"I'm listening."
"Okay, look, you want the real truth? Here it is. I know you probably won't believe me but I wasn't the one who broke in there."
"The cops said you did."
"It wasn't me, okay? It was somebody else. Somebody I was following."
"You're a trip, Jack."
"I was following that MMA fighter guy you were talking about tonight. 'Ricochet' O'Shea. It wasn't something I planned. It just happened." He took a breath.
"Put me down."
I held him up there on his tippy-toes, then bounced him once to keep him talking.
"I was leaving the gym after going through their office and that Ricochet guy shows up for a late-night workout. He didn't know I was there so I hid. I wanted to see what his story was. He works the bags for an hour or so then leaves. I followed him. He went to the Mesa Investment Group building on Wilshire. It was almost midnight, and I'm thinking, what the fuck is this? So I decided to wait around outside.
"He musta tripped a silent alarm because half an hour after he went inside, two cop cars pull up and rattle the doors. A couple minutes later a security guard comes out and opens up for them. Five minutes later O'Shea comes flying out of the place through a side door. He gets in his car and books. I'm on the Harley, so I take off after him. He sees me back there and he throws something out of his car window, then escapes. It looked like a computer flash drive.
"I'm just gettin' set to pull over and pick it up when all of a sudden I'm in the middle of a major police action. I took off, but I laid my Harley down trying to get away. That's why I was on foot and why I called you for help, dude. I managed to ditch the cops for a while, but they're pulling in major backup. I'm ducking and jukin', running like a bastard, staying outta sight. Next thing I know, I see you in the park, and then ten seconds later we're both in the middle of a baton-and-pepper-spray party."
"That's your story?" I said.
"Yeah. What's wrong with it?"
I just glared at him.
"Swear to God, Scully. I'm not lying! It wasn't me who broke into Mesa Group. It was Rick O'Shea."
"Now you're just pissing me off." I sat down hard, yanking him high off the ground.
"Scully, I swear! It wasn't me!" he screamed.
"Right," I drawled.
"O'Shea threw the flash drive away!" he shrieked. "But Scully, I know where he threw it. We can go back there. We can get it."
"It's illegally obtained evidence. How many times do I have to say that?"
"How's it illegally obtained? It's just lying behind a Dumpster. You don't need a search warrant to find something some other asshole stole and ditched in an alley? C'mon, put me down."
I lowered him to his tiptoes again and studied him, hanging under the seat of the teeter-totter.
"I can't possibly look this stupid to you."
"Scully, you just gonna let the whole case disappear into some wino's pocket?"
"If you didn't see what was on the flash drive, how do you know it contains incriminating stuff we can use to solve Pop's murder?"
"Huh?"
"How do you know it's not just Rick O'Shea's Internet porn collection?"
"How?"
"Yeah, douche bag, how?"
"Because, because w-why else would he go in there at, at... at like midnight and like take something, unless he knew it was incriminating?" he stuttered.
I sat down hard again, lifting him for the third time off the ground. He was hanging by the cuffs, spinning around, shrieking.
"Okay, okay! Look, I know because I looked at the fucking thing, okay? I guess maybe it was me who broke in the Mesa building like you said at first, okay? The cops arrived. I downloaded the info and ran. Happy now?"
I dropped him back to his feet. Then I unhooked him from the teeter-totter and recuffed him with his hands behind his back.
I returned the long teeter-totter to its original location and led Jack back to Alexa's BMW. I got a beach towel out of the trunk and put it over the seat so he wouldn't bleed on her upholstery, then put him in the car. I got behind the wheel and looked off up the street.
"Whatta you doing?"
"Thinking."
He waited for a long moment, then said, "About what, dude?"
Tm trying to decide whether to bury you on a beach up in Oxnard or just dump you in a shallow grave close by, like under the Hollywood sign."
"Funny."
"You think its funny? You must not be picking up my vibe, dude"
After pondering this mess for another minute, I turned to look at him. "I don't know why the fuck I'm doing this, Jack, but okay. I'm gonna go retrieve those electronic records. You are gonna swear that you took them. Not me. After we take a look, I'm gonna book them as your personal property that you had in your possession when I arrested you for bank robbery. We'll worry about how, or if, they can ever be admitted as evidence in Pop's murder later."
"You're gonna book me on the federal bank charges?" he said, sounding incredulous. "I thought just now we were like in the zone or something, man, solving Pop's murder like a team. How can you take me in? That's pretty cheesy."
"Those cops turned you over to me. They're all witnesses to a custody exchange. You think I want to be an accessory after the fact on your two dumb-ass bank heists?"
"You could say I jumped you and got away."
I shook my head, and he sat there pouting. "You're not much of a friend," he said.
"You're finally seeing it," I shot back. "You're right. I'm not your friend. I don't want to have anything to do with you."
"I wasn't talking about me," he said softly. "I was talking about Pop."
Chapter 29
The flash drive was behind a Dumpster in an alley off Spaulding Drive, about three blocks from the Mesa high-rise building. I gathered it up and got into the car beside Jack, who was sulking.
"What's on here?" I asked.
"Uh . . . it's like an audit or something."
"An audit or something?"
"Yeah. For Huntington House. A private audit done by some company named Randall Weis and Associates."
"So what's the audit say?"
"I don't know. I'm not a fucking accountant."
"I thought you said you broke the case while I was sitting on my ass."
"I said I could've broke the case while you were sitting on your ass."
"You said you broke it. You said it was huge. You don't even know what's on here? How 'bout finally telling the truth? I thought you said you cared about Pop."
"Okay, okay, stop with the nitpicks." He took a deep breath. "I followed O'Shea to the Mesa Building, went in behind him when he keyed his security card. He was accessing shit on the computer. When he was done the numb nut left the fucking thing on. There's all kinds of spreadsheets and shit. I just copied the pages. I didn't have time to sit around scrolling columns of figures. The file was marked Huntington House Audit 2005-2008 so I took it, but I musta tripped a silent alarm when I split. Are you happy now?"
I called Vargas and got him out of bed. I told him I wanted a meeting with everyone in an hour at Huntington House.
"Jeez, Scully, can't it wait until morning?" he complained sleepily.
"No, it can't. And make sure that Vicki is there. I need somebody who can understand a complex fiscal audit."
After I hung up, we headed to Huntington House. Jack was complaining all the way. "I don't see why you won't do me a solid and let me go."
"I won't let you go because I don't want to."
"We both went to Huntington as kids," he persisted. "We both got the same lousy start in life. I'll tell you, man, Pop really cared what happened to me. He would shit if he knew you were gonna bust me for those two nothing bank heists." It went on and on and on.
"Shut up, Jack," I kept saying, but it didn't slow him down.
He finally just ran out of gas. He had stopped sulking and was ignoring me.
We pulled up to Huntington House a little past 3:00 A. M. I took the cuff
s off Jack while we waited for the rest of the pallbearers to show up. They all made it by four. The last to arrive was Vargas, but that was understandable because he had to call everybody else before he left and he had the farthest to drive.
Diamond unlocked the door, and we trooped into the makeshift office in the rec center. Vicki sat at the computer, which was set up on Diamond's card table, and opened the first file. All of us hunkered over her shoulder, peering at the screen as she began scrolling through spreadsheets and columns of numbers.
"Stand back, you're crowding me," she said. We gave her some space, and after a minute she said, "This looks like it's an independent audit commissioned by Creative Solutions to cover the last four years. This first file lists some accounts payable and where the money went." She leaned forward, studied the screen, and frowned. "A lot of this references private loans that I have no record of. The documents probably all got lost in the fire."
She opened the next folder, scrolled through the files, and then did the same for the third and fourth. The first file of the final folder contained a summary letter from Randall Weis, who apparently did the audit.
"Uh-oh," Vicki said, as she started to scan the screen. "What is it?" Diamond asked, moving closer. Vicki turned off the monitor so she couldn't read it, then put her head in her hands.
I moved Vicki aside, sat down, then turned the monitor back on. The letter was short. Under the accountant's letterhead it said:
Our audit of the disbursements made by Huntington House, LLC, for the fiscal years 2005 through 2008 uncovered numerous irregularities and charges without appropriate documentation. We also discovered several fraudulent loans. The totals of unaccounted-for losses by year are as follows:
2005 --$407,631
2006 --$100,455
2007 --$566,923
2008 --$398,765
The fraudulent transactions were initiated by the executive director, Walter Dix, who authorized payments to entities that were secretly controlled or owned by him, for services not rendered or goods not purchased. These fraudulent documents all contain his verified signature. Further; the executive director authorized loan repayments to himself when in fact there was no evidence that any loans from Mr. Dix to Huntington House ever existed. A full analysis and documentation of these transactions has been scanned and appears on this disk.
Randall Weisy CPA
"What's it mean?" Seriana asked.
I turned to look at her, but her face told me she understood. "According to this, Pop was stealing a lot of money from the home," I said.
"He wouldn't do that," Vicki protested. But this time she sounded less convinced.
"With the state audit coming, I guess Creative Solutions wanted to do their own audit in advance to find out what the state was going to come up with," Diamond said. "They must have done it during my vacation last month. During the weekend Pop went surfing in Mexico. Mr. O'Shea could have arranged it. He had the keys to the old office."
"That could explain why Pop called me," Vargas said. "With this state audit coming, he knew he was going to get caught. Criminal charges would be filed. He probably wanted to get legal advice."
"Pop didn't steal from this place," Jack asserted hotly. "I don't understand why you're all going along with this bullshit. If he was stealing and was about to be caught, I could maybe understand him committing suicide, but he didn't commit suicide. He was murdered. Explain that, why don't you?"
"Okay." I was trying hard to separate myself from my emotions, to work it like I would if it was any other murder.
"If Pop did take this money as this audit indicates, then where the hell is it?" I began. "He didn't have a new car or a new house. He lived on the cheap. His only vice was surfing, so where did it all go?"
"What are you saying?" Seriana said.
"Somebody might have known he took the money and that person was looking for it. Maybe that's why Pop was beaten--why he inhaled his own blood before he died. Maybe somebody was trying to get him to tell them where a million and a half in missing cash was. Then after they found out, they blew his head off."
Chapter 30
Alexa woke up as I slid back into bed just before sunrise.
"Everything okay?" she asked, turning to me.
"It can wait. Talk to you in the morning," I said.
But I couldn't get to sleep. I couldn't imagine how Pop Dix, the ultimate giver, could turn up on that computer file as an embezzling thief.
My mind wouldn't stop chewing it. I was nowhere near going back to sleep, so I waited until Alexa was breathing evenly again and then slipped silently out of bed. I grabbed my clothes, dressed, and made myself a cup of microwave instant coffee. I walked into the backyard with a steaming mug and sat there waiting for the sun to come up.
The hour before dawn always reminded me of those times thirty-odd years ago when the group of us picked for sunrise surf patrol would sit in Pops old Ford wagon with our boards stuffed in the back, watching the deserted streets of San Pedro slip by while we headed to the beach. We would listen silently while he talked about the morning surf report, fantasizing about the steeps.
Now that same ageless sun was coming up over the ocean all these years later, just as it had when I was a boy. Pop was gone, and I was left behind to face a new day filled with sorrow at his passing and the dark suspicions that his unnatural death had produced.
Of course, I had questions. There were things that bothered me about all this. I certainly couldn't explain that accountant's letter. I couldn't explain the missing money, stolen with his own signatures.
But why would Pop steal almost a million and a half dollars from a place he fought so desperately to protect? For what purpose?
Only two things truly excited him--a northwest Mexican storm break with a six-foot swell and Huntington House.
When he told me two years ago about the new rubberized turf for the playground, his eyes had lit up at the thought of getting that new field for his kids. So why would he steal the very funds that might have provided it?
The answer for me was simple. He hadn't. Somebody else had. As I watched the morning sun climb in the sky, I ran through a growing list of inconsistencies that were beginning to add up and pester me.
Alexa found me out back a little after eight. She brought me a fresh mug of coffee and sat down in the nearest chair.
"What did Jack want?" she finally said. "And how much trouble did he manage to get himself into?"
"Plenty," I said. Then I filled her in on what had happened, leading her through Jack's wild-ass midnight raid at the Mesa building, the stolen evidence, and the police chase that followed. I told her about the fiasco outside Park La Brea, where I got arrested and learned about his two outstanding federal bank warrants, and took her through Jacks confession in La Cienega Park, leaving out the teeter-totter for obvious reasons. Next I described the pallbearers' meeting at four in the morning and the terrible information that we d found on the stolen flash drive.
After I finished, she just sat there frowning. She said nothing for almost a full minute.
"I hate to say this, but you were right and I was wrong about letting them be involved," she admitted. "They've fucked this up completely, or at least Jack has."
"Yeah," I said, "but here's my problem."
She sat beside me quietly.
"That accounting report accused Pop of theft. I don't believe he would do it, but this Randall Weis accounting firm has the evidence. I saw computer scans of the phony loans with Pop's signature. Now that Pop's suicide is a murder, those files might contain the motive. He could have easily been killed over that missing million five, yet if I show up at the DA's office with stolen evidence, how do I explain where I got it?"
"The truth is sometimes a good ploy," she said sarcastically.
"Right. Throw Jack to the wolves. I should ve thought of that."
She smiled ruefully.
"Here's some other stuff that's been bothering me," I continued. "Jack stole those
computer files out of the offices of the Mesa Investment Group, but the audit was done for Creative Solutions, a freestanding nonprofit corporation. Since the files were in the Mesa office computer network, I'm wondering what the connection is between a billionaire's investment firm and this little nonprofit that owns Huntington House."
"You're right. That's a false beat."
"It's hard for me to believe that a wealthy guy like Eugene C. Mesa has anything to do with this. But his company had possession of the audit files, so I need to find out why. The accountant that Creative Solutions hired discovered almost a million and a half dollars missing over four years from '05 to '08. That's chump change for E. C. Mesa, but it would be big bucks for a high school dropout like Rick O'Shea.
"Both O'Shea and that other guy, Chris Calabro, had Visa cards issued by Mesa in their wallets. O'Shea's living in a million-dollar house in Calabasas. He's driving a new Escalade, but he doesn't look smart enough to make a tossed salad. I'm wondering what the connection is between these MMA fighters and Mesa Investment Group."
"All good questions, Shane."
I looked at my watch. "I got trapped into another meeting with the pallbearers at ten this morning, so I gotta go. They're upset. Deep down they don't believe Pop did this. They want to keep working it."
"Given what Jack did last night, that's probably not a good move."
"Yeah, except Vargas knows until the coroner assigns an H-number to this case, I can't stop them. He's put himself in charge. Team Huntington. They probably already have a sign-up sheet and jerseys."
"You need to stop that from happening," she said, coming completely around to my point of view.
"I also gotta put Jack in Men's Central Jail or I'm gonna have big FBI trouble over those two outstanding bank warrants. Trouble is, I sorta get it. Jack loved Pop. Even though half the time I want to wring his neck, I still kind of respect the effort."
"I would have slammed him behind bars last night," Alexa said, frowning. "Where is he now?"
"In the wind. After we found that accounting statement, I was so upset I took my eye off him. He slipped out the back and got away on foot. I was too used up to go after him."
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