Doug’s face had assumed an expression more suitable for the thought of lost income.
“I swear to God, Nick, you missed your true calling in life. You should be over in India passing out loaves of bread or something. Nick Merchant, missionary.”
Nick smiled and took the expected lumps. “You need to come along with me one of these times. You might learn something.”
“No, you might learn something—how to run a business and not a damn charity. Your pops knew how. I don’t know about his bleeding-heart son.”
Nick was chuckling now. “Answer me honestly, Doug. Would seventy-five percent be enough of a cut?”
“Eighty sounds better.” He shook his head. “So did these lovely poor folks give you any problems?”
“None. Couldn’t have been in there more than half an hour. Real nice lady. She was in tears after I told her.”
Doug attacked his desk calculator with his hand. Nick watched in amusement as the fingers pecked like a hungry bird. Doug leaned back with his hands behind his head. “Twelve point six—not too shabby. Could’ve been sweeter, though.”
“Not too bad for three days’ work,” said Nick, rubbing his eyes. He had gotten only ten hours sleep out of the last seventy-two and exhaustion was hitting him like a freight train.
“Any other companies contact her?”
“Nope.”
Doug leaned forward, studying him closely. “You seem a little mopey for someone who just made twelve grand. Talk to me, pal. What’s up with the frown?”
Nick shrugged. He gazed absentmindedly at the certificates and diplomas affixed to the wall directly behind Doug’s desk—a wall of medals proven in the battlefields of court. “I’m fine. Little bit distracted—I keep thinking about New York. It’s almost show time over there.”
“Yeah, what’s the deal with Alex?”
“You know what the deal is. Two o’clock, Columbia County. She’ll have five grand in her pocket, ready to go. The deputy attorney’s pretty jumpy about the whole thing, but it’s all set up.”
“How many files you think this guy will have for us?”
“I don’t know. I’m guessing we’ll get six or eight cases to work. With the early jump, I’ll solve ’em all. The worthwhile ones anyway.”
Doug drummed his fingers on his chin, his smile wide. “I could barely sleep last night thinking about this, Nick. Thank God we’re finally wising up. We’ve been getting our ass kicked more than we should.”
Nick nodded. Despite the occasional Emma McClure, Doug’s assessment was correct. The victories were nice, but they were really nothing more than table scraps from the big heir-finding firms like General Inquiry and Hogue and McClain. Hopefully the New York State money would be a step toward reversing that imbalance. Nick hoped so. He and Alex had spent several long nights on the phone discussing whether or not they wished to enter the shady realm of bribery. Although neither of them was comfortable with it, they were in agreement that Merchant and Associates would not survive without lining an occasional pocket.
“I want you to call me the second you hear from Alex,” said Doug. “I’m not gonna be home tonight till about nine, but I want to know how it went.”
“Will do. Where’re you off to tonight?”
Doug leaned forward on his elbows, his frown inconsolable. “Oh God—another ballet recital for Carey. Kimberly wants to enroll Nicole in ballet class next month when she turns six.” He shook his head. “If it ain’t ballet, it’s piano; if it ain’t piano, it’s gymnastics. Man, what I’d do for a G.I. Joe doll and a baseball mitt. Next one’s got to be a boy, Nick.”
“Then you’d just be bitching about Little League and Boy Scouts.”
“I can handle that stuff. You don’t know how bad it can be, buddy—I’m surrounded by girly things every hour out of the office. Barbie dolls and ballet. Kimberly wants another next year, and I’m scared to death it’ll be another girl.”
Nick laughed. “It’s called justice. For all the hearts you stepped on before you got married.” He glanced at his watch and shot to his feet. “I gotta get outta here. I’ll call you later.”
“Don’t forget. I got a really good feeling about this deal.”
Doug followed him to the door, giving him a playful punch in the shoulder as he left.
Alex Moreno rapped her nails impatiently on the surface of the Columbia County deputy attorney’s desk and waited. She had five thousand dollars cash in her pocket and another seven thousand in her purse. She was nervous, but it wasn’t just because of the illegality of the bribe. It was an excited kind of nervous, like a child on Christmas Eve who was not sure just how many gifts were going to be under the tree in the morning. She could barely sit still.
She dug her fingers under the collar of her blouse and gave it a slight yank. The thing felt like a noose and allowed about as much circulation. She had spoken with Nick the night before and agreed to dress “professionally.” What a joke. Alex—the professional briber! She frowned. Blue jeans and a T-shirt were about as formal as she liked to get on the job. The blouses and skirts she had worn as an attorney hadn’t left the closet in four years, and that was just fine with her.
“Mr. Koenig will be right with you,” said a clerk, poking her head into the office.
Alex nodded and glanced around the typically drab government office. She was in the Columbia County Clerk’s Building, in the office of Deputy Attorney Lloyd Koenig. The walls were bare, a dull off-white, the carpet a worn gray. Koenig’s desk was box shaped, an imitation-oak construction with a dull finish and chipped edges. One small window looked out to Union Street in downtown Hudson. She shuddered at the thought of working in such confinement as she slipped her hand into her pocket and felt the envelope again. She had gone through it twice that morning to verify that it was indeed five thousand dollars. All that was needed now was Koenig and the probate files.
Nick was the one who had arranged this very special meeting. It was a desperate move, really—a move for survival. With heir-finding monster General Inquiry strengthening its bribery-fed stranglehold on the larger California counties, it was time to either fight fire with fire or sink out of sight. Neither she nor Nick had any intention of packing it in. With considerable reservations, they had finally decided to cross an ethical boundary.
Nick had negotiated the terms of the payment with Koenig one day over lunch. For five thousand dollars, Merchant and Associates was to be given an exclusive ten-day sneak preview of the county’s monthly probate files, a 240-hour head start on the official county release date, when the competition would get their first look. Ten days—an eternity for a capable heir finder to wrap up a case. In light of this fact, five thousand dollars was a small price to pay.
“Ms. Moreno?”
Alex stood and faced him. Lloyd Koenig was short with thinning gray hair, and he wore a charcoal pinstripe suit, suspenders, and what looked to be a Rolex on his wrist. A walking billboard of Italian-tailored success. He offered his hand as Alex caught his eyes roam down her healthy five-foot-seven-inch frame.
“Lloyd Koenig, deputy attorney, here. Sorry to keep you waiting.”
He gestured to the chair and Alex sat down again. Koenig dropped to his swivel chair and smiled, his leer making Alex cringe inwardly. He was gawking at her as if he had just heard a nasty story in the men’s locker room.
“So how’re you doing today?” he asked, showing a row of smoke-stained teeth.
“Fine, thanks,” she answered, removing the envelope from her pocket and dropping it to the desk in front of him. “We may as well get down to business, Lloyd. Five thousand. Go ahead and count it if you’d like.”
Koenig looked blankly at the envelope and then back at Alex. He said nothing.
“Is something wrong?” Alex asked, suddenly confused.
Koenig maintained his stare unflinchingly. The air was very quiet. “We need to talk,” he said.
“About what? Is there a problem?”
“It’s about th
e arrangement.” He scratched his nose. “I’m afraid we’re going to have to . . . renegotiate the terms.”
“I thought everything had been squared away with Nick Merchant, Lloyd.”
“Well, it was, but that was before I knew what I had here.”
“I’m a little confused,” she said, feeling a warm flow of blood to her cheeks.
“I’ll be blunt. I want more money. This is just too damn big.”
Alex studied him. Too damn big? “So what are we looking at here?”
“After what I’ve seen in these files, I think ten thousand’s damn cheap.”
Strictly for appearances’ sake, Alex assumed a stunned look. She had anticipated worse. Koenig continued.
“I should be asking for a lot more than that. I’ve only got four files for you, but one of them is worth it all by itself. Easily.”
“I’d like a figure.”
Koenig considered his response carefully. “More than six figures. That’s the last I’ll say until I see cash.”
Silence gripped Alex by the throat as Koenig let it all sink in. She felt a trickle of sweat run down her neck. More than six figures? The implication was obvious. And barely believable. “Are you saying you have a million-dollar estate?”
Koenig frowned, noncommital. Alex could see that she would get no more information until payment was rendered.
“Usual terms, Lloyd?” she finally asked. “One week?”
“Return the file to me in exactly a week and there’ll be no problems. Seven days or we never do business again.”
“We know how it works,” Alex replied. “We’ve never been late before.”
“Just be sure to keep it that way.” He leaned back in his chair. “A Bank of New York is right across the street. You have the funds to cover it?”
“I’ve got it all right here, Lloyd. Anything else we need to discuss?”
He frowned and shook his head. Alex rose to her feet and removed the envelope. She dealt out five thousand, then reached into her purse and counted out the rest. Koenig gathered it up like a miser when she was done.
“Give me a minute,” he said, rising to his feet. “One other thing: I don’t want you looking at the files here. Take them back to your car and get out of here. Understand?”
“No problem.”
He left the office, closing the door behind him. Alex felt positively giddy. A seven-figure estate! If what Koenig was saying was true, they were indeed making out. A deal? Hell, this was an outright steal. She leaned forward on the desk and waited.
CHAPTER
2
THE MEMORANDUM CAME in a routine and innocent enough manner—the ringing of the telephone followed by a solitary beep and the winding of a paper through the facsimile machine. Memos arrived every minute in the Washington, D.C., office of the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and this single sheet, the latest in an incessant stream of information exchange, sat untouched in the plastic fax tray for nearly an hour before the occupant found the appropriate ten seconds to examine it.
Arthur K. Gordon, acting FBI director, was sixty-seven years old and top man in the Federal Bureau of Investigation for the last two years. A former federal prosecutor and judge, Gordon was a towering man with cotton white hair and closely aligned gray eyes who seldom saw a memo that he judged worthy of his immediate attention. This latest arrival was an exception. Upon reading it, he reached for his phone and instantly had Edmund Arminger, his deputy director in New York, on the line.
“Tell me what you found and when you found it.”
“Per the directive,” replied Arminger, “my field agent sought to establish weekly voice contact with Jacobs this previous Friday. When Jacobs could not be contacted after a dozen phone calls, I dispatched two agents to his home in Hudson. They gained entry that night when Jacobs failed to respond to the doorbell. They found him facedown in a bathtub full of water. From their initial inspection, it appears Jacobs slipped entering the tub, hit his head, and drowned. County coroner’s got him now.”
“Hmm. Any signs of foul play or forced entry?”
“None. The house was locked tighter than a drum.”
Gordon leaned forward on the massive desk and tapped his fingers on his temples in an effort to gather his thoughts. “Any noticeable wounds or injuries?”
“Pretty solid gash on the right side of the head,” replied Arminger. “Looks like a slip to me.”
“So other than the head wound, no other visible signs of trauma?”
“Not that they could see, Arthur. We’ll have the full coroner’s report in a little while. Do we have reason to suspect anything other than an accident?”
It took Gordon a moment to reply.
“We don’t have reason to suspect anything,” he finally said. “If the coroner finds anything suspicious, we may take another look at it, but I don’t expect anything unusual to come of that autopsy. One thing I want to make clear, Edmund: under no circumstances are we involving the local police.”
“Fine. We can close the book on Mr. Jacobs, then?”
“I don’t anticipate anything out of the ordinary on our end. Do what you need to do to close it out.”
“Jacobs was a strange one,” said Arminger quickly. “Did you look the file over? It’s very incomplete. I don’t understand why this man wasn’t screened better.”
“We’ve got the same file. It is a bit . . . lacking in some regards.”
“Why exactly were we hiding this man?”
“I don’t have the specifics in front of me,” replied Gordon. “I assume there’s a reason we weren’t provided with the particulars, and I don’t have a reason to feel interested at this point.”
“I’m very interested, Arthur. I need to know about all WP’s in my jurisdiction.”
“He’s not your problem anymore,” said Gordon. “A death in Witness Security means less work, not more. Bury your curiosity with the old man and move on.”
“That’s not easy with this one.”
“But it’s smart. Don’t get preoccupied with this, Edmund. When you’re in my seat, you’ll learn more than you want to know. Close this out by the book and forget about it.”
“That’s what I intend to do, Arthur.”
“Good. Call me if you have any other questions.”
He hung up and ran his hand across his face. Of the hundreds in witness protection, something was distinctly different about this eighty-seven-year-old. Gordon frowned as he reached for the phone. He knew enough about the Jacobs file to suspect he wasn’t about to be enlightened.
CHAPTER
3
NICK AWOKE FROM dreamless sleep and squinted into the half-darkness of his bedroom. The clock indicated he had slept for nearly an hour, a solid nap but not nearly enough to make up for three nights of neglect. He let his head fall back to the pillow as a police car screamed by on the street. As it always did, the wail of the siren brought him back.
He turned his head to the framed picture on the nightstand, a three-by-five-inch portal to a previous life. He studied his expression in the photo, the smile of a twenty-three-year-old rookie cop in his department-issued black uniform, shaking hands with a proud father who had worn the badge himself for twenty years. Bill Merchant would have gladly worn that piece of metal another ten years if he hadn’t discovered his true passion.
He had read about heir finding in a PI magazine article and proceeded to build Merchant and Associates from nothing, turning his company into a tiny yet persistent thorn in the behind of General Inquiry, Hogue and McClain, and all the other big players. With his only son moonlighting from SFPD as his part-time partner, forty-seven-year-old Bill Merchant had found himself a calling. And what a wonderful calling it had turned out to be. For eight years, father and son had the time of their lives finding people and telling them all about inheritances they never knew they had.
But it had all ended quickly one night. Despite what Nick had told Emma McClure, Bill Merchant hadn’t retired at
all. That wasn’t even close to the truth.
Somehow Nick knew the drinking would have a hand in it. It didn’t matter whether it was behind the wheel, on the street, or in bed; the bottle would have its final say. As chance would have it, it happened outside a bar, a dive Bill Merchant probably shouldn’t have been in by himself. A knife was pulled, and William Merchant—cop turned PI, widower turned drunk—was dead in the gutter. A handful of witnesses to interview but ultimately no arrests. Four years had passed since that terrible moment-no arrests, no new leads. Just another unsolved homicide gathering dust in a file cabinet.
For Nick, quitting the force was really no decision at all. Merchant and Associates had been orphaned just as the son had been. He decided in his grief that if there was anything he could do to ease some of the hurt, it was preserving and maintaining this final piece of his father. Merchant and Associates would exist—would thrive—as an ongoing tribute to its founder. This was a promise he had dedicated himself to keeping.
Nick pulled himself from the bed and opened the living room blinds. He studied the joggers and dog walkers going about their business on the grassy Marina Greens. Alcatraz sat in the middle of the bay like some immense freighter at anchor. Another black-and-white cruised Marina Boulevard toward the wharves. Nick focused on a shapely brunette jogging along the gravel path by the bay. The water was gray, a tinge darker than the fog-choked sky.
He entered the bathroom and turned on the faucet. He had always considered heir finding a bizarre line of work, more suitable for Sherlock Holmes than Dirty Harry, but he had come to see that he was better suited for finding people than he was for handcuffing them. The track record seemed to prove that. A four-year tally revealed that he and Alex had solved over two hundred cases and signed over five hundred heirs in fourteen countries. And even now, even after four years of it, the entire business remained wonderfully strange to him, kind of like working for the Publishers Clearing House Sweepstakes, only instead of one winner a year he found several dozen. All that and he got paid for it too.
The Heir Hunter Page 2