Courage Matters: A Ray Courage Mystery (Ray Courage Private Investigator Series Book 2)

by R. Scott Mackey

  “They really think that my dad hired you to shoot one of his employees?”

  “I think Trujillo is just looking at everything. I can see from his point of view how it could look that way.”

  Inside the Student Union we entered the faculty diner and were shown by a young hostess to a table at the back. By two o’clock the room was empty except for one table of four professors I recognized from the Philosophy Department. An empty bottle of wine sat on the table. Knowing that group, it was not their first. Nor their last. Philosophers.

  Jill and I talked more about the team’s two wins, the prospects for the weekend series against Saint Mary’s College, and the success of her recruiting efforts for the following year’s freshmen class. We both ordered tomato bisque and Caesar salads, an ice tea for me and plain water for her.

  After the waitress took our order I looked at Jill. I had to tell her now, if for no other reason than to gauge what she thought. I paused as I gathered my thoughts, the moment creating some awkwardness.

  “Did you think that I did it?”

  Jill knew what I meant and I was glad she didn’t try to hide it. That alone made me feel better. “Of course not.” Her voice was soft, tender, sincere. She reached across the table and put her hand on top of mine. “We were together over three years, Ray. I know you. I know you very well. And I knew that girl was lying the second I heard about it.”

  “You were probably the only one. But thank you. It was something that I was worried about. When it happened one of the first things I thought about was you and what you might think.”

  “You should have known better. Even though we were no longer together…” Her voice trailed off, she looked at her hand on mine as if just now realizing that it was there and then pulled it back.

  “I know it probably looked bad that I retired after I was cleared but it was tough enduring the innuendo. Students whispering in the halls when I passed by, my fellow faculty going through the motions of supporting me and not really meaning it.”

  “No smaller minds than those of career academics,” she said. I laughed because I knew it to be true.

  “It wasn’t just that, though. I lost the passion I had for teaching. I used to love coming to campus, couldn’t wait to get in front of a classroom. I always felt that it was my calling in life”

  “You were good. Very good. Teacher of the year, what, twice?”

  “Three times.”

  “How many people can say that?” she said. “I know a dozen professors who would kill to win that award once. Three times…” she said, shaking her head.

  “That’s just it,” I said. “I won those awards—and I never tried to go out to win an award—because I really cared for the students, for having them learn, for instilling in them a love for learning and intellectual exploration. But the last four, five years I somehow lost it.”

  “Maybe you just needed a sabbatical.”

  “No, I think it had just run its course. Things that never used to bother me started to grind on me. Faculty meetings, office politics, all the stupid new rules that seemed to be added every day. The sexual harassment thing and its aftermath were just enough to shove me across the line.”

  “So you took your pension and started Courage Investigations.”

  The waitress brought the bisque and salads while the busboy, eager to stay busy amidst the waning lunch crowd refilled our barely touched glasses. Jill and I started with the bisque, determined it too hot and opted for the salad.

  “Are you seeing anyone, Ray?” She did not look at me when she asked the question, her focus on spearing a crouton and piece of lettuce.

  “No, not since you.”

  We ate in silence for a while. I tried the bisque again, found the temperature tolerable, so I slid the bowl in front of me and took another spoonful.

  “I dated a couple of guys,” Jill said. “Nothing serious, really. I went out with one for a couple of months, but there was nothing there.”

  “No one could compare to your three-time teacher of year,” I said.

  “Don’t flatter yourself.”

  “It was worth the shot.”

  “How’s the bisque?” she said.

  “Good, still a little hot. It’s maybe a tad rich.”

  She tried a little of the bisque, nodded her acceptance, returned to her salad. Across the way, the philosophers ordered two more bottles of Cabernet Sauvignon.

  “What happened to us, Ray?” she said. There it was. She looked right at me.

  “I’m not entirely sure. It probably was a combination of things. My textbook deadline had me distracted. By the way, it is now out of print. The only one who ordered it for a class was me and even I couldn’t justify its $120 price tag to students.”

  “You were entitled to focus on what you needed to,” she said. “I was so absorbed in our NCAA tournament run, I remember. And I just bought the house.”

  “The house on Acacia Lane,” I said. I remember taking the final walkthrough with her when she bought the place and how nervous she’d been about whether she could afford owning a rental property. “We fought a lot. I’m not sure what about anymore. It seemed like we were just both on edge.”

  “I do remember our last one,” she said. “We fought about Pam, your wife. I said that I didn’t think you had moved on since she had died. It was an unfair thing to say.”

  “You were probably right.”

  “No, I’ve been thinking about that ever since. I’ve never been married, never had kids. I couldn’t really understand why you weren’t one hundred percent into me. But now I know that there was no way you could completely forget about Pam. And you shouldn’t. You were married to her for almost twenty years. She was the mother of your daughter. I bet every time you look at Sara you see Pam. I was stupid to think otherwise.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that. I really wanted a beer. Or two. Maybe at heart I was a philosopher. I had the drinking part down. Just not the philosophy part.

  “Sara surprised me and cooked me dinner last night,” I said. I didn’t want to mention that dinner had been for my birthday, doubting that Jill remembered.

  “How is she?”

  “She’s doing great. Finishing up her first year of law school in June. She’s got summer job offers in LA and San Francisco.”

  “That’s terrific. Such a great girl. You must be very proud.”

  “I am. She asked about you.”

  “Oh, really? What did she say?”

  “She said that when we were together it looked liked we loved each other.”

  That made Jill smile. The waitress appeared and asked if we were done eating. When she started to leave, Jill caught her attention.

  “Please bring me the tab,” Jill said to her.

  “That’s OK, Jill. We’ll split it.”

  “No, Ray, it’s my treat. Happy birthday. I’m sorry it’s a day late.”

  twenty

  “Are you sure this is a good idea?” Rubia said. We were standing at the backdoor of Andrew Norris’s garage at five in the afternoon.

  “You’re the damn lock picking expert,” I said. “We’ll be in and out in no time.”

  “I’m not worried about getting in or out,” she said. “I’m worried about our butts getting busted inside the house. Norris was killed less than twenty-four hours ago in here. What if the perp is watching? Or the cops?”

  “They’re not or we would have seen them already. Now let’s do this.”

  “What about the neighbors?” she said.

  “No one saw us and the car is parked a block away. Everyone in this neighborhood is still at work trying to make their next million.”

  “When did you become a crime wave? I liked you better when you were a lame-assed college professor worried about verbal and non-verbal cues and shit like that.”

  “One evolves,” I said.

  She used a locksmith kit she still had back from her gangbanging days to open the back door to the garage. Once inside we
moved to the door that led inside the house. It, too, was locked so Rubia picked that as well.

  “What are we looking for?” Rubia said once we were inside. “The police probably took everything.”

  “I know, but this is our one and only shot to see if they missed something.”

  The place had been tidied up from the night before. The pots that had been boiling on the stove were gone. The back sliding door had been closed and locked, the drapes drawn. The only indication that something had happened here was a large, dark red stain next to the dining room table.

  Norris had an answering machine on the phone in the kitchen, but the digital readout showed he had no messages. Rubia and I split up and began searching room by room, she in the living room, and I in Norris’s bedroom. We wore latex gloves and paper booties to mask our presence.

  The two bed stands held nothing more interesting than a couple of books on investment strategy and a Patrick O’Brian novel. The large walk-in closet was about half-filled, Norris possessing an impressive assortment of suits, sport coats, slacks, dress shirts and neck ties, along with more casual clothes, all of which he hung with precision. I went through the pockets of almost twenty suit coats before giving up, deciding that Norris was not a pocket stuffer. The dresser held nothing but the usual socks, underwear and workout clothes. I gave up on the bedroom after ten minutes.

  “Any luck?” I called out to Rubia, who was going through the bookshelf, opening and closing books in hopes something might be tucked inside one.

  “No, and I’ve gone through everything except this last row of books.”

  “What about the family room?” I said.

  “Nothing but some car and sports magazines.”

  “That’s it? It’s the biggest room in the house.”

  “The guy was a bachelor, worked a lot probably, what’s he need beside a big screen TV, a computer and something that plays music. You want me to finish up with the books?”

  “Skip that,” I said. “Let’s do the rest of the bedrooms.”

  We started down the hallway to the bedrooms when the doorbell rang, sending my heart into overdrive. I looked back at the front door to see if we were visible from there or maybe through an open curtain at the front of the house. As far as I could tell no one could have seen us from the outside, the door solid wood from top to bottom, the shutters closed tight.

  “Shit!” Rubia said in a whisper. “Now what do we do?”

  I put a finger to my lips to signal quiet. Then I worked my way slowly to the front door, careful not to come near the window nearest the door. Holding my breath, I looked through the peephole. Standing in front of the door, in full uniform, stood a Girl Scout, behind her a wagon filled with cookie boxes. She rang the bell again. When no one answered after about a half minute she turned toward the sidewalk. When I returned and told an anxious Rubia what I saw she laughed.

  “Damn Girl Scouts are everywhere,” she said, still smiling. “Nothing but a legalized street gang. Instead of dope they push those cookies. Gonna take over the world, you watch.”

  There were two more bedrooms and two and a half baths. We went through the baths in a couple of minutes. The first bedroom had a double bed, nightstand, a dresser and a closet, none of which appeared to have been used much if at all.

  We entered the last bedroom at the end of the hall. Clearly, Norris used this as his office. In addition to a large oak desk, the room contained a couple of file cabinets, bookshelves filled with what looked like his business school textbooks, a paper shredder, and a printer sitting on a stand. A power cord and printer cable sat unconnected atop the desk, suggesting that either the murderer or the police had taken his computer. I went through the desk while Rubia looked through one of the file cabinets.

  “Nothing but personal stuff here,” she said, closing one cabinet drawer and opening the next. “Receipts, automobile records, things like that.”

  “Keep looking,” I said, continuing to look through the desk drawers, finding only run of the mill office supplies.

  “This guy is way boring,” she said. “He even has files on his magazine subscriptions.”

  “Ours is not to judge,” I said, giving up on the desk and starting in on the second file cabinet.

  The top drawer looked a bit more promising than anything we’d found thus far. I found in one folder a copy of Norris’s employment contract, which I took about a minute to study, finding nothing unusual, except to confirm that Rebecca Tampini had been correct: Andrew Norris made just over two hundred thousand dollars a year working for Stroud. Also, in the top drawer was information on his benefits package, 401(k) plan, mortgage and life insurance. One file confirmed that Norris had begun investing $5,000 a month with Ziebell just two months before. Nothing in the life insurance file jumped out, Norris’s parents were the sole beneficiaries of his modest $25,000 plan.

  Both the second and third drawers held what looked like client files organized in A-Z order by last name.

  “This might be something,” I said to Rubia. She had finished with her own file cabinet and turned her attention to my efforts.

  Among the three or four dozen files I found those for Charles Burke, Blake Rios, and Eric and Joanne Tyler. Everything in the files appeared to be a photocopy so I assumed these were duplicates of the files kept at Stroud Investments probably so Norris could work at home at his convenience.

  I leafed through Burke’s file, the contents very dry, consisting of his investment breakdowns and the returns he earned. The thick file contained records that went back several years. The top sheet of paper showed that Burke’s current holdings with Stroud Investments totaled $130 million. I did a similar scan of the Tylers’ and Rios folders, which were organized the same way. The Tylers had nearly $200 million dollars invested with Stroud, while Rios topped them both with just over $400 million. Of the three files, Rios’ was the thinnest, his relationship with Stroud commencing only six months before, just as he had told me on the putting green.

  The name on the last file in the third and bottom drawer surprised me: Ziebell, Craig. Unlike the other files, Ziebell’s did not include a listing of investments and returns. In fact, there was nothing at all with the Stroud logo or letterhead in the file.

  “Whatcha got?” Rubia said, noting my sudden interest in the file.

  “Craig Ziebell might have been a client of Stroud and Norris,” I said. “I mean this seems to be a file of clients, but nothing here shows Ziebell invested anything with them.”

  “Maybe he was looking at them to do his investing.”

  “It’s possible, but I’m looking at his credit scores,” I said, reading the top sheet of paper in the file. “His credit scores are 580, 600 and 590. Last time I bought a car I think my scores were like 700 or 800. I don’t think Ziebell had the money or credit to be someone that Stroud would be interested in as a client.”

  I turned the credit report over to look at the next document. It appeared to be a news report from ten years earlier. I started to read, my silence prompting Rubia to read over my shoulder.

  Sacramento Bee Archives

  Charges dropped against Fair Oaks broker

  By Clifton Somers

  Prosecutors have dropped all charges against a local investment broker alleged to have cheated investors of their life’s savings. The stunning reversal comes nearly a month after the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office charged Fair Oaks investment broker Craig Ziebell with fifty-seven counts of fraud, embezzlement and theft.

  “While the initial charges were correctly filed against Mr. Ziebell, we have decided to drop them because he has returned in full all monies he received from his clients,” said Assistant District Attorney Samantha Cleary.

  Mr. Ziebell, his attorney, and the alleged victims declined to comment, citing a confidentiality clause in the restitution agreement.

  As reported in the Bee last month, more than two dozen clients approached the District Attorney to claim Ziebell had ensnared them in
a Ponzi scheme. Losses reportedly totaled as much as $750,000, with individuals losing between $5,000 and $60,000 each.

  According to UC Davis law professor Richard Cavanaugh, a typical Ponzi scheme is created when the dollars received by new investors are used to pay previous investors, who are told the money is income earned from their investments. “Most commonly in such schemes, the person handling the money uses it to finance his own, often lavish, lifestyle,” he said. “When the income stream from new investors runs dry, the earlier investors are often left with nothing, their principal investment having been long spent.”

  Cleary declined to elaborate on the specific nature of Ziebell’s alleged Ponzi scheme or about the terms of restitution.

  I re-read the article a second time, then a third.

  “What do you think it means?” Rubia said to me after I had closed the file and returned it to the drawer.

  “I wish I knew,” I said. “I wish I knew.”

  twenty-one

  A guy builds up a considerable appetite breaking into a home, especially when I planned a second break in that same night. I bought Rubia the steak I promised her at the Roadside Grill on our way out to Fair Oaks. While she demolished a 24-ounce Porterhouse, two baked potatoes and a half-plate of mixed vegetables, I had a salad and broiled chicken with rice from the Lighter Side section of the menu. Vanity.

  By eight o’clock nightfall had set in. As I expected, Ziebell’s office building was abandoned, except for an older Taurus parked in the lot. Though a few of the offices had lights on, it appeared to be more for security than anyone actually working there. Ziebell’s office was dark.

  “I don’t know professor, two B and E’s in one day,” Rubia said, hoisting the tackle box of locksmith tools out of the trunk of my car. “You are going to turn me into a recid… what’s the word?”

  “Recidivist,” I said. “You’re breaking my heart.”

  “You used to be more compassionate in your previous occupation.”

  “I didn’t have to deal with murder in my previous occupation.”