Danvers had been called in when the details became suspicious. The car’s license plate numbers were stolen, and the car itself should have been on a showroom floor. The dealership, when someone finally answered the emergency number, had not been aware that the car was missing. That meant that either the dealership was complicit, or the car had been stolen within the past few hours, begging the question of whether it had been stolen specifically to run over Brett.
Neither Land nor I had talked to Danvers since we’d returned home, but he was not in the mood to wish us well at this point. “You certainly didn’t wait long to get involved with a murder. Were you disappointed that no one bumped off a few flight attendants on your honeymoon?”
I left the phone, since I was already feeling that natural antagonism toward Danvers. Land answered a few questions and hung up, saying that we would see him in a few minutes.
I rolled my eyes. “Really? He’s coming over now?”
Land nodded. “Yeah, he said he’d be here as soon as the tech team arrived. What he thinks we know, I haven’t the slightest idea.”
I shrugged. “I’ll put on some coffee. I’m going to need it if he’s going to be here asking questions.”
Danvers arrived within seconds of me pouring my first cup of coffee. He somehow avoided the security door and knocked on our apartment door. Since murder had hardly waited for us to get home, Land checked through the peephole before opening the door.
Danvers looked more rumpled than usual, and I doubted that it was this case which had caused his sartorial downfall. His shirt, which was normally pressed into submission, had two ironed-in wrinkles on the right front shoulder. One of the belt loops on his pants had been bypassed by the belt this morning. Normally, he would have ridiculed someone so unkempt. I wondered what was going on that had caused the change in his appearance.
Not to say that he still wasn’t a good-looking man. He was, and he knew it—too well.
“So why did you call Brett tonight? Are you two good friends?” he asked, looking at me. While we’d had our skirmishes over the years, he had never seriously suspected me of killing anyone. I knew that this was his exasperation showing through, more than his true suspicions.
“We went to college together. I don’t exactly remember him, but he looked familiar. He was probably friends with some of my friends.”
“And out of the blue you decided to call him tonight to chat? A friend of a friend?” His tone sounded skeptical, and I knew my answer sounded weak. I looked to Land, who nodded.
“Brett made us an offer today to buy the food trucks and the business. He came to my truck, approached me, and made me a very generous offer to acquire the entire operation.”
“How generous?” Danvers asked.
Technically, he was just being nosy, but I wasn’t in the mood to argue with him about the bounds of his questions. We’d already made up our minds to decline the offer, so the amount was not that important.
“One and a half million,” I said plainly.
He let out a long, low whistle. “No wonder you married her,” he said to Land.
I started to say something, but Land put his hand on my arm. “I would have married her if she only had a dollar in her pocket. You know that.” Land’s tone told Danvers that he’d crossed a line.
Danvers chuckled. “So you decided to sell and he backed out? I can’t imagine you with all the time in the world to investigate my cases.”
“We decided not to sell and were calling him to tell him that,” I answered.
“Which I only have your word for,” Danvers shot back.
“You really think we’d sell without having a lawyer look over it? There’s no way that the deal could have been investigated in six hours.” While I had no proof to offer the police that we had declined the offer, I could make a good circumstantial case against it. While Danvers didn’t appreciate my sleuthing skills, he knew that I was a good businessperson, who didn’t jump before investigating a deal carefully.
He took a deep breath. “Okay, so you called to tell him that you weren’t interested. Did he mention anything about other companies or other people who might have had a motive to run him over tonight?”
I shook my head. “Not at all. We kept our conversation pretty much all business and then he left. You can ask Sabine if you want. She watched us the entire time that he was talking to me.”
He snorted. “I think I’ll pass on that. I wouldn’t get a proper answer out of her anyway.”
“So what did you find tonight?”
His shoulders slumped a little, which I hoped meant that he had resigned himself to sharing information.
“Not much. He had his wallet on him. No money in it, but he did have a credit card. It’s hard to believe that someone would run anyone over for some cash, so robbery is unlikely. It’s possible that a joyrider hit him by accident, but the stolen plates and all make it hard for me to think that this was a teenager. They ran over him twice, which seems pretty damned premeditated, which is why I was called in. Still, running over someone feels like a very personal crime. It’s still early days, but you calling that phone spooked the hell out of me. I wanted to know what was going on here.”
For Danvers, that was practically a speech. He normally just told me to keep my nose out of open police investigations and left. I wondered if this was the start of a more amicable phase of our relationship, or if he was just tired. Given his attire, I suspected the latter.
After that speech, Danvers left in seconds, and Land looked at me. “He’s up for sergeant, which is why he’s being like this.”
I smiled. “I kind of like him this way. He’s easier to get along with.”
Land’s eyes closed partially. “Don’t mistake his behavior for anything other than what it is. He wants this promotion bad. If he thinks that we can help him, he’ll use us. If we get in his way, we’ll be in big trouble.”
I knew that from other cases. Land had always warned me that Danvers was not to be trusted, and this was another example. “Well, he won’t get promotions looking like that. Did you see his belt?”
Land laughed. “I doubt very much that good grooming is one of the criteria for the promotion. I’ve seen some of those guys before. Danvers looks ten times better than they do.”
***
The next morning came very early for me. I stayed up talking to Land about the case, the sale of the trucks, and his desire to get rolling on the new truck. He asked me about college, which seemed like a lifetime ago. So I hadn’t slept much, or well. Too many thoughts about the case and sale of the business for my mind to stop racing.
Land got up with me, made me coffee, and found my phone for me before I was able to get out of the door. Back in college, I’d been able to stay up all night studying and still function the next day. Those days were apparently long gone.
I made it into work. Sabine texted that she had brought the food truck to Elm Street, so I was able to just stop at a parking garage and walk.
I opened the door and walked in before she said, “What happened to you?” Her make-up was done and she was wearing a very fetching outfit for her work at a food truck. I wondered what was up.
I explained what had happened last night with Brett and the phone call. To her credit, Sabine no longer made faces and mocked Danvers when I mentioned his name. I knew she still was unhappy with the outcome of that relationship. I doubted that someone with Sabine’s figure and features had ever been dumped before, and the mere thought that Danvers had done so still grated on her.
“So what about this mythical sale of the business? Are you still keeping it even if people are dying for it?”
I didn’t answer for a minute. To be completely honest, I’d never thought that Brett’s death could suggest a potential threat to me. It seemed like an awkward warning to kill the messenger to threaten the potential seller. The move would mean that I had no one to contact or communicate with. So how could I tell them if I’d had a change of heart?
>
While my mind was wandering, Sabine filled up an extra-large cup with coffee and handed it to me. “You’re going to need this,” she said, and I had to agree.
The morning went quickly, serving coffee to the other people in the world who needed it as badly as I did. At 10:00 a.m., I decided to take a quick break. The coffee crew had settled down, and Sabine was quickly preparing the condiments for lunch. I had a few minutes of peace, and I opted to call the other numbers Brett Connors had given me.
The first number on the card had put us in touch with Danvers last night, so there was no reason to call it again. The police had that phone. The second number went straight to voicemail, which wasn’t surprising, except for the fact that there was no greeting. Just the voice announcing the number and the beep. I didn’t leave a message, unsure of what to say. The card had not marked it has a home, work, or personal line, and I wanted to make sure the message was appropriate.
I went to the third number on the card. This one went to an answering service. A female operator picked up, and I asked to leave a number for Brett. She said that his bill had not been paid for the month, and that as a result, his account was no longer active. She seemed annoyed; I was surprised at her forthrightness. It certainly would not make callers want to pay Brett enough to get the service turned back on.
“Isn’t this paid for by Wright, Fey, & Co.?” I asked, reading the name of his company off the business card.
“Who?” the woman asked.
I took that as an admission that she’d never heard of this company before and that they didn’t have an account with the service. So I now had three numbers: one was verifiably false, another suspicious, and the phone now in police custody.
I had a bad feeling about this. Brett was apparently not what he had seemed. At no point during his presentation had I suspected that he was pulling a scam on me. He’d mentioned people we knew in common, had a professional-looking pitch, and played the part. I was uncertain why I’d been selected for a scam, but of course, I was going to get to the bottom of this.
I didn’t talk to Sabine about the situation. She would encourage immediate action, and I wasn’t sure that was required yet. The phone numbers had been easy to check out, but I wanted to first see if the rest of the card was as phony as the rest. That would take me more time, especially when it came to the email addresses, the firm, and the proposal Brett had put together.
I could look up some of my old college friends for help, but that would come after I was certain that Brett had actually been pulling a scam of some kind. He’d only been in the very early stages of some sort of caper , but perhaps he’d been farther along with someone else—or had even taken the money from some other unsuspecting business owner. I also wanted to know what he planned on doing with the food trucks if he had managed to swindle me out of them. Had he worked for a competitor or someone who wanted very lower barriers for entering the market?
These thoughts kept me going until Land arrived shortly before 2:00 p.m. He made a hand motion to me from across the square that let me know he’d be visiting. I served a few more coffees and hot dogs while I waited for him.
Unfortunately, there was no privacy when he arrived, and we had to settle for a hug instead of the kisses I received at Basque in the Sun. Sabine still made a rude noise about our interaction.
“So how are you doing?” he asked me, looking into my eyes. He appeared much more well-rested than me, but of course, I had had several fewer hours of sleep.
“Tired, but that’s to be expected,” I replied honestly. “I’ve had a little time to start investigating.”
“I thought we decided that you were going to stay out of this?” Land asked. I could feel his muscles tense up, still holding me in his arms.
“I didn’t go detecting,” I told him, again being honest. “I just called his company to tell them that we weren’t interested in the sale.”
“What did they say?” Land asked, keeping his eyes on me like a lie-detector test.
“Nothing. The firm doesn’t exist, and the other phone went to a very generic voicemail.” I explained my calls and the short talk with the answering service. “I’m not going to get in the way of any bullets, but I can look up information on this business—if it exists—and talk to a few of my college friends to see if they can figure out what he was up to.”
Land’s mouth turned into a crooked smile. “That doesn’t sound too bad. Just be safe. I want to keep you around for our one-month anniversary. I have plans for us.”
Sabine made another noise, and Land immediately stopped with the romantic talk, though I was already curious what he’d planned for two weeks from now.
“I better go and start getting ready,” Land said, shooting his sister a glance that spoke of a quick, yet painful death.
Sabine waited until he was gone to speak. “Mind if I come over and help tonight?”
I looked at her suspiciously. Sabine usually only wanted to participate in an investigation if she could wear some new outfit or if there was a good chance she’d show up Jax Danvers during the course of the investigation. Neither one of those applied here, so I wasn’t sure what she had in mind.
Even so, I readily agreed. The early evenings could be rather boring since Land wouldn’t be home until after his shift was completed. The differing schedules meant that I had some enforced downtime that I didn’t particularly care for. The company would be welcome.
We set a time, and Sabine offered to bring over some food. I had a strong suspicion that she was going to swipe some of whatever Land’s entrée was for the day, but I was fine with eating from the food trucks.
***
When I opened the door that evening, Sabine was there with two entrees and a soup from Basque in the Sun. I felt vindicated that I had been right about this evening’s fare.
We ate peacefully, chatting about the honeymoon, her family, and the plans for the new truck. Before we left, Sabine had offered to try to find us a suitable worker for the new food truck but she told me that she’d found no one ready and able to take on the job. Her efforts were a little depressing for me, thinking about how I was going to find the perfect person for the new truck.
Either I would have to work with the new person on the truck for an indefinite period, or leave that person on their own with my investment. I would be fine with the solo act, if it was either someone I knew or someone with a strong background in food prep and service. Otherwise it would prove to be a very long few months of double duty.
Sabine told me that she’d keep trying, and I nodded, realizing that this was yet another task I’d have to end up getting involved with.
“So what are we going to do tonight?” she said, plopping down on the sofa next to me.
I explained that I was going to try to track down the company and the email addresses to see if they were faked as well. She nodded as I went down the list of things I was planning to do.
“What’s the name of his firm?” she asked. “I can Google that for you.”
I told her, “Wright, Fey, & Co.”
She snickered. “No, seriously.”
I looked at her. “You’ve heard of this firm before?” I was shocked that Sabine knew about acquisition firms in Capital City. Maybe she’d taken a business class on mergers and acquisitions during her college years, though a class on murders and acquisitions might have been more beneficial.
“Yeah. It’s obscure, but yeah.”
“What do you think of them?” I asked. “Can they be trusted?”
Sabine had a broad grin on her face now. “I wouldn’t trust them at all. They’re fictitious.”
I groaned. “Seriously.” I should have considered that option after the experience with the answering service. The firm could be as fake as the rest of his business card.
She laughed. “I went out with this guy who was a major gamer. You know, played video games all the time. Mama loved that.” She rolled her eyes at that comment. “Anyway, Andy, that was his n
ame, played them constantly. He was in love with this one game. I’m blanking on the name, but you can Google it. It had a law firm, called Fey and Company, which later became Wright and Company. It can’t be a coincidence that the fake man has the name of a fake business as his employer. No way.”
I had to agree. Once I took in the fact that Brett had lied about the phone service, it was only a small leap to know that the corporation had been phony as well. I still couldn’t figure out his purpose in approaching me when a due diligence would have shown his true nature in a matter of days. Any routine search would have turned up the fact that the purchasing company didn’t exist outside of a video game.
Now I wanted to know what else was fake. Obviously the email address that was linked to wrightfeyco.com was going to be bogus, but the second one was a Gmail account with the account as brettconnors. That seemed like it might be legit.
I started searching for the email wherever I could, but came up with nothing. Brett hadn’t used it to link to any social media. It didn’t appear on any webpage, but I would have been surprised to learn that he had. I was coming up with nothing at all with this search. It was as if he had never existed.
Sabine brought up a mention of the video game’s law firm on Wikipedia and read the entry aloud to me. Even though the evidence pointed to an all-out fraud, I still had yet to determine what motivation Brett had for doing something like this. The fraud would have been discovered early, and even if it hadn’t, I had no doubts that Brett couldn’t have come up with the kind of cash he’d offered. So the transaction would have failed. Why start something that would so quickly end?
, I decided to go through the entire packet that Brett had given me. Just like I had learned that one of the email addresses was likely correct, I planned on finding the irrefutable facts in that packet and starting there to learn what Brett had been doing and what he planned to gain from it.
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