by Matt Coyle
And to get a quick glimpse to see if there was any other evidence hidden away that explained the Saturday Night Special and the fifteen grand in cash in my father’s secret wall safe.
“Well, I’m sorry, Mr. Cahill.” No smile now. “I can’t grant you access without the death certificate. I’d be breaking the law and I’d lose my job.”
She stood up like it was time to go.
I stayed seated.
“I’ll play the game and come back with a death certificate to see what’s inside the safe deposit box. But I have another question for you.” I nodded at her seat. She hesitated, then sat down. Anything to get rid of me. “Like I said, my father died eighteen years ago. Can you explain to me why he still has an active safe deposit box? I know they’re not free and my mother closed her and my father’s accounts here after he died. Who’s been paying to keep it active?”
“That’s private information. I’d be breaking bank rules—”
“I know. I know. The world would come crashing down if you told me.” I put my hands behind my head and leaned back in the chair. “Is Jules Windsor in? Maybe he can help me. He knew my father when my father worked for the La Jolla Police Department.”
Windsor knew me, too. Not to talk to, but just enough to dislike. I tried to help a woman accused of killing his son a few years back. Things turned around, but the look he gave me at the arraignment told me he’d never forget. Or forgive. Luckily, Gloria Nakamura didn’t know about all that. She just knew that I was a pain, had asked for her boss, and that my dearly beloved father had been a cop and a friend of Jules Windsor.
“He’s not going to give you any more information than I can.”
“Maybe not. Although he might think it’s unusual that a man who’d been dead for eighteen years still has an active safe deposit box. If someone else isn’t paying for the box, that would mean that my father must have set up an account to have it paid for through an automatic withdrawal. A different account than the one my mother closed after he died.”
A hint of pink blossomed across her cheeks.
“All well and good, except that when the executor of my father’s will was gathering information on all his bank accounts, she must have missed that one and the safe deposit box.” I raised my eyebrows, put my hands on the desk, and leaned forward. “I just can’t figure out how, since my father did all his banking here. Wouldn’t it be the bank’s obligation to divulge that information when they were presented with a death certificate in regard to accessing his accounts?”
“I can’t speak to what happened eighteen years ago. I have to abide by the bank’s carefully constructed rules that always have our depositors’ best interests at heart.”
“Well, if the account paying for my deceased father’s safe deposit box was set up by him, then the bank has been siphoning off money from it for eighteen years depriving my father’s heirs their just inheritance. I know an investigative reporter at The Reader who loves to write about corruption involving the ruling class. Scott Buehler. Maybe you’ve read him.”
Gloria Nakamura’s face flushed deep pink and her lips twitched, but she didn’t say anything.
“Look, I don’t care about the money. I just want to know if the safe deposit box is being paid for by an account my father set up.”
“There is a checking account in your father’s name that pays for the rental of the safe deposit box.” She stood up. “If you come back with the proper paperwork, I’ll be happy to open the box and have you take ownership of its contents. Is there anything else, Mr. Cahill?”
“Why didn’t the bank give this information to the executor of my father’s will and why didn’t it report my father’s death to the state of California? Isn’t the state supposed to freeze the account until the will is read and the contents of the account are dispersed?”
“That’s the normal procedure.” She stared down at the computer avoiding my eyes. “Unless the account funding the rental of the safe deposit box is a joint account.”
“A joint account?” I thought my mother had closed her and my father’s joint accounts right after he died. “What’s the name of the other person on the account?”
“I’m afraid I can’t tell you that. It’s against banking regulations.”
“So is withholding the identity of a bank account to the executor of a will pertaining to the deceased owner of the checking account.”
“Not necessarily when it’s a joint account.”
“We both know the bank messed up and should have informed the executor of my father’s estate.”
“Mr. Cahill.” Gloria lowered her voice to just above a whisper. She walked around the desk and stood in front of me. Fake smile on her face. Not for me, but for anyone who might be looking. “I’ve given you all the information I’m legally allowed to. I suggest you come back when you have a copy of your father’s death certificate and we will show you the contents of the safe deposit box. That’s the best we can do.”
“That may be the best you think you can do, but it’s not enough.” I smiled and spoke in a normal conversational tone. “An objective third party, say a newspaper, might disagree with you. It might question Windsor Bank and Trust’s unusual management of a dead man’s assets. If you give me the other name on the joint checking account, I’m sure we can avoid that.”
The bank guard near the door eyeballed me. I doubted he could hear our conversation, but maybe he read the body language of the bank manager.
Gloria’s mouth stayed curled, but she squinted angry eyes at me. “Let me walk you to your car.”
I let her lead me outside the bank. A couple people stood at a coffee cart near the entrance of the building. A handful of pedestrians walked along the sidewalk. Too many people for Gloria to use the volume she probably preferred when she spoke. She kept the pained smile shellacked on her face.
“I don’t appreciate being blackmailed, Mr. Cahill. I’ve been more than fair with you.” The smile broke and she suddenly looked tired and scared. “I’ve worked hard to earn this position and I don’t appreciate you bullying me into risking it just because I’m trying to protect the bank’s good reputation. I have a daughter to support.”
She was right. I’d pushed her into a corner and threatened her livelihood. I didn’t feel good about it. But I could live with myself. I’d done worse. She stood between me and the truth. That’s all that mattered.
“I’m sorry you’re the one in this position. I can get Jules Windsor to trade places with you, if you like. But somebody’s going to tell me the other name on that checking account that’s been keeping my father’s safe deposit box active for eighteen years after his death. You can tell me now, or you can wait until I’ve talked to every news organization in town about your bank’s practices.”
“Go ahead. We’ve done nothing wrong.”
“We’ll see what the TV and newspaper reporters think.”
“You’re a real bastard.” Venom holding back tears.
“When I have to be.”
“Antoinette King.” She swung around and went back inside the bank.
Antoinette King. I’d never heard the name before. What connection did she have to my father? And why did she share a checking account with a dead man that enabled his safe deposit box to remain active? A box that no one had accessed in at least eighteen years.
CHAPTER TWELVE
I WALKED ACROSS the street toward La Jolla Nail Design. No sign of Moira. But she was good at what she did and wouldn’t be standing right outside the salon. I scanned the block and saw her sitting in the outdoor seating pen of the Burger Lounge. She sipped something through a straw from a covered plastic cup. I crossed the street and headed her way.
“Sophia still in the salon?”
Moira raised her eyebrows, went duck lipped, and tilted her head to the side. Point taken. I sat down next to her and put my arm around her shoulder like we were a couple. “What’s in the cup?”
“Chocolate milkshake.”
; We did have something in common other than gumshoe work, after all.
“Can I have a sip?”
She gave me the same look as when I asked her about Sophia and took a long sip from the straw. She put her hand on my leg. Just another couple enjoying an afternoon in downtown La Jolla. “Where have you been? And cut the ‘back in time’ bullshit.”
“I was at the bank.”
“I know. I saw you exit it.” Another sip and still no offer to share. “What does a bank you don’t patronize have to do with going back in time?”
“How do you know it’s not my bank?”
“You write me checks every once in a while, idiot.”
Oh, yeah.
“Why do you suddenly care about what I do?” I asked.
“You’re an asshole, Cahill.”
Moira ignored me for the next half hour as we watched the nail salon a block away.
She suddenly nodded toward the salon. Sophia had exited it and was heading our way. I turned my head back to Moira, close to her face and away from the sidewalk. She did the same so our faces were hidden from Sophia. Thirty seconds later, I sensed her pass us and I spied her over Moira’s shoulder. She walked past Parker Real Estate without even a side glance, then crossed the street and went into the parking lot that held her car.
“You take the lead.” I took off my Padres cap and put it on Moira’s head. She exited the Burger Lounge sidewalk corral and walked toward the parking lot glancing through store windows like a lookeeloo shopper as she went.
She left her milkshake behind. I took a sip and only got the gurgle of a straw sucking up air from an empty cup. I put the cup down and walked over to the parking lot.
Sophia drove through La Jolla and headed south on Interstate 5, but didn’t get off at Rosecrans, the exit back to the house on the hill. She went farther south all the way to downtown San Diego. She took Pacific Coast Highway to Waterfront Park adjacent to the harbor. The park had large swatches of grass, a park for kids, and housed the San Diego County Administration Center. The Center had a view of the San Diego Maritime Museum, the harbor, and the ocean beyond. A parcel of land worth tens of millions of dollars. I guess the bureaucrats deserved a view, too.
Sophia parked in an underground garage a block away and walked over to the Center. Moira and I each parked within eyesight of her car.
I got out of my car and followed Sophia. I texted Moira to stay and watch Sophia’s car.
The Administration Center building with its Beaux-Arts/Spanish Revival–style architecture looked like it came straight out of a 1940s noir movie. A sign in the lobby said that The California Coastal Commission was holding a meeting in the Board of Supervisors’ chambers. I didn’t see Sophia enter the meeting, but figured it had to be the reason she’d come down here.
I wondered if she’d come to the meeting on behalf of Dergan Consulting, Peter Stone, or Jeffrey Parker. Or all three.
The room had a raised platform where the supervisors sat and could look down on the people who elected them and had business before them. In this case, twelve Coastal Commission commissioners, seven women and five men, could look down at the people who weren’t allowed to elect them, but who, nonetheless, would still be required under law to abide by their rulings. A podium sat below the commissioners where petitioners were allowed to address the commission.
The chambers were packed with citizens from the seating area to standing room only in the back where I was. I saw Scott Buehler from The Reader standing across the room and nodded. Sophia sat in the front row of seated onlookers. I could only see the back of her head, but I knew it was her. I’d spent the last couple days staring at the back of her head. She’d entered the meeting after everyone had already found a seat, yet was able to get a spot right up front. Was the pull all her own or someone else’s? No sign of Peter Stone.
The Coastal Commission chairman, a fit middle-aged man from San Francisco who would have looked at home on a yacht, gaveled the proceedings to order. The commissioners spent twenty minutes discussing procedural matters while the crowd standing in the back started to hum with discontent. Finally, the chairman introduced discussion on the Scripps land sale.
The first speaker, a woman from The Sierra Club, made an impassioned speech about maintaining what was left of the pristine land along the coast and the dangers to wildlife of creeping development.
The leader of The San Diego County Building and Construction Trades Council, AFL-CIO followed with his own speech about the sale helping poor and middle-class workers in San Diego find meaningful jobs.
A conga line of private citizens from both sides followed for the next hour. There was some shouting and name-calling and occasional tears, but no violence. Finally, a man in a suit worth more than my monthly mortgage, representing the Green Builders Alliance of San Diego, stood up and walked to the podium. He’d been sitting right next to Sophia Domingo.
The commissioners’ posture all improved after they’d slouched and yawned through the last hour. The man echoed what the union boss had said and added that the new development would use green energy and materials. He finished his talk by stating that his group, GBASD, would donate a significant portion from the profit of the development to low-income housing projects and to fund a Scripps Institute of Oceanography study of coastal erosion. He claimed that GBASD was a concerned custodian of San Diego’s diverse ecosystems.
A few of the no-growth crowd booed, but much of the audience nodded in silent support. After he finished, Sophia Domingo rose from her chair, did a quick scan of the commissioners, and left. The chairman adjourned the meeting to vote and said the commission would return in a half hour with a decision.
A half hour? Didn’t leave much time for discussion. Maybe the verdict had already been determined and the meeting was just for show. I’d be shocked—shocked—if the commission hadn’t come to the meeting with an open mind. Is that why Sophia left without waiting for a decision? Maybe she was just grabbing a snack.
I exited the Board of Supervisors’ chambers fifteen seconds behind Sophia. She walked by a couple vending machines in the hallway and exited the building. I watched her head to the parking garage and called Moira.
“She’s on her way back to you. You’re going to be solo for a while.”
“Why?”
I explained the meeting and the vote to her.
“You really think it’s that important to find out how the commission votes?” she asked.
“I’m not sure about anything, but my gut tells me that Parker, Stone, and Sophia are all connected through this land sale.”
“Maybe you should start doing some sit-ups and your gut won’t do so much talking.”
“Check in when she lands somewhere.”
“Roger.”
* * *
Stone’s kind of game. Rigged. He and the house had the edge back in his casino days, and he still had it in his reinvented corporate life. But the Coastal Commission was hardly pro-growth. They’d even been known to prevent private citizens from adding on to homes they already inhabited. Okaying new development on pristine land above the ocean in La Jolla would be like threading a camel through the eye of a needle.
Fifteen minutes later the commissioners returned to their chairs. Stoic like a death penalty jury. It took the chairman a few gavels to quiet the crowd. The chairman finally spoke.
“The charge of this commission is to be a good steward of the eight hundred and forty miles of California’s magnificent coastline. I can tell you every single commissioner you see up here takes that responsibility very seriously. Along with that stewardship, the health of each coastal community has to be taken into consideration, as well.”
The environmental crowd read the tea leaves and began to murmur its discontent.
“With that sacred responsibility, we make sure that any coastal development balances the needs of the environment against the needs of the community. We feel the sale of parcel 1655 to Green Builders Alliance of San Diego perfectly b
alances both needs. The vote passes seven to five.”
A rich man just made it into heaven.
The crowd erupted into protest, and I slipped out the chamber doors and hustled to my car. Sophia Domingo and a briefcase had gotten Peter Stone what he wanted. And probably got Jeffrey Parker the listings to the most expensive new residential development in all of San Diego County. Maybe he’d bedded Sophia, maybe not. But he most likely just guaranteed that the child growing inside Kim would never want for anything.
Family. The biological imperative. Could you fault a man’s means when the end was his child’s security?
* * *
I called Moira as I walked to my car.
“Where is our girl headed?”
“She just got onto Via Capri in La Jolla and is going up the hill.”
“Stone.”
“What?”
“She’s going to Peter Stone’s house.”
“How do you know?”
“I know where he lives. In a mansion on Hillside Drive.” I got into my car. “Don’t follow her when she turns right onto Via Siena. In fact, you can head home or onto your next job. This one’s over.” I told her about the Coastal Commission vote and my theory about the briefcase and Peter Stone’s involvement.
“So all of this was about real estate and not about cheating hearts?”
“There still might be a cheating heart or two, but that may have just been a spin-off from the main show.” I got onto I-5 and headed north. “I’ll send you another check in the next couple days.”
“Roger. When do you want me to start helping you with the other thing?”
“What other thing?”
“Windsor Bank and Trust. Going back in time.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t be an asshole.” A hard word, but her voice, surprisingly soft. “I saw you talking with that woman in front of the bank. Neither one of you looked happy. You’re up to something, and I don’t think it’s another case. I think it’s personal. Call me when you need me on it. You won’t have to send me a check for that one.”