Since Friday I have been dealing with Denise, the bookkeeper, who gave me the information I have been looking at. In talking to her I found out some disturbing things. Carol has been doing the computerized bank reconciliation herself. This is disturbing because she has signing authority and, according to Denise, Carol writes some of the checks.”
“No checks and balances,” I said.
“Exactly,” Wesley said without cracking a smile. “Denise doesn't see the bank statements; the information gets fed to her by Carol so she can do the financial reports. So this check register we've been going over is produced by Carol.”
“And we don't know whether the check amounts agree to the bank statements.”
“My guess is that the figures in column two of the code represent the actual amounts of the checks. Column three is the amount kicked back to Carol. The difference is kept by Superior Grocers, and represents what Silver Acres owed them plus a bonus for keeping quiet about the arrangement.”
“If you're right,” I said, scanning the figures in column three of the code, “Silver Acres is out something over $200,000.”
“Thus the temporary cash flow problem.”
“How can we verify that?”
“By getting duplicate copies of the bank statements. I'll have Denise order them today, without telling Carol.”
“Carol is well paid,” I said. “I can't understand why she would do something like this.”
“I've gotten to know her pretty well,” Wesley said. “Her father was ill for a long time and just recently died. Carol said something about him not having enough medical insurance.”
“So you think she was helping to pay his bills…”
“I don't know, but it's a possibility.”
I thought of something. I found my address book in my purse and looked for the attorney who was executor of Gerald's will. I couldn't remember his name so I had to page through the whole book until I came to W. It was Wheeler, Walter Wheeler. I wished I could remember names as well as I could remember numbers.
I called his office and got past the person who answered the phone by speaking in an urgent voice. When Mr. Wheeler came on the line I asked him for the names of the two people who had witnessed the codicil to Gerald's will that gave additional money to Silver Acres. After a pause he told me they were Carol Grant and Joe Turner.
I hung up the phone and turned to Wesley. “Carol knew all along that Gerald's bequest to Silver Acres was $500,000 instead of $100,000,” I told him. I had told him about the $500,000 earlier.
“Interesting,” Wesley said, with the look of a predator who has picked up the scent of the prey. “I wonder if she hoped to replace the difference between her books and the bank figures with the money from Gerald's will and planned to tell the world he gave Silver Acres less than he actually did.”
“If so, I guess I ruined her plan.”
“No wonder she kicked you out.”
“Except that she didn't know I knew until after I was gone. But when I told her I knew she didn't admit she knew.” I let that sink into my brain. “If she's cooking the books, wouldn't she have been caught, eventually?”
“A good auditor would catch her. That's why she needed to replace the money.”
“That's why she needed to have Gerald dead.”
“What are you saying?”
“Listen, let me know what you find out about the bank statements, okay? Meanwhile, I've got to investigate a murder.”
“Were you able to decode the code?”
“No, it's all gibberish to me. I'm giving up on it.” I had walked to Tess' apartment from Wesley's. I couldn't tell her the truth because Wesley had sworn me to secrecy, on pain of perpetual torture, while he was investigating the possibility that Carol had embezzled money from Silver Acres. If Carol got wind of it she would undoubtedly try to kill the investigation, if not the investigator.
“Does this mean you're going back to living a normal life?” Tess asked. “Rocking in your rocking chair and knitting little things for your great grandson?”
“My great grandson is already too big for little things. And the answer is, not quite. I still want to satisfy myself in one area. Who put the shellfish in the casserole and when did they do it?”
Tess sighed a long sigh and said, “I suppose you need my help.”
“I'd like to bounce some things off you. Could you get the pad you've been using to take notes on the case?”
Tess dutifully produced the lined, yellow pad and sat on her couch, ready to write.
I paced up and down her living room, trying to think. “Let's talk about the fire alarm because I have a feeling there is a link between that and the shellfish showing up in the casserole.”
“Unless Harriet put it in before she took it to the recreation room.”
“Okay, but let's not worry about that at the moment.” I didn't want to worry about it because I didn't know of any way of checking it. “First of all, how did the fire alarm get set off?”
“Carol said it was a false alarm. I guess we could ask her if she tracked it down.”
Talking to Carol was the last thing I wanted to do. “There are a number of fire alarm switches in the main building so it could have been set off at any one of them. By anybody. Including the person with the shellfish. You're still a member of the Housekeeping Committee, aren't you?”
“Yes,” Tess admitted.
“So you know Joe Turner.”
“Yes.”
“Could you talk to him about safety procedures? Ask him how the fire alarm system works and whether it's possible to tell which switch set it off.” I wanted to add that I would go with her to ogle Joe, but decided not to push my luck.
“You don't want much, do you? It's a good thing I like you.”
I stopped pacing and put a hand on Tess' shoulder. “You know you want to solve this as much as I do. I can tell you one thing. Ellen didn't set off the alarm. I remember I saw her using her cellular phone at the time the alarm went off.”
Albert was running around like a chicken with its head cut off, as my mother used to say. If you're not a farmer you don't want to know the story behind that saying. He had just come home from the university. I was making dinner, like a good housewife.
“Is there anything I can do to help?” I asked.
“I can't find Carol's beeper number,” he said. “I'm supposed to take her to the symphony tonight but we've called an emergency department meeting. She's not in her office and she's not at home.”
Of course I couldn't tell Albert about the suspicions Wesley and I had about Carol. I didn't want to be the one to do it, anyway, because he would say I was prejudiced against her. He would be right.
Albert doesn't have a pocket computer with names and phone numbers, or even an address book. He depends on slips of paper. He probably inherited his organizational skills from me, although I at least have an address book.
He finally found the correct slip sitting beside the kitchen telephone. I glanced over his shoulder at the paper as he punched in the number: 248-3186. I memorized it in my inimitable way: two, two-squared, two-cubed, the two lowest odd digits in descending sequence and the two highest even digits in descending sequence. After a pause I watched Albert punch in his home phone number and hang up. Five minutes later Carol called.
After a hasty dinner Albert dashed out, leaving me alone again. I washed and wiped the dishes, eschewing the use of Albert's dishwasher since there weren't many of them and I have never owned a dishwasher, myself.
