Leo couldn’t get over how pretty she was. He had interviewed her several months ago, but he’d forgotten Rosalyn Wahlberg was such a knockout.
“I’m sorry, but Mr. Lee is out of town on business this whole month.”
“He’s in jail. I know. I’m Leo Hewitt. I interviewed you briefly in October.”
“I remember you. I thought I was finished with all of that.”
“You are. Adam sent me. He needs your help.”
“But don’t you work for the other side?”
“It’s a long story.”
She used her key to open Adam’s office door. Once inside, Rosalyn switched on the desk lamp and pulled the dust cover off the computer keyboard.
“What do you know about computers?”
“I don’t bother them, they don’t bother me.”
“Well, come here. I’ll give you your first lesson.”
Leo looked suspiciously at the machine, then at Rosalyn.
“Sit down. Okay, now turn it on. Right back there. That’s it. There. See, you’re a natural.” Leo smiled gratefully at her. “Okay, hit enter. The big one, to the right. Uh-oh, I don’t have the password.”
Leo fumbled through his pockets and pulled out a slip of paper. “I’ve got it.” He typed in the password, and a list of functions popped up on the screen. Rosalyn leaned over Leo’s shoulder. Her smell was earthy and sweet.
“How long have you worked for Adam?”
“Oh, God, it’s been years and years now. I started as a temp. His secretary quit on him after her car was vandalized in the parking garage. I guess it spooked her.”
“And he’s seemed to be a pretty straight guy all this time?”
“Up until now, yes.” The computer belched out a short electronic warble to indicate that it was ready to go.
“Well, tell it what you want it to do,” Rosalyn said. Leo selected the search function. Another menu appeared on the screen. It read:
SEARCH: _ BY FINANCIAL INSTITUTION
_ BY ACCOUNT NUMBER
_ BY NAME
_ BY TRANSACTION
Leo selected BY NAME. “I think I’m getting the hang of this.” The screen read: ENTER NAME. Leo typed in his own name and social security number. After about ten seconds every financial account Leo had ever opened was listed on the screen. From his first savings account as a teenager to various CDs and IRAs opened and long since cashed out. He clicked on his current checking account and saw the dutiful deposits of his paycheck along with various withdrawals.
“This can’t be legal.”
“I would tend to doubt that myself.”
“How is it even possible?”
“This is Lawson Systems Financial Risk Management. We sell peace of mind to other, larger firms who don’t want to take on the liability of doing it in-house. Adam’s job is to find people’s assets. Sometimes to find out if they’re hiding those assets. And if so, where. You think when real money is on the line they just pull your credit report? No, they let someone like Adam look at everything. No, I doubt it’s legal, but it happens every day.”
Leo entered CONSTANCE PERKINS and fed in her Social Security number. A bank statement filled the screen. Leo could feel Rosalyn brushing up against him to point to a key. “Use this key to page through it.”
Leo paged through Violet’s bank records, scanning each transaction. Mostly, there were deposits and withdrawals of a few hundred dollars each. Then he saw a deposit of twenty thousand dollars on the thirty-first of October.
“I’ll be damned.”
“Is that what you were looking for?”
“Oh yeah. Is there any way to find out what account the twenty thousand came out of?”
“Adam could probably do it, but I wouldn’t know where to begin. Maybe if we knew where to start looking. If you had an account number or a name.”
Leo typed in MONTGOMERY LEE.
“Monty?”
“Yeah, you ever met him?”
“I went out with him once.”
“You dated him?”
“Once. We went out once.”
Monty’s financial history-loans, mortgage, credit report, investments-popped onto the screen. He had three separate bank accounts. Over the course of three months, there were more cash withdrawals, on average, than there were, say, the three months prior to that. Nothing big, nothing that stood out. Seven hundred dollars here, twelve hundred there-pocket money for a man-about-town like Monty Lee. Only problem was, these excess cash withdrawals added up to roughly twenty thousand dollars more cash than Monty had ever used in any other three-month period. Maybe he was a recovering gambler; maybe he had had a relapse, gone on a three-month gambling binge at the dog tracks. Maybe he had developed a taste for designer drugs, then given them up. It didn’t really matter, though, did it? They were relatively small withdrawals-unusual, perhaps, in the long run, but easily explainable in any number of ways.
“Why only once?”
“He seemed more interested in Adam than me.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, he would ask me things. Like had Adam ever come on to me.”
“And what did you tell him?”
“The truth. That Adam would never do something like that. At least that’s what I used to think before all of this. Anyway, Monty never called me again after that one night. And I was glad. I mean, he may be the city’s most eligible bachelor, but he just seemed like a creep to me.”
Leo watched financial statements shuffle across the computer screen. He considered what Rosalyn had said about Monty Lee. He decided she was a smart girl.
“So, are you dating anybody now?”