I.L. Wolf - Her Cousin, Much Removed Page 2
“Tell your mother to call me when she calls you. The number she gave me for the international cell phone doesn’t seem to be working.”
“Well, they’re in a very remote area.”
“So you say. Really, what they’re doing traipsing around the world at their age—”
“Where?” Venetia said.
“How should I know where? Your mother never talks to me.”
Lucky her. “No, I mean where is the funeral?”
“This is what I’m talking about. Do I have to hold your hand through everything?”
“Isn’t that what you called me to tell me?”
“Who are you to tell me what I called you to tell you? Tiresome. So tiresome.”
Like a gift from heaven, there was a knock at the door. “Aunt Sissy, I’ve got to run, there’s someone here.”
“Thursday.”
“I’ve got it,” she said, and hung up as she opened the door, phone still in her hand. The officer from Delenda’s house stood in the hallway. “Detective James.”
“We need to talk,” he said.
“How did you get upstairs without calling?”
“We can discuss your building’s appalling lack of security later. Can I come in?”
She stepped aside and let him through into her small living room/dining room/media room/entertainment room. “Cozy,” he said.
She took a glance around at the close walls. “So I’ve been told. You said we need to talk?”
He hovered near her desk, his eyes on the mess of papers there. He took a pen from his inside jacket pocket and pushed a few envelopes aside.
“Uh excuse me,” she said, joining him by the desk and putting the papers back, “but if you want to search my apartment, you’re going to need a warrant.”
He broke his eyes from the desk, as though surprised to see her standing there. “Huh?” he said.
“You need a warrant to search my papers.”
“Not if it’s in plain sight,” he said, nonetheless heading toward the faded blue sofa and settling in a little lower than he judged. “Nice couch,” he said.
“If you’ve come here to insult my place and my stuff, I think you’ve managed,” she said, “and it’s not in plain sight if you have to move stuff to see it. I may not be a practicing lawyer, but I do remember that.”
“Yeah, that’s also kind of strange.”
“’Also’ kind of strange?”
“That you don’t practice law anymore. I couldn’t find any disciplinary records or lawsuits.”
“Have you ever talked to any lawyers? The guy who served you your coffee this morning probably used to be a lawyer.”
“Dave? No, no way.” He thought for a moment. “Well, maybe. But that’s not why I’m here. How did you know about the money laundering?”
“What money laundering?’
“You said you suspected Delenda was involved in money laundering. How did you know?”
“I didn’t know. As you said, I suspected,” she said.
“See, that’s the part that’s strange.”
“Oh,” she said.
“Oh, what?”
“You said ‘also strange’ earlier. Now I know what’s the also.”
“Look, Venetia,” he said, “I’m going to ask you again, how did you know about the money laundering?”
“Totally conjecture. Do you want anything to drink?”
“No, and you should sit.”
Something in her stopped, and she felt cold. “Am I in trouble here?”
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out. We found some financials at her house, and they’re pretty suspicious.”
“You mean you found them hours ago?”
“Yes.”
“And you already know they’re suspicious?”
“That’s not the strange part. But yes, they’re so obviously odd that we didn’t need the forensic accountant to figure out they’re odd.”
“Delenda wasn’t all that heavy on the smarts,” Venetia said, leaning back in her sunken armchair. “She always acted like no one could tell what she was up to, when it was obvious she was up to something.”
“Yes, you say that,” he said, his eyes narrowed, his hands loosely between his knees as he bent forward, “which makes this more ironic.”
“Detective, you’re busy, I’m busy, can you tell me what you’re saying?”
“You’re busy? Doing what?”
“Stuff. Seriously, what is it?”
Reaching into his left jacket pocket, he pulled out a sheaf of papers too thick to fold. They sprang open at their release from confinement.
“Perhaps you should take a look,” he said, and tossed them toward her.
“Chain of custody much?” she said without thinking, slanting to catch them but missing them anyway.
“They’re copies.”
“OK,” she said. “Want to tell me what I’m looking f—” She didn’t get further because there was no need. Her name was all over the documents.
Chapter 3
“What the?” she said as she flipped through the papers, page after page, her name appearing under signature lines, under lines to initial. On the last page, there was a signature that was supposed to be hers, swearing to the truth in the rest of it. The illegible signature of a witness on the last page bore her notary stamp.
She slammed the papers to her lap, her brown eyes wide. “I didn’t draft these. I certainly didn’t sign them. And there’s no way I notarized them.”
“It says it’s your stamp,” he said.
“I don’t care what it says, I wasn’t there, it wasn’t my signature and it certainly wasn’t my stamp. I had absolutely nothing to do with Delenda professionally. I knew better.”
“Do you have your stamp?”
“Somewhere,” she said. “I haven’t used it in years. Obviously.”
“What about Billie Kay?”
“She wouldn’t have had access to my stamp. She was Delenda’s assistant, not mine,” she said.
“No, I mean could Billie Kay have forged your signature? Taken your notary stamp, maybe, without your noticing?”
“No, of course not. Billie? She wouldn’t do that, it’s utterly unlike her.”
“How well do you know Billie?” he asked.
“Well.”
“Care to elaborate?”
“We’ve known one another since grade school, and I told her not to work for Delenda, but Billie doesn’t always listen. Or never listens. Billie? Why would she?”
“We’re trying to figure out what happened.”
“This is crazy,” she said.
“Have you looked at the document?”
“You watched me do it.”
“I mean have you really looked at it,” he said.
She shot him a look, but flipped back to the front anyway, and this time took a few minutes to read it through. “Incorporation documents. Declarations,” she said. “These were structuring a business. A business called,” she dropped the papers to her lap and looked at him practically through her eyebrows, “ShamCorp? Seriously? The state approved this and registered the corporation,” she glanced at the papers, “six years ago? It’s also weird. The state has pre-written forms you can use, but these were drafted by someone.”
“And you wondered why I didn’t need a forensic accountant.”
“I suppose ShamCorp could be a bit of a clue,” she said. “So you think that I drafted these documents, signed them, notarized them and created a dummy corporation called ShamCorp?”
“We don’t know for sure if it’s a dummy,” he said, “I’m good, but I’m not that good. We could have layers.”
“And you think that I’m actually this stupid?”
He looked at her, probably for a few seconds too long, and said sincerely, “No, I actually don’t. Which is why I’m here. Though if you did do work like that, it would explain why you’re no longer practicing.”
“I don’t understand why that’s such a
big thing with you. I hated the practice of law. End of story.”
“If you say so,” he said. “I don’t think you’re stupid enough to set up a corporation for the purposes of laundering money with the name ShamCorp. But, unless you did—”
“Seriously?”
“I only met you hours ago. First impressions can be wrong.”
“Again, thanks.”
“But even if I don’t think so—and I don’t—someone did.”
“Meaning what?”
“I think someone was setting you up to take the fall.”
“Fall for what?”
“That I don’t know yet. If I knew that, I think my case would be solved. You were right about Delenda, though, she was absolutely up to something, and up to her eyebrows in it,” said Detective James.
“She didn’t have eyebrows. She drew them on.”
“She didn’t have—” He shook his head. “Never mind. I’m sure you know this already, but the kinds of people involved in money laundering aren’t always so nice.”
“Unless they’re bankers,” said Venetia.
“Especially if they’re bankers,” Detective James said, heading toward the door. “I’ll let you keep those copies. Let me know if you see anything or figure out who wrote them. Why they wrote them. Why your name’s on them.”
“In other words, let you know if I’ve done your job for you?” He gave her a half-smile as he stepped into the hallway. “You know, it’s kind of weird, you trusting me like this,” she said. “I could be the one who killed her.”
“No, you really couldn’t,” he said. “At least I really doubt it. Make sure to keep your door locked. And talk to your super about the security.”
“Super? It’s a condo building. We have a management company.”
“They’re not doing a stellar job,” he said. “Keep your door locked. Both locks. And the chain.”
The humor left her, leaving a thin trail of uncertainty behind. “You really think someone might hurt me?”
“I really think someone might try given how much they’ve tried to make it look like you’re involved. And since we found the documents at Delenda’s house, and you know how it worked out for her, I’d be careful.”
“Great,” she said. “Great.”
“Take care,” he said, and then he was gone. She followed his advice, locking first the bottom, then the top, and sliding in the chain. She leaned her forehead against the cool door, turned around, and slid all the way to her peel-n-stick tile floor.
Granted, she and Delenda hadn’t had the warmest relationship. But trying to frame her for something? Would she really? Was it in her nature?
More to the point, did she have the bandwidth?
The answer to that last question was, resoundingly, no. Someone had helped her. Maybe it was her idea, maybe it wasn’t.
She heaved herself from the floor and picked up the papers. She’d never been a corporate person that was more Dane’s speed. Still, she could read legal.
Taking the documents, she nudged some stacks to make room on her desk, pulled a notepad out of a drawer, and set to it. If someone was going to harm her, she might as well figure out why.
And who.
***
She was still bent over her desk when she realized she couldn’t really see anymore. The sun had gone, and the light in her apartment had turned murky. She pulled the cord on the desk lamp, a big, old thing with a garish green hood, but clicked it off again, headed to the kitchen, grabbed a mug and filled it with water. She stuck it in the microwave.
When it beeped, she dunked in a teabag, once, twice, three times, and put it in the ramekin she left on the counter for teabags, staring absently at her cup.
Delenda had given her that cup, she thought suddenly, wondering how she could have forgotten. It’s a strange emptiness when someone you don’t think you’ll miss dies.
Not really time for nostalgia, though. After her thorough reading of the corporation documents, the company was looking pretty much like a shell. It had a string of subsidiaries, all wholly-owned by the larger corporation. The names were mostly non-descriptive, things like Lanmark Real Estate and Investment LLC, but none them offered any hints as to what ShamCorp was doing.
Even with the limited experience she had with business documents in her divorce cases, these papers definitely made it look like this corporation was so much a dummy, there had to be a ventriloquist somewhere.
The problem was that the ventriloquist bore a striking resemblance to her, if a person took the papers at face value. She counted herself lucky that Detective James hadn’t pegged her as the criminal type, because there was a good chance she’d be down at the police station with Billie.
Billie. She grabbed her phone, checking the time. It was already after seven; Billie had called her more than eight hours ago. She hadn’t left a message, she hadn’t texted, she hadn’t e-mailed.
She called her, but it went straight to voice. She wondered if she’d been taken into custody, if she’d been released, or if her phone was dead. Knowing Billie, odds were on her phone being dead.
There was always the possibility of calling Dane to find out what happened, but once was enough for today, it was all too weird.
She settled on the sofa, mug in her hands. It was one of those with a cartoon person, frazzled and in a mess, her eyes wild. “Where’s my donut?” she was asking. When Delenda gave it to her, for a birthday or a family grab bag something when giving a gift was inescapable, she’d hooted aloud as Venetia read it.
“It reminded me of you,” she said. “Where’s my donut!”
“Thanks,” she said.
“It’s exactly how I’d imagine you as a cartoon,” Delenda added. “I couldn’t believe it when I found it. Well, Billie found it. But still. Where’s my donut!”
She wasn’t sure why she’d kept it; it would have made a great White Elephant for some poor unsuspecting sap who thought she’d finally trade in the gift she’d longed to be rid of. But for some reason she’d held on to it.
Maybe to remind herself not to do stupid things like lending Delenda platters she really wanted back. Darn thing.
She dug for the remote, which had worked its way between her cushions. The TV flickered alive and she squinted across the room at it. . Seriously, one of these days she was going to buy a bigger one. The news segment was all about Delenda.
“—woman discovered dead in her home office by her assistant, Billie Kay. Kay was taken in for questioning and later released. Local 9 reporter Tipsy Nightingale is on the scene. Tipsy?”
Even from the couch, Venetia could see the tall blonde reporter was inside Delenda’s house, in what Delenda liked to call her “Great Room,” an echoey space with nearly three stories of fake-leaded windows. She’d angled herself into the corner that Delenda dubbed the library, though 95 percent of the books weren’t actual books. Instead, they were books-by-the-foot, fake spines with nothing in them. Venetia got up to read the captions.
“The Vines,” it said right below Tipsy’s elbow. Wherever she now was, on this point, no doubt Delenda was thrilled.
“Thanks, Mason and Ashley,” Tipsy said, her teeth whiter than the lettering below. “I’m here at the home of Delenda O’Brien, who was discovered dead in her home office by her assistant, Billie Kay.” Darn it, she’d missed Mason’s opening.
So much for it being a crime scene, Venetia thought, edging a bit closer still to the television, remote in hand.
“The entrepreneur, businesswoman and philanthropist –”
Philanthropist?
“—suddenly died while allegedly eating chocolates.” Venetia found her eye drawn to a sliver of something at the edge of the frame, on the wall next to the book shelves. The camera started to pan over, and, though she was trying to pay attention to Tipsy, she couldn’t help but focus on the sliver, gradually getting larger and larger. But then it was obscured by a reedy man. She wondered if he worked with Detective James.
S
he realized she hadn’t really been listening, she must have misheard. Giving a silent thanks to the inventor of DVRs, she rewound, but it sounded exactly the same as it had the first time.
“—O’Brien’s husband, Higson Boggs. Mr. Boggs, can you tell us—” Venetia hit pause. There it was, under his name, “Husband of the deceased.” She grabbed her purse from the back of her desk chair and dug through it, first the back pocket, then then middle, then the front, finally finding the card.
“Detective James.”
“Hey, it’s Venetia Shipman. You know, Delenda O’Brien’s—”
“Sort-of-cousin. Yes I remember, it’s only been a few hours.”
“I didn’t know if you would recognize my name.”
“I don’t know a lot of Venetias. Did you find something on those corporate documents?”
“No. Well, yes. Maybe, but that’s not why I’m calling. Are you watching, or did you happen to see, the Local 9 news?”
“Nope,” he said, “Kind of trying to solve a murder.”
“Well, you need to see it. There’s a man on there, and he’s claiming to be Delenda’s husband.”
“Claiming to be?”
“Delenda wasn’t married.”
Chapter 4
“Are you sure?” he said, a train rattling in the background. “Hold on.” He waited until the noise subsided to speak again. “Are you sure?’
“Uh, yeah. I never met a husband. I never even met a boyfriend.”
“Did you socialize often?”
“Of course. Well, I don’t know, what do you think is often? And what would you call socializing?”
“Did you see her at the times and places you’d expect someone to bring a significant other?”
“She threw dinner parties a lot.” She paused for a moment. “Or she told me she did, after the fact.”
“So that’s a ‘no’ to my question?”
“I guess. By the way, I’m pretty sure my platter’s hanging on the wall of her great room. I couldn’t be totally sure, on account of Higson’s head.”
“Higson?”
She took another glance at the TV, still paused in the same spot. “Higson Boggs. He’s the one claiming to be her husband.”