The Fraud

by Brad Parks

  Because now I had a chance to prove what a sympathetic fellow I was. There was a small mailbox bolted next to her door. I removed a business card from my wallet and turned to a clean sheet from my notepad. I wrote:

  Ms. Okeke,

  I’m terribly sorry to have woken you. I was unaware of your work schedule. That must be difficult.

  I would still like to speak with you about Joseph and, in particular, any trouble you might be having with your insurance company. Please understand I mean you and your family no ill will. My interest as a reporter is only to write the truth.

  I would be happy to talk at whatever time is convenient for you. Please call me or e-mail me to set up a time.

  Sincerely,

  Carter Ross

  Satisfied, I tore off the sheet, wrapped it around the business card, and placed both in her mailbox. I let the lid down slowly, so as not to make any undue noise.

  Dr. Duckworth would, I hoped, be proud.

  * * *

  I was just turning to walk back down her front steps when my phone rang. It was Chillax. I answered it as quickly as I could so the noise didn’t disturb Mrs. Okeke.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “Hey, brah, what’s up?”

  “Just making friends and influencing people.”

  I was reasonably certain the Dale Carnegie reference was lost on him. But he replied with, “Tchya, beast.”

  Beast, in this instance, was like boss. Only better. I think.

  “What’s happening with you?” I asked. I was now back in my car.

  “That MILF editor said I’m supposed to work with you again today,” he said. By “that MILF editor” I assumed he meant Tina. MILF is an acronym I could not spell out around my mother without blushing.

  “Great,” I said. “How are we feeling about the Kevin Tiemeyer side of this story? Do we have enough stuff in our notebook to begin writing?”

  There was quiet on the other end of the line. Its volume built all the way to silence.

  I decided to be helpful. “Okay, so writing a story is sort of like … taking a shot in a lacrosse game. Now, you can take a shot almost any time you have the ball, of course. But if you’re too far away or if you don’t have the right angle of attack, the chances are pretty slim it’s going to go in. You follow me so far?”

  “Yeah, like there was this time against American—”

  “Don’t interrupt me, son, I’m building a metaphor here,” I said. “Now, as I was saying, you want to take the shot when the time is right. But you also don’t want to wait too long, because the defense will come along and knock the ball away. The defense, in this case, is the other media. You can’t give them the chance to catch up with you and take your angle away. There’s always a balancing act, right? So, first things first, let’s see what our shot would look like if we took it right now. If you had to write Kevin Tiemeyer, what would your lede be?”

  “Uh, that he was, you know, carjacked and … we got that, you know, that family statement from yesterday.”

  “And what did the family statement say?”

  “That they’re really bummed because Kevin was a good dude and that they’re asking the media to give them privacy during this difficult time. I have it written out, but that’s the main idea.”

  “I see, and let me ask you: who else got that family statement?”

  “Uh, well, everyone. Why?”

  “Because that means it’s been on every television station, radio station, and Web site in the known universe by now. So it’s sort of already played out, you know? It’s like if you tried a trick play in the second period and it didn’t work. You can’t try it again in the third.”

  “I feel ya, brah.”

  “I’m … so glad,” I said. “Anyhow, I was back at Fanwood Country Club last night, chatting up some of the members. You had mentioned the neighbors said he was mowing his own lawn and had stopped going out to dinner all the time. The word from the country club is that he suspended his membership for a few months. He was clearly going through some kind of life change. Let’s try to figure out what it is. I think when we do, we’ll be ready to take our shot.”

  “All right,” he said.

  “And now you want to know how to do that.”

  “Tchya.”

  I thought about the key participants in Kevin Tiemeyer’s life. Family was out: everyone with a logo-covered microphone in the New York area was trying to get Tiemeyer family members right now, and they had gone into duck-and-cover mode. I had mined the country club as well as it could be mined. The neighborhood was already picked over as well. That left his job, which sounded like it was where he spent most of his time anyway.

  “Everyone is calling him a banking executive,” I said. “Where did he work again?”

  “USKB.”

  “Oh, right. I knew that.” United States Kinship Bank was either the third- or fourth-largest bank in America—it was always hard to keep track, what with all the mergers and acquisitions in that industry. When it opted to relocate some of its sprawling operations to Park Place in Newark a few years back, it was a big win for the city.

  “You want me to go over there and ask some questions?”

  “Yeah, but here’s how you’re going to do it. Don’t go inside. If you do, they’ll push you to some flak who will give you a canned statement about what a tragedy this is for the entire United States Kinship Bank family but how they won’t let it deter them from first-rate customer service in Kevin’s memory. We need that like we need a five-minute major.”

  I was proud of myself for my lacrosse knowledge, which I thought had already been exhausted.

  “Stay outside,” I continued. “I feel like every time I go by that building I always see people smoking outside. Smokers make for great targets. Most of them are pretty social and for five minutes or so, they’re going to have nothing to do besides talk to you. One of those smokers had to know Tiemeyer. Just play it cool and chat them up and see what shakes out.”

  “Got it,” he said. “Dude, I’m gonna crush this.”

  “Yeah, it’ll be just like that time against Dickinson,” I said.

  “Brah, you were at that game?”

  “As far as you know,” I said. Then I ended the call, turned the Volvo’s ignition key, and started driving toward Fanwood.

  CHAPTER 23

  The white man in the tie was back. Only this time, he was not driving his lousy old Malibu. He was driving a new-looking Volvo station wagon.

  Scarface Sammy sat up when he saw the man. It was so interesting, after weeks of nothing noteworthy at the Okeke house, to see this man a second day in a row. Sammy knew that setting up on Tujuka Okeke’s house would eventually give him something to chase. Maybe this white man was that something.

  Then Sammy remembered how easily this man had spotted him the day before, and he hunched back down. Sammy knew his scars made him recognizable. He stayed low and observed.

  Malibu man—or maybe he should call him Volvo man now—was walking in the same proud manner, like he was someone important, like he feared nothing but also like nothing feared him. That made him even more interesting to Sammy. It was a demeanor he didn’t see very often.

  But who was this man, exactly? And why did he keep coming to see Tujuka Okeke? And what was his role?

  Tujuka and Volvo man once again had a very brief interaction. They spoke a few words to each other. Then Tujuka slammed the door. Like she was angry.

  But that could have just been an act. Had she spotted Sammy, too? Did she realize she was being watched? Did she know she had to keep their interactions short, as if she was keeping up a guise he was merely an unwanted door-to-door salesman?

  He watched as Volvo man went into his wallet (for cash, perhaps?), wrote her a note (a receipt, maybe?), then walked back down the steps toward his Volvo.

  It left Sammy with a dilemma: try to sneak up on the front porch and see what was in the mailbox? Or follow Volvo man and figure out who he was?

/>   In the end, Sammy thought that reading the note was too risky. There was too great a chance Tujuka would see him, possibly even call the police on him. That would be, to say the least, disadvantageous to Sammy.

  Volvo man was taking a phone call. He would be distracted. That made him feel like an easier target. Sammy would just have to be more careful about how he performed his surveillance this time.

  Sammy watched as Malibu man continued his phone conversation in the car. Then he ended the call, started the Volvo, and drove away.

  Ordinarily, Sammy would have just pulled out after him, operating under his usual theory that most people are too oblivious to know they’re being followed. But Volvo man had proven himself to be a different animal. So Sammy waited a few seconds.

  The Volvo turned right at the end of the street. Sammy held his position until he was sure the Volvo was out of sight, then started his white Ford Fusion and gave chase.

  Sammy took a right. Two cars were between him and the Volvo. If he missed a light, he might be done for. And there were a lot of lights in that part of Newark.

  His luck held for the first four lights, but not for the fifth. But it was okay. The Volvo had stopped at the next light down. Soon, the Volvo turned right on Irvine Turner Boulevard. Sammy smiled. White people typically found Irvine Turner Boulevard for only one reason: it led to the interstate, the quickest way out of Newark.

  Now that he was reasonably certain where the Volvo was traveling, Sammy dared to ease off even farther. He was perhaps two-tenths of a mile back when he saw the Volvo, predictably, take the ramp toward I-78 West.

  Then it was the Garden State Parkway. Then it was Route 22. Just like the day before. Except this time, Route 22 did not yet have its usual lunchtime traffic snarl. Sammy made sure there were always at least two cars between him and the Volvo as they continued west.

  They were out in the ’burbs now. Sammy kept his tail going as the Volvo turned off Route 22 and headed toward … where? Sammy didn’t know, of course. He hoped they were going to either Volvo man’s home or business. Either one would have told Sammy a lot more than he currently knew.

  They were now several turns away from Route 22, traveling along a two-lane state road. They had just passed a country club, when the Volvo turned into the driveway of a suburban ranch house that had, of all things, a cactus out front.

  Was this it? Volvo man’s home? Sammy just kept driving. He had the house marked. The cactus made it easy to remember.

  But then, wait, the Volvo wasn’t stopping. As Sammy drove by, he saw the car’s backup lights were engaged. Why was it backing up, unless …

  In his rearview mirror, Sammy watched as the Volvo made a K-turn. It was heading back in the opposite direction. Sammy cursed in Yoruba. Had he been made again? How was that possible? He had been so cautious.

  He kept his eyes fixed on his rearview mirror, slowing slightly as he continued up a hill, sure the Volvo was about to disappear from his view.

  Then it didn’t. It was coming to a stop along the side of the road. The last thing Sammy saw as he crested the hill was the backup lights, but this time only a brief flash. Like the Volvo was shifting from drive into park.

  Maybe Sammy hadn’t been made after all. After he crested the hill, out of sight of the Volvo, he executed his own K-turn. Then he veered off the road, halfway down a bank that sloped down into the woods. He shut off the engine, disembarked, and ran back to the top of the hill, keeping to the fringes of the trees so he wouldn’t be spotted.

  The Volvo was in the same place. And the white man was still sitting in it. Sammy stayed in place. Five minutes. Ten minutes. Nothing happened.

  Twenty minutes. A half an hour. An hour. Sammy was a patient man. It came with his line of work. But why was nothing happening? Why was Volvo man not going anywhere?

  And then it occurred to Sammy: he was watching the white man, who was himself watching something else.

  But what? And why?

  It was time to find out. Sammy returned to his car, retrieved his Beretta from his glove compartment and tucked it into the shoulder holster under his jacket. Then he started off in the direction of the Volvo.

  CHAPTER 24

  My trip out to Fanwood was uneventful and traffic free, giving me a chance to ponder my current predicament.

  For whatever reason, I do some of my best thinking while driving. I guess it’s because the conscious mind is minimally engaged in a task, meaning it doesn’t get in the way of the subconscious, which is where all the good stuff comes from anyway.

  Or maybe that’s absurd psychobabble. I just knew there was nothing like some good windshield time to organize your thoughts. And I found myself thinking about Earl Karlinsky and what I was or was not about to see.

  If he was in the parking lot at all, that was a strong indication something was amiss. Country club general managers had no business rambling around a parking lot. If I saw him bending over cars and inspecting their wheel wells, that was a dead giveaway. It would be my equivalent of Jimmy Breslin finding the piano.

  I could then match that behavior with the other convincing evidence that Buster Hays was hopefully going to produce for me: that according to the Essex County Auto Theft Task Force, an unusually high percentage of Fanwood Country Club members and their guests had recently been victims of carjackings.

  None of it would get Karlinsky convicted in a court of law. But it would be enough for me to put a story in the paper. The authorities, who had advantages I did not—like search warrants and subpoena power—could likely handle it from there.

  That left me only with the problem of how to best spy on the parking lot. I had been out to Fanwood enough times to have a rough sense of its grounds. As I recalled, the parking lot was toward the edge of the property, with only the practice range—a large, open grassy area dotted with yellow golf balls—separating it from the road.

  The end of the practice area had a large net for catching any balls that happened to be hit by future Masters champions. Then there were a few trees, but not many. Then the road.

  I was reasonably certain I could peer through the trees, over all those golf ball dots and into the parking lot. The distance was a little over three hundred yards, give or take.

  More than likely, I’d be able to see just fine with the naked eye. If not, the camera I had used to snap a picture of Jawan Porter had a 10X zoom. I couldn’t use it to locate the moons of Jupiter, but when it came to spotting treacherous country club managers, it would work just fine.

  When I reached the brick pillars of Fanwood Country Club, I saw the layout was just as I remembered. I cruised past the entrance, turned around in the driveway of a house that, quite incongruously for this part of the country, had a cactus in the front yard. Then I eased the Volvo off to the side of the road, just beyond the aforementioned netting and strip of trees, and began my stakeout.

  My perch was elevated slightly, midway up a decent-sized hill, which helped my vision. I was glad for the trees, which kept me from feeling too obvious. The Volvo helped in that regard as well.

  Being as there was nothing immediately happening in the parking lot, I settled in and began my wait.

  As a reporter, I spent a lot of time waiting: for bad people to do bad things, for sources to talk to me, for flaks to call me back, for documents I had requested from public agencies, for editors to give me feedback on stories, whatever.

  There were times when I hoped, at the end of my life—say, age eighty-five or so—I would have all that waiting time gifted back to me. I figured that would get me to ninety, at which point I would happily accept a quick, painless death.

  Naturally, if I happen to reach that ripe age and still enjoy breathing, I reserve the right to change my mind about all this. But I don’t think I will. Ninety seems like a more than fair number of years to have used the Earth’s ever-dwindling resources. At that point, it’s someone else’s turn.

  These were the kind of cheery thoughts with which I passed the ti
me as the same lack of noteworthy events continued to unfold in the Fanwood Country Club parking lot. There was no sign of Earl Karlinsky. The only club employee I saw was Mr. Haughty in his little golf cart, buzzing up to people as they drove in and offering them a ride to the clubhouse, lest they actually get any exercise by walking.

  Sometimes, Mr. Haughty helped them with their golf bags, which they kept in their trunks. A roughly equal number of members did not require his assistance with anything. Either they stored their sticks at the club or were only coming to Fanwood for social reasons, in which case Mr. Haughty served as their chauffeur.

  I watched this routine for a while—twenty, forty minutes maybe, long enough that my thoughts started wandering even further afield, to things like the economics of fossil fuel extraction as compared to the rising price of milk. And, really, someone is going to have to explain to me how a nonrenewable resource that takes millions of years to form and is only found deep within the rocky folds of our planet costs less per gallon than the mammary gland secretions of the world’s most populous domesticated ungulate.

  And that’s when my subconscious, working on some level I didn’t understand, spoke up and told me: Mr. Haughty was part of it.

  Of course he was. He had unfettered access to the parking lot, all day, every day. He drove an endless number of laps through it while ministering to his duties. When he stopped behind members’ cars, they popped their trunks for him and he dove right in.

  Meanwhile, the drivers of those cars were still inside the car’s cabin, futzing with their sunglasses, fumbling with their phones, taking a final sip of coffee, whatever. They weren’t worried about the kid rifling through their trunk. He was just pulling out their golf clubs, after all.

  How easy would it be for Mr. Haughty to size up the car, decide it was worth a sufficient amount, and then slip a tiny tracking device of some sort into the trunk? There were no shortage of places. He probably tucked it under the mat, next to the spare tire; or, if the trunk was cluttered, he could toss it in the back, where it would stay undetected until the car could be swiped.