by Helen Hanson
“If he didn’t have that diagnosis, they wouldn’t be doing anything. Apparently, adults are allowed to run away.” She wrapped her arms around her waist. “Sounds pretty good right about now.”
“Dad’s jean jacket was on his rocker. It’s the only one he wears lately.” He looked to Maggie. “What if he’s cold?”
“Cold? What if he’s in the hands of the freakin’ nose-biter?”
“Ms. Fender. If you find evidence that Vladimir Penniski or anyone else abducted your father, I promise we’ll investigate. But we’ve looked around, and there’s no reason to suspect foul play. Your neighbor told us that your father was right handed? Is this correct?”
“Yes. Why?”
“We use the dominant-hand theory when conducting searches. Generally, people lost or wandering will make right turns when right handed. Lefties do the opposite.” The officer waited as if expecting Maggie to comment. “He’ll likely turn up as soon as it’s daylight. Someone will recognize him from the news, and we’ll bring him home.”
Maggie did respond with something, but Travis quit hearing any words. It was all just noise.
His heart pumped an extra beat. Dad didn’t wander off. He may have gone for a walk, but he always came home on his own. Even after Brian Carter attacked him, he showed up at the house with the bloody knife. Travis knew. His father wasn’t coming back.
If Vladimir Penniski took Dad, then his father had to have some tie-in to the O’Mara money. The emails were hints, teasers, trails, not facts. He needed more than gut-certainty to get help from the police. Or Maggie.
“Travis.” His sister stared at him. Sergeant Garcia was gone.
“What?”
“I asked you a question,” Maggie said. “Did Dad eat dinner?”
“Yeah. I fed him. We ate chili and spuds.”
“I don’t think he wandered off.”
“He didn’t. Someone took him.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t take the emails more seriously.”
His throat went lumpy. “I’m sorry I didn’t watch him closer. You told me—”
“This is not your fault.” She pushed the heel of her hand into her eye. “But you and I are going to find out what the hell is going on.”
“You think Dad is involved with Patty O’Mara?”
“I know he’s involved in something, Trav. Something wrong.”
“You feel it too.”
“I didn’t at first, and I sure as hell didn’t want to give you any fuel. But we’ve had freaks coming out of the woodwork ever since Dad was attacked. I can’t live like this.”
He leaned against the wall. “What do you want to do?”
“You get online and find out everything you can about Dad’s activities. I’m going to call Kurt Meyers. If he wants to help, I plan to let him.”
“What about Dad?”
“Mr. Modesto said he’d get a fresh crew to keep searching, and we have the media working on our side for a change. But if Dad doesn’t come home, or we don’t hear from whoever took him—” She leaned in to Travis. “I’m going to visit the nose-biter.”
Chapter Forty-Eight
Before dawn, Maggie and Travis drove out to the New Mercy Cemetery to look for their father. They usually brought wildflowers when they visited Trisha’s grave, but today, Daddy was their only concern. Before dementia dominated his personality, he often played guitar by Trisha’s graveside. It was a logical place to look, but logic seemed to have little influence over him these days. The entire cemetery was empty except for a startled covey of quail and a buck mule deer.
They drove around town checking places their father might go, but exhaustion set in hard. By the time they got home, their house was clean and quiet. Ginger and Mrs. Modesto were the only ones lingering after clearing the place. They’d stayed in case Dad returned. Maggie wasn’t certain she’d thanked them before she heard the front door close.
On the TV, their father’s handsome face decorated the local news shows and filled Maggie with dread. He hadn’t returned home. The official search now expanded to a radius of two miles, including the ocean, as volunteer boaters scouted the waves. Per police instructions, searchers concentrated on culverts, thick vegetation, drainage ditches, or any accessible structures offering a place to hide. For missing Alzheimer’s patients, the theory was that Dad might be afraid of being found as if he were a child in trouble. Maggie noted that these were also prime places to search for a corpse.
Travis stared at the TV, his hand shoved so far down into his pockets he slumped.
“How old is that picture of Dad?”
“It’s from my high school graduation.”
“Wow. It barely looks like him anymore.”
“It’s the only one I could find.” Maggie sagged over the back of the couch. “The other station ran his mug shot.”
“Ah. The Fender family photos.” Travis pulled her laptop out from under the couch and walked to the kitchen. “You want more coffee?”
“No. I’m out of stomach lining.” The acid in her belly threatened to ignite.
She turned off the TV and willed herself to follow him. Maggie poured a short glass of milk and let the cold liquid douse the smoldering brew. She covered her mouth as the pain migrated elsewhere.
The need for sleep competed with her need to find her father. Even the dogs finally settled down from all the commotion and slept soundly in their beds by the back door. Smart plan.
Travis had his plan, too. But what was hers? Crying hadn’t brought Dad home. Where had he been all night?
Thoughts flickered through her head like fireflies. A man tried to kill him this week. The man’s widow thought the Fenders might have the answers. What a joke.
What was his name? Brian Carter. Carter came to see her father for a reason. Brian and Barbara Carter. Maggie wondered where they spent their honeymoon. They must have been happy once. Before Brian tried to kill Maggie’s father.
Fatigue gnawed the edges of her reason. She closed her eyes and rubbed them hard. Barbara said she thought her husband got money from Dad. As far as Maggie knew, they’d never even met. But she was beginning to wonder how much she knew about her father’s activities. If he had given Brian Carter money—
“Trav. Where’s Dad’s old computer?”
“Which one?”
“The one he used for household stuff.”
“He didn’t send the emails from there.”
She shook her head. “The emails are all yours. I want his banking records. He used software to keep track of all that stuff.”
“He didn’t write any checks to Brian Carter.”
His answers started to annoy her. “I’m not looking for checks either. Where is it?”
“In his closet.” He stretched his legs out beneath the table. “I hid all the computers once I knew the cops were dropping by. I’m still on probation, remember.”
“Not as far as I’m concerned.” She pivoted on the ball of her foot and headed to her father’s room.
The technology in their home was at least five years out from current. TVs, computers, appliances, printers, software. All of it. For most families that wasn’t a big deal, but for the Fenders, it time-stamped the beginning of their father’s demise.
Maggie found the desktop computer in the back of the closet. She hauled the monitor to the kitchen table across from Travis and returned for the rest of the parts. The system complained but started up in spite of neglect.
Maggie pushed the monitor to the side so she could eye her brother. “When did you look for checks to Brian Carter?”
“The day his wife came by.”
“You didn’t exactly take this probation thing to heart.”
Travis propped an elbow on the table and rested his chin in his hand. “It’s the medium in which I work. Besides, I knew I was framed. I’d already lost a year of my life to a trumped-up charge. Getting back online helped me find some evidence.” He raised a fist. “And vindication.”
Magg
ie laughed to herself. She had to give him that one. Whatever he learned provided ammunition against Carter’s wife. It didn’t hurt that his eyes were the color of a Luna moth.
By the time Maggie took over the finances two years ago, there was little left to manage. Travis and she knew of their father’s diagnosis before he admitted it to the rest of the world. Some incidents at work forced the truth to surface. After Trisha died, his cognition disintegrated. Like a watch left out in the rain, his face looked the same, but he no longer functioned.
It didn’t take Maggie long to locate the old financial records. The oldest dates went ten years back and the newest stopped about thirty months ago. She swiped at an eye. At one time, their net worth was over five-hundred thousand dollars before the balances slid steadily downhill.
Some of that money went into the beach house. Martin purchased it right before Maggie was born. The bank holding the note dumped it on a depressed market at a price Martin barely afforded. The modest house begged for plumbing that brought water in, a roof that kept water out, flooring that smelled better than a kennel, and a decorator not under the influence of hallucinogens.
When Maggie’s wicked-witch mother ran off with the frozen-food delivery guy, Dad had considered giving it up in the divorce. But it was the only home Maggie had ever known. In the end, he struggled to keep it. When he and Trisha married, she fell in love with the place too. Trisha wanted to pay the house off before the kids hit college. A wise woman, but she couldn’t have seen the future.
There were four accounts within the register—checking, savings, a 401K, and a CD. Not exactly a gold mine.
The 401K funds petered out to medical bills, poor performing mutual funds, and undoubtedly the fund manager’s bonus. The CD wasn’t much to begin with and went to property taxes, car repairs, and tuition. For the checking and savings accounts, Maggie ran a report showing all withdrawals over two hundred dollars for the entire ten-year period and clipped the output into a spreadsheet.
She sorted the results by payee. The routine of their existence glared at her in dollars and cents. Old mortgage payments, car payments, insurance, medical bills, grocery stores, utilities, taxes, guitar stores, books, tuition, clothing stores, the odd expensive gift. She deleted all these.
A couple of entries she had to examine. One was for an attorney. Probably for their wills as all the dates were before Travis’ troubles. Another was to a cell phone company. A CPA showed up several times, always in April.
There were entries for cash withdrawals. Twenty-five hundred dollars was the highest. Maggie checked the date. Dad and Trisha’s five-year anniversary. They’d all spent a week skiing in Tahoe. Travis still talked about that trip. The memory mist diffused her thoughts.
Where the hell was Daddy? He could be dead, or dying. She bit on a knuckle. Or maybe he really was lost.
Travis didn’t look up from whatever he was doing on the computer. She envied his ability to be absorbed by a task. She used to be able to do that. Back when her attention didn’t flit from crisis to disaster.
She resorted the list by the amount. She gaped her eyes open wide to revive her fading energy and stared at the entries. The next highest cash outlay was two thousand dollars, but there were quite a few twelve hundred dollar cash outlays.
Way more than quite a few.
Some were made out simply as cash, money, ca$h, others to Martin, Martin F, Martin Fender, even MF made it on the list. And it added up to some serious money. She starting counting the lines, but she had trouble keeping them straight.
She laid her head down and lost count somewhere around $62,400.
Chapter Forty-Nine
The man cinched the tie-wraps deeper into Martin’s wrists. The nylon bands cut his flesh. Something sticky trickled down from Martin’s forehead and into his mouth. It tasted like iron and salt.
“Where’s the money?”
He and Trisha had an argument about money earlier that day. They didn’t fight often, but she was pretty upset. Maybe he should bring her some flowers.
The thick, knotted rope hit his face again. Pain reverberated down his spine. The man kept shouting about money. Trisha never shouted.
Martin tried to reach for his wallet, so he could give it to the man. But his hands couldn’t stretch to his back pocket. He shouted back, “Take my damn wallet and leave me alone.”
“I can’t understand you, old man. Speak up.” The man struck his ear. “What did you do with the money?”
Martin’s eardrum popped. He fell against the concrete floor, his ear draining red onto the grey slab. He’d offered his wallet. What else could the man want?
The man grabbed Martin by the collar and pulled his face toward his own. “The money from O’Mara. Where did you move it?”
Martin remembered the computer. No one else knew it was there, keeping track of all the cash pouring into Patty O’Mara’s dark pool. The investors didn’t ask questions, didn’t want to know where the money really went. As long as he gave them double-digit returns O’Mara could put the orphans to work making meth, open a brothel at the convent, or skin baby pandas for door mats. Just keep the money coming. Give them anonymity. Let them think their hearts were pure.
“Where did you move it?” The knotted rope flayed Martin’s belly. He shrunk from the blow. Another whipped his lower back.
He moved the money. Several times. Did Maggie and Travis get his email? Martin’s inhale stuttered to a gasp. Trisha. His eyelids slipped in the moisture. Dear, sweet Trisha. But she wasn’t suffering anymore. Dear, God. He missed his wife.
Chapter Fifty
Travis tried to make sense of the fire truck careening through his prison ward. Li’l Mo Mo clanged the bell, and the warden drove while the fire hose flailed, spraying all the inmates with insecticide. The warden stopped at Travis’ cell and handed him an open pack of Marlboro reds, a single stick extended. But Travis didn’t smoke. When the bell sounded again, he was in his kitchen with a back full of sweat. Maggie lay still at the other end of the table.
Travis palmed his face and scrubbed off some of the sleepy-head. The clock on the stove read 11:15 a.m., almost four hours since he’d fallen asleep. The thumping in his chest resumed. Even longer since he’d seen Dad. He scrambled to reach the phone before it blared a third time. “Hello.”
“This is Sergeant Garcia. We promised your sister we’d call this morning. I’m sorry, we don’t have any news.”
Maggie’s face lay across her outstretched arm, a curtain of blonde hair hung over the table’s edge. “She’s asleep. Dad’s not back yet.” His weight shifted to his rear leg. “So what’s next?”
“The search continues. Flyers are posted all over town. The TV stations are running your father’s picture. The entire Bay Area is on alert.”
His mug shot. They ran his mug shot. Travis remembered seeing his own mug shot on the news. They said it ran by accident. He wondered if he would get as much airtime when he’s proven innocent. “Thanks, Sergeant. I’ll let Maggie know you called.”
The legal-beagle team floated underfoot as Travis hung up the phone. Their bowls were empty, so no doubt they were full. He opened the back door and clipped them to their tethers before they tottered outside. The dogs pointed their heads into the breeze as if trying to pick up a scent for Dad along the shoreline. Travis had taken them with him during the night to track Dad. Any trail they may have found went cold down at the end of their road.
Travis returned to his computer. It was still powered up but hibernating. He wiggled the mouse and refreshed the screen to the hacker forum. A message waited. He hoped it was from AreEff. Maybe he had something on Fyodor and Kurt Meyers. As usual, AreEff didn’t waste words.
investigator 4 hire. as advertised. looking for dead leprechaun’s pot of gold. if u have to trust someone. this dude. word.
For AreEff that was high praise. The message continued.
moscow muscle. legit biz. ties unclear. advise caution.
Caution was never b
ad advice. Especially with anything remotely labeled Moscow muscle. A thank you note was unnecessary for AreEff. Travis would help him out another day.
He wondered where Dad had spent the night. Even the discomfort of sleeping facedown on a hard, wooden table had to be better than whatever Dad endured. Being kidnapped ranked worse than any of Travis’ 172 days behind bars.
Thoughts like these didn’t help him concentrate. The dead leprechaun’s pot of gold, as AreEff called it, was worth billions. If Dad really knew where it was, someone trying to find it might use all kinds of ugly persuasion.
Travis needed coffee. Ginger and Mrs. Modesto left a pot ready to make in the brewer. His list of reasons they were his favorite people kept getting longer. He bumped the table when he sat down. Maggie rolled her head to the other arm.
He poked around the forum threads until the coffee maker sputtered to a halt. Coffee rarely appealed to him, but he needed to think and a steaming mug of caffeine was fuel to his flagging central nervous system. He poured a cup and fired up his email account.
Travis pushed the cup aside. His hand convulsed as if he’d already downed the whole pot. His inbox held an email from Dad’s alter-ego. James Hendricks.
His sight cut to Maggie. A moment like this, maybe he should wake her. But Travis saw her emotional wagon tottering under the load. She didn’t need another shovelful. Finding Dad was the only thing that mattered. The emails made her wiggy, but Travis was convinced they had something to do with Dad’s disappearance.
He knocked back a swig of java. It burned the back of his throat as he opened the email.
=3point14159265
That’s all it said. No greeting. No return address. No message. No nothing that made any flipping sense. He closed the email, dropped his head over the back of the chair, and raked his hair away from his face.
Another sucker punch.
The Firm scratched at the back door, and Travis let them in. They headed straight for their bowls. It reminded Travis that he hadn’t eaten in a while. He found the leftover cookies and dropped back in his seat. Then his plate hit the floor.