by Thomas Perry
"A lawyer friend of mine thinks it would have worked fine if Timmy hadn't turned up. If there are no heirs, there's nobody with the right to demand an audit."
"Except the state of California."
"Let me ask you this. When the grandmother died, wouldn't the trust have either gone through probate or been declared exempt?"
"Well, yes."
"And doesn't it have to file tax returns each year?"
"Certainly."
"My friend seems to think that there's no other occasion when the state automatically takes a look, unless the trust changes hands. Somebody with a legitimate reason has to ask. And the statute of limitations for embezzling the money is something like four years."
The judge blew some air out through his teeth. "Your friend seems to have worked this through more carefully than I have. If they filed the standard annual forms, declared Timmy legally dead, and took their time about the disbursement to charities, then yes, they could probably avoid scrutiny until it was too late to prosecute the theft. Your friend must practice in another state. The statute of limitations here isn't four years. It's two."
"Great," she muttered.
"But they can't do what they planned. They never got the death certificate."
Jane spoke slowly and quietly. "If they've already robbed him, then they still need to get one. I think they're committed."
"It's all right. Timmy is under police protection."
"I know," said Jane. "I went into his bedroom, talked to him, took him for a ride, and brought him back."
"I'll order him moved," said the judge.
"Moving him increases the danger. Just tell them you're not keeping him incommunicado, you want him protected, and they'll do their best. I'm sure you know they can't keep somebody from killing him if the person tries hard enough."
"Then what the hell do you want me to do?"
"Remove the motive."
"How?"
"The reason to kill him is to hide a theft, so uncover it. He's a ward of the court. Order an audit of his assets. Open everything up."
"All right."
"And, Judge," Jane said, "can you make it a surprise? You know - like a raid?"
"Yes. I'll have to do some preliminary probing first, and I'll have to find probable cause for a search, but I'll do it. Now what else are you waiting for me to stumble onto?"
"Nothing." Then she added, "But, Judge..."
"What?"
"I don't know if it's occurred to you yet, but if they realize you're going to do this, then Timmy isn't the big threat to them anymore. You are."
"I'm aware of that," he snapped. "Now I've got sixty-three litigants and petitioners and all their damned attorneys penned up in a courtroom waiting for me, so if you'll excuse me..."
"Keep safe. You're a good man."
"Of course I am," he said. "Goodbye."
Jane hung up the telephone and drove home. She climbed the stairs, opened her closet, and then remembered that she had given the suitcase she was looking for to the Salvation Army in Los Angeles. She went downstairs into the little office she had made out of her mother's sewing room, looked in the closet, and found the old brown one. It was a little smaller, but she wasn't going to bring much with her. She stared at the telephone for a moment, then dialed his number. His answering machine clicked on. "Carey, this is Jane. I'm afraid I was right about the trip. I'll call when I'm home. Meanwhile you'll have to make your own fun. Bye." She walked upstairs to her bedroom and began to pack.
As Jane set down her suitcase and walked through the kitchen to be sure that all the windows were locked and the food stored in the freezer, she saw the pile of letters that Jake had brought her. She had not even bothered to look at them. She leaned against the counter and glanced at each envelope, looking for bills. There were several envelopes from companies, but they were all pitches to get her to buy something new.
Finally she opened the one at the bottom. It was thin and square and stiff, from Maxwell-Lammett Investment Services in New York. Inside was a greeting card. It was old, the picture from a photograph that had been hand-tinted. There was a stream with a deer just emerging from a thicket, so that it was easy to miss at first. All the leaves of the trees were bright red and orange and yellow. The caption said "Indian Summer." When she looked inside, a check fluttered to the floor. The female handwriting in the card said, "You told me that one morning after a year or two I would wake up and look around me and feel good because it was over, and then I would send you a present. I found the card months ago and saved it, but you're a hard person to shop for. Thanks. MaRried and PrEgnant." R was Rhonda and E was Eckerly, or used to be.
Jane picked up the check and looked at it. The cashier's machine printing on it said "Two Hundred and Fifty Thousand and 00/100 Dollars." The purchaser was the investment company, and the notation said "Sale of Securities." She put the check into her purse and took one last look at the card. Rhonda had probably felt clever putting her name in code. If the people her ex-husband had paid to hunt her had known about Jane they could have identified Rhonda's prints from the paper and probably traced her through the check.
She switched on the ventilator on the hood over the stove, set out a foil pan, lit the card at a gas burner, and set it in the pan to burn. There would come a time when an uninvited guest would go through this house. Maybe it would be some bounty hunter, or maybe it would be the policemen investigating her death. Whoever it was would not find traces of a hundred fugitives and then turn them into a bonanza for his retirement. When the card was burned, she turned off the fan, then rinsed the ashes into her garbage disposal and let it grind them into the sewer. She dropped the rest of the mail into the trash can, picked up her suitcase, set the alarm, and stepped out onto the porch.
As she locked her door and took a last look at her house, she thought about the old days, when Senecas went out regularly to raid the tribes to the south and west in parties as small as three or four warriors. After a fight they would run back along the trail through the great forest, sometimes not stopping for two days and nights.
When they made it back into Nundawaonoga, they would approach their village and give a special shout to tell the people what it was they would be celebrating. But sometimes a lone warrior would come up the trail, the only one of his party who had survived. He would rest and eat and mourn his friends for a time. Then he would quietly collect his weapons and extra moccasins and provisions and walk back down the trail alone. He would travel all the way back to the country of the enemy, even if it were a thousand miles west to the Mississippi or a thousand miles south beyond the Cumberland. He would stay alone in the forest and observe the enemy until he was certain he knew their habits and defenses and vulnerabilities. He would watch and wait until he had perceived that they no longer thought about an Iroquois attack, even if it took a year or two.
It occurred to Jane as she got into her car that Rhonda's present had come at a good time. If she stopped to deposit it on her way to the airport, it would buy a lot of spare moccasins.
11
Jane took a flight to Dallas-Fort Worth under the name Wendy Simmons, and another to San Diego as Diane Newberry. Then she took a five-minute shuttle bus ride from the airport to the row of tall hotels on Harbor Island. She stepped off at the TraveLodge, but walked down Harbor Island Drive to the Sheraton East because it seemed to be the biggest.
She checked in with a credit card in the name of Katherine Webster. She had gotten the card in the same way she had obtained the five others she had brought with her: she had grown them. Now and then she would take a trip to a different part of the country just to grow new credit cards. She would start with a forged birth certificate, use it to admit her to the test for a genuine driver's license, and then would go to a bank and start a checking account in a new name. If the amount she deposited was large enough, sometimes the bank would offer her a credit card that day. If it did not, she would use the checks to pay for mail orders. Within a few months, the n
ew woman would begin receiving unsolicited mail. Among the catalogs and requests for contributions would inevitably be offers for credit cards. She used the credit cards carefully, a new one in each town, so that when Katherine Webster disappeared, she didn't reappear in the next city. Instead, a woman named Denise Hollinger took her place.
The banks that issued their own credit cards were happy to pay themselves automatically each month from her checking account, so all she had to do was to keep the balance high. For the others, she simply filled in the change-of-address section on the third bill and had future ones sent to a fictitious business manager named Stewart Hoffstedder, C.P.A. One of Mr. Hoffstedder's services was paying clients' bills. He had a post office box in New York City to receive the bills, and he issued neatly typed checks from a large New York bank to pay them. The imaginary Mr. Hoffstedder was so reliable that each year most of his clients would have their credit limits increased.
Sometimes Jane would grow a different kind of credit card. It would begin with her opening a joint checking account for herself and her husband, who was so busy that she had to bring the signature card home and have him sign it and return it by mail. Months passed while the husband paid for his mail-order goods with the checks and got his credit card. Then Jane would close the joint checking account and make sure the imaginary Mr. Hoffstedder got her imaginary husband's bills. She could use the man's card to pay expenses if she made reservations over the telephone, and when traveling let people guess whether she was wife, lover, or colleague without having to give herself any name at all.
After Katherine Webster checked into the hotel, she bought the San Diego newspapers, went directly to her room, ordered dinner from room service, and made the preparations she had planned during her long trip across the country. First she ordered a rental car by telephone, the keys to be delivered to her room for Mr. William Dunlavey, and the car left in the hotel parking lot. She spent a few minutes reading the society page of the San Diego Union, then set her alarm for six a.m. and went to bed.
When the alarm woke her, she checked the name she had found on the society page again: Marcy Hungerford of Del Mar, co-chair of the Women of St. James Fund-raising Committee and honorary chair of this year's ball, was headed for the family's eastern digs in Palm Beach. That was the best name in the columns. Honorary chairs were either famous or had money, and Marcy Hunger-ford wasn't famous. She was doing fund-raising and was active in that world, so she might have one telephone number that people could find. Jane checked the telephone book and found it listed, with the address beside it.
Jane took the stairs to the swimming pool, went out the garden gate, and skirted the building to the parking lot. She had no difficulty finding the rented car. She had told the woman on the telephone that Mr. Dunlavey liked big black cars, and this one had a small sticker on the left rear bumper that had the right rental company's name on it. She walked farther along the line of cars until she found one with an Auto Club sticker, peeled it off with a nail file, and stuck it over the one on her car's bumper.
She drove out to the Golden State Freeway, headed north to the first Del Mar exit, went over a high mesa and came down onto the road along the ocean. The houses on the west side of the street were big and far apart, and she could see vast stretches of flat beach on the other side of them. When she found Marcy Hungerford's house she was satisfied. It was two stories with a long, sloped roof and stilts on the beach side, a four-car garage under it on the street side, and about eight thousand square feet in the middle. She drove past it at thirty miles an hour and studied the exterior. The establishment was too complicated for Marcy Hungerford to have given all of the servants the week off or taken them with her, but they would cause no trouble. By the time they realized something was wrong, it wouldn't be wrong anymore.
At nine a.m. Jane found a little shop in San Diego that rented post office boxes, and she took a key and paid for a month in the name of Marcy Hungerford. Then she drove back to Del Mar and found the post office. She filled out a change-of-address form and had all of Marcy Hungerford's mail sent to her new post office box beginning the next day.
At ten a.m. Jane went to a pay telephone in a quiet corner of Balboa Park and dialed a Los Angeles number. As she put the coins into the slot, she checked her watch again.
"Hoffen-Bayne," said the receptionist.
"I'd like to speak to a representative for new customers, please," said Jane.
"Your name?"
"Marcy Hungerford."
"Please hold and I'll transfer you to Mr. Hanlon." There were a few clicks and a man said "Ronald Hanlon" in a quiet, calm voice. "What can I do for you, Ms. Hungerford?"
Jane said, "It's Mrs. I'm considering new financial management and I'm shopping around. I'd like to know more about Hoffen-Bayne."
Mr. Hanlon said, "Well, we've been in business in Los Angeles since 1948 and handle a full range of financial affairs for a great many people. We offer investment specialists, tax specialists, accountants, property-management teams, and so on. If you could give me a rough idea of your needs, I think I could give you a more focused picture."
That was the money question. "Well," said Jane, "my husband's affairs are managed by Chase Manhattan." This established that she wasn't somebody who had just dialed the wrong number; banks seldom managed anything less than a few million. "But I have some assets I like to hold separately." She kept her voice cheerful and opaque. Maybe there were problems with the marriage, and maybe not. If there were, California was a community-property state, and this meant she might be talking about some money the husband didn't know about and half of what he had at Chase Manhattan. She was giving Mr. Hanlon a small taste. "I'm interested in having somebody I trust manage my money conservatively so that it pays a reliable income each year."
"Conservative" meant she didn't need to gamble to make more, and the income was another hint of divorce.
Hanlon rose to the bait slowly and smoothly. "Yes, that sounds wise," he said. "That would mean setting you up with our accountants and tax people, and a financial planner."
"And property management," she added. "Do you have arrangements to handle foreign real estate? France and Italy?"
That did it. He wasn't talking to a lady with a couple hundred thousand in passbooks. "I think the best thing to do would be to make an appointment and we can talk it all over in detail with advisers from some of our departments. When are you free?"
"That's a problem," said Jane. "I live in San Diego and I'm leaving for Palm Beach today." She checked her watch again to see how long she had been talking.
"When will you be back?"
"I'm not sure. It could be a month. I'm asking for information from several companies. I'm going to look it over while I'm away, and when I'm back I'll have the choices narrowed down." The element of competition would help. "I'd like to have you send me whatever material you've got that will help me know whether your company is the right one for me." She decided Marcy Hungerford had no reason to be vague, and making her naive wouldn't help. "I'd like to know the backgrounds and qualifications of your investment people, financial planners, and so on."
Mr. Hanlon seemed a little surprised. Maybe she had gone too far. "I think we have some things we can send you. What's your address?"
"It's 99.233 The Shores, Del Mar, California 91.182." She glanced at her watch again. She had only twenty seconds left before the operator came on and asked for more quarters.
"Phone?"
Jane gave him Marcy Hungerford's telephone number. The answering machine or the maids would tell him she was out of town.
"Got it," he said. "I'll get that right out to you."
Ten seconds left. "Fine. I'll watch for it. And thanks." She hung up and walked across the lush green grass of the park in the direction of the zoo. She felt satisfied. Hanlon would make a serious attempt to impress her with Hoffen-Bayne's operation. The main issue would be whether he had caught the hint about backgrounds. Whoever had gone after Timmy Phillips h
ad been in the company seven years ago and was still there.
The next morning when Jane went for her run on the beach, she considered the ways of taking the company apart so that she could see what was inside. If Hoffen-Bayne had been around since 1948, then they had almost certainly been sued. She could drive up to U.C.L.A. and hire a student to research the county records for the cases. The least that would give her were the names of the people at Hoffen-Bayne who had been served with subpoenas, and almost any lawsuit would provide a lot more.
But that would mean dreaming up another story to tell the law student that would make him feel comfortable about doing it but not comfortable enough to talk about it freely. It would also place the student in a public building where someone might notice that he had an unusual curiosity about one particular company. He might be helping somebody build a case. That sort of information might easily get back to Hoffen-Bayne. Certainly when Dennis Morgan had been doing his research, somebody at Hoffen-Bayne had learned about it. She decided not to bring anybody else into this mess.
At four o'clock Jane drove back along the Golden State Freeway to Del Mar and stopped at the little store where her post office box was. She saw through the little window that Marcy Hungerford had lots of mail. She sorted through the letters and bills and catalogs until she found the packet from Hoffen-Bayne, then drove to the post office and filled out another change-of-address form so that Marcy Hungerford's mail would start being delivered to her house again.
She considered scrawling "misdelivered" on today's mail and slipping it into the nearest mailbox, but she decided that the safest way was to ensure that there was no interruption in service. She waited until eight p.m. when it was dark along the beach, walked past Marcy Hunger-ford's house, left the mail in her box, returned to her car, and drove on.
At the hotel Jane opened the packet from Hoffen-Bayne and began to study it. She could see immediately that Mr. Hanlon had not missed any of her hints and that he had been convinced that her account was worth having. There was a printed brochure that included little descriptions of the various arms of the company and a cover with a touched-up photograph of their building on Wilshire Boulevard. Inside were graphs and tables purporting to be proof of high returns for their clients, mixed with a text that promised personal service. Mr. Hanlon had also dictated a cover letter to Mrs. Hunger-ford, and stapled to it was a little stack of computer-printed resumes.