Stillman sighed. “There’s no reason to get all sentimental about it. There are people within a block of here who would kill you for the change in your pockets. I’m pretty sure I’m one of them.” He got out of the car and waited while Walker joined him.
“Then what’s the difference between you and them?”
Stillman smiled peacefully. “If I have enough to stay alive you’re safe from me. No matter how much a thief has, he still wants yours.”
8
Walker found his room and unlocked the door, then realized that Stillman was following him inside. Stillman tossed his pile of files on the bed, sat down, and opened one. He looked up. “You weren’t planning an afternoon nap, were you?”
“No . . . ”
“Good. Then let’s get started.”
Walker set his suitcase down and stood still. “Doing what?”
“Figuring,” Stillman said. “It’s been three weeks since Andrew Werfel died. He was in New Mexico, and the cause of death was congestive heart failure.” He looked up. “I suppose you read that on the death certificate.”
“Yes,” said Walker. “They always say that. Or pneumonia.”
“Yep. It’s always heart or lungs. I checked with an acquaintance in Santa Fe, who checked with the coroner’s office. The cause was verified. No foul play, as they’re fond of saying. Then, after about a week, when the certificate was issued, the bogus Alan Werfel showed up in Pasadena with a copy. He also had Alan Werfel’s real ID, and collected a check. Your friend Ellen seems to have handled everything.”
“I saw that too,” said Walker. “Her signature is on every piece of paper.”
“Another week passes, and who calls the Pasadena office but the real Alan Werfel? He wants to know the procedure for collecting on his father’s insurance policy.”
“Did he talk to Ellen too?”
“No, Winters. He asked for the manager, so that’s who he got. Winters thought it was somebody trying to pull a scam, so he told him what he would need to bring, set up an appointment, and called the cops.”
“What happened?”
“There were two plainclothes cops sitting at those desks out front when he got there. They waited until he had presented his claim, signed some papers, then showed their badges and dragged him downtown. After a couple of hours they managed to get his prints run and realized an apology was in order. They issued a bulletin for a guy who looks just like Werfel and uses Werfel’s name.” Stillman smiled. “I wonder how long it’s going to take for Werfel to realize what they’ve done to him.”
“Is that when McClaren’s called you in?”
“Not yet,” said Stillman. “The company traces the check it issued to the first Alan Werfel a week earlier. It was drawn on Wells Fargo in San Francisco. It was endorsed by the artistic but fake Alan Werfel and deposited in an account at Bank of America.” He nodded to himself. “This is, not surprisingly, a new account. But it’s a different branch of the same bank that Alan Werfel uses, and the check is to Alan Werfel from McClaren’s, so it won’t bounce. This keeps them calm, and they only put a hold on the three million they can’t cover with his other accounts.”
“Where is the money now?”
“It traveled. On day two, the fake Alan Werfel starts moving it fast. He gets a check to a real estate company for a new house. This is one of those certified, guaranteed, immediate-pay cashier’s checks for closing escrow. This one is for seven million, six hundred thousand. He gets another check to an insurance company on the same basis: who wants to accept ownership of a seven-million-dollar house with no fire insurance? It’s expensive. A hundred grand. Another hundred for earthquake. He also pays two hundred to a contractor as an initial payment for remodeling, four hundred to an interior decorator for antique furniture and shipping, two-forty to a landscape architect. On day five, he pays a million six to an art dealer for paintings. In fact, this guy manages to move ten million, two hundred and forty thousand before noon on day five. Then he takes a one-year lease on another house to live in while his is being fixed up: ten thousand a month for a total of one hundred twenty. He pays a probate lawyer three hundred thousand for settling his father’s estate. He even pays for the funeral—twenty grand, plus twenty-five for the caterer.”
“For a funeral?”
“An imaginary one, sure. Why be cheap? That must be the going rate, because it didn’t raise any flags. That left the account with a million two ninety-five. He transferred a million two to an account at Union Bank with a notation on the check that it was for the rest of the remodeling, and closed the B. of A. account with ninety-five grand in cash. Presumably for tips.”
“That’s it, isn’t it?”
“That’s it. All before McClaren’s knew enough to stop payment on the first check. Of course, each of the imaginary companies had its own account at a different bank. That bought them more time to move it before it could be tracked down.” He paused. “What I’m interested in is this money at Union Bank.”
“Why?”
“For one thing, it hasn’t been pulled out as checks to businesses that don’t exist. It’s set up as a checking account owned by a woman named Lydia King.”
“So?”
“The original amount was twelve million. The account was a million, two hundred thousand. It’s ten percent.” He glanced at Walker. “The account was set up after all the other money had been successfully moved, as though they were waiting for that to happen before they paid Lydia King.”
“Are you saying it was a bribe to Ellen Snyder? That she’s off somewhere living as Lydia King?”
“I’m not ready to make any bald pronouncements just yet,” said Stillman. He opened another folder and paged through it. “She didn’t go into the bank and get herself on the security tapes, so I can’t tell you who Lydia King is. She just wrote checks and converted them all over creation. She wrote small checks to other women, who took the money in cash, and she used checks to buy things that can be converted: gold coins, some good jewelry, traveler’s checks, money orders, foreign currency.”
“So what makes this money different? They made up businesses, and they made up a person.”
“The person paid for things I think are overhead: Hermes luggage at fifteen hundred dollars a bag, human- hair wigs, women’s clothes, a few plane tickets to other cities where she was converting the money. It goes on and on, in a dozen different names.”
“How do you even know it’s one woman?”
“I don’t. I’m guessing. The theory is, it doesn’t matter if she calls herself Lydia King or Georgia Fatwood or Helen Highwater, if the money comes from one account, chances are it’s one woman wearing those wigs and new clothes.”
“It’s still just moving stolen money around. Is the reason you think this account is different just that you know it was a woman who laundered it?”
“It’s got a different feel to it, a different smell. A lot of the other money, the ten point eight, goes into some of the same stuff: cash, traveler’s checks, gold, money orders, foreign currency, and so on. But none of it goes to overhead. Not a dime so far. What it feels like is that this is her money, and she’s got the problem of washing it separately. She has to buy clothes, luggage, makeup, travel. That’s all stuff that gives us leads, so it’s dangerous. The other person—or persons, since this is a hell of a lot of work to do this quickly—are buying zero that isn’t some substitute for cash.”
“So you think that they were set up with whatever they needed ahead of time, before they got the insurance money, but Lydia King wasn’t.”
“Right.” Stillman added, “What she looks like is a person who did some service, then got a ten percent payoff and a good-bye.”
“When did McClaren’s hire you?”
“Right about at that point,” said Stillman. “They got nervous when the second Alan Werfel showed up. They looked at their canceled check, saw it had been deposited at B. of A. They called and found out the account was
