Lust, Money & Murder (8 page)

Silently, he appraised the 32 students in Elaine’s class. He did not look impressed.

“Who can tell me what intaglio printing is?” He said this so abruptly that some of the students jumped.

Elaine glanced around—the trainees who had made it this far in the program were all cream of the crop, and were quick to volunteer answers. No one said a word.

“Not a single one of you knows?” Judd said, jingling the change in his pocket.

Elaine didn’t want her class to look like a bunch of dummies. She raised her hand.

Judd looked over at her and nodded.

“Intaglio printing is a special process that uses an etched or engraved plate. The plate is smeared with ink and wiped clean, and the ink left in the recesses makes the actual image on the printed material.”

Judd raised an eyebrow. “That’s absolutely correct.”

He turned back to the center of the room. “And what’s unique about any document that is printed using the intaglio process?”

Again, the entire class was mute. At the risk of looking like a know-it-all, she raised her hand again.

Judd again nodded to her.

“The ink surfaces on intaglio-printed documents are slightly raised on the front and indented on the back. You can feel this with your fingers when you touch them.”

“Correct,” Judd said. He opened the thick notebook that contained the module materials. “Now, why is it that intaglio printing is particularly effective against counterfeiters?”

Elaine thought he glanced at her, but she wasn’t sure.

“Several reasons,” Elaine said. “First, an intaglio printing press costs ten times as much as an offset printing press. Second, intaglio plates themselves cost
hundreds
of times more. Third, intaglio printing yields very fine levels of detail that—”

“Are you finished?” he said, staring at her as if she had just shat upon the classroom floor.

Elaine’s face flushed. “I thought you—”

“Nobody likes a smart-ass. See me after class.”

He turned to the rest of the students and said, “Today we will discuss the intaglio printing process in great detail...”

* * *

Judd did not look at Elaine again for the rest of the lecture, which lasted all morning—an eternity for her. She wanted to crawl under her chair and disappear. She was mortified at making such a fool of herself in front of her peers—she felt so humiliated now that she really did want to quit. If this monster was typical of the people who worked in the Anti-Counterfeiting Division, she wanted nothing to do with them. Had she gone through all this misery just to end up working for obnoxious assholes?

After a while, she found her hurt transforming into anger. How dare he chew her out like that in front of all her colleagues, and then tell her to see him after class, like some troublemaker in elementary school!

By the time the students had finished filing out of the room, Elaine had made up her mind. She didn’t care who this “Judd” was or how high up he worked. She was going to put the old bastard in his place.

She approached him just as he was gathering up his things.

“I think you owe me an apology,” she said boldly. “You had no right to attack me like that in front of the whole class. I was just trying to answer the que...”

He was smiling at her.

“What?” she said, flustered.

“I’m sorry I had to do that to you, but you wouldn’t want everyone to think you’re the teacher’s pet, would you? The only reason I bother to come over and give this Mickey Mouse lecture is on the small chance of discovering a diamond in the rough, like you.” He pulled out a business card and handed it to her. “When you get fed up working for the Secret Service, young lady, you give me a call. You’re just the type of person we like to have at Treasury.”

She looked down at the card. It simply said “Gene Lassiter,” with a phone number printed underneath.

He picked up his satchel, smiled again, and gripping his cane, hobbled out of the room.

CHAPTER 1.8

The day Elaine graduated and was officially a United States Secret Service Special Agent, she felt like she was walking on air. When she received the gold, five-pointed star that was attached to her badge, there were tears in her eyes.

It did not matter to her that there was a note in her file from the head of the academy that said that due to her low marksmanship scores, she was “not recommended for protective services duty.”

She had made it!

She and the rest of the new agents met at a D.C. bar and got utterly smashed.

Luna Faye showed up. She was wearing a stunning black halter-neck dress that showed off her toned shoulders and chest.

“You look fabulous!” Elaine gushed, giving her a big hug. She truly meant it.

“You inspired me, honey,” Luna said modestly, holding out her hands palms-down so Elaine could see her manicure.

“French? Very stylish, Luna.”

“I don’t know if it’s worth thirty bucks.”

“It is.”

Luna smiled. “You know I had to throw everything I had at you to see if you could take it.”

“I know,” Elaine said, wiping away a tear. “I’m glad you did.”

Luna appraised her evenly. “It’s only gonna get tougher, girl. This is only the beginning.” She glanced around and lowered her voice so no one else could hear. “I’m not talking about only toughies you might have to face on the outside. I’m talking about on the inside, too. The Service is a damn competitive organization. You’ll end up working for at least one first-class asshole, maybe more. You’ll have to survive on a lot more than your looks and charm.”

Elaine nodded. “I understand.”

“Good.” Luna’s face relaxed into a smile. “Anyway, baby-doll, congratulations!” She gave Elaine another warm hug. “I’m so damn proud of you I could pop!”

CHAPTER 1.9

On the Monday when Elaine arrived in Great Falls, Montana the temperature was a nose-numbing five below zero. The city, with a population of only 60,000, was flat as a pancake. There was no skyline. The tallest building, where the new Secret Service office was located, was the U.S. Bank “Tower” —a staggering seven stories high.

When Elaine had received the notification letter informing her that she was assigned to the Secret Service field office in Great Falls, Montana, she tried to keep her chin up. She had known she would be sent to the least desirable location in the country, that it was standard practice for all new Special Agents.

Shivering as she locked her beat-up Toyota, she told herself she could stand living in Great Falls for a year or two, and to make the best of it.
Look at the bright side,
she thought.
It’s a small town. People will be a lot friendlier than in Pittsburgh.

“You can’t park your fuckin’ car there, lady.”

Elaine turned around—there was a blubbery man shoveling snow off the sidewalk, a cigar jutting from his mouth. “What’s the matter with you, can’t you read?” he said, pointing at the NO PARKING sign.

Well,
she thought, ‘
most’
people were probably more friendly than in Pittsburgh.
She moved her car down one space.

For her first day at work, she had bought a new navy blue business suit and had her hair styled. When the dumpy receptionist ushered Elaine into the office of the SAIC—the Special Agent In Charge—the man slowly rose from his desk, staring at her.

“Ms. Brogan?” he said. His eyes moving down to her legs, her shoes, then back up to her face.

“Nice to meet you,” she said, shaking his hand.

“I didn’t know you were...” The receptionist was standing there, watching him ogle Elaine. He glanced at her, his face red. “Thank you, Susan. That will be all.”

Susan left, giving him a dirty look.

The SAIC’s name was Bill Saunders. He began making nervous small talk, telling Elaine about the new-fangled office, which had only been established in Great Falls a year ago. He was about 35 years old, had a pot belly, was nearly bald, and what little hair he had left was speckled with dandruff. Elaine noticed that he was wearing a wedding band, which she thought was a good thing—the excitement she sensed in him had raised alarm bells in her mind.

He outlined her responsibilities, and mentioned that there would be a lot more training on “corporate stuff,” such as Ethics, Diversity, and Interpersonal Awareness.

Near the end of the meeting, Elaine asked, “Will there be time for me to work on some of my own cases?”

“Your ‘own’ cases? How do you mean?”

Elaine shrugged. “Cases that originate from my own leads, maybe cases in other states.”

“Trying to get out of Great Falls already?” he said, smiling.

“No, I just—”

“I don’t see why you can’t work on outside cases. As long as you get your required work done, do your DOPS.”

“My—DOPS?”

“Daily Operation Summaries.”

“Oh.”

“Anyway, as long as you get your required work done, I don’t see it as a problem.”

* * *

Elaine spent the first few weeks settling in. There was only one other field agent working out of the new office, Ken, a man who had been with the Service only two years. A former Chicago police detective, he had a lot of experience and he spent much of his time working alone. Most of the activity in the Great Falls office concerned financial fraud, counterfeit checks, and Internet account hacking. Great Falls, Montana, was not the center of the world’s illegal currency counterfeiting activity. Or the center of anything else, it seemed.

Bill Saunders seemed to make constant excuses to go into Elaine’s office and talk to her, or call her into his. When he had to pick up a file or get his coffee cup, he would move uncomfortably close to her, sometimes “accidentally” brushing up against her. She noticed that he often discreetly inhaled when he did this, as if savoring the smell of her perfume.

One evening they were going over a list of banks in Montana that had been receiving a certain type of fake check, Bill reached over and took her hand.

“Elaine,” he said, his voice wavering, “I have to tell you something.”

“Don’t,” she said, pulling her hand away. She had been expecting this ever since the first day. She glanced at his open office door, afraid Susan would hear them.

“Susan’s gone, and Ken is up in Billings tonight.”

“I don’t care,” Elaine said, standing. She had been sitting beside him at his credenza. She put several feet of distance between them.

His face went red, and his scalp went even redder. “Elaine, I can’t stand it. Ever since you came to work here—”

“Bill, don’t do this. Please?”

“You don’t feel attracted to me?”

“That’s not the point, Bill. You’re my boss.”

“So what?”

Elaine opened her mouth, but closed it again, not wanting to sound like a newbie reciting rules from the Secret Service employee manual. “You’re married.”

“Not really.”

She motioned to the wedding band on his finger. “I suppose you’re going to tell me that’s a Secret Agent Decoder Ring?”

He chuckled. “Joan and I are finished. We’re getting a divorce.”

Sure you are
, Elaine thought.

Bill noted her expression. “Look, I’ll take the ring off, if that makes you feel better.” He did so, putting it in his desk drawer. “I won’t even wear it home.”

“Bill...”

“What?” he said, reaching for her waist.

“I’m not going to do this,” she said, moving farther away. “I refuse to mess up my career.”

“Mess up? What are you talking about? This can only be good for your career.”

“You know better than that, Bill.” She searched for excuses. “If we started something and then it fell apart, it would be bad. Really bad.”

His expression grew cold. “What about after I get my divorce?”

Even if she had been attracted to him, and he really did get a divorce, she wouldn’t allow herself to become involved with her boss, not at a place like the Secret Service. But if she told him that, she didn’t know what he might do. She didn’t have much experience with men, but her instincts told her to tread very carefully with this one.

“Well,” she said, “of course if you were di... single, things would be different.” His face brightened at this. “Now can we please put this aside and get back to work?”

“Sure thing,” he said.

* * *

For the next few weeks, Elaine diligently went about her duties, hoping that Bill’s infatuation would pass. She stopped wearing perfume and tried to dress down, hoping that would help.

She often came in early and spent an hour or two working on what she now thought of as the “Ronald Eskew” case. She ran the name through all the criminal databases but came up with zilch. She was sure that Ronald Eskew was an alias the man had only used for his sleazy Rising Star Modeling Agency scam.