Kinsey and Me (6 page)

Gavin Sotherland was large, an ex-jock to all appearances, maybe forty-five years
old, with a heavy head of blond hair thinning slightly at the crown. He had a slight
paunch, a slight stoop to his shoulders, and a grip that was damp with sweat. He had
his coat off, and his once-starched white shirt was limp and wrinkled, his beige gabardine
pants heavily creased across the lap. Altogether, he looked like a man who’d just
crossed a continent by rail. Still, I was forced to credit him with good looks, even
if he had let himself go to seed.

“Nice to meet you, Miss Millhone. I’m so glad you’re here.” His voice was deep and
rumbling, with confidence-inspiring undertones. On the other hand, I didn’t like the
look in his eyes. He could have been a con man, for all I knew. “I understand Mrs.
Ackerman never got home Friday night,” he said.

“That’s what I’m told,” I replied. “Can you tell me anything about her day here?”

He studied me briefly. “Well, now, I’m going to have to be honest with you. Our bookkeeper
has come across some discrepancies in the accounts. It looks like Lucy Ackerman has
just walked off with half a million dollars entrusted to us.”

“How’d she manage that?”

I was picturing Lucy Ackerman, free of those truck-busting kids, lying on a beach
in Rio, slurping some kind of rum drink out of a coconut.

Mr. Sotherland looked pained. “In the most straightforward manner imaginable,” he
said. “It looks like she opened a new bank account at a branch in Montebello and deposited
ten checks that should have gone into other accounts. Last Friday, she withdrew over
five hundred thousand dollars in cash, claiming we were closing out a big real estate
deal. We found the passbook in her bottom drawer.” He tossed the booklet across the
desk to me and I picked it up. The word
VOID
had been punched into the pages in a series of holes. A quick glance showed ten deposits
at intervals dating back over the past three months and a zero balance as of last
Friday’s date.

“Didn’t anybody else double-check this stuff?”

“We’d just undergone our annual audit in June. Everything was fine. We trusted this
woman implicitly and had every reason to.”

“You discovered the loss this morning?”

“Yes, ma’am, but I’ll admit I was suspicious Friday night when Robert Ackerman called
me at home. It was completely unlike that woman to disappear without a word. She’s
worked here eight years and she’s been punctual and conscientious since the day she
walked in.”

“Well, punctual at any rate,” I said. “Have you notified the police?”

“I was just about to do that. I’ll have to alert the Department of Corporations, too.
God, I can’t believe she did this to us. I’ll be fired. They’ll probably shut this
entire office down.”

“Would you mind if I had a quick look around?”

“To what end?”

“There’s always a chance we can figure out where she went. If we move fast enough,
maybe we can catch her before she gets away with it.”

“Well, I doubt that,” he said. “The last anybody saw her was Friday afternoon. That’s
two full days. She could be anywhere by now.”

“Mr. Sotherland, her husband has already authorized three hundred dollars’ worth of
my time. Why not take advantage of it?”

He stared at me. “Won’t the police object?”

“Probably. But I don’t intend to get in anybody’s way, and whatever I find out, I’ll
turn over to them. They may not be able to get a fraud detective out here until late
morning, anyway. If I get a line on her, it’ll make you look good to the company
and
to the cops.”

He gave a sigh of resignation and waved his hand. “Hell, I don’t care. Do what you
want.”

When I left his office, he was putting the call through to the police department.

I
SAT BRIEFLY
at Lucy’s desk, which was neat and well organized. Her drawers contained the usual
office supplies, no personal items at all. There was a calendar on her desktop, one
of those loose-leaf affairs with a page for each day. I checked back through the past
couple of months. The only personal notation was for an appointment at the Women’s
Health Center August 2 and a second visit last Friday afternoon. It must have been
a busy day for Lucy, what with a doctor’s appointment and ripping off her company
for half a million bucks. I made a note of the address she’d penciled in at the time
of her first visit. The other two women in the office were keeping an eye on me, I
noticed, though both pretended to be occupied with paperwork.

When I finished my search, I got up and crossed the room to Mrs. Merriman’s desk.
“Is there any way I can make a copy of the passbook for that account Mrs. Ackerman
opened?”

“Well, yes, if Mr. Sotherland approves,” she said.

“I’m also wondering where she kept her coat and purse during the day.”

“In the back. We each have a locker in the storage room.”

“I’d like to take a look at that, too.”

I waited patiently while she cleared both matters with her boss, and then I accompanied
her to the rear. There was a door that opened onto the parking lot. To the left of
it was a small restroom and, on the right, there was a storage room that housed four
connecting upright metal lockers, the copy machine, and numerous shelves neatly stacked
with office supplies. Each shoulder-high locker was marked with a name. Lucy Ackerman’s
was still securely padlocked. There was something about the blank look of that locker
that seemed ominous somehow. I looked at the lock, fairly itching to have a crack
at it with my little set of key picks, but I didn’t want to push my luck with the
cops on the way.

“I’d like for someone to let me know what’s in that locker when it’s finally opened,”
I remarked while Mrs. Merriman ran off the copy of the passbook pages for me.

“This, too,” I said, handing her a carbon of the withdrawal slip Lucy’d been required
to sign in receipt of the cash. It had been folded and tucked into the back of the
booklet. “You have any theories about where she went?”

Mrs. Merriman’s mouth pursed piously, as though she were debating with herself about
how much she might say.

“I wouldn’t want to be accused of talking out of school,” she ventured.

“Mrs. Merriman, it does look like a crime’s been committed,” I suggested. “The police
are going to ask you the same thing when they get here.”

“Oh. Well, in that case, I suppose it’s all right. I mean, I don’t have the faintest
idea where she is, but I do think she’s been acting oddly the past few months.”

“Like what?”

“She seemed secretive. Smug. Like she knew something the rest of us didn’t know about.”

“That certainly turned out to be the case,” I said.

“Oh, I didn’t mean it was related to that,” she said hesitantly. “I think she was
having an affair.”

That got my attention. “An affair? With whom?”

She paused for a moment, touching at one of the hairpins that supported her ornate
hairdo. She allowed her gaze to stray back toward Mr. Sotherland’s office. I turned
and looked in that direction too.

“Really?” I said. No wonder he was in a sweat, I thought.

“I couldn’t swear to it,” she murmured, “but his marriage has been rocky for years,
and I gather she hasn’t been that happy herself. She has those beastly little boys,
you know, and a husband who seems determined to spawn more. She and Mr. Sotherland—Gavie,
she calls him—have . . . well, I’m sure they’ve been together. Whether it’s connected
to this matter of the missing money, I wouldn’t presume to guess.” Having said as
much, she was suddenly uneasy. “You won’t repeat what I’ve said to the police, I hope.”

“Absolutely not,” I said. “Unless they ask, of course.”

“Oh. Of course.”

“By the way, is there a company travel agent?”

“Right next door,” she replied.

I
HAD A BRIEF
chat with the bookkeeper, who added nothing to the general picture of Lucy Ackerman’s
last few days at work. I retrieved my VW from the parking lot and headed over to the
health center eight blocks away, wondering what Lucy had been up to. I was guessing
birth control and probably the permanent sort. If she was having an affair (and determined
not to get pregnant again in any event), it would seem logical, but I hadn’t any idea
how to verify the fact. Medical personnel are notoriously stingy with information
like that.

I parked in front of the clinic and grabbed my clipboard from the backseat. I have
a supply of all-purpose forms for occasions like this. They look like a cross between
a job application and an insurance claim. I filled one out now in Lucy’s name and
forged her signature at the bottom where it said “authorization to release information.”
As a model, I used the Xerox copy of the withdrawal slip she’d tucked in her passbook.
I’ll admit my methods would be considered unorthodox, nay illegal, in the eyes of
law-enforcement officers everywhere, but I reasoned that the information I was seeking
would never actually be used in court, and therefore it couldn’t matter
that
much how it was obtained.

I went into the clinic, noting gratefully the near-empty waiting room. I approached
the counter and took out my wallet with my California Fidelity ID. I do occasional
insurance investigations for CF in exchange for office space. They once made the mistake
of issuing me a company identification card with my picture right on it that I’ve
been flashing around quite shamelessly ever since.

I had a choice of three female clerks and, after a brief assessment, I made eye contact
with the oldest of them. In places like this, the younger employees usually have no
authority at all and are, thus, impossible to con. People without authority will often
simply stand there, reciting the rules like mynah birds. Having no power, they also
seem to take a vicious satisfaction in forcing others to comply.

The woman approached the counter on her side, looking at me expectantly. I showed
her my CF
ID and made the form on the clipboard conspicuous, as though I had nothing to hide.

“Hi. My name is Kinsey Millhone,” I said. “I wonder if you can give me some help.
Your name is what?”

She seemed wary of the request, as though her name had magical powers that might be
taken from her by force. “Lillian Vincent,” she said reluctantly. “What sort of help
did you need?”

“Lucy Ackerman has applied for some insurance benefits and we need verification of
the claim. You’ll want a copy of the release form for your files, of course.”

I passed the forged paper to her and then busied myself with my clipboard as though
it were all perfectly matter-of-fact.

She was instantly alert. “What is this?”

I gave her a look. “Oh, sorry. She’s applying for maternity leave and we need her
due date.”

“Maternity leave?”

“Isn’t she a patient here?”

Lillian Vincent looked at me. “Just a moment,” she said, and moved away from the desk
with the form in hand. She went to a file cabinet and extracted a chart, returning
to the counter. She pushed it over to me. “The woman has had a tubal ligation,” she
said, her manner crisp.

I blinked, smiling slightly as though she were making a joke. “There must be some
mistake.”

“Lucy Ackerman must have made it then if she thinks she can pull this off.” She opened
the chart and tapped significantly at the August 2 date. “She was just in here Friday
for a final checkup and a medical release. She’s sterile.”

I looked at the chart. Sure enough, that’s what it said. I raised my eyebrows and
then shook my head slightly. “God. Well. I guess I better have a copy of that.”

“I should think so,” the woman said and ran one off for me on the desktop dry copier.
She placed it on the counter and watched as I tucked it onto my clipboard.

She said, “I don’t know how they think they can get away with it.”

“People love to cheat,” I replied.