After the cops dismissed me, I made my way to Richard’s study- a book-lined room at the back of the house. Leather couches, a stainless steel desk and two more of those damn Eames chairs outfit the room. I was so desperate to be comfortable that I sat on the floor. Which is where the house manager found me.
“Mrs. Fox, can I bring you something to eat?” he asked. “Or drink?” He didn’t appear at all surprised to find me on the floor.
Under the circumstances I would have thought I couldn’t eat. But then, my last meal was in Tina Lin’s kitchen. Which had been a lifetime earlier.
“Yes, please, John. A sandwich would be great. And some iced tea,” I said. “Where is Richard?”
“Mr. Lafferty is still with the police,” John replied. “I’ll be right back with a sandwich. And tea?”
John sounded just like the bartender at the Beach Shack. Was it really that odd that I wanted tea?
I pulled myself up from the floor and went to the window. The view stretched over the canyon and all the way to the ocean. Shadows from the setting sun emphasized the harsh terrain that makes up most of Malibu. It was at once breathtaking and forbidding.
The shock of discovering Bambi’s body diminished and I felt drained, as if every muscle in my body was exhausted and it was all I could do to just breathe. It was almost too much energy to try to figure out what happened.
While we had waited for the cops to arrive, Richard took about a million photos with his phone. The lock on the trunk of the Fury showed signs of being forced open. Bambi had been shot. It was possible that she had been killed somewhere else and her body dumped in my car. It was also possible that she had encountered the killer in the parking lot. The big film trucks hid the Fury well so any number of scenarios could explain how she ended up in my car.
The cops were thorough in their questioning of me. I could only imagine the interrogation the attendant at the Beach Shack received. The tip I gave him was not nearly enough.
Had Keith killed Bambi? According to Bambi, Keith hired Zane. But when had Keith met Zane? Keith’s comment about how the twin sisters aged alike seemed to indicate that he had seen Bambi recently. Did Keith know that Bambi and I were meeting? Had he been in the parking lot waiting for us?
I tried to remember if anything had seemed amiss in the parking lot at the Beach Shack. But the place was packed when I arrived and the chaos around the filming would have made it easy for someone to hide if they wanted.
“Eat fast. The helicopter is on the way.”
I turned from the window to see Richard entering the study and carrying a large tray. Two sandwiches with potato chips and two iced teas. He put the tray on the desk.
“What helicopter?”
“We’re going to see Jim,” Richard said as he handed me a plate. “We can’t drive out of the house with all the activity in the driveway so I have a helicopter picking us up.”
“Why are we going to see Jim?” I asked this through bites of sandwich- roasted turkey and Havarti cheese on toasted sourdough bread. With pickled onion and tomatoes. It was as good as it sounds.
“There’s been a development,” Richard said. “I’ll let Jim explain.”
“Is Keith involved? Should we tell them?” I nodded towards the front of the house where the army of cops was encamped.
“I don’t know if Keith is involved,” Richard said.
“We will tell them,” he mirrored my nod, “if it turns out to be relevant.”
I gulped down the last of my sandwich. Richard tossed some papers into a briefcase and I followed him out of the study. I grabbed my bag from the living room and wondered just where we would pick up a helicopter ride.
“This way, Alana,” Richard said. He walked out the sliding glass doors to the pool. I followed him and the kid who took my phone appeared and followed me.
Beyond the pool and the manicured gardens, the property sloped down into the canyon. Carved into the slope was a set of stairs. The stairs ended at flat area the size of a basketball court. Richard led us to the far end while barking something into his phone. Within moments, I heard the chop-chop of a helicopter approaching.
The chopper landed in that awkward back-forth up-down manner that helicopters have. The wind from the blades made a mess of my hair and I had to blink to keep dust out of my eyes. The kid and I bent our heads and followed Richard. He directed us into seats in the back and took the seat next to the pilot. He pointed to the earphones hanging above our heads. I put my seatbelt on first. I winced as I felt the state of my hair when the earphones went in place. As I adjusted the volume, we took to the air.
“This is cool!” The kid was thrilled.
“Where are we going?” I realized I had no idea where Jim was to be found.
“Jim’s office is in Calabasas,” Richard said. “We’ll be there in just a couple of minutes.”
The helicopter cleared the canyon walls and then the house. As the pilot turned north towards Calabasas we flew over Richard’s driveway. It looked like every police cruiser and fire truck in Malibu were parked outside. At least a dozen news vans. Everyone on the ground looked up as we passed over.
“Did you tell them that we were leaving?” I asked.
Richard chuckled. “I did. But I didn’t tell them how we intended to get out.”
The helicopter avoided collision with the news helicopters circling the house. We got close enough to the other choppers that I could see the reporters frantically calling their producers to ask whether they should follow us or not. The answers must have been no. We made it to Calabasas without an entourage in tow.
Jim’s office was located in an industrial park not far from where I house my cars. The helicopter landed softly in an empty parking lot and Richard, the kid and I hopped out. The chopper took off- messing my hair up beyond repair. Richard marched straight ahead towards a windowless building.
The kid took the lead as we approached an unmarked door. He punched a code into a keypad and the door opened on its own. I followed him and entered a new universe.
We stood inside a warehouse very similar to the one that houses my cars. The similarity ended there. Instead of vintage cars and hydraulic lifts and racks and racks of tools, this space was filled with computers, dozens of them. Three long tables ran down the middle of the space allowing room for dozens of computers, each one displaying something different. Some showed mug shots, some had moving screen savers, some scrolled through endless numbers.
Along the far wall, a screen big enough to show a movie stood alone. It displayed a map of the world with thousands of little dots blinking across the globe.
At the other end of the room stood a ping-pong table. That, at least, I understood.
While there were many computers, there were very few people. One of them was Jim Schilling. He stood facing a computer screen. The light from the screen illuminated his face in a most unattractive manner. Standing next to Jim were three guys who would never be mistaken for professional athletes. One looked like he last bought new clothes in the seventies- right around the time he last shaved. Two women flanked the group- one Asian and one not- both young. The kid from the helicopter joined the group. It wasn’t until he bumped into Jim that any of them looked up.
“Good, you’re here,” Jim said to Richard and me. “Come over here, I’ve got something to show you.”
As we made our way to join them, heads popped up like popcorn from behind the screens. They looked at us like prairie dogs peeking out of their holes in the ground, then scurrying back to their screens. The place was oddly quiet, just the sound of the overhead fans whirring away.
“Denice has the guy on the hook,” Jim said. “Look at this.”
He pointed proudly at a screen. As best I could tell, it showed a series of messages. But the words were composed of that weird shorthand that Twitter made popular. I couldn’t follow the conversation.
Seated at the computer was a woman who typed away so fast it looked like her fingers were playing a pi
ano. She wasn’t one of the youngsters and she had definitely shopped since the seventies. I guessed her to be in her mid-sixties. She had shoulder length curly hair and she wore a jersey wrap dress in a colorful print. At her feet was a handbag that I had coveted for months. She wore eyeglasses by Chanel. As she typed, her mouth went from a tight grimace to a grin.
“Got him!” She threw up her hands in triumph.
“Good job, Denice!” Jim exclaimed.
A round of high fives ensued. The whole place was pretty damn excited about whatever Denice had just accomplished.
Jim looked the happiest that I had ever seen him. It was nice to see but I had no idea what was going on. So, of course, I asked. The group looked at me like I spoke to them in Latin. Then they scurried away, leaving just Jim and Denice to translate for the mere mortals.
It took Jim a moment to understand my confusion.
“That’s right, we haven’t talked to you yet, have we?” Jim held out his hand, indicating that I was to stand behind Denice. He then told Richard to stand behind me.
“Denice, this is Alana and Richard. Show them.”
Jim stepped aside.
Denice punched a couple of keys and a map of the world appeared. Several flashing lights were connected by dotted lines. One of the lights was in Hong Kong. Another was in Los Angeles.
“We knew your money was originally transferred to an account in the Cayman Islands,” Denice began. “The trick was to follow it once it left there. It split into smaller amounts and bounced around to accounts in Singapore and then Indonesia. Then it was reunited and deposited into an underground bank in Hong Kong and there it sits. That last transfer was set up in an interesting manner.”
Denice played the keys slower. A bank statement appeared.
“We know this is your money,” Denice said. “See that clock countdown?”
She pointed to the upper right hand corner of the screen. A digital timer counted down. There were less than twelve hours left.
“When this clock runs out, the money will move again,” Denice said. “Do you see that emoji over there?”
She pointed again. A cartoon clown danced in the upper left hand corner of the screen. The clown held up two fingers and jumped up and down.
“That little guy originally held up ten fingers,” Denice said. “Ten fingers for ten chances to get the password right. We’ve been watching since the money landed here. Someone tried eight times to enter the right password. They used all the passwords that worked up before. They are running out of time to get it right. I figured they were going to need help.”
Denice typed something and the text messages reappeared.
“I know where these guys hide out on the dark web. I figured this guy would ask for help retrieving the money. And bingo! There he was.”
She pointed again. Again, I had no idea what it said.
“He’s really bad at this,” Denice shook her head. “He wants help retrieving 12 million dollars but he isn’t willing to pay squat. What an idiot.”
“How much is he offering to pay?”
“Two grand. A job like that should pay at least twenty.”
“I didn’t know hacking paid so well.”
“It does,” Denice said. She played the keys again.
“OK Jim, it’s set up,” Denice waved Jim over. “This idiot agreed to meet me in person and pay me in cash. This is going to be fun.”
Jim looked at the screen and smiled like a kid on Christmas morning.
“Alana, you might have your money back tonight!”
Those words were music to my ears but two people were dead. Murder and international money laundering seemed like a job for the experts.
“Isn’t this dangerous? Shouldn’t we tell the FBI or somebody about this?”
Denice’s grin matched Jim’s. She stood up and pulled something out of her bag.
It was a gun.
And a badge.
The old guy with the beard had them, too. So did the non-athletes.
“They already know, Mrs. Fox.”
Chapter Thirty-One
“Are they all FBI agents?” I asked after Denice and the others took their leave.
The warehouse seemed empty. And now that I looked around, it had a cold bureaucratic feel to it. Like everything had arrived the day before in army-green trucks.
Jim shrugged.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “I need to talk to you about Keith Bennett.”
“Aren’t they going to meet him now?” I nodded in the direction of the door. “Denice said she got him.”
“Denice doesn’t know who she was talking to,” Jim said. “What did Bambi tell you over the phone?”
“She said that Keith was behind everything.”
Jim sat down at a computer and pounded a few keys. A spreadsheet popped up.
“Keith is a partner in a big company. They are public so their financials are easy to find. Here’s the thing, they are doing OK.”
Jim turned to look at me.
“We looked into his private accounts as well…don’t ask. The guy has more money than you, Alana. He is well-respected in the business. He is a popular guy around San Francisco. There is no reason why he would risk everything by stealing from you.”
“But Bambi said…”
“Yeah, well, Bambi wasn’t exactly a stand-up citizen,” Jim said. “She had seven kids from seven different men. She lived pretty well on just child support.”
“But she said that Keith flipped out when Zane brought me to that house.”
“So she said.”
Jim turned back to the screen and punched the keys.
A series of photos appeared. People dressed in black tie with cocktails in their hands. Society people by the look of them. San Francisco if I had to guess by their clothes. No one in Malibu dresses that nicely unless they are accepting an Academy Award. Jim scrolled through and paused on one photo in particular.
There was Keith Bennett dressed in a tux and holding a martini glass. A beautiful redheaded woman in a green silk dress was by his side. The two of them were obviously a couple and they were having a great old time.
“This was taken the night you were kidnapped,” Jim said. “Keith was in San Francisco at the Olympic Club and there are two hundred people that can verify that he was there until three in the morning. Along with the photographer from the Chronicle. And the staff at the Club.”
“Bambi lied?”
“Gee, what are the odds?” Jim’s sarcasm felt like a slap.
“Why would she do that? Who killed her?”
“We have no idea who Zane was involved with,” Jim said. “As for Bambi, my guess is that she was trying a new angle to get money from the Bennett family. She knew more than she was telling and I think that is what got her killed.”
I’d suspected the same thing myself but that was before Bambi ended up dead in the trunk of the Fury. It seemed the more I found out about Zane Daniels, the less I knew. Zane knew more about me than I ever knew about him and that made me uncomfortable to say the least.
“Bambi said she knew everything about me and was going to sell the information,” I said. “Maybe that is why she was killed.”
“I doubt it. That info is easy to hack, no one would kill for that.”
Jim typed something again and up popped a form with my name, address, date of birth and mothers maiden name. My stomach turned.
“In some ways, we were all more secure before everything went online,” Jim said. “But this crap keeps guys like me in business.”
Jim stood up and faced me. He held up his hands as if surrendering.
“All we know for sure is that Bambi lied about Keith’s whereabouts on the night Zane was killed. And now she is dead, too. We’ll know more when Denice gets the guy who wants to get your money. I’m guessing Zane was working with another hacker and that guy got greedy and then Bambi threatened to blab.”
Richard put his arm around me. It was comforting but I didn�
��t feel better.
Jim stood up and put his hand on my shoulder. Still not better.
“Be careful, Alana. This guy is out for blood.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Richard was annoyed.
We stood outside Jim’s warehouse as Richard scowled at his phone.
“There are no Ubers within ten miles of here,” Richard said. “Where the hell are we?”
For once, I had the solution to the problem.
“We’re just a few blocks away from my garage,” I said. “I’ll call Fred and have him bring a car over. I’ll drive you home.”
Fred, the keeper of my cars, was more concerned with the condition of the Fury than in my need to get back to Malibu. Apparently the news helicopters hovering over Richard’s house had broadcast a shot of the car. Fred recognized it even from a shot taken at three hundred feet.
“What are the cops going to do with it?” Fred asked when I got him on the phone.
“I don’t know, look for fingerprints?”
“Do you know how hard it is to get that dust off?” Fred was beside himself. “It will take me a month to get it clean again. And what happened to the lock on the trunk?”
It took five minutes to calm Fred down before I could convince him to entrust me with one of my own cars.
Fred delivered the 1948 Jaguar XK-120, a cute little red convertible with a black cloth top. I felt my spirits lift when I saw it. Of all my cars, the Jag is my favorite and I hadn’t driven it in a while. I was happy to see the car. Like seeing an old friend.
“Call me the minute the cops release the Fury,” Fred said as he unfolded all six plus feet of himself from the Jag. “I’m clearing a spot to clean it right now. And I better not need to have it repainted.”
Fred took off without so much as a good-bye. He has no sense of humor but he does have an obsession with keeping my cars clean. And safe. He would likely work for free if I could guarantee that the cars would never leave the garage. It occurred to me that might work in my favor if Denice’s plan fell through.
“He’s a character that Fred.” Richard watched Fred storm off on foot.
“He is,” I sighed.
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