Chase nodded to himself, wrote down the name of the bank, and the account number Henry had used, and then sat back for a moment, staring before him. A hunch told him he might as well follow this up all the way. He wouldn’t be able to get started on his next case if he didn’t. And so he picked up the phone again and called Henry’s bank.
“Yes, sir, the money was transferred out of Mr. Kaur’s account this morning,” a friendly female voice informed him.
“So is it normal that it hasn’t arrived yet?” he asked.
“It should be there,” said the woman. “Nowadays money transfers are cleared in a matter of seconds, not days.”
“Can you give me the account number? I’ll follow up with the recipient Brian Brooks.”
“Brian Brooks? That’s not the name I have, detective,” said the woman. “I have listed a ‘Daffodil Holdings’ as the recipient.” She gave him the account number, which didn’t look anything like the account number Brian had given him.
“Is that Capital First in Hampton Cove?”
“Oh, no, detective. It’s the ASBC Bank. That’s in the Cayman Islands.”
“Cayman Islands?”
“Yes, sir. And it’s not the first time we’ve handled payments to that bank either—all of them under the instructions of the same notary’s office. About twelve different transactions over the past three years.”
“Twelve transactions? And all instigated by Al Powell?”
“Yes, detective, that’s right. Why? Is there some irregularity?”
“Let me get back to you on that,” he grunted, and hung up. He rubbed his face. Now what the hell was going on here?
42
A phone call put a damper on the good news that we were going home. Gran was the one who picked up, and after listening for a moment, she said,“All right. I’ll see what we can find out.” She hung up and turned to Scarlett. “Better stop packing, hon. That was Odelia. She’s not going to come and pick us up just yet.”
“But why?” asked Scarlett, who was just putting her extensive collection of shoes back into her bulky suitcase.
“Because there’s a fly in the ointment,” said Gran.
Dooley’s eyes widened. “A fly in the ointment!” he said. “What ointment! What fly!”
“It’s just an expression,” said Gran. “It means something is wrong. Turns out that Henry’s money was sent to a bank in the Cayman Islands, and has promptly vanished without a trace. The account is registered to Daffodil Holdings, and could or could not be connected to Brian. Brian claims he never received that money, and so now Chase wants to know where it is. Oh, and also, twelve more payments went into that same account in the past three years, and all of them came from the same notary. One Al Powell.”
“So ask Powell,” said Scarlett. “He’ll know.”
“That’s exactly what Chase did. Mr. Powell told him that all twelve payments are connected to Happy Home residents who died. Twelve deaths, twelve inheritances, all pledged to Happy Home and its general manager Brian Brooks. But as far as Chase could determine—he’s going to need a warrant if he wants to dig deeper into Brian’s bank account—none of those sums ever made it into the Happy Home account. Or at least that’s what Brian says.”
“So let me get this straight,” said Scarlett, her cherished footwear collection momentarily forgotten. “Thirteen residents died in the past three years, and all of them left their money to Happy Home. Only instead of being deposited into the Happy Home bank account, the money went into some mysterious Cayman Island account. And Brian claims he has no clue?”
“Brian claims he never got any of those monies.”
“But how is that possible?”
“I don’t know. But Chase wants us to dig a little deeper. Ask around.” She sighed a happy little sigh. “So it looks like our stay has been extended, you guys.”
“Whoopee,” said Dooley sadly. “And here I thought we were finally going home.”
“I better start unpacking again,” said Scarlett, who didn’t seem to mind. “So what am I going to wear tomorrow? And the day after tomorrow? Choices, choices…”
“I hadn’t even started packing,” said Gran. “Shows you how good my intuition is. I knew this case wasn’t over yet. I just knew it!”
“So what’s going on, exactly?” asked Dooley.
“I don’t know,” said Brutus. “Something to do with money that was paid into the wrong account or something. Sounds to me like something they should talk to the bank about.”
“Yeah, probably some kind of administrative error,” said Harriet.
“I don’t think so,” I said. “Sounds to me as if Brian isn’t just a serial philanderer, but also a crook.”
“What do you mean?”
“Thirteen residents leaving their money to him? And he claims he didn’t receive anything? I think our Mr. Brooks is getting rich by collecting these inheritances.”
And since Gran and Scarlett clearly thought the same thing, they gathered the Murder Club.
Liz and her husband and sister were over the moon when they told them the news.
“Oh, goodie!” said Liz. “Another big juicy case!”