Lloyd later that week. Jim was curious to meet him now, after what he’d heard from Meg and Tallie. He didn’t sound like a great guy to him. “I’ll call you later this week,” Jim told her, “if I have questions about some of the interviews I have. Will you be available?”
“I’ll arrange to be, and I’m coming back to the city every night.” She thought it would be too depressing now to stay in a hotel room in Palm Springs. Even if it was dark and empty, she wanted to crawl home to her own nest, and sleep in her own bed. She felt too miserable and sad to be far from home, and he could hear it in her voice.
“I’ll call you if I get anything, Tallie. Try not to get too worked up about it. To be honest, it’s always a long haul. Just leave the worrying to me.” He made it sound so simple, but it wasn’t. All she could think about was what Brigitte and Hunt had done, how trusting she had been, how she had believed them, and how they had betrayed her. But the wounds were still fresh and raw. In time, it would settle down, and all she’d have left were the scars. She couldn’t imagine it yet. She felt as though she were bleeding from every pore. “I’ll be in touch,” he promised. He had wanted to give her a ray of hope. He just hoped he could get the evidence they needed about the money, but he had to figure out who the suspect was first.
Tallie lay in her bed, thinking about it again that night. She was sure now that it had been Brigitte who’d been stealing the money from her. After everything else she’d done, that was the icing on the cake. And as she had for the past three days, Tallie lay awake, thinking about all of it, for the rest of the night. It was dawn before she fell asleep, and her alarm went off minutes after she closed her eyes.
Chapter 11
JIM KINGSTON WAS LED into Victor Carson’s private office by his secretary. She was young, wore a short skirt, and had masses of blond hair piled up on her head. And Jim couldn’t help noticing that her sweater was too tight. He was wondering if Carson was sleeping with her, when Victor walked into the room. He was wearing a white shirt, a dark gray suit, and an expensive tie. He looked like a banker or a lawyer. Jim knew the firm had many important clients, and they sometimes took a percentage of their clients’ revenues, but in Tallie’s case she paid a retainer and hourly fees. Her income was too big for her to agree to a percentage, and Victor had told him on the phone that Tallie was one of his biggest clients. He had been shocked to get a call from the FBI, and Jim had confirmed that it was about her missing cash.
“I had no idea that Ms. Jones had reported it to the FBI,” Victor commented, looking nervous. He appeared uncomfortable as Jim looked around his office, and as though he might have something to hide. But he had been quick to invite Jim and the forensic accountant to look over his books and Tallie’s. Jim wanted to see both, and to see what kind of financial shape Victor and his firm were in.
Jim spent a few minutes looking over Tallie’s spreadsheet again, the same one that had been given to their Japanese investors, and that Tallie had given him on Sunday morning at her house. Victor showed Jim her electronic general ledger then, from which most of the information on the spreadsheet had been taken, and then Jim told Victor that he wanted to look at his books too.
“What does that have to do with Ms. Jones’s accounts?” Victor asked with a protective look.
“We like to look at everything,” Jim said quietly. “How long have you known Ms. Jones’s assistant, Brigitte Parker, by the way?”
“For as long as we’ve done Ms. Jones’s accounting, for the past fifteen years.”
“Would you say she’s usually accurate in the information she reports to you?”
“I’ve always thought so,” Victor said thoughtfully. “She’s very efficient. Or at least she seemed to be, until I noticed the cash that was unaccounted for in the audit. I thought maybe they were paying some of Ms. Jones’s bills in cash, and I didn’t want to lose the deductions, so I mentioned it. And Ms. Jones informed me that they don’t pay any of the bills in cash.”
“Did you ask Ms. Parker about it?”
“Only superficially. She said they spend that amount in cash every month and Ms. Jones spends more than she thinks.”
“Or Ms. Parker spends more than Ms. Jones thinks,” Jim Kingston said cryptically. “Where do you think the cash is going, Mr. Carson?” Jim asked him with a pointed look.
“I have no idea. Restaurants, clothes, gifts. It’s hard to guess what people spend it on. Ms. Jones doesn’t spend a lot of money on frivolous things, although she lives well. And it was hard figuring out who was paying for what while Mr. Lloyd was living there. He spends quite a lot of money too.”
“And you do his books as well?” Jim noticed that Victor was perspiring increasingly, as Jim asked him the questions. He looked like a very nervous man.
“Yes, I do. And I prepare Ms. Parker’s taxes, I have for several years.”
“So you work for all three of them?” Victor nodded. “And how would you say your firm is doing? Has it been a good year?”
“Not as good as some earlier years,” he admitted. “Things are tight for everyone right now. Even in my business.”
“And would you say that you spend a lot of money, personally?” Victor hadn’t expected the question and started sweating profusely when Jim asked. He had no idea why he would want to know that, and Victor hesitated before he answered.
“Yes, I have considerable expenses…” He glanced around nervously and then back at Jim. “I have a very young wife. She expects a lot, and things aren’t quite as… as flush as they were when I married her three years ago. She wanted to be an actress, and it hasn’t worked out as well as she’d hoped.” He was babbling, and Jim said nothing as he watched. “She’s been… she’s been… she’s been negotiating a postnuptial agreement with me.”
“Really?” Jim looked fascinated as Victor burbled on. “And how much does she want?”
“Five million. I told her that’s impossible. Then she asked for three, but that’s impossible too. I gave her seven hundred thousand three years ago when we got married, but I couldn’t do that again either right now. I thought that initial gift would keep her happy, but now she wants more.” He looked panicked as he explained it to Jim.
“And if you won’t pay her what she wants now?”
“She says she’ll divorce me.” He looked as though he was near tears. “She’s a beautiful girl. And she’s twenty- nine years old. It’s hard for a man my age to satisfy someone with ambitions like that. I’ve been divorced twice before, and paid alimony and settlements. I have children… she doesn’t understand. And she’s had quite a lot of plastic surgery, for her movie career, and that’s expensive too. She doesn’t realize what it takes to amass a fortune in today’s world. I have a sizable income, but not enough to be giving away several million dollars in a lump sum. I’m not sure I could afford a divorce either right now, or the kind of alimony she wants.” He sounded like a desperate man, but it was all out front, he was waving his problems at Jim like a red flag at a bull. There was nothing hidden about him, and Jim had already figured that he was married to a young gold digger who was taking him for a ride, and twenty-five thousand in cash was probably nothing to her. A girl like that wanted more, and he didn’t think Victor Carson was dumb enough to be stealing small amounts from his clients to satisfy a greedy young wife. He may have been foolish and gullible, but Jim sensed that he was ethical too. They would take a serious look at his books, and he was sure that he would find in Victor’s own balance sheet a man mortgaged to the hilt, trying to squeeze out every penny he could of his own money, so his wife didn’t divorce him. He was willing to ruin himself for her, but probably not steal from his clients and go to prison. He might end up in the poorhouse, thanks to her, but not behind bars. Carson struck Jim as the kind of man who was scrupulously honest, paid all his taxes, and did everything by the book, for both himself and his clients. He was too nervous not to, and his obvious desperation made him an unlikely suspect.
The person who was stealing from Tallie was more likely to be far more hidden, more clandestine, and much smoother. Victor looked so guilty, he probably wasn’t, and Jim felt sorry for him as he listened to another hour of his woes. He wanted to tell him to divorce his wife before she destroyed him, but he didn’t say anything, he just listened. If he had to guess, Jim would have said that he wasn’t the culprit. He was just a sad old man being used by a young woman who had seen him as an easy mark and was going to get everything out of it she could before she dumped him. And it sounded like it was going to be soon.
“Why don’t we have a look at your books, then?” Jim suggested, and they went into the conference room where the forensic accountant was working, and Jim’s partner Jack sat quietly by. The accountant had several ledgers
