Cutter's Run (28 page)

“Sure. Okay.”

“I mean it, Brady.”

“I’ll do it, Charlie.”

He sighed. “Why do I not quite believe you?”

“Because you think you know me,” I said. “But you know I would never do anything to put my friends in jeopardy. I’ll talk to Skip right away. I promise.”

“And?”

“What do you mean, ‘and’?”

“And you’ll stop snooping? And you’ll destroy the disk?”

“Sure,” I said.

He laughed. “You’re a fucking liar, Coyne. Look. Be careful, will you?”

“I promise you that,” I said.

After I disconnected from Charlie, I tried the sheriff. The dispatcher said she couldn’t reach him but would tell him I had called. I asked her to patch me through to his cruiser and mentioned my rank of deputy, but that didn’t seem to impress her. I told her it was pretty important, and that didn’t impress her, either.

I tried his home number, got his machine, and told him I needed to talk to him. “I’ve heard some things,” I said, trying to sound mysterious.

The phone rang about ten seconds after I hung up. “It’s Skip,” he said when I picked it up. “I’ve been trying to reach you for the last fifteen minutes.”

“Sorry,” I said. “Does this urgency mean you found something?”

“Well, I found something. I don’t know what it means, and I wouldn’t know if it was urgent or not.”

“Tell me,” I said.

“Basically,” Skip said, “this is the raw data an accountant used to prepare a corporate quarterly report. It’s not the report itself. It’s the accountant’s equivalent of a scratch pad. Income, expenses, taxes, inventories, capital depreciation, salaries, benefits, all that stuff, broken down into categories. In this format, I couldn’t tell you what all those categories are, though I can make some guesses. If I had, say, the previous quarter’s report, I could nail all of them for you.”

“What would that tell you?”

“That,” said Skip, “would tell me where this corporation is cheating.”

“What do you mean, cheating?”

“Hell, Brady. I don’t know. Like I said, this is all in the accountant’s shorthand. It’s like code. Acronyms and abbreviations that don’t make any sense to me. But they’d make sense to a financial officer in the corporation, and they’d sure as hell make sense to a squinty-eyed IRS accountant who had the other records handy.”

“Can you make a guess?” I said. “What’s your hunch?”

“We accountants,” he said, “don’t know from hunches. We crunch numbers, not guesses.”

I laughed. “Jesus, Skip.”

“Well, it’s true,” he said. Then he laughed, too. “My guess would be wild and irresponsible. But, hell, accountants can be as wild and irresponsible as, say, a lawyer, when their client isn’t paying them.” He hesitated. “What it looks like to me is that somebody’s stealing this firm’s inventory.”

“Stealing?”

“Yes. Or destroying it, or using it in a manner that they want to hide. See, in a report like this one, everything’s got to be accounted for. That’s why they hire accountants. To account for things. And whoever prepared this data found something they couldn’t account for.”

“Help me out here,” I said. “Can you give me a for instance?”

“For instance,” he said, “they buy a dozen computers, and they end up with three of them. No place here does it account for the nine missing computers.”

“So they used them up,” I said. “Or they broke. They threw them away.”

“If we were talking about paper or pencils, you’d be right. But paper and pencils are categorized differently. So is office furniture. Carpets, which need cleaning and wear out, fall into a different category from desks, say, or magazine subscriptions. What we’ve got here, if it was computers, is the company buying them and then either somebody steals them and keeps them or sells them and pockets the money.”

“Computers,” I said.

“Nah, it’s not computers. That was my for instance, my feeble effort to make it understandable for an ignorant layman like you. What we got here is something purchased in large numbers and at great expense, most of it during the quarter but some of it held over from last year’s inventory, that’s nearly gone by the end of the quarter, with no accounting for where it went.”

“And it’s not some kind of office supplies.”

“No. Like I said, that’d be in a different category.”

“But you can’t guess what it could be.”

“Nope. I need more information.”

“But somebody with that information—”

“Could nail it,” he said.

“If you were the accountant who was preparing this report, what would you do?”

“I’d show it to the CFO of the company,” he said. “I’d tell him that we’ve got a discrepancy in the data that needs to be cleared up. I’d tell him it looks like someone’s stealing or destroying stuff. Something’s not, um,
accounted
for, and it needs to be.”

“And suppose this CFO said to the accountant: ‘Of course there’s a discrepancy. Fix it.’”

“Fix it?” said Skip.

“Hide it. Cover it up. Make it look like there isn’t a discrepancy.”

“You shitting me? That’s illegal and unethical and a violation of everything our noble profession stands for.”

“What would you do if they fired you when you refused?”

“Do? I wouldn’t do anything. I’d have to get by without that account.”

“You wouldn’t turn them in?”

“Oh, I get it,” he said. He paused for a minute. “Well,” he said finally, “it would depend. I probably wouldn’t turn anybody in. Someone else might. It’s something like you lawyers and your clients. There’s a confidentiality, a client privilege, though it’s not so clear-cut. If it was something blatantly illegal…”

“Okay,” I said. “I want you to do me a favor.”

“I haven’t already done you a favor?”

“Another one. Put what you’ve just told me into an e-mail for me here at Alex’s. Point out exactly where in the data those contradictory numbers are and explain what they mean to you, what your hypotheses are. Send me the e-mail and then trash everything I sent you.”

“Trash everything, huh?”

“Yes. Everything.”

“Okay,” he said. “No problem. But are you gonna tell me what’s going on here? Who is this company, anyway?”

“I’m not going to tell you.”

“Some client of yours, huh?”

“No,” I said. “Definitely not a client. Just don’t ask, okay?”

He chuckled. “Sounds mysterious, Brady. You know, there are times when I wish I was a lawyer. You guys have all the fun.”

“There are times,” I said, “when I wish I was an accountant.”

As soon as I clicked off with Skip I called Charlie back and summarized what Skip had told me. He didn’t interrupt.

When I finished, Charlie said, “So you think SynGen killed their accountant because she caught them cheating and refused to fudge the numbers?”

“Yes,” I said. “Because they were afraid she’d report them.”

“But she
didn’t
report them,” he said. “Something like six months went by before she… disappeared, and she didn’t do anything.”

“Not that we know of.” I hesitated. “Maybe—”

“She was blackmailing them,” he interrupted.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I only met her a couple times, but—”

“But she didn’t seem like that kind of person.” Charlie laughed. “For a hard-bitten lawyer, old buddy, you can be awfully naive.”

“She came up here to hide from them,” I said. “It took them six months to track her down, and when they did, they killed her.”

“Because she refused to cheat for them, and then tried to blackmail them?”

“Maybe she’d decided to blow the whistle on them,” I said.

“Then those swastikas…”

“Red herrings,” I said. “To make it look like a racial thing.”

“That missing inventory,” said Charlie quietly. “I wonder what it was.”

“Charlotte knew.” I found myself nodding. “I bet I know someone else who figured it out, too.”

“Who?”

“Noah Hollingsworth,” I said.

“The guy who—?”

“Yes,” I said. “The man who was murdered last night.”

Charlie was quiet for a long moment. Then he said, “Your friend Noah was probably snooping around, huh?”

“I don’t know.”

“They apparently kill snoopers, Brady.”

“I know.”

“Please,” said Charlie. “For once, just back off, will you?”

“Of course,” I said. “You think I’m stupid?”

I
REALIZED THAT MY
stomach was growling. I glanced outside. Darkness was seeping into the yard. I dialed Susannah’s number, figuring I’d head over there, maybe bring a pizza for her and Alex.

After three rings, the machine clicked on. “You got Noah Hollingsworth here,” came the recording. “Leave a message if you want.” It was way spooky, as Paris LeClair would say, hearing the voice of a man who’d been alive twenty-four hours earlier, but now was dead.

After the beep, I said, “It’s Brady, wondering what you ladies are up to and thinking you might like me to bring over something to eat. Give me a call.”

I disconnected and took the portable phone out onto the deck. I didn’t bother turning on the floodlights. The light was fading from the sky, and the hills off to the west were turning purple. I sat there with the phone on my lap watching the bats and swallows swoop after insects, trying to put the pieces together—Charlotte and now Noah, swastikas and threatening phone messages, SynGen and Charlie, a poisoned dog, Susannah’s eager mouth under mine…

I must have dozed off, because when the phone rang in my lap, it startled me. When I blinked my eyes open, I saw that darkness had spilled into the yard.

I fumbled for the phone and mumbled, “H’lo?”

“Were you sleeping?” It was Alex.

“Guess I dozed off. What’s going on?”

“We’ve already eaten, to answer your question. We’ve been out on the deck, eating and talking. Susannah’s been getting a million phone calls. She’s letting the machine take them, because she really doesn’t want to talk with anybody. That’s why I didn’t get back to you sooner.”

“How’s she doing?”

“As you’d expect, I guess. She cries a lot, and we laugh, sometimes, too. She tells stories about Noah and when she was a little girl, when her mother was alive. She keeps saying, ‘Now I’m an orphan.’ It’s pretty sad, Brady.”

“Are you coming home?”

“I’m going to stay with her tonight. Is that okay?”

“Sure. I guess so.”

“You understand, don’t you?”

“Susannah needs you. I guess she needs a woman with her, huh?”

Alex gave a little laugh. “Well, Paul was here for a while. He was full of sympathy and understanding and caring. It’s obvious he’s totally enchanted with her, but Susannah just got all tense and bitchy. Poor Paul. He hung around for a couple of hours, and finally he sort of shrugged and left, looking bewildered.”

“She doesn’t love him,” I said.

“No.” Alex sighed. “I don’t think she even likes him, to tell you the truth. Anyway, she came right out and said she dreaded spending the night alone in Noah’s house, so I offered to stay with her.”

“Yes,” I said. “That’s fine. She shouldn’t be alone;” I hesitated. “Be careful, okay?”

“Oh, we talked about it. My phone calls, then what happened to Noah. Susannah’s got Noah’s shotgun. She says she knows how to use it and wouldn’t at all mind a crack at whoever killed her father. We’ll lock the place up tight, keep a phone handy. I’ve got the feeling we might be up all night anyway. She’s pretty wound up, and we’ve been drinking coffee all day. We’ll be okay.”

“If you want—”

“We’ll be safe, Brady,” she said. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” She hesitated. “You take care, too, okay?”

“Don’t worry about me,” I said.

Around eleven that evening, I found a navy-blue sweatshirt in the closet and pulled it on. I figured that in my dark jeans and sweatshirt I could skulk through the night woods in perfect camouflage.

Then I went out to my Wrangler, started it up, and headed for Cutter’s Run.

When I got to the dirt road that led to Charlotte Gillespie’s long driveway, I pulled to the side, turned off my headlights, and lit a cigarette. By the time I’d smoked it down to the filter, my eyes had adjusted to the night light, and I figured I could see well enough to navigate the back roads without headlights. It was eleven-thirty. If the visitors to the tannery kept to a regular schedule, they’d arrive at midnight. I wanted to know what they were up to. And I didn’t want them to know I was there.

I slipped the Wrangler into four-wheel drive and crept down the road to Charlotte’s No Trespassing sign with its red swastika. I turned into her rutted driveway and followed it all me way to the dry streambed. I parked there and walked up the slope to the meadow on the hilltop where Charlotte’s cabin crouched against the edge of the woods.

I realized I’d been half expecting to see a candle flickering inside and a herd of cats lounging outside and a curl of smoke wafting up from the chimney. But Charlotte’s cabin was dark and still inside and out.

I sat on a rock beside the cabin and gazed down toward the beaver pond and the old tannery. I couldn’t actually see them, of course. The moon and stars washed the meadow in pale light, but the woods down in the valley were dark and impenetrable.

I hugged myself against the evening chill. September had just arrived, and the night air carried a bite.

I waited, hugging myself in my bulky sweatshirt and glancing frequently at the luminous face of my wristwatch. Its hands seemed to have slowed down. They took about an hour to move from eleven forty-five to eleven-fifty, and by the time they reached twelve it felt as if I’d been sitting there all night.

After huddling there for another hour—although my watch insisted only five minutes had passed—I figured it was just one more in a lifetime of wild goose chases. I decided to wait another half hour.

A couple of minutes later I heard it. The low rumbling of an engine in low gear came from off to the right, about where the old tote road joined the dirt road. It sounded like a truck growling along in four-wheel drive. After a few minutes, the pitch changed. It was idling, stopped in neutral, I guessed, while they unlocked the chain that barred the way.

The pitch of the engine shifted again, and a moment later I caught the flash of headlights flickering and jiggling through the trees, and I was able to follow the truck’s slow progress across the valley from where I was sitting.