A Dime a Dozen (12 page)

“What about the murder?” Dean asked. “Surely that was something more serious than simply trying to get her to leave town.”

“True,” I said. I still wasn’t sure what to think about the murder. But, as a part of my own J.O.S.H.U.A. grant investigation, I knew I would have to find out if there was a connection between it and MORE.

As Dean and Natalie talked, it soon became obvious that there was an additional issue here. For someone to steal files or tinker with the computer, they would need actual, physical access to those things. And who had access, I asked, except the employees of MORE?

“Oh, Callie,” Natalie said, sitting back in her seat. “I had never considered that before.”

“The last thing we need,” Dean said, frowning, “is someone inside the company who’s willing to sabotage our work and our reputation simply to get at one particular person. Perhaps you’re right, Callie. Perhaps the situation needs to be revisited in a new light.”

“If I were you,” I agreed, “I would make a list of every person who was working for you when that all happened. Then you need to go through the list together, maybe ask some discreet questions, and see if you can’t narrow things down a bit. At some point, I think you need to produce a list of suspects, and you need to bring that information to the police.”

Their faces seemed to register many emotions, but primarily disappointment. I had been involved in many corporate investigations where a trusted employee turned out to be a bad seed, so I knew that look well.

“If you’d like,” I added, trying to soften the blow, “I could poke around a bit on the computer and see if I can turn up any traces of Enrique Morales. Finding the missing husband seems like a logical step, since none of this started happening until he disappeared.”

“You could do that?” Natalie asked, her eyes hopeful.

“I could try. A lot of the databases I subscribe to for my job can also be used for missing persons searches. Back when I worked for Eli, I used to run missing persons cases all the time.”

“How hard is it to find someone?” Dean asked.

“You never know until you try,” I replied. “I’ve turned up people in ten minutes, and I’ve had one or two that I never found. At the very least, I think this would probably be worth looking into, because it relates to my grant investigation in a peripheral sort of way.”

“Whatever you can do, Callie,” Natalie said, “we would appreciate it.”

Dean nodded in agreement.

In light of that, as we finished eating I had them tell me everything they knew about Enrique—his life history, his hobbies, his education level, whatever they could think of. Apparently, the man came to Greenbriar for harvest every year and had been doing so for as long as they could remember. He never took their employment testing, because he dropped out of school somewhere in the elementary grades and didn’t think he was suited for anything but farm labor. Despite his limited education, however, Enrique was a good man, a devoted father, and always calm and even-tempered.

“According to Luisa,” Natalie said, “His biggest fault is his indecisiveness. Where she tends to act first and think later, she says he’s often frozen in indecision, seeing every side of every issue until it renders him almost motionless.”

As for hobbies or side interests, Enrique had none that Dean or Natalie knew of. Migrants rarely did, they said, considering their income level and lack of free time. Enrique was an especially hard worker, but he lived hand-to-mouth, as was the only way most of them could.

Once the Webbers finished telling me all they could recall, Dean admitted that the description didn’t really fit a man who would abandon his family. Perhaps, he said, Luisa had been right, and Enrique hadn’t left of his own free will after all.

As Dean paid for lunch, I stood by the door, shifting my weight from one foot to the other. I had come to Greenbriar feeling certain I would easily move through the grant approval process. But now the complicating factors were becoming too big. From Luisa’s troubles and Enrique’s disappearance to the murder of an unidentified man, it was looking more and more like this million-dollar grant was indefinitely on hold. I didn’t share this with the Webbers, and I wished it wasn’t true, but the investigator in me was waking up, certain that I had to act and figure things out before my beloved in-laws were inevitably drawn deeper into this mess.

Nine

We retrieved my car from the Webbers’ house and then returned to the office, where I set up my laptop in the conference room and loaded in their password for wireless internet. Before going any further, I knew I had to step back and get a good perspective on things. I decided it might help to call Eli.

Eli Gold was one of my dearest and oldest friends, the man who taught me everything I knew about investigating. He was retired now and living in Florida, but we had worked together in Virginia for years, and I still found myself consulting with him from time to time when I needed to reason things out on a difficult case.

I dialed his number and felt a surge of relief when he answered the phone. We usually chatted for a while before we got down to business, but this time he was on his way out the door.

“I can give you five minutes, doll,” he said with his characteristic bluntness. “Stella’s meeting me at the yogurt stand on Third and Peters, and if I’m late my mocha chocolate chip ice cream will melt.”

“I’ll make it fast then,” I said, grinning at the image of Stella waiting for Eli, a dripping cone in each hand. “I’ve got a case that was supposed to be straightforward, but it’s growing more complicated by the hour. Things have begun to intertwine in some very confusing ways.”

“Play it out for me,” he said. “I’m gonna put you on speakerphone while I put my socks and shoes on.”

I heard a few clicks and then his voice, farther away, telling me to go ahead.

“All right,” I said. “I’m in North Carolina, and I’m here to investigate a nonprofit called Migrant Outreach Resource Enterprises or MORE for short.”

“Why does that sound familiar?”

“It’s run by my former in-laws, Dean and Natalie Webber.”

“Ah…” he said musically. “That’s right.”

“Anyway, we’re considering them for a big grant, and I’m trying to do a charity investigation.”

“Which you could do in your sleep, I might add.”

“Yes, well, good thing I’m not sleeping on this job, because I’ve already got a murder, a missing person, and some company sabotage.”

“Sounds to me like MORE isn’t gonna be getting more money.”

“At least not until I can straighten out this mess.”

I went on to give him an overview of all that had happened thus far. As we pondered the facts of the case, I decided to break it down into three parts: find out what happened to Enrique, find out who was terrorizing Luisa, and continue with the parts of the charity investigation that weren’t affected by these irregularities.

“You can probably kill a bunch of birds with one stone here. You might have an interview with someone about your charity investigation, and it turns out they know a little something about the missing man or the vandalism. You know the drill, Callie. Go about your job and keep your eyes and ears open.”

“You make it sound so simple.”

“It is simple. One step at a time, is all. You can do this, girly. I have absolute faith in you.”

“I’m glad one of us does.”

The phone clicked and then his voice sounded closer.

“All right, hon,” he said, “Stella awaits. Gotta fly for now.”

I thanked him for listening and hung up the phone, feeling encouraged.

I decided I would begin with a computer search for Enrique Morales, ask for some more information from Dean and Natalie, and finally set up some appointments for the peripheral charities so that I could go out and, as Eli said, keep my eyes and ears open.

Ten

From their records, Dean got me Enrique’s full name, date of birth, and social security number. With that as a starting point, I would attempt to track the man down, though his itinerant status was going to make this missing persons search a bit more difficult than the average case.

I said a quick prayer before I began, and then I kept my eyes closed to try to clear my mind of all distractions except the pursuit of this missing man.

If some physical trouble had befallen him—an abduction, an accident, an animal attack—then the investigation would require the examination of physical evidence, something that could no longer be done because so much time had passed. If that were the case, then I would need to talk to the police to see if I could get a look at their records of the investigation after the original disappearance.

If, however, Enrique had left of his own accord, then chances were that somewhere, somehow in the months since then, he had done something that had left a record. That was the hope I was going on now and the type of thing that I would spend the next hour looking for. Though it was quite possible for someone to slip under the radar, it at least deserved a try.

After googling his name to no avail, I went down more specific avenues, using Enrique’s information to scan various databases to which I had access. One by one I checked telephone records, marriages, divorces, bankruptcies, property records, and other court-related filings. A few Enrique Moraleses did show up here and there, but once I weeded them out by age or social security number, my man was nowhere to be found.

Considering Enrique’s migrant status, it didn’t surprise me that he hadn’t exactly left behind a paper trail either before or after his disappearance. I sat back in my chair and thought hard, trying to picture the life of a migrant and how it differed from a mainstream American. For a migrant there would be no real estate transactions, no credit reports, probably no bank accounts. There was a possibility that his name would pop up in the public assistance databases—things like welfare, unemployment, and food stamps. Unfortunately, those records weren’t available to private investigators, not even through LexisNexis or any of the other subscription services I maintained. Of course, the police had probably already gone down these roads, using official avenues to see if Enrique was sitting back somewhere collecting assistance checks or if he had been arrested.

For now, I went online and did a search for “migrant services,” and I was amazed at the number of programs that popped up for migrants needing help across the country. From health care and dental visits to education, there were many nonprofit groups and government agencies that seemed to be involved with serving migrants in one way or another.

I was intrigued with a certain type of place, many of which appeared under the category of “travel assistance.” Apparently, there were migrant welcome centers of sorts along many of the picking routes, where vouchers were given out to qualifying migrants for inexpensive hotel stays, meals, and gasoline. “Getting you through the night and back on the road” was one place’s slogan. Thinking that Enrique might have availed himself of something like that, I borrowed a map from the office and did a concurrent search for such places along the highways he could have taken as he left the area, particularly the ones between here and New York City.

I tried calling a few of the places, but after several disconnected phone lines, I realized they were most likely seasonal in nature and wouldn’t be up and running year-round. Trying to come at the information another way, I went back into several of my paid databases and with a lot of clicking was eventually able to find my way to a database of a place called the Office of Local and Rural Health. It had data on food, hotel, and medical vouchers given out to migrants for most of the states I wanted to check. The names “Enrique and Luisa Morales” popped up a number of times, but when I limited the search to those dates on or after last November 11, the search came up empty.

As expected, everything I’d tried had come up empty.

Disappointed, I logged off of the computer and went to find Dean and Natalie, who were sitting in Dean’s office, hunched together over a legal pad covered with scribbles.

“No luck,” I announced quietly after I shut the door behind me. “At least to the computer and the types of records I have access to, this man does not exist after November 11.”