better than he had ever expected, so much more than he had ever imagined. Nothing like a tale of wickedness, graft, and avarice among the rich and powerful to brighten the day. It was worth sitting half naked in a cold men’s room listening to Charles drone on.
“He turned them down cold,” Charles said. “They were infuriated. In the moments after he left, they talked about reassigning him, or simply firing him. Picture it, Morgan. All that stood between them and Edith’s fortune was Jack.”
Morgan asked, “Then why didn’t they fire him?”
“Did I fail to mention the inconvenient stipulation in Edith’s contract?”
“I think you did.”
“Jack was her adviser and investment manager.” He emphasized, “Not the firm, just Jack. To move a dime of Edith’s money, his personal signature was required.”
“Sounds like Wiley had them by the short hairs.”
“You think so?”
“Sure. He could’ve held them up for millions.”
“You know what? The CEO and CFO thought so, too, and wondered why Jack didn’t do just that. It was a sure thing. Better yet, on the face of it, it broke no laws. It may have blurred every ethical boundary, but in theory at least, it would appear legal.”
“So why didn’t he?” Morgan asked.
After a moment, Charles asked, “What do you think?”
“He didn’t need it.”
“Okay, why not?”
“A good chunk of her money was already in his pocket.”
“You’re getting warmer.”
Morgan thought about it a moment longer. “No, that still doesn’t make sense.”
“Great. Why not?”
“Because they were offering him more money. More is always better.”
“Think harder, Morgan. Why not score a few more million? Better yet, why not join a scam that also incriminated his bosses?”
“Yeah, I see that. Even if they found out Jack was already stealing cookies from the jar, they couldn’t rat him out, because he would rat back on them, right?”
“It would be beautiful.”
“Then I don’t know.” After a moment he growled, “And I’m tired of playing this game.”
“You’re still not thinking like a thief. Put yourself in Jack’s shoes.”
“Because Jack had persuaded the old lady, Edith, to leave everything to him,” Morgan guessed.
Charles chuckled. “Jack wasn’t
A long pause as Morgan considered more possibilities. The option that Jack was simply too moral and upright to engage in such unethical behavior had already been discarded. Why would he walk away from more millions? Then it hit him and Morgan almost squealed, “Wow.”
“That’s right, Morgan. Jack had a much more serious crime to worry about.”
“Murder.”
“Yes, murder. A much more dreadful secret to conceal. In fact, Edith never set foot on the boat. The real Edith disappeared three years earlier.”
Morgan began smiling to himself. “The nurse, right?”
“Definitely her,” Charles said very softly. “Before the cruise, you see, nobody on the ship had ever seen Edith in person. The business transactions had all been handled by Jack. They knew only what he told them. Edith was old, ill, wealthy, a widow. The nurse also happened to be quite old, white-haired, moderately educated. Any skilled forger could easily prepare the necessary documents, a passport, driver’s license, social security card. Lord knows, it was a simple impersonation to pull off. So, for three years the nurse doddered around the boat, pretended to be mildly senile, withdrew money by the armful, and lived the life.”
“Then one day she walked off the boat and skipped with almost twenty million in cash.”
“So it appeared.”
“Quite the scheme.”
“Yes, it was brilliant,” Charles said, sounding awed by the cleverness of it all. “A foolproof way to get around the firm’s very thorough safeguards.”
“So what did the firm do?”
“They had no choice. Jack was calling the shots.”
“What’s that mean?”
“They notified the American embassy about Edith’s disappearance and hired a Greek private detective agency to look into the situation.”
Charles paused for a moment to allow Morgan to catch up. It was a lot to absorb and he could almost hear Morgan’s circuits whirring.
“Know what I don’t get?” Morgan eventually said. “Why would Wiley want it looked into?”
“Think about it. It had to be done that way. She had to disappear and it had to look real. Then, by insisting on the investigation, Jack looked pure.”
“Yeah, that’s smart.”
“Too smart, in fact. He overlooked one thing. His partners got greedy.”
“They didn’t believe him, did they?”
“Nope, because they thought like crooks,” Charles said in an amused tone. “They found it impossible to believe anyone could be so saintly. How’s that for irony?”
“So what did they do?”
“Behind Jack’s back, they told the Greek PIs it smelled like an inside job. Based on that tip, the PIs worked backward. The plan only worked as long as everybody assumed it was Edith on that boat, Edith withdrawing the cash, Edith disappearing.”
“And somebody had to create that assumption.”
“And the author had to be Jack.”
“What happened to Edith?”
“Who knows. She was never found. Her corpse was never found, either. The PIs scoured Piraeus and Copenhagen. They checked morgue records, talked with the police, turned over every rock, and got nothing. Their guess was that she was cremated, then her ashes were dumped at sea.”
“Yeah, that’s how I’d do it.”
“Only one problem. Nobody could prove how the nurse got hired. Jack claimed he didn’t know-maybe the shipping line arranged it, maybe Edith found her on her own. The shipping line said it had no record or memory of it, but it’s not the kind of thing they typically do. They considered it doubtful.”
“And Edith, of course, wasn’t around to speak.”
“As they say, sometimes the best witness is a dead one.”
“What about the nurse? Surely they had a photo of her.”
“After a lot of work, they found an old couple a few suites away with a picture of her seated at their table for dinner. It was a waste of time. She looked identical to a billion other old grandmothers on the planet.”
“Fingerprints?”
“A few were collected from the suite.”
“And?”
“Could’ve been hers, or any of the countless maids who cleaned the suite over the years. The crews on those boats turn over as regularly as fast-food joints. The prints weren’t on record, anyway. Another dead end.”
“Probably one of the qualifications for the job,” Morgan gamely concluded.
“Probably so. Here’s how the PIs figured it. Jack and the nurse, they opened up one or two Swiss accounts before the cruise. Over the years, she withdrew from Edith’s account, went ashore, and dumped it into theirs.”
“How much did Jack get?”
“If it was fifty-fifty, Jack cleared about ten million.”
