by Dana Dratch
Luckily, Lucy had zero interest in it. Wedged between Gabby and me, she was fighting sleep. And losing. Apparently, two long morning walks followed by a playdate with Mrs. Pickles had left the pup pooped.
The rest of us were relying on sugar and caffeine. Three coffee mugs littered Annie’s table. Along with an empty bag of orange Milanos.
“So that’s what a bug looks like?” my sister asked.
Gabby and I nodded.
“One of them, anyway,” I said. “The model Ian used was different.”
I didn’t want to say it in front of Gabby, but given Ian’s contacts, he probably had access to better stuff.
“I learned something interesting from Ethel,” Annie said. “Remember that fine she had to pay for the new locks? Well, it turns out that Leslie had her write out that check a little differently.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“When Leslie went to Ethel’s condo demanding the fine, she had Ethel make out the check to a different entity.”
“The Leslie McQueen Ugly Furniture Fund?”
“Oceanside HOA,” Annie said. “We normally just make out our monthly association checks to ‘Oceanside.’ But according to Ethel, Leslie was very insistent that ‘HOA’ had to be included. She even ripped up the first check and made Ethel do it again.”
“The other account!” I said. “Annie, you’re brilliant!”
My sister grinned.
“Any way Ethel could get us a copy of that check? If we could get the number of the account where it was deposited—or even just the bank—we could find out where Leslie’s been hiding that money.”
“Already on it,” Annie said. “I told Ethel it was possible we might be able to get her a refund—in light of the fact that Leslie was playing a little fast and loose with the rule book. I promised her I’d look into it, but told her I’d need a copy of the check. She’s calling her bank this afternoon.”
“But, sugar, what are you going to do when that nice lady wants to know what’s up with getting her money back?” Gabby asked.
Annie smiled guiltily. “I already called my local bank. They’ll be mailing her an anonymous cashier’s check for five hundred dollars.”
CHAPTER 44
Life at Oceanside was changing fast. For one thing, there seemed to be a lot more dogs. It was as if someone had waved a magic wand and they’d all come out of hiding.
The elevators had become mini doggie meet and greets. Especially at prime pup-walking times. Even Lucy didn’t seem to mind riding in the things anymore. She was too busy getting to know her canine neighbors.
But not all the changes were good.
I’d bundled Annie’s garbage and hauled it to the trash chute, which was inside a little room at the end of the hall. Apparently all the floors had one. But when I opened the door to the chute room, it smelled like a dump. And when I opened the chute door, I discovered why: Garbage had backed up all the way to the top.
Add trash collection to the long list of services Leslie McQueen had neglected to pay.
At this rate, they’d have to start throwing the stuff in the pool. Which was now a disturbing shade of dark green.
And from what I was hearing, the parking garage was turning into the Wild West. Reserved spots were a thing of the past. The lot was a free-for-all. Released from Leslie’s iron grip and armed with the knowledge that she’d been reading from a rule book of her own invention, residents were getting even for past slights—perceived or otherwise. And it was amazing how many of those grudges involved parking.
The new rule: There were no rules.
On the bright side, no one seemed to care when—or if—there would be another election. Having escaped one overreaching board president, homeowners seemed none-too-anxious to appoint another one. Green swimming pool or not.
And they didn’t know the half of it.
Geoffrey had gone through the last four months of bills. Right after they’d first fired the management company, Leslie was paying everyone. But, slowly, over the next few months, she let more and more bills slip. So now the building owed pretty much everyone in town—from the water company to the carpet cleaners. And the amounts were staggering.
Geoffrey being Geoffrey, he’d turned it into a color-coded wall chart to demonstrate the building’s current level of indebtedness.
“That’s actually kinda pretty,” Gabby said, studying his pastel poster after one of our emergency confab sessions.
“Thank you,” he said proudly.
Candied hues or not, Oceanside was in the red.
Dennis had had a little luck staving off the bill collectors and keeping some of the more necessary services—like water—flowing. But that was only because he kept promising them money that we didn’t have.
Heck, if I wanted to do that, I could’ve just stayed home.
Then Ethel Plunkett showed up at Annie’s with a copy of that check. Two bad photocopies of a fax and it had cost the poor woman fifteen bucks. I could read it, but just barely.
Still, it gave us a bank name: Warranty National. And that gave me an idea.
I’d dialed all the contact numbers in the back of Leslie’s organizer. Some of the numbers weren’t in service. Others were places that seemed unlikely contacts for a Miami real estate agent. A nail salon in Portland. A coffee bar in Denver.
Not a Caymans moneyman or Swiss banker in the bunch.
And none of them had ever heard of Leslie McQueen. Or the men whose names Leslie had written by each number.
“Do you have the copy of that account printout Geoffrey gave us?” I asked Annie, as she studied Ethel’s check.
“In here,” she said, handing me a file folder. “But, much as I hate to admit it, Geoffrey’s chart is easier to understand.”
“The mark of a skilled professional—simplifying the complex,” I said, as I pulled the paper out of her folder. “I still don’t understand how she pulled the wool over his eyes. I mean, Dennis, OK, she had something on him. But Geoffrey almost seems above it all. Like a space alien.”
“More like a young space alien,” Annie added. “He needs someone to look out for him. I get the feeling he’s kind of naïve.”
“This is it!” I shouted, pushing the photocopy and the book toward her. “Check this out.”
“What am I looking at?” Annie asked.
“The first contact number in the back of Leslie’s book. Next to the name ‘Andy.’ The phone number is the same as the number for the HOA’s account at Primary Federal. The one Leslie opened with Geoffrey. That’s why these phone numbers don’t make any sense. They’re not phone numbers. They’re bank account numbers.”
“Alex,” she said, squeezing my shoulder, “you found the money!”
“Not yet,” I said. “We know the one for the account at Primary Federal. And we know one of these other three is probably code for the account number at Warranty National. But where are the other two? And what’s with the men’s names?”
“You said it—codes!” Annie exclaimed triumphantly, bouncing on the sofa.
“PIN codes!” I shouted. “She disguised the bank account numbers as phone numbers and listed the PIN codes in letters instead of numbers.”
We decided to test our theory with low-hanging fruit. I dialed the customer service number for Primary Federal and punched in the association’s account number.
“For your security, please enter your four-digit PIN and press pound,” the electronic voice commanded.
I held my breath and spelled out ‘Andy’ on the keypad, carefully pressing 2-6-3-9.
“Your account has a balance of fourteen dollars and twelve cents.”
I grinned at Annie. “Now all we have to do is figure out where these other two are—and Oceanside will be back in business.”
CHAPTER 45
Lucy, Annie, and I decamped to a juice bar down the street that specialized in fresh tropical juices, hot sandwiches, and organic coffee. With a view of the water, the place was a picture po
stcard of Miami.
But all I cared about was the Wi-Fi.
Because, at this point, that put the place one step ahead of Oceanside.
Chalk it up to one more bill Leslie hadn’t paid. So while residents had Wi-Fi in their homes (if they’d subscribed), the public coverage that blanketed the pool, lobby, restaurants, bars, cafés, spas, and workout room, was a thing of the past.
Dennis had been fielding phone calls all morning—telling angry residents that it was a technical glitch that would be fixed “as soon as the company could get a guy out to the building.”
What he didn’t tell them: The company wasn’t sending anyone until Oceanside cut them a check.
Annie, naturally, had Internet in the penthouse. But she was afraid that I was missing the best part of my Miami vacation. So she convinced me we could work just as easily at the juice bar.
“They have these great grilled cheese and shredded chicken sandwiches,” she promised. “With roasted peppers and caramelized onions.”
We’d gotten a table in the shade, under a big blue umbrella. Lucy, resplendent in her booties—all four of them—was delicately lapping water from her collapsible bowl under the table.
As offices go, it was pretty cool.
While we waited for our order, I was pondering our match-the-account-numbers-with-the-banks puzzle.
This morning, I’d tried a couple of Leslie’s phone numbers with Warranty National. And though I struck out with the first one, I hit pay dirt with the second. (PIN code: Eddy.)
It had a sizable balance. Or, at least, more money than I’d make in a few years. So with any luck, we could send it back to Primary Federal and get the Wi-Fi switched on, call the garbage collectors, and have the pool decontaminated.
But by my calculations, this was nowhere near all of the association’s missing money.
Times like this made me realize how much I really missed investigative reporting. As a freelancer, I’d been writing a slew of feature stories. And I’d enjoyed a six-week stint as a newspaper agony aunt. It was fun, and it paid the bills. But I felt like my news skills were getting rusty.
Suddenly, I was rooting through documents, searching for the truth. And people were depending on me to find it—and get it right. It was scary. And kind of exhilarating.
What no one understands about reporters: Everyone thinks if they tell us a juicy story, we’ll just print it verbatim.
That’s hearsay, not news. And I’m nobody’s stenographer.
For us, your intriguing tidbit is just the beginning. A tip, a lead, a piece of string to follow.
After you share it, that’s when we start digging. Tracking clues, looking for needles in haystacks, and fact-checking stuff your mamma told you was gospel.
Most of the time, those tips come to nothing. But when they pan out, even the tipster might not recognize the end result.
One of my favorites was a municipal secretary who indignantly excoriated my former paper—and me—for printing only bad things about her city. Instead, we needed to write about how her director-boss was putting in all his spare time off the clock. No matter the hour, she loyally informed me, the guy was always on the job.
Turned out he worked the same nine-to-five everyone else did. But he was driving his city car after hours and on weekends. Ditto his city-issued credit card.
So the fact that I had a few slim leads—like numbers for accounts when we didn’t know the banks—didn’t bother me all that much.
Time to pull a little string.
CHAPTER 46
That evening, Gabby “borrowed” Lucy.
She’d planned a jaunt to a dog-friendly beach followed by a “little shopping spree” at a South Beach pet boutique and a trip to a dog spa.
I just hoped the pup wouldn’t come home with pink nails or a rhinestone collar. I didn’t know how I’d explain either one to Nick.
After they’d left, I was sitting on the floor of Annie’s living room, with a notepad and pen on one side and a stack of mail on the other.
“What on earth are you doing?” my sister asked.
“Welcome to the glamorous world of reporting,” I said, glancing up. “I’m going through Leslie McQueen’s junk mail.”
“Why?”
“Promise not to laugh?”
Annie nodded.
“I’m looking for clues.”
Of course, she laughed.
“Where did you get all that?” Annie asked, eyeing the pile. “We never found her mailbox key. I wouldn’t even know which box is hers. Besides, isn’t stealing mail a federal crime?”
She actually sounded worried.
“If I take it from her box before she collects it, that’s a federal crime. I stole this from her kitchen. After she collected it. So that’s just a regular crime.”
“Much better,” Annie said, shaking her head.
“Look, if this were for a story, I wouldn’t have done that. Couldn’t have. But if you want to get back the money Leslie stole and keep Dennis and Geoffrey out of jail, I’m running out of options.”
“Sorry, Cissy,” she said contritely, as she sat on the floor beside me, neatly crossing her legs. “How can I help?”
I handed her half the stack. “We already know that Leslie was doing business with Primary Federal, which is here in town. And Warranty National, which is based in Richmond. What we’re looking for are any clues to the identities of her other two banks. Trust me, when you open a bank account anywhere, you go on a ton of mailing lists. Which means lots of junk mail. And if there’s a healthy balance, the bank is also going to try to sell you on its other services. So I’m hoping some of this might give us a few hints.”
We sorted in silence.
“Gutter cleaning, nail salon, dentist,” I muttered, rejecting three in a row.
“ ‘We’ll remortgage your home at three percent,’” Annie read from a letter on creamy paper.
“OK, that sounds promising,” I admitted. “Who’s it from?”
“Transcontinental Bank and Trust in Boston. But it’s just a form letter. Oooh, and here’s another one from the same bank—promoting their luxury auto loan program.”
“Oh yeah, sounds like someone knows Leslie has a little money to burn. So ‘Jake’ or ‘Thom’ could be Transcontinental,” I said, scribbling notes on the pad. “Where did Quinn Whitmore say Fred McQueen worked?”
“He didn’t. The closest he got was the city—Charlotte. But Kelsey works at Promethean National.”
“Might be helpful to have a friend at the bank,” I said, making notes. “Especially one who feels like she owes you a favor.”
“Do you think Kelsey was involved?” my sister asked.
“No idea. Off the top of my head, I don’t think so. I don’t think she’s got the nerve for the kind of games Leslie was playing. But I’ve been wrong before.”
Boy, had I.
“Wait a minute,” my sister said, snapping her fingers. “Kelsey said she’s a manager in investments.”
I nodded, tossing aside a flyer for a meal delivery service and another for a discount pharmacy. I looked up and noticed the color had drained from my sister’s flawless face.
“If Leslie has already invested that money,” she breathed, “it’s going to be impossible for us to get it back.”
I’d pictured the possibility of Leslie McQueen moving her ill-gotten gains overseas. Switzerland. The Caribbean. Macao. But for some reason I’d never seriously considered a scenario in which she’d park that money close to home and just transfer it into something a little less liquid, like stocks, bonds, or—heaven help us—real estate.
While the cops could follow the trail and—eventually—return everything to Oceanside, that would be long after the scandal decimated the value of this place. And possibly Dennis and Geoffrey right along with it.
“Look, we don’t know anything yet,” I reasoned. “Let’s try the account numbers and see what Leslie still has in cold, hard cash. Then we can panic.”
&
nbsp; “Deal,” my sister said resolutely.
After we looked up the customer service numbers, I dialed Promethean National first. For some reason, I punched in the fourth account number. The one for ‘Thom.’
I took a deep breath and poked 8-4-6-6.
It had a balance. Not as much as the account at Warranty National. But Dennis and Geoffrey could definitely use that money to pay some of the building’s bills.
I dutifully jotted down the amount, hit 3 so the automated system repeated the balance (just to be sure), and quickly hung up the phone.
I showed Annie the pad, pointing to the dollar amount.
“Cissy, this is great!”
“I’m feeling lucky. What say we check Transcontinental, too?”
I called the bank’s customer service number, entered the account number, and carefully spelled out J-A-K-E on the keypad.
The balance was staggering. I wrote it down, made the system repeat the information—and quickly hung up the phone. Then, just to be safe, I shut it off.
I handed Annie the pad.
“Oh my gosh, Cissy,” she said, leaning forward and throwing her arms around me. “You did it!”
CHAPTER 47
We banged on Dennis Chu’s door. For a long time, nothing happened. Then I saw a shadow in front of the peephole. The door opened, and he stuck his head out furtively.
“Hurry up, if you want to come in,” he said, stepping back inside. “There’s gonna be another gang of them any minute.”
“Gang of what?” I said, as he closed the door behind us and turned both bolts.
“Angry residents. You name it, if it’s in this building, it’s broken, missing, disconnected, or malfunctioning. I’ve been yelled at—actually screamed at—three times tonight. Once by a buddy of mine. I don’t know how much more of this I can take. My nerves are shot. I can’t eat. I can’t sleep. I’m thinking it might be time to turn myself in.”
“Alex found the money,” Annie said.
“Really?” he said, looking hopeful. “You’re not playing, right? Because, I mean, I’ve been promising people money all day. But that’s total BS.”