by Lee Winter
Which company is paying the men? Lauren typed.
A reply instantly came: Heres the account no. You tel us.
A screen capture with a string of numbers appeared.
Btw this laptop has a clone of the entire NV infrastructre budget files for past 18 months, incl its hidden files. U got the asswipes cold. Easy 2 c this is no 1 time thing!
Thanks D, Lauren wrote. That’s great.
Lauren’s draft changed.
U aint seen nothing. That was the starters. The mains are killer. They r gona rock ur world.
Lauren paused. What the hell could top that?
They waited a few minutes, but the screen stubbornly didn’t refresh.
When it finally did, they read, We think thugz r bak again. Talk l8er. D.
“No!” Lauren groaned. “What else did they find?”
“I suppose we just have to wait,” Ayers said. “But at least now we know what happened. Sands stole exactly $100,000 from an account that receives $100,000 every two months to pay off top Nevada officials.”
“But then Sands just pissed it against the wall,” Lauren countered. “So this was his revenge, right? Stick it to the corrupt officials? Stealing money meant for their bribes?”
“Actually, I don’t think this was about revenge,” Ayers said. “I think he was tapping out a code for us to find, and just like his hero Jeremiah Denton, he’s been doing it in plain sight. He’s a whistle-blower.”
“A whistle-blower,” Lauren repeated skeptically. “But he didn’t tell us anything.”
“Except he did. He’s been trying to draw everyone’s eyes to a dirty account in the most ostentatious way possible. The whole thing was one big, gaudy publicity stunt.
“Missing cheap pink champagne, bussed-in hookers at a big showy launch he knew dozens of media and political figures were at? He pointed us to the bribes while he hid in the shadows. And he’d have stayed invisible, too, if Barry hadn’t put his name out there.”
“But why didn’t he just whistle-blow to the media directly?” Lauren asked. “Why the stupid horse and pony show?”
Ayers frowned. “To spare Della? He thought he could actually do all this without his name being dragged into it?”
“Hey,” Lauren said, “is it actually stealing to divert dirty money intended to bribe officials? Is Sands even really a thief? I mean, hell, by preventing a payoff, he technically stopped a crime!”
“A good question,” Ayers said, and her eyes gleamed.
“Here’s a better one. How does SmartPay fit in? Was their launch just collateral damage to point the finger at the bribes?” Lauren snatched her cell. “And who is the fourth man on the take?”
She tapped in Nigel Masters and Nevada government into her phone’s web browser.
Nothing obvious came up. Only a social media page for some kid in Nevada. She opened it anyway. Okay, not a kid, but barely out of his teens. He had bad skin and a weird smile thanks to a missing left incisor. She was about to try a different search when she saw what was listed under employment on his profile page.
State of Nevada. Junior Accountant.
“No way,” Lauren muttered. She spun her phone around to show Ayers the young man with a faint dusting of a mustache and a wash of pimples.
Ayers’s eyebrow lifted. “I somehow suspect that young man and Governor Freeman don’t do drinks together at the club every Friday. They would hardly mix in the same circles.”
“How could a kid this young offer consultancy services on anything?” Lauren asked. “He lists his hobbies as high-voltage transmission lines. He’s included albums full of photos of power lines from highways around the world. Who the hell is he in all of this?”
“Barry would know. They work in the same department.”
“True,” Lauren agreed as Ayers rummaged through her bag and handed over their new, untraceable burner cell.
Lauren placed the call and waited. Barry’s phone stubbornly didn’t answer. She sighed, handing the burner back. “Lunchtime, I guess. We can try later.”
“All right. Are we done here?” Ayers asked. “I need to wash the cattle out of my hair.”
She turned toward the door but Lauren snagged her arm. “Wait,” she said. She found herself drawn again to the rainbow of magazines and books. Something nudged at her again. And then she saw it. Oh wow.
“Catherine, look. There’s a white book next to the purple.”
Ayers paused, and her eyes shot to the row of magazines. “Mr. Sands is slipping,” she said softly. “White’s not on the color spectrum.”
Lauren strode up to it. “Exactly. This shouldn’t be here.” She plucked the white spine off the shelf. It turned out to be a thin box. Ayers stepped up beside Lauren as she eased its lid off. Postcards. Piles and piles of them from all over the US.
Lauren flipped a few cards over at random. Spidery handwriting was on them all. She noted Sands’s Carson City address on the right and two short paragraphs written on the left. She turned over another and another. All had the same writing and the same format.
“What does it mean?” Lauren asked, perplexed. “It’s not signed. But every single one goes on and on about prices. This one says Tomatoes are $4 out here and that ain’t right. Oranges now $8.55. Tobacco’s gone up by 31 cents. Why send Sands a shopping list of complaints?” She turned it back over to examine a picture of Reno and tossed it back in the box.
Ayers shook her head as she flicked through a few herself. “Oh look. Ohio. Mississippi. Washington DC. They’re in order.”
“What order?”
“The order Della told us where Jon’s father has lived over the years. I’ll bet the postcards are from Gray. And I’d say each one lets Jon know where he’s living every time he’s moved.”
“But I don’t see any address,” Lauren protested. “Just the ramblings of a crazy old man who hates inflation.”
“Perhaps.” Ayers shrugged and snapped the lid back on the box. “Let’s take it home anyway and look at it later.”
Lauren was perched restlessly on Ayers’s sofa, trying not to get distracted by the sight of Ayers with slicked back wet hair, yoga pants, and a pale green blouse. She was diligently sorting through her notes.
Lauren, in turn, was going stir-crazy waiting for Duppy to reconnect with them. She alternated between glaring at her cell, trying not to admire Ayers’s freshly scrubbed skin, and dialing Barry’s number on the burner phone.
An hour later she finally got through to the accounting officer.
Five minutes later Lauren’s mind was reeling.
“Well?” Ayers asked impatiently.
“Ughh he’s still a little tightly wound about the media,” Lauren reported and dropped the phone to the coffee table between them. “He had a few choice things to say about me calling him at work. And, well, at all.
“The bottom line is he says, while Nigel Masters is an anti-social jerk, he’s apparently got an excellent eye for numbers, details, and finding mistakes everyone else misses. He also says you’d be certifiable to pay the kid to consult on anything. He can barely string two words together.”
“So a young employee with a sharp eye for finding hidden things is getting $5000 every two months.” Ayers’s eyes glinted. “Well, well.”
“So it’s shut-the-hell-up-about-what-you-just-found money?” Lauren suggested.
“Most likely. Is that all Barry said? You look a little…” she waved her hand, “distracted.”
Lauren exhaled. “Yeah. Uh, well, I read out the number to him. You know, the one belonging to the company paying the men in the red files. I asked him if he recognized it.”
“So I heard. Did he know it?”
“Oh yeah. He sure did. He said, ‘Why the hell are you reading out SmartPay’s account numbers to me?’”
Ayers froze. “SmartPay?”
>
Lauren nodded grimly. “You think SmartPay could be bribing its way to success?”
Ayers inhaled sharply. “They’re on the verge of going national. Then they want to go global and run everyone’s payroll. Not to mention their expansion in the banking side.”
“Yep.” Lauren nodded, eyes wide. “And if they’re dirty, then this is huge.”
“We really need to find Jonathan Sands,” Ayers said, flicking out her hand. “As in right now. Pass me the white box. We have to figure out the postcards.”
“Gah,” Lauren said and stretched. “This is maddening. Everything on the cards is so random. Peanut butter, chicken breasts, spinach salads, nougat? And what old guy buys chicken breasts and spinach salad anyway?”
“One who wishes to live to be an even older man?” Ayers suggested dryly, not looking up from studying some cards fanned out in front of her.
“I’ve tried anagrams, but if you scramble up the letters, all you get is even more scrambled letters,” Lauren continued. “I’ve tried looking at every second, third and fourth word. All I get is a list of bitching and whining.
“So—new working theory. What if Gray is just some grumpy old bastard who thinks his son should know his life’s expensive? These scribblings might only be proof of a cranky, unhinged mind!”
“Then why would Sands keep the postcards?” Ayers asked reasonably, glancing up. “No. I don’t buy it. Keep looking.”
“But even if we find the father, it doesn’t mean we’ll find the son.” Lauren rubbed her eyes. “Why are we even assuming that?”
“This is our only fresh lead,” Ayers reminded her. “And I’m assuming nothing. Even so, it’s not such a huge leap that a father might know where his son’s favorite hiding place is.”
“If he’s hiding,” Lauren grumbled. “Not floating around in a lake somewhere proving that asshole Rankin right. Wouldn’t be the first whistle-blower who met a suspicious and sticky end.”
“To think people call me pessimistic,” Ayers said. “You’ve skipped that phase and jumped straight to depressingly macabre.”
Lauren yawned instead of answering. The past three hours were catching up with her. They’d worked through a platter of finger foods that Ayers had whipped up which substituted as dinner. And they were making good headway on a second bottle from her exceptional wine cellar—a 2001 Beringer Private Reserve cabernet. Lauren had secretly Googled it. Hundred bucks a pop.
“Call it a hunch,” Ayers added, stretching. “Families tend to know where the bodies are buried. And, before you go there, that is just a metaphor.”
“Okay. But these numbers are making my head hurt,” Lauren grouched. “Half of them aren’t even legit. I mean fifty-five dollars for a six-pack of beer? In what universe?”
Ayers stiffened. “Where did he write that?”
Lauren passed over the offending postcard.
“The prices are wrong,” Ayers repeated.
“I just said that.”
“If the prices are wrong, then they’re the code, not the words. We’ve been trying to decode the wrong thing.”
Lauren felt excitement streak through her, and she grabbed more of the cards and began to discount any words, homing in on the numbers.
“It’s a pattern,” she said after a few minutes. “Every single one has a similar series of numbers. Check if yours are the same. Two digits. Then two more, then a run of either three or four digits. The second paragraph is always two or three more numbers, then two, and another set of either three or four.”
Ayers flicked through the bunch she was holding. “Yes,” she confirmed. “And I just noticed the word closest to the numbers always have irregularly capped letters. The N is capped on nougat and the W on water. But didn’t Della say the whole family is a bunch of grammar nazis? It should be lowercase.”
Lauren stared. “Yeah, she did say that.” She scrabbled through some more. “Notice it’s only the same four letters that are ever capped? N, E, W, and S.”
“News?” Ayers frowned.
“Nope, try compass points. N as in north? E as in east and so on?”
“GPS co-ordinates,” Ayers hissed. “That’s what the numbers mean.” She sat up, eyes blazing with excitement.
“Yep.” Lauren grinned at her. “I take it back. Gray’s not a whiner; he’s one clever old coot.”
“Can we find the most recent postcard?” Ayers asked, sorting through her set. “Latest I have is last January.”
Lauren studied the postmarks on hers. Finally she said, “I have it. April 19th.”
She turned over the card and held up the winner.
“California.” Ayers breathed. “Let’s be grateful he’s not in Alaska.”
Lauren flipped the card back over and jotted down the numbers, turning them into strings. 38.65507°N -
119.52213°E.
She reached for her phone and called up a GPS co-ordinates page. “So, let’s see where the old boy lives this month.”
They watched, heads bent over the phone, as the mapping app homed in on California then shifted, higher and higher.
Finally it zoomed in.
“Oh,” Lauren said. “Ohhh.”
The satellite photo was focused on a small thicket of trees, four miles southeast of a large water body.
A very familiar body of water.
Topaz Lake.
The third bottle of wine to celebrate figuring out where Gray was camped out could have been considered a mistake, Lauren mused as her fogged brain analyzed her current situation. But her happily buzzed body definitely did not see it that way.
Somehow Ayers had ended up on her side of the sofa.
Somehow Lauren had found her head almost resting on her shoulder.
Somehow Ayers hadn’t complained.
The music was beautiful. Some tragic French torch singer Lauren had never heard of. It sure beat classical.
“For a woman famous for being prickly, you sure are soft,” Lauren announced blearily.
At the stunned silence from her couchmate, Lauren lolled her head over and looked up at her. “Hey it’s after eleven. Censor-button-off rules apply.”
“Is that so?” came an amused reply. “More wine?”
“I probably shouldn’t, especially if we’re driving back to Topaz tomorrow,” Lauren said, but she held out her glass anyway. Ayers smirked and poured in a little more.
“Well, since I’m driving, you can afford to let loose a little,” she said.
“Don’t you ever let loose?” Lauren asked, attempting to straighten up. “Ever let your guard down?”
“Once or twice,” Ayers said and sipped her wine. “It didn’t end well.”
“Ah,” Lauren said. “Your big story. Tell me what happened?”
Ayers exhaled. “Not this again. You know I have been asked hundreds of times, and no one knows the truth.”
“Except you.”
“Not even me.”
Lauren blinked. “I don’t understand.”
“That’s okay, neither do I.”
“Catherine? Tell me what happened,” Lauren asked again. “Please?”
“Lauren.” The word was whispered, half plea, half scold.
“You trusted me with your secret. Trust me with this.”
Ayers’s index finger stroked the stem of her glass. “I’m not sure why I told you that.”
“Technically speaking, you showed, not told,” Lauren said impishly. “And I’m kinda hoping it’s because you like me?”
“Hmm,” Ayers said, but her eyes seemed brighter. Lauren wasn’t sure if it was too much wine or something else.
Ayers slowly placed her glass on the coffee table.
“It began with Stephanie,” she said softly. “My confidential informant. The one who brought me documents proving the scandal involvi
ng three judges and four congressmen and many others. The documents were shocking. How high the corruption went, how many kickbacks had been taken, how many people had to have known, the depths of the cover-ups. It was horrendous.”
Lauren held her breath, too scared to move in case Ayers stopped speaking.
“Of course, the journalist in me should have been highly suspicious. It was a treasure trove. A perfect story just falling in my lap. All the research done. All the proof right in front of me. I called a few names on the lists, some of the lower-down people who were peripherally involved and after a little arm twisting they confirmed it. All of it. But, still, it seemed too easy.
“And then there was Stephanie. She worked in one of the senator’s offices that had been rife with rumors of corruption for many years. She was so compelling, explaining how she sneaked the secret files out of her boss’s desk. She was so sure. So ready to get the ‘corrupt bastards’. She was what sold me on the story.” Her voice caught.
“You cared about her?” Lauren guessed.
There was a long pause. “Very much.” Ayers fiddled with a ring on her right hand. “Too much. I trusted her with my life. And my career as it turned out. I assumed she would never hurt me. So I ran with the story.”
Ayers closed her eyes painfully. “It was all a lie. The folder was entirely a fabrication. I found out that the lower-ranked people I’d contacted had been paid off to agree to anything I put to them. I never found out by whom, although I had my suspicions.”
“Didn’t Stephanie know who’d paid them?” Lauren asked.
Ayers reached for her glass with a shaky hand, took a long swallow, and returned it to the table. “The day the story ran, I went into work as usual and immediately the calls and abuse began to hit my desk. I realized I’d been played. I phoned her. No answer. I rushed to her place. All her things were gone. Stephanie was gone. I never saw her again. To this day, I don’t know if she knew all along that the information she gave me was false or whether she was just a pawn. The realist in me suspects the former.”
“Why did they do it?” Lauren asked gently, unsettled by Ayers’s stricken expression. “Why you?”