****
Leah Sykes cut a comical figure, even without sitting in front of Catrina’s desk, crying her eyes out. Leah stood six feet tall, but walked with the posture of a question mark, to hide her height. Her kinky hair resembled nothing so much as a red Brillo pad.
Catrina’s eyes ran up and down the tall, willowy woman. She was about Catrina’s age. Her face was pleasant enough, she had a dazzling smile and sparkling blue eyes, but somehow all the pieces didn’t add up to beauty. She was the whitest woman Catrina had ever seen, her skin almost translucent. She could have been an attractive woman, but she reminded Catrina of Ronald McDonald instead.
The poor thing must have gotten a lot of teasing in grade school. Her feet, always clad in flats, were ridiculously long and thin. Catrina could imagine her as a gangly scarecrow of a girl.
Leah reached across Catrina’s desk for a Kleenex. Her long, delicate fingers reminded Catrina that she was an accomplished pianist.
“I can’t believe I was so stupid,” Leah said. “I have no one to blame but myself.”
“What is it?” Catrina had known Leah for years. Leah was a forensic accountant who Catrina often used in divorce cases to find a husband’s hidden assets.
“Oh, Cat. I’m so stupid. I thought I loved him.”
Catrina got up from her desk and came around to sit next to her friend. “That happens, honey. What did he do?”
“I let him take pictures of me. You know... nude.” Leah let out another wail and stuffed the Kleenex in her face. She daubed at her eyes and blew her nose. “I didn’t know about the video. He had a hidden camera.”
Catrina patted Leah’s hand. “Video?”
“Yeah. Of us. Making lov...no. Of us having sex. It wasn’t love. He never loved me.”
Catrina put her arm around her friend. “Oh, sweetie.”
“And they’re on the Internet.” Leah let out a blood curdling wail. “He sent me a link.” She sobbed for a moment. “What if my parents see them? Oh God. That would kill my mother.”
“They’re on the Internet?”
“Yes, some kind of website where men post pictures of their exes. It’s a kind of revenge thing.”
“Oh, Lord. You know that once something gets posted on the Internet, it never goes away.”
“I know.” Leah wailed for a moment then started talking again. “Can you help me? Can you find a way to take them down?”
Catrina got up and stepped back to her side of the desk. “Let me call Ted. He needs to look at this.”
“No...” Leah let out another shriek. “Not a man. I don’t want any man seeing me... Those pictures... They were … they were so … lewd?”
“You know Ted, Leah. He’s all right. He wouldn’t be working with me if he wasn’t.”
“I know, but if he sees them. I couldn’t stand working with someone who saw me naked. Doing those kinds of things.” Leah cried some more and grabbed for more Kleenexes.
“Leah, you have to find someone who can help. No one’s better than Ted. And don’t worry about him seeing you. He’s really discreet. I trust him completely.”
Leah dropped her head.
“Ted, can you come in here?” Catrina said into her phone. “I have a problem you can help with.”
She turned back to her friend. “He’ll be here in a second. You need to pull yourself together. He’ll want to ask you some questions.”
“Ohhhhh.”
The dark-haired young man entered Catrina’s office. “What’s up, Cat? “ He noticed the crying woman. “Oh, Leah. What’s wrong?”
“Her ex posted some pictures of her on the Internet.” Catrina answered. “Sit down. Let her tell her story. Leah?”
Ted sat in the chair next to Leah. “What happened?”
“I...I made a stupid mistake. I just broke up with my boyfriend. It was ugly. Now he’s posted nude pictures of me, videos, on the Internet.”
“Where? Where did he post them?”
Catrina could see the color rising in her partner’s face.
“On revenge.com. He sent me a link.”
“The bastard. Let ol’ Teddy handle this.”
“Can you really do something?”
“Ted can do anything with a computer.” Catrina smiled at her partner. “You can, can’t you?”
Ted grinned. “When I get done with them, they’ll be sorry they messed with you.”
“Thank you, Ted.” Leah’s sobbing subsided. “I feel better all ready.” She reached over and patted Ted’s arm. “I don’t think I can work today. Can we look at Randall’s finances tomorrow?”
“No problema, querida. Just let me know when you’re ready. I’ve got some good stuff on him. In the meantime, those bastards at revenge.com have a date with Spidey.”
Chapter 13
Dick Randall’s West Seattle home was a faux Mediterranean Villa. With light-colored stucco walls and a red tile roof, it would have been at home in Southern California. Perched on a West Seattle hill-side, Catrina thought it looked a little ridiculous.
It was one of those perfect September days. Puffy white clouds filled the horizon as she pulled into the driveway and checked her watch. She was running a tad bit late. No problem. Karen was the client. She’d be there waiting.
Catrina pressed the doorbell and immediately heard the yapping of small dogs.
“Chico, Tina, get back.” Catrina heard Karen’s high-pitched squeaky Minnie Mouse voice through the door.
Karen opened the door.
“Catrina, come in.” Karen was decked out in a short navy skirt and white cashmere sweater. She certainly had no problem showing a little leg, Catrina thought. Karen held the two Chihuahuas back with her foot.
“Hi, Karen. Is your brother here?”
“Yes, Danny’s waiting for you on the deck.”
Karen led Catrina though the living room towards the French doors. The house had that open concept look where the living room, dining room and kitchen were all one big open space. A long island with six bar stools separated the kitchen from the dining area which was set off from the living room by a large open arched doorway with grape vines stenciled above it.
Karen walked through the dining room and pulled the door open, standing aside for Catrina to exit first.
A tall, lanky man got up from his Adirondack chair when the women walked through the French doors onto the deck.
“Dan Anderson.” He held out his hand to Catrina.
He was slightly taller than Catrina. With her three-inch heels, that would put him a touch over six feet. He was thin, with a little round middle-aged pot belly and sandy-colored blond hair. He shared his sister’s blue eyes and mischievous smile.
All-in-all, not a bad looking man, Catrina thought. Karen’s family must have a pretty good gene pool.
He had a cool, firm handshake. “I’m Catrina Flaherty, Mr. Anderson.”
“No, no. Call me Dan. Everyone does.”
“Okay, Dan. Pleased to meet you.”
Catrina looked out at the view across Alkai Beach to the Sound and Vashon Island beyond. Vistas like this weren’t cheap.
“Dan, I need to ask you a few questions.”
“Go right ahead.” He pulled out a green cast iron chair from around the matching oval table with a glass top. “Please, sit down.”
Catrina sat and fished for a notebook in her bag. Anderson and Karen sat at the table opposite her.
“Can I get you anything?” Karen asked.
“No thanks. Dan, you had business dealings with Dick?”
“Yes. I’m an accountant. Anderson Associates.” He pulled his wallet from his hip pocket and produced a business card, which he handed to Catrina. “Dick was one of my clients.”
“Was?”
“It’s pretty obvious, isn’t it? He’s gone.”
“So, how was his business doing?” Catrina asked.
“Hell if I know. You don’t have any secrets from your accountant. We’re kind of like doctors that way. But I’ll b
e damned if I can figure out how Dick ran his business.”
“Oh?”
“Well, he had great cash flow. As a matter of fact, I often wondered where all the money came from. I had a hard time believing a bunch of barista stands could produce that kind of income.”
“How much income?”
“We’re talking in seven figures. But here’s the rub, Dick was always in debt, always behind on his payments. I don’t know where the money went.”
Catrina scribbled furiously in her notebook. “Do you have any ideas? Any wild guesses?”
“Skimming.” Anderson looked out over the Sound and swallowed. “I suspected he was skimming. You know, not reporting all of his income. It was a cash business. I thought that maybe he only rang up a portion of his sales so he didn’t have to report them to the IRS. You know, to keep from paying taxes.”
Catrina stopped writing and looked in Anderson’s eyes. “If Dick was skimming, hiding money, how come he was always in debt? How come his house was being repossessed?”
“Damned if I know. He had the money. I don’t know where it went, but I always had a fear in the back of my mind.”
“A fear?”
“Yeah, a nagging doubt. I wondered. Could he be laundering money? You know, like for the mob?”
“Wow!” Catrina looked at Karen who sat without any show of emotion. She must have heard this already. “That’s pretty dangerous stuff.”
“Okay.” Anderson leaned forward in his chair. “I’m going to tell you what I think happened to him.”
“Um-hm.” Catrina nodded.
“I think Dick was laundering money. I think he was skimming off mob money and stashing it somewhere. He took several trips to Puerto Rico. I wouldn’t be surprised to find it stashed down there. You know, to get ready for his big get-away. But I think the mob caught up with him. I don’t think he ever had a chance to get away. I think the mob iced him.”
****
George St. John had a good life. After years of slaving away for one high-tech company after another, he finally hit the jackpot.
The sons-a-bitches George worked for never appreciated him, never acknowledged his genius. Well, he had shown them. The best revenge is to live well. Who said that? Voltaire? Whoever, George was committed to exacting his revenge.
He lounged back on the deck chair on the lanai of his Fort Meyers Beach, Florida, condo and inhaled the day. It all started out so simply.
Jean had dumped him. Found another guy. The slut was sleeping with this other dude, even when they were living together. He was no fool. He had proof.
He set up a nanny cam in their bedroom and had hours of footage of her humping the bastard. Some kind of personal trainer, a hard-bodied ass-hole.
She told George that she was going to the gym, always working out. Bullshit. She was working out all right. On top of that jerk.
Well, he showed her. He hadn’t spent twenty years designing and building websites for nothing. It all started out with his desire to get back at her. That’s why he named the site “revenge.com.”
He posted his videos. Let the world see what a cheating whore she really was. But you know what? It was popular. In no time, he had other guys asking how they could post pictures of their exes.
Nine ninety-five, that’s all it cost. For less than ten bucks he’d post pictures and videos from other guys who’d been jilted. The money started rolling in. He had thousands of accounts.
Then the advertising. As the popularity of his site grew, he charged more and more for ads on his pages. Before long he moved from Salt Lake City to sunny Florida.
One thing led to another. If George could make bucks off his revenge site, think what pure porn could do. Mega-bucks. He found pictures and videos of every perversion known to man. George now had ten different porno sites dedicated to specific interests, everything from kiddie porn to bestiality. The bucks kept rolling in.
Of course, working on the fringes of society like this, George had to take precautions. When he first started dabbling with the kiddie porn, his most lucrative site, it was time to get out of the U.S. Moving his web sites to a server farm in Thailand where the government didn’t give a fat rat’s ass what he did on the Internet. As a matter of fact, the damned fools probably couldn’t even spell the word Internet.
But he was safe. As long as his servers were off-shore, the government couldn’t touch him. He was careful not to store any questionable materials on his home computer and when the FBI served a search warrant, they hadn’t been able to charge him with anything.
So life was good.
Until this morning.
It started with a single email. A client wrote to complain that the pictures of his ex were gone. What happened to them?
Before George could investigate, another email came in. Same complaint. Then another. In a matter of minutes, they were coming in by the hundreds. What happened to his site?
He logged on, and, to his horror, found... nothing. No files, no web pages, no nothing. It was all gone. When he entered his URL and hit enter, he just got a video of a wagging finger and a wav file saying “uh uh uh.”
What happened?
He searched the directories on his servers. All gone. There was only one file. A jpeg file.
How could this happen to him?
He clicked on the jpeg.
An image of Spiderman’s mask filled his screen. Underneath the mask were the words “Don’t mess around with Spidey.”
****
Orcas Island, so named because the island’s shape resembles a killer whale leaping out of the water, nestled along the Canadian border in Northwest Washington. It is the largest of the San Juan Archipelago.
Clayton Johnson-White liked Orcas. It had that detached, slow-time-down feel of his hometown of Camano Island, but it also had more of a tourist vibe. There was always stuff going on.
Stuff cost money. Something that Clayton didn’t have. On Camano, he could have stolen something and knew someone who would fence it for him. Here on Orcas he didn’t know anyone. He needed another source of cash.
There it was, the Orcas General Store, an ATM, just waiting for him to make a withdrawal. The place was busy all day with people dropping in for groceries, camping supplies, an ice cream cone or a sandwich. They had to have cash hidden somewhere in that store. A little mom and pop operation like that probably didn’t have a big safe but hid their receipts somewhere when they closed waiting to take them to the bank the next day.
Clayton was no one’s fool. He staked the store out for three days. Each day they had the same routine. The owner showed up at 8 a.m. By 9:00 he unlocked the door and turned the “closed” sign around to “Open.” People flowed in and out all day. At 9 pm sharp, the owner turned the sign around again and locked the door. By 9:30, he walked two blocks to his home. He didn’t stop by the bank with a night drop on the way. The money must still be in the store.
Clayton thought long and hard about his break-in. He ruled out robbing the store during the day. There was too much risk that someone could get hurt. He didn’t want to hurt anyone; he just needed a cash infusion. Besides, if he robbed the store during the day, someone would see him.
He wasn’t too concerned about being seen. These Barney Fife cops were so dumb they’d never catch him. But if it did end up in court, it wouldn’t do to have any eye-witnesses finger him on the stand.
So he waited. He spent his days in the house outside of West Sound, the island’s principal town, watching TV and reading. The computer in the house had Microsoft Flight Simulator and he exhausted endless hours soaring over the countryside.
After midnight it was time to prowl. The night belongs to me. He “borrowed” a bicycle stored in the house’s garage and wheeled into town and parked the bike a block or so from the general store. Picking the lock was child’s play. These trusting fools didn’t even have an alarm system.
Why should they? Crime was virtually unknown in the San Juans. Everyone knew everyone else. If
someone lost something and someone else showed up with it, everyone would know.
But they hadn’t reckoned with the Fly Away Bandit. That’s what the newspapers called him, after he left the picture on the wall at the Camano Island house. He kinda liked it since it made him sound infamous. The Fly Away Bandit. It could be a lot worse.
He pulled the small mag light from his hip pocket and began to search the store. There was nothing in the cash register, nothing in the drawers. Where would the owner have stashed the cash? He pulled items from the shelves and looked behind them. No good. Where, oh, where?
He absent-mindedly grabbed a handful of peanuts from the oak barrel in the center of the room. Huh? A peanut barrel? Naw, that would be too easy.
He reached down into the peanuts and moved his arm around until his hand touched something smooth. Definitely not a peanut. He pulled out the blue zipper bank bag. SCORE!
The bag was slightly heavy. He could feel coins shifting around. He unzipped it and, there is a God, he found over five hundred dollars of folding money. A home run! He stuffed the money in his jeans pocket.
The hard part of the job done, Clayton proceeded to go shopping. He grabbed a six-pack and a couple of frozen pizzas. Some apples and a couple of bags of chips were about all he could carry in his backpack.
Clayton had what he needed, but he wasn’t quite done yet. He pulled the box of colored chalk from his jacket pocket and began his artwork. This time, his Dr. Seussian bird was on the floor, the only empty space large enough to draw on. He finished his art project with the caption, “Catch me if you can.”
The next evening he made the six o’ clock news. Burglary was so unusual in the Islands; the big city TV stations were covering it. The Fly Away Bandit strikes again.
“We will not tolerate this kind of lawlessness in San Juan County,” the pudgy sheriff was saying on TV. “I want our citizens to know that this will be our top priority. We will find Mr. Johnson-White and bring him to justice.”
Like hell. Catch me if you can.
Clayton turned on his police scanner. It was alive with calls. Every deputy in the islands was called in to search every empty vacation home on Orcas.
Bikini Baristas: Ted Higuera Series Book 4 Page 13