A Shared Confidence

by William Topek

  “Good morning, sir. May I be of assistance? I’m Nathan Caine, Vice President in charge of Small Business Loans.”

  “Then you’re just the man I’m looking for,” I smiled, sticking out my hand. “Kelly Shaw from Denver. Looking to maybe do some business with you fellows.”

  Nathan and I had worked it out last night on the porch. I would present myself at the bank as a potential customer, a business man seeking a loan for a new venture. Better if whoever was behind the missing money didn’t find out that Nathan had called in a family member, let alone a detective. Under the guise of a new client, however, I could spend time in Nathan’s office and ask all kinds of questions without raising suspicion. And no one seeing us together would figure we were brothers.

  “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mr. Shaw. Would you care to step into my office? This way if you please.” Nathan ushered me to a glassed-in enclosure next to several others that made up the far wall. We passed a portly, gray-haired man and I caught his stuck-out lower lip and jowly nod of approval. Wasn’t that just like Caine? Stepping right out onto the floor to draw in the new business. They’d promoted the right man, all right!

  Nathan’s office was exactly what I would have imagined. Clean, neat, and orderly to a degree that bordered on unhealthy obsession. There was one potted plant on top of the filing cabinet (not a single, stray brown leaf in the dirt), a picture of Nathan, Marie, and the children in a silver frame on the bookcase, and a desk that was cleared for business – just a telephone, intercom, a few folders, and three pencils so sharp you could play a game of darts with them. It was all right angles and symmetry everywhere you looked.

  We sat down, both of us aware how visible we were through the glass. Nathan planted his elbows on the desk and steepled his fingers while I leaned back in my chair and brushed at the brim of the hat in my lap. Just two men talking business. I went first, my relaxed posture and easy smile not really matching my words. Nathan sifted through the folders on his desk, nodding occasionally. He already had the three documents ready for a look-see. He slid one of the open folders across the desk to me. I stroked my lower lip casually, making a note of the bogus company names and addresses.

  “Nathan, do me a favor,” I said quietly. “Act like you’re making notes on that pad. What I really need you to do is to write your own signature at least three times.”

  Nathan wrote his signature four times, because “at least” would have meant being satisfied with the bare minimum. He tore off the top sheet and handed it to me. I looked at it, scratching my jaw absently as though we were hashing out how much I might want to borrow over how long a time. Reaching out to the open folder with the three bogus loan documents, I rotated the whole thing until I was looking at it upside down, then placed the sheet bearing Nathan’s four signatures on the desk the same way. For a minute or two, my eyes went back and forth between the loan documents and the sheet.

  “Pretty good job of forgery, isn’t it?” Nathan asked bitterly.

  “I’m afraid it’s a little worse than that, Nathan,” I told him straight out. “Those aren’t forgeries, those are your actual signatures.”

  Chapter Six: Lunch With a Client

  Nathan sat in stunned silence for a few seconds.

  “Dev, I give you my word, I never signed any of those documents. Until last Friday, I’d never even seen them before.”

  “Nathan,” I held up one hand, “you don’t need to convince me, I’m on your side. But I’ve examined enough documents in my time, both genuine and forged, that I can pretty much tell one from the other.” I had him look at the bogus loan documents and the sheet he’d just autographed, turning them upside down for him the way I’d been looking at them. I pointed out the neat, angular slant of the writing, the slight upward lift of the “T” in Nathan, the convex tip at the top of the “C” in Caine. It was all too perfect a match, even down to the writing instrument used.

  “I’m not a bona fide expert,” I admitted. “My opinion wouldn’t hold up in a court of law. But I’m telling you a real expert’s would, and he’d say the same thing I just said.”

  “But how…” he began, trying to piece it together.

  “Because you’re partly right,” I explained. “These aren’t the documents you signed, not in their original form anyway. They’ve been altered, presumably after your John Hancock was affixed. You see the faint discoloration around the company’s name? The name that was there when you signed it has been very carefully removed with bleach or acetone or some such – and we’re talking a professional job here. Then a new name was typed in its place. Notice how ‘Incorporated’ is spelled out for this company, but this other one just reads ‘Inc.’? The original name was longer on the first document. After it was removed, they had to make the new name longer to help mask the discoloration.

  “Also, the lower case ‘n’ hits the paper slightly higher everywhere it appears in the company names, but that doesn’t happen anywhere else on the documents. The replacement names were added using a different typewriter.”

  “My signature,” Nathan said to himself. “My own signature on multiple, fraudulent loans that have already gone out the door.” His eyes started to glaze over as he stared off into a future of ruin and disgrace.

  “Nathan!” I hissed it out in a sharp whisper to get his attention. His eyes snapped back into focus and I continued a bit softer. “This is the beginning, not the end. There’s a lot more we have to find out and fast. You’ve got to keep your head clear if you don’t want those nasty daydreams coming true.” That did the trick. Suggesting to my brother that he was losing control – that he was daydreaming of all things – was like telling Max Baer he hit like a girl. In both cases, you’d be proven wrong in a hurry. Nathan sat up straighter in his chair, shoulders square and blue eyes level, an officer of one of the oldest and most respected banks in Baltimore.

  “First thing,” I said, “how many men do you have working for you? I mean reporting directly to you and no one else?”

  “Three.”

  “They all here today?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. I want to meet them. One at a time if possible. Bring them into your office on some pretext or another. Introduce me as a prospective new loan customer or don’t introduce me at all, however you’d normally handle it. Can do?”

  “Certainly.” He reached for the wooden intercom box on the desk.

  Nathan took me to lunch at some swanky restaurant on the harbor. They knew him here, and we got a good table out in the open air by the water. We sipped freshly brewed iced tea and waited for our food, and I thought about the three loan officers I’d met back at the bank. There was Myers, twenty-eight, weak chin and shifty eyes, which meant nothing. Soames, fiftyish, straight-backed and stiff, which told me nothing. And Weidermann, thirties, portly and jovial, and a little too eager to please, which proved nothing.

  “So,” Nathan spoke up, “has anything struck you so far? I mean, have you spotted any kind of, well, cue to any of this?” I killed a smile with a sip of my tea. Nathan wouldn’t be one of those who thought detectives were slouch-hat-wearing hoods, firing down a dark alley with an automatic in each fist. No, Nathan’s idea of a detective would be more like Sherlock Holmes. The dissecting mind that misses nothing. The penetrating intellect that weaves a delicate pattern out of seemingly discordant facts. The skilled orator who could clearly outline the most convoluted criminal plot like a college science professor. Hate to disappoint you, Nathan, I thought, but that version isn’t any more accurate than the brick-shouldered dick who can beat confessions out of armies of prizefighters and gun down entire gangs.

  “Well, like I told you back at the bank, someone altered those three documents after you signed them, or had it done. Likely the latter, because that’s as professional a job of altering as I’ve ever seen.” I thought for a moment. “You said you remembered extra paperwork from legitimate loans that’s gone missing. But the legitimate loans all balance pe
rfectly. My guess is at least some of those three documents were originally tacked onto real loans. After they were altered, any extra paperwork linking them to real loans was destroyed.”

  Nathan nodded in agreement. “I’ve been thinking the same thing. It’s not uncommon for multiple loans to be made to the same company, broken out for different functions like acquiring equipment or leasing office space or payroll. Some clients prefer it that way; it helps them keep their books more easily.”

  “So you’d have thought nothing of signing more than one loan for the same people?”

  “No, not so long as everything was in order.”

  “And none of your customers have complained of being shorted on their loans?” I asked.

  “No,” Nathan said, letting out a short breath. “I’ve been waiting for that to happen. Hoping it wouldn’t, of course, but almost wishing it might. It would give me a place to start.”

  The waiter brought our lunch, fish caught fresh that morning with roasted potatoes and steamed vegetables. I tucked in and nagged Nathan to do the same. Marie was right, he hadn’t been eating enough lately. I gave us each several bites before starting up again.

  “Tell me about these three men of yours I met this morning.” Nathan shrugged and filled me in on the general details of Mssrs. Myers, Soames, and Wiedermann. How long they’d been at the bank, what he knew of their work, what little he knew of their personal habits. I listened, ready to file away anything that might be useful later. Of course, it’s rarely possible to know in advance what might be useful later, which means you end up trying to pay attention to everything and probably wind up with nothing. I pushed my irritation away and forced myself to relax. If meaningful patterns were there, they’d show themselves. Just sit back and watch for any spikes in the graph.

  Soames was the oldest, the most reliable, and the least imaginative. A creature of habit who could be counted on to show up and leave at the same time each day, and approach any task the same way each time. Myers was the youngest. He had the most to learn but seemed eager to soak up everything he could. He was a little hasty in his work at times. Just a few weeks back he’d spilled coffee on an important paper that had to be redone. Nathan had taken him sternly to task for such carelessness.

  “What is it, Dev?”

  “Nothing. Keep going.”

  Wiedermann was somewhere between Soames and Myers, not just in age but in temperament and in his approach to his duties. He was meticulous with the details, but he struck Nathan as overly ambitious and just a touch reckless. He spent a lot of time outside the bank ferreting out potential loans, and some of the proposals he brought back made Nathan question the soundness of Wiedermann’s judgment.

  “You think it’s one of my own men?” Nathan asked seriously.

  “Don’t you? You said yourself it has to be someone very familiar with how your department does things. How you do things.” I knew that had to be the case for someone to get something this big past my brother.

  “But which one, Dev?”

  “It could be more than one. Could be all three. You’ve worked with them awhile. What do your instincts tell you?”

  “I don’t operate on instinct,” he said, his tone slightly superior. “I rather thought that was more your area.”

  “Sometimes,” I admitted. “After I get hold of a lot of good, solid facts first.”

  Nathan chewed sullenly on a mouthful of halibut while I thought over what he’d just told me.

  “Nathan, if you had to pick one of those three right this second–”

  “But I don’t.” He put down his fork and stared at me. “And I have no intention of condemning a man based on some parlor game.”

  Well, he was right. It’s an old cop’s trick and once in a great while it works, but mostly you just learn who doesn’t like whom.

  “I just don’t like taking shortcuts,” Nathan said. “I never have.”

  “I know. But you are trying to figure out which one it might be?”

  “Yes, and not getting very far. One minute I can’t believe it could be any of them. The next, I think it’s all of them.”

  “It could be all of them,” I reminded him. “And whoever it was, it’s a safe bet he or they had at least one partner on the outside.”

  Nathan looked up in alarm, probably worried over who many people know about this.

  “You really think so?”

  I shrugged. “Unless one of your men is an expert forger, he had to hire a pro. Someone also had to be able to open up accounts at those three banks where the checks went, and be ready to grab the cash and close those accounts once the checks cleared. That’s a lot of legwork for one man who has to show up at a steady job every day.”

  “All of my men are senior officers at the bank,” Nathan pointed out. “They come and go freely to take care of various business.”

  “Yeah, it’d be easy enough for one of them to take care of setting up and closing the accounts. But a second one would make the job of distracting you a hell of a lot easier. I make it two men on the inside and one forger for hire – that would be the minimum crew necessary to pull this off. What we need to figure out now is why. Why was the money taken?”

  Nathan looked at me as though I were a shade on the slow side.

  “Because somebody wanted it. Isn’t that obvious?”

  “Obvious but not specific enough. Wanted it for what? Was this done for the express purpose of setting you up? Maybe somebody got jealous over the promotion you got that he didn’t. Or it could have been revenge for some past slight. Even an imagined one,” I added quickly, seeing the look on his face.

  “Soames was up for that promotion, too,” Nathan said. “He’s older than I am. He’s certainly been at the bank longer.” I wasn’t surprised that jealousy over his new promotion was the first explanation to occur to Nathan. I let it pass.

  “If the money itself was the objective,” I continued, “consider this: Is $140,000 really that much?”

  I was expecting the hard look I got. Questioning the value of any amount of money was sure to get Nathan bristling. He was broadminded enough to allow that transubstantiation, the metamorphosis of dry crackers into the flesh of Christ, might be more symbolic than actual fact. But the value of money?

  “It’s more than I’ll earn in the next twenty years,” he answered icily.

  “And does your average embezzler dream of living like an upper middle class banker for the rest of his life?”

  “I’m sure I don’t know what that sort of person dreams about,” Nathan answered, a strong note of distaste in his voice.

  I reached for a cigarette while we waited for the coffee, telling Nathan: “Embezzling, in my experience, generally takes one of two tracks. Either a person does it slowly, carefully, taking small amounts over half a lifetime, or he goes for one big score that can set him up in style for the rest of his days. Obviously whoever did this went for the big score, but he didn’t take enough to really live it up big for another twenty or thirty years. Certainly not if he has a partner or two to take care of.”

  “Not every place in the world is expensive,” Nathan countered. “You could live very well in South America on $140,000, and for a very long time.”

  “That’s a good point, Nathan,” I admitted, trying not to sound condescending (at least one of us tries, I thought). “You could live very well, yes, but not like a sultan. These types dream of mansions, fancy cars, high society and all that.”

  “Maybe they’re planning to take more.”

  “Doubtful. Not from your bank, anyway. They have to know you’re not stupid, that you’ll find out soon enough if you haven’t already.”

  Nathan leaned back in his chair and let out an exasperated sigh.

  “Okay, so they didn’t take enough and they’re not taking more. What does that tell us?”

  I paused for a moment while the waiter poured the coffee. Nathan added a splash of cream to his but no sugar.

  “That tells us the mon
ey is part of another plan. They went after a set amount for a set purpose. The timing could be important, too. It usually is.”

  Nathan stared at me and shook his head slowly.

  “I’ve been turning this over in my mind every waking moment since last Friday,” he said. “Why has none of this occurred to me?” Sometimes the man’s arrogance still catches me off guard.

  “I’m a detective, Nathan. My job is looking for things that don’t fit. And more often than not, trying to figure out what crooked thing somebody did that caused them not to fit. I’m an expert at this. I was trained by experts.”

  “Of course. I didn’t mean to imply–”

  “Skip it.”

  We hashed it over awhile longer. Why hadn’t the embezzlers cut and run with the money? What were they hanging around for? Were they playing it cool, not wanting to give themselves away? Were they sure the frame around Nathan was good and snug, that he’d take the fall and they wouldn’t even have to give up their day jobs? Could this be a real loan, albeit an illegal one? Maybe it was working capital for some hot deal, and the guilty parties planned on putting the money back before anyone was the wiser.

  “Does that ever happen?” Nathan asked, and the hope in his eyes kind of hurt to look at.

  “Pretty much anything you can imagine happens, Nathan, and every day. But I wouldn’t count on it.”

  “Dev, if a handwriting expert can attest that those are my actual signatures on the documents, can’t a document expert of some kind give testimony that the documents have been altered?”