the Wilson woman’s car?” Dean said.
I nodded. “The driver was apparently running his Internet scams out of this house.” I pointed to the antenna on the roof. “It’s a complicated story, but I’m sure Terry can give you the technical details when they release him from the hospital.”
“After a bullet to the chest?” Dean said. “That could be a while.”
I explained how the bullet had been stopped by Terry’s laptop and that his chest wound had been superficial.
“That’s one lucky kid,” Dean said.
“I’ll say,” Dad said, stepping up to Dean and me. “I’ve heard of a bullet being stopped by a badge, a silver dollar and even a bible, but a laptop? That’s a new one on me.”
Dad stayed behind with Dean until the scene had been secured and photos had been taken. I excused myself and drove to the hospital. I found Terry’s room on the third floor and walked in. Gloria was sitting next to Terry’s bed, holding his hand. Terry was smiling and so was Gloria.
“How are you doing?” I said, walking up to Terry and laying my hand on his shoulder.
Terry sighed. “They’re keeping me overnight for observation,” he said. “But I can go home tomorrow morning.” He pulled his gown aside to show me the place on his chest where the plastic sliver had pierced his skin. It was covered by an ordinary one inch by one inch bandage. “Not even a stitch,” Terry said, almost proud of the chest wound, which was also beginning to turn black and blue.
“So, what do think of the private eye business now?” I said.
Terry winced. “I think I’ll stick with computer work, safe, isolated computer work, maybe in my own safe cubicle somewhere safe.”
Gloria laughed. “I get the distinct feeling that safety is your main priority,” she said, patting Terry’s hand.
Terry nodded. “I’ll just go to college this fall, learn all I can about the computer sciences and get a cushy six-figure job with some Fortune 500 company.”
“Go for it,” I said. “Say, listen, I just wanted to thank you for all your help on this case. We couldn’t have done it without you.”