Found money

by James Grippando

  Maria was waiting at the entrance when Amy arrived.

  “How are you, stranger?” she said as they embraced.

  “So good to see you,” said Amy.

  They kept right on talking as the hostess led them to a small table near the window. There was lots of catching up to do. Maria had recently bagged her eighth fourteener — Colorado lingo, meaning she’d climbed eight of the state’s fifty-four mountain peaks that exceeded fourteen thousand feet. Maria was a bona fide fitness fanatic, a fairly common breed in a city where winter snow-plows sometimes cleared the bicycle paths before the streets. She never ate meat and actually had a chin-up bar in her puny office. Amy was the only one in the department who had even come close to keeping up with her on the jogging trail.

  The waitress took their orders, and then they marveled over the latest pictures of Taylor while sipping house chardonnay. Finally, the conversation wound its way down the career path.

  “So, are you ready for law school this fall?”

  “I guess.”

  Maria smirked. “I’m glad to see your enthusiasm has grown since last we talked.”

  “Actually, I have some potentially good news on that front.”

  “What?”

  “It’s highly confidential. If I tell you, you can’t tell anyone. Not even your husband.”

  “Don’t worry about Nate, honey. I could tell him I just uncovered the secret formula for Coca-Cola, and his response would probably be something like, ‘That’s nice, sweetie. Have you seen my car keys?’ Come on,” she said eagerly. “What’s the big secret?”

  Amy paused for effect, then said, “I may be reenrolling in the fall.”

  Maria shrieked. Heads turned at neighboring tables, but she kept on gushing. “That’s great! It’s better than great. It’s fabulous. But why is it a secret?”

  “Because the law firm I’m working for is giving me a partial scholarship to law school. If they find out I’m having second thoughts, I’m afraid they’ll pull the scholarship. If my astronomy plans don’t work out, then I’d be screwed all the way around.”

  Maria gestured, zipping her lip. “Your secret is safe with me. When will you know for sure?”

  “By the end of the week, hopefully.”

  “God, I’m so happy you’ve had a change of heart.”

  “My heart never changed. It’s more a change in circumstances. Money, to be exact.”

  “What, somebody died and left you a fortune?”

  “Actually, yes.”

  Her smile faded. “Great. I mean, I’m sorry about the death. But good for you, in a way. Hell, you know what I mean.”

  “It’s okay. I didn’t really know the guy.”

  “Somebody you didn’t know is leaving you a pot of money?”

  “Possibly, yes. I met with his son yesterday to make sure everything checks out. It’s a little sticky. He’s in the middle of a divorce.”

  “Oh,” she said. It was an ominous “oh.”

  “Why the look?”

  “Some guy you don’t know dies and leaves you money. His son is in the middle of a divorce. Don’t you think you’re being a little optimistic about enrolling in the fall? Those kinds of legal problems can drag out indefinitely.”

  Amy hesitated. It was even more complicated, but it was best to keep it simple. “He promised to have everything cleared up by next Friday.”

  “Friday,” she said, drumming her fingers on the tabletop. “To be honest with you, that might not be soon enough.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Don’t get me wrong. No one would be more excited than me to see you come back. But it’s already mid-July. I’m not sure we can line things up for the fall term.”

  “What’s the big deal? I just pick up where I left off.”

  “It’s not that simple. With most of your coursework already behind you, your primary focus this fall is your independent research. There’s already a lot of research being done in the field on the birth and death of stars and the possible existence of other planetary systems around them. If you’re going to generate a dissertation of publishable quality, the best place to conduct your research is the Meyer-Womble Observatory on Mt. Evans.”

  Amy was aware of that. At better than four thousand meters above sea level, they were pulling images from Mt. Evans that rivaled Hubble Space Telescope quality. “What do we have to do to get me in?”

  “The site is operated by the University of Denver under a U.S. Forest Service special use permit, so the department will have to work out some kind of collaborative research arrangement with DU. That needs to be done well in advance. It’s not just a question of access to the telescope. It’s also a matter of getting to and from the observatory. Living accommodations are limited on the mountain, especially if you’re going to take your daughter and grandmother with you. You can’t be driving back and forth from Boulder every day. It’s not only time-consuming, but come November, the roads could be impassable.”

  Amy sipped her wine, thinking. “I promise to let you know by next Friday.”

  “I can’t guarantee anything.”

  “Come on. Cut me a little slack, okay? What’s the absolute deadline?”

  “Yesterday. Or to be even more precise, last month. If I’m going to bust my political hump to work you back into the fall program, I need a commitment from you. And I need it right away. I’m being straight with you, Amy. As a friend.”

  She snagged her lip with her tooth. She had agreed to give Ryan Duffy a week to pull together the records, but that wasn’t written in stone. “Okay,” she said with a quick nod. “I’ll let you know by Monday.”

  19

  By midafternoon, Ryan could see the Denver skyline from the interstate. A hint of the infamous brown cloud hovered over the city. Despite serious clean-up efforts, Denver hadn’t completely shaken the ghost of air pollution. The worst Ryan had seen it was a year ago last winter. That was the last time he’d come to visit his old friend Norman Klusmire.

  The once inseparable twosome had met as freshmen at the University of Colorado — roommates, in fact, though it was just the luck of the on-campus housing lottery that had thrown them together. They didn’t exactly seem destined to become lifelong friends. Ryan was the more serious student, with an eye on med school from the first day of orientation. Norm had chosen UC because it was close to the ski slopes, a curious move for a native of southern Mississippi who had absolutely no use for ice, save for mint juleps. His grades were lousy in one sense; astounding if you considered he never went to class. On a dare he took the Law School Admissions Test and scored in the top one-half of one percent. The sea change was complete when he met another transplanted southerner, the radiant Rebecca — though he nearly blew it with her right on their wedding day. In probably his only lapse of judgment since his twenty-first birthday, Norm put his hell-raising older brother in charge of his bachelor party. Norm awoke an hour before the ceremony with a permanent nipple ring big enough to set off a metal detector and absolutely no memory of how it got there. Ryan did the emergency removal in the basement of the church. The stitches blended nicely with the chest hair. Rebecca never knew. They’d been married ever since.

  Norm had always said that if Ryan were ever in a crack, he could count on Norm to return the favor. It was intended as a joke. Norm’s specialty was criminal defense.

  Ryan called from the truck stop just outside Denver to say he needed to cash in on that old offer. Norm laughed, recalling the old joke. Ryan didn’t laugh with him. Norm immediately dropped everything and invited his old buddy over to the house.

  Norm lived on Monroe Street in the Cherry Creek North subdivision. A million dollars didn’t buy what it used to in Denver, but Ryan still thought it should have bought more than Norm’s five-bedroom, mausoleum-like home with no yard to speak of. It had that multilevel, overbuilt look that the same builder had achieved in a dozen other new homes in the neighborhood, all in the hefty million-plus price range. For the money, Ry
an preferred the restored Victorian jewels in the Capitol Hill area.

  Ryan parked behind the Range Rover in the driveway. Norm came out to greet him. He wore baggy Nike shorts and a sweaty T-shirt, much like his three sons. They were having a game of two-on-two basketball. Norm had been a decent athlete at one time, but he’d put on a few pounds since Ryan had last seen him. Lost a little more hair, too.

  They exchanged their usual greeting — a big bear hug from Norm, never mind the sweat.

  Ryan stepped back, making a face. “What was that BS you used to give me? Southerners don’t sweat. They glisten.”

  “It’s absolutely true,” said Norm, giving him another wet hug. “Just some of us glisten our ass off.”

  Norm toweled off as he led his friend around back to the patio, where they could sit and talk in private. The housekeeper brought them a pitcher of iced tea that had been sweetened in the extreme, another of Norm’s connections to his southern roots. Norm poured as they talked about the funeral he was sorry to have missed. Then the conversation turned serious.

  “So,” Norm said between gulps of tea. “What’s the terrible crisis that brings you all the way to Denver to talk to a big-shot criminal defense lawyer?”

  “This is all attorney-client, right?”

  “Absolutely. Completely privileged and confidential. The fact that we’re friends and this is a freebie doesn’t change that.”

  “I can pay you for your time, Norm. I wasn’t really looking for charity.”

  “Nonsense. Trust me when I say you can’t afford me. And please don’t take that as an insult. Hell, if I needed a lawyer, I couldn’t afford me.”

  “That’s kind of why I’m here, Norm. I could afford you. Seems my dad left me some money.”

  His interest piqued. “How much?”

  “More than you’d think.”

  “I see. Seems like you’d want a probate specialist. Who are you using?”

  “I was planning on using the same lawyer who drafted Dad’s will. Josh Colburn. Kind of local legal beagle.”

  “You mean legal eagle.”

  “No. I mean beagle. Not too smart, loyal as a puppy dog. Basically he does everybody in Piedmont Springs. But it’s starting to look like this is way over his head.”

  “In what way?”

  “I have some real questions about the source of the funds.”

  “What kind of questions?”

  Ryan hesitated. Suddenly the fact that he knew Norm and Norm had known his father was a hindrance. It had nothing to do with trust. An acute sense of shame kept him from uttering the word “extortion.” He skipped ahead, glossing over it. “My dad had a safe deposit box in Panama.”

  “The country of Panama?”

  “ Si,” said Ryan.

  “That doesn’t mean anything by itself.”

  “Norm, cut the politically correct bullshit. We’re not talking about a high-rolling international businessman. We’re talking about a sixty-two-year-old electrician from Piedmont Springs.”

  “I see your point.”

  “He rented the box almost twenty years ago. Went down on a Tuesday, came back the following day. As far as I can tell from his passport, he never went back.”

  “You know what’s in it?”

  “Supposedly there are some papers inside that will explain the source of the money.”

  Norm shook his head, confused. “You gotta give me a little more information here. When you say money, you talking stocks, bonds, gold doubloons — what is it?”

  “Cash. Seven figures.”

  His eyes widened. “Congratulations, old buddy. You can afford me.”

  “What do you know about Panamanian banks?”

  “It all depends. Back in the days of dictatorship, things were different than they are now. Very strict bank secrecy. Frankly, a lot of drug money was laundered through Panamanian banks. Some would say it’s still prevalent to this day, just that it’s no longer sponsored by the government.”

  “This is so crazy.”

  Norm leaned closer. “I don’t mean to alarm you, amigo. Even though I do mostly criminal work, I’ve done enough probate to know you’re in somewhat of a crack yourself.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re the executor of the estate, right? That means you have ethical and legal obligations of your own. For starters, where did the money come from?”

  “I don’t know exactly.”

  “Where do you think it came from? Be honest with me.”

  Ryan still couldn’t say it — he couldn’t call his father a blackmailer. “I’m afraid it may turn out that Dad wasn’t entitled to this money.”

  “All right. Just so we can have an intelligent conversation here, let’s say your old man cheated somebody. I presume he didn’t pay income tax on the money.”

  “Definitely not.”

  “There’s problem number one. The IRS has absolutely no sense of humor about these things.”

  “So I suppose I’ll have to report the money on some kind of estate tax form.”

  “Not just that. The probate court requires you to file a schedule of assets. And you have to give legal notice to potential creditors, who then have the right to file a claim against the estate. If your dad did cheat somebody, I suppose the victims would be considered creditors. In the strictest ethical sense, you would be obligated to send them a notice so they could get their money back, if they wanted to make an issue out of it.”

  “What if I don’t know who they are?”

  “You’re the executor of the estate. It’s your duty to find out. Within the exercise of reasonable diligence, of course.”

  The mention of a legal duty only heightened Ryan’s sense of moral responsibility — not to mention his curiosity. “I just can’t believe my dad would be involved in anything… unsavory. I always thought he was such a good person.”

  “That’s what we always want to think. We think that about ourselves. Then one day, opportunity knocks. And that’s when we find out. Are we truly honest? Some people are. Some people are hardcore crooks. Those are the extremes. Most of the people I defend are in the middle. They’ve done the right thing all their life, but only because the fear of doing time outweighs the rewards of the crime. For them, morality boils down to simple risk analysis. The thing is, you never know which way those people will turn until the right opportunity comes along.”

  “I’m afraid my dad may have flunked the test.”

  “It’s not a test, Ryan. At least not the kind you can cram for the night before, like we did in college. It’s a question of what you’re made of. Now, I don’t know where your dad got that kind of money. Maybe it’s totally legitimate. Maybe it’s not. But maybe he still had a damn good reason for doing what he did.”

  “I don’t know the complete picture yet.”

  “Then you have a couple of choices. You can go down to Panama and open the box. Or you can ignore it. My hunch, however, is that if you go down there, you’re going to find out what your father was made of. Can you handle that?”

  “Yeah,” he said without hesitation. “I have to.”

  “Okay. That was the easy one. Here’s where it gets complicated.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Once you start chasing the money trail, you might well find out what you are made of. So before you hop on an airplane, you need to ask yourself: Can you handle that?”

  Ryan looked his friend in the eye. “I brought my passport,” he said flatly. “That question was answered before I got here.”

  20

  On Sunday morning Amy called Ryan Duffy again. An elderly-sounding woman answered, his mother. Amy hadn’t realized that the doctor she had found so interesting had formally moved in with his mother, but she quickly cut him some slack. She knew better than anyone what a divorce could do for your living arrangements.

  “He’s not here,” said Mrs. Duffy.

  “Do you know when he’ll be back?”

  “He had to go out
of town on business. Can I take a message?”

  “I can call again. You think he’ll be back tomorrow?”

  “Probably not. He called me from the Denver airport last night and said he’d be away for a few days. Are you a friend of his?”

  “Yes, sort of. Thank you for your time, ma’am. I’ll check back later.” She hung up before the next question.

  Amy sat on the edge of her bed, her thoughts churning in her head. It was a bit unnerving to hear Jeanette Duffy’s voice, the voice of the widow. It was Jeanette’s Crock-Pot, after all, that had given Amy her first link to the Duffy family. In that light, it seemed interesting now that Ryan had been so quick to dismiss the possibility of his mother’s involvement — his off-the-cuff comment that his father but definitely not his mother would be the type to give away money to strangers. And now the phone call. Evasive, at best.

  Amy hurried to the closet and dug out her tennis shoes. If Mrs. Duffy was lying and Ryan was still at home, she had to talk to him. If he was really out of town, this was her chance to talk directly to Jeanette Duffy.

  It was time for another visit to Piedmont Springs.

  The temperature rose as morning turned to afternoon and the mountains gave way to the eastern plains. Five hours on the highway had brought Amy down from an elevation of 5,400 feet to just over 3,000. The typical July humidity and scattered afternoon thunderclouds marked her entry into Prowers County.

  Amy knew the way to the Duffy house from her earlier trip, when she had scouted out the family in advance of her meeting with Ryan. Her second trip to Piedmont Springs in a week had her somewhat concerned about her old truck. So long as she traveled by day, however, she felt safe.