A Denial of Death (11 page)

Tate fell in beside her. "Keep in mind that none of my clients were ever found guilty, and they denied doing anything wrong. Everything I know about money laundering is from the prosecution's claims. The allegations were pretty simple usually. They claimed my clients had made substantial profits from criminal activity, and then, instead of depositing the whole amount of cash into a bank all at once, they broke it into smaller pieces to avoid triggering the ten thousand dollar reporting threshold."

"That's it?" Helen said. "Their big criminal scheme was to divide their loot into several small bags instead of keeping it in a single big one?"

"Pretty much."

"I can't believe you charge me for this kind of advice," Helen said. "If Angie was laundering money, it would have had to be more sophisticated than what you described. There wasn't seventy-five thousand dollars' worth of unexplained deposits into any of the bank accounts I saw, and the money was reported to the IRS. The only one who didn't know about it was her husband."

"In that case, there are two other schemes I've heard of. If she was the one laundering the money, not the one producing the illegal cash in the first place, she could have done something with fake invoices or run the money through a cash-intensive business like her husband's insurance agency. She'd have needed Ralph's cooperation for that last one, though, and I can't see him agreeing to anything illegal."

"How do the fake invoices work?"

"The person with the illegal cash would write up a fake invoice, as if Angie had bought something from him, usually services, which are hard to prove were never provided. So, for instance, he'd write a fake invoice for fixing Angie's home computer, and if anyone asked, she'd say she'd paid him for the work."

"That's backwards, though," Helen said. "Angie's the one with the documentation for receiving money."

"Maybe she was the one with the illegal cash."

"As far as I can tell, she only has the documentation, not the actual money."

"Then either she wasn't engaged in money laundering," Tate said, "or she was really bad at it."

"It was just a theory." Discouraged, Helen carried the photograph Ralph had given her over to her computer and placed it on the scanner bed. While the equipment warmed up, she said, "My first thought was that the money was from gambling, anyway. Angie wouldn't have known how to explain the winnings to Ralph when she's supposedly got religious objections to gambling, so she might have stuffed the cash into a mattress instead of a bank."

"If I were in court, I'd point out that you're indulging in speculation, not offering any admissible evidence."

"I don't have any admissible evidence," Helen said in frustration. "Isn't there a pre-trial stage when you're still brainstorming a case, establishing a theory and gathering up evidence? That's what I'm doing now."

"Fair enough," Tate said. "It's called discovery."

"That's it. I need to discover more about the company that paid Angie. They might know where Angie is."

Tate appeared to be warring with his better instincts and then spoke cautiously. "What's the company's name?"

"SLP. Recognize it?"

"I've heard the initials in a couple different contexts. The first time was when a client did something stupid and had his gun collection confiscated. One of the weapons was called an SLP, or self-loading pistol. A British import, apparently."

"And the other time?"

"Nothing criminal," Tate said. "The local library gets me to contribute to it every year: the Summer Library Program. I've never heard the letters used to describe a business, though."

"No one else has, either." Helen pushed the button to scan Angie's picture. "The Secretary of State could probably find them, but I've lost touch with my best contacts there. My niece Lily might have better luck."

"That's it?" Tate said suspiciously. "You're going to sit back and let Lily do the work for you?"

"While she's following that lead I'll be checking out the casino where Charlene dropped Angie off."

"Have you ever been to a casino before?"

"Sure," Helen said. "My ex-husband was taken on tours of the most successful places every time the issue of legalized gambling came up in the legislature. I went along a few times."

"What did you play while you were there?"

"Nothing."

"But now you're going to take up gambling in order to find Angie?"

"I still need a retirement hobby," Helen said. "I could learn to play poker."

"No, you couldn't," Tate said. "You couldn't bluff someone to save your life."

"Slots, then. They don't take any skill."

"Which is why you'd be bored with them in three seconds flat." Tate glanced out the front window at Jack, who was lovingly polishing the hood of the luxury car. "Casinos are easy to get lost in. If you're going to have any chance of finding Angie, you need to narrow the search to wherever she's most likely to be. Do you even know what games Angie plays?"

"As far as I know, she doesn't play any of them."

Tate opened his mouth and shut it again. "I'll say one thing for you. You never bore me by being predictable."

"It's just a guess that she won the money gambling. Everyone says she goes for the glitzy experience and to show off her rhinestone sneakers, not for the gaming. If that's true, then as a non-gambler myself, I'm in the best position to look for her. There can't be that many non-gamblers there, so they're bound to run into each other."

Helen turned her back on Tate to check the quality of the scanned photo. It was fine, so she opened a photo manipulation program. It had been a while since she'd used it, though, and she'd forgotten what most of the icons represented. She could hear Tate fretting behind her, which didn't help her concentration. That man worried about everything. It was a miracle he hadn't had a stress-induced heart attack long before he could retire and enjoy his woodworking.

"I still don't think it's a good idea for you to get involved," Tate said from behind her. "If you're right that Angie got mixed up with something criminal, it could be dangerous. You should leave this to the police."

Tate was too much of a distraction, and she was running out of time if she wanted to keep the casino trip to a single day. It wouldn't be fair to keep Jack away from his clay work for too long.

The flyers didn't need to be fancy like what she'd done for her husband's fundraising events. She just needed something she could show to people at the casino. Helen abandoned the idea of cropping the picture and adding text. Instead, she keyed in the command to print a dozen copies.

While the printer did its job, Helen turned back to Tate. "Ralph promised to file a missing persons report today, but you know the local police. They're going to see this as a domestic dispute, especially since Ralph still isn't entirely convinced the situation is all that serious. The police aren't going to do anything more than go through the motions. It could be weeks before they even consider sending someone across state lines to check out the casino. If Angie's in trouble, that could be too late."

"It's still not your responsibility," Tate said. "I could have a talk with the police chief, see if I can get the department to take it seriously."

"Good idea." The local authorities might listen to Tate. He was male, professional, and a native of Wharton, which, in their eyes, made him eminently more credible than Helen. Nobody overlooked him. "Meanwhile, I promised Betty and Josie I'd keep looking for Angie, and that's what I'm going to do. It's still possible that Angie is fine and this is all a misunderstanding that can be cleared up with a quick little day trip. It might be fun, even."

Helen emptied the printer tray of the pictures and stuffed them into a large manila envelope. She grabbed her cane from its usual spot hanging from the front door. Her yarn bag was already in the car, so she'd have something to work on during the trip.

Tate trailed behind her. "You know, I haven't played in a decent game of poker in years. I prefer bridge generally, but the skills are essentially the same."

Helen shooed him out her front door and shut it behind her. "Ready to give up woodworking after only five months of retirement?"

"Man does not live by wood alone," he said. "Just give me ten minutes to change."

"You're coming with me?"

"Thanks for the invitation." As he jogged toward the garage, he called out, "And don't even think about leaving without me, or you can forget about calling me later to bail you out."

"I won't get arrested."

"That's always the plan," he said as he unlocked the trunk of his car and pulled out a small duffle bag. "But things don't usually go as planned around you, which is why it's my professional opinion that you should take me along as insurance."

*  *  *

Once Jack heard Tate was joining them, he insisted that Helen sit in the back like a proper passenger. While she waited for Jack to join them, she dialed Lily's number. Helen had been formidable with a Rolodex and a telephone during her tenure in the governor's mansion; Lily was even better with her contacts database and a computer.

Lily sounded distracted when she answered. "Hi, Aunt Helen. How's your nice little drive going?"

"I'm just leaving now," she said. "I was wondering if you could do something for me while I'm away from home. I'm trying to find out more about a business known as SLP."

There was a tapping sound. "Nothing in the Secretary of State's database." More tapping. "No complaints with the consumer affairs division, and there's no listing under that name with the Massachusetts Better Business Bureau. There's a bunch of listings on the internet, but I don't have any way to narrow down the possibilities."

"Wait a second," Helen said, switching her smartphone's screen for a moment to look at the picture she'd taken of the tax form. "The company is based in Ohio. Would that help?"

"It will, but I can't do it right now," Lily said. "I'm on my way to an appointment I can't miss, but I'll get on the research as soon as I get back."

"I'll be on the road for the next few hours," Helen said. "Text me if you find out anything."

"On the road?" Lily said. "You said you were taking a test drive, not something that would qualify as being 'on the road.'"

There was no point in hiding it any longer. Tate was sure to tell Adam where they were going, and Adam couldn't keep anything from Lily. "We're going to Connecticut. To a casino."

"Gambling away my inheritance?"

"What inheritance?" Helen lied. "I disinherited you ages ago."

"Does Tate know where you're going? Did he say it was okay?"

"He knows about it." Helen heard the sound of the garage door slamming shut. "He's even coming with me."

Helen could hear Lily's eyebrows rising. "You two are finally going on a date?"

"Definitely not a date. I could never compete with his love for exotic lumber, and he could never compete with my passion for living alone. You know how tempted I am to kill anyone who spends more than an hour visiting my cottage."

"That could be a problem if you had an overnight guest," Lily said. "Especially if the dead visitor is also the best criminal defense attorney in town."

"Exactly. So this is not a date," Helen said. "If you have to know, we're going to see if we can find someone. A friend of a friend has disappeared, and she was last seen at the casino. We're going to see if she's still there. Now, tell me you love me and hang up. You'll be late for your appointment if you don't leave now."

Lily paused indecisively. "You swear Tate is going with you?"

"Go ahead and ask Adam."

"I will." Lily hung up, which surprised Helen. She'd anticipated a much more drawn-out interrogation.

The car's other passenger door swung open on silent hinges, and Tate climbed in, sawdust-free and dressed like a lawyer in a lightweight gray suit, white shirt, and conservative tie. He even carried a briefcase, but it was far more likely to contain woodworking books and graph paper for sketching design ideas than law books and legal pads. One way or another, his passion was never far from his thoughts.

Helen thought guiltily of the uneven tangle of crochet inside the yarn bag on the seat between her and Tate. She was only too happy to forget about it.

Tate settled into his corner of the back seat, and before they'd even left the driveway he was engrossed in a woodworking magazine. Helen tried to concentrate with equal intensity on the lumpy hat she was working on. She picked up the crochet hook and tried to find the next space for making a stitch.

Helen had only completed one row when nausea overwhelmed her. She'd never been able to read in cars without getting motion sickness, and apparently crocheting upset her system in the same way. She glanced at Tate, but he didn't seem to be similarly affected, absorbed as he was by the magazine he was reading. As Josie would have said, it was
so
not fair.

Helen stuffed the yarn and hook back into her bag and closed her eyes, hoping the sick feeling would dissipate. The next thing she knew she was waking up to Jack's announcement that they'd be arriving at the casino in about fifteen minutes.

Helen did her best to straighten her clothing and brush the sleep from her mind before Jack pulled up in front of an elegant, eight-story building. She recognized it as the backdrop in the picture of Angie with her husband and sister.

True to his formal chauffeur's uniform, Jack insisted on opening the back door for Helen and standing stiffly beside it while she climbed out. Fortunately, she didn't need either a ladder or a lift out of this vehicle. In fact, if it weren't so over-sized and over-priced, she might have put it on her short list. It was certainly comfortable. She couldn't remember ever falling asleep in a car before. She refused to dwell on the possibility that it had less to do with the vehicle,
per se
, and more to do with not being quite as young and energetic as she once was.

She had no time to fret about it, since Tate was right behind her, getting out of the car. He left his briefcase on the back seat, apparently willing to be parted from thoughts of woodworking while he gave poker his full attention.