The Quick and the Thread (17 page)

“Good point,” Manu said. “Did this happen just after your arrival here in Tallulah Falls?”

I took a biscuit and placed it on my plate beside the soup bowl. “Actually, given the date of the illegal usage, it must have happened before I got here.”

“Could it have been an online transaction?” Reggie asked.

“I don’t think so. The transaction was with a real estate company,” I said. “And I didn’t even search online sites for property here. Sadie saw that the shop was available, and she set me up with a Realtor who helped me find the house.”

Manu and Reggie shared a look.

“Bill Trelawney,” Manu said. “We know he was involved with Four Square. It’s likely he’s the one who stole your information.”

“But how does this affect my credit and reputation in Tallulah Falls?” I asked. “Do I have other bad debts floating around?”

“Call Vera,” Reggie said, dipping a piece of her biscuit into her bowl of chowder. “Her husband, John, is the president of the Tallulah Falls bank branch. He’ll be able to help you sort everything out.”

“Thanks, Reggie. I’ll do that.”

After we ate our dinner, I let Angus back inside. He greeted the Singhs and then wandered into the living room with us and lay down by the fire.

Reggie opened the ledger and placed it on the table in front of the sofa. She, Manu, and I gathered around it to see what we could make of it.

“I agree this must be a dummy ledger,” Manu said. “There’s no logical flow of information here.”

“Right. And before I came across this one,” Reggie said, “I thumbed through two or three of Bill’s other ledgers. They were perfectly organized and made perfect sense.”

Manu nodded. “Yes, but this one made perfect sense, too. To Bill.”

“So we need to figure out his thought process when he compiled this information,” I said.

There were months written in the columns at the top of the page. There were five of them: April, July, October, December, and February.

“We could start by determining the significance of these months,” I said. “Could these represent his favorite holidays? April for Easter, July for Independence Day, October for Halloween, December for Christmas, and February for Valentine’s Day?”

“Easter sometimes comes in March,” Reggie pointed out.

“True,” I said. “Maybe Mr. Trelawney’s birthday was in April.”

“I guess it’s worth looking into,” Manu said. “But it still doesn’t tell us how the months relate to the names and figures in the columns below them.”

At that point, I was at a complete loss. If we couldn’t even figure out why Mr. Trelawney had designated the months at the top columns of his ledger the way he had, how could we possibly begin to break whatever code held the secrets to this ledger?

“Look,” Reggie said, pointing to a name near the end of the first page. “Timothy Enright. And there’s a
b
beside his name.”

“Do you think that means Timothy Enright was a straw buyer?” I asked.

“If he was, it never came out in court,” Manu said.

“Neither did Four Square’s silent partner,” Reggie said.

Manu inclined his head. “You’ve got me there. Let’s agree for now that the
b
notations do indicate straw buyers. Timothy lost his business, and Lorraine says the well has run dry. Where is his compensation for acting as a straw buyer for Four Square?”

“Maybe he invested it elsewhere or put in into an account his wife didn’t know about,” I said.

“But what about the business?” Reggie asked.

“Maybe he didn’t lose it,” I said. “Maybe he was simply tired of it.”

She shrugged. “Maybe. It’s possible that he was tired of the business and Lorraine and wanted to start all over without either one of them.”

She turned the page, running her finger down the names to see if any more of them were familiar. It wasn’t long before she came across another one.

She looked at me and frowned.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Todd Calloway,” she said, “with a
b
.”

“Todd? A straw buyer?” I turned from Reggie to Manu. “You don’t think that’s true, do you?”

“Once again, his name didn’t turn up in any of the paperwork.” Manu bit his lip. “But his name is in this ledger for some reason.”

Todd wasn’t the only surprise we got. Blake’s name was in there, too. And so was mine.

My jaw dropped when I saw my name on the ledger. I turned to look at Reggie and Manu, and they were as shocked as I was.

“M-maybe this isn’t a dummy ledger after all,” I said. “Maybe it’s merely a list of Mr. Trelawney’s renters.”

“Had you paid Mr. Trelawney twenty-two thousand dollars, Marcy?” Manu asked.

I shook my head. We all sat quietly digesting this new information for a minute.

“What does this mean?” I finally asked.

“My best guess,” Manu said with a sigh, “is that all these people had their identities stolen by Mr. Trelawney.”

I grabbed my cordless phone. “Let me call Blake and see if he knows anything.”

I dialed the MacKenzies’ number as Reggie and Manu continued to study the ledger.

“Blake,” I said when he answered, “has your identity been stolen?”

“Is this a joke?”

“No. I’m serious. I found out a little while ago that my identity was stolen. Reggie discovered a ledger at Mr. Trelawney’s house.”

“You mean, of our rent?”

“No, it’s a dummy ledger. We’re afraid Mr. Trelawney might’ve been giving our financial information to Four Square for some sort of kickback.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Well, as I said, I learned my identity was stolen, and my name is here in this ledger. It’s marked with a notation Manu, Reggie, and I believe means ‘straw buyer.’ And, Blake, your name is in here, too.”

“You say Manu is there?”

“Yes. Do you need to speak with him?”

“No . . . no. I’ve . . . uh . . . I have to go right now, Marcy.”

“Wait. You need to check your credit report and see if your credit has been compromised. I—”

“Yeah, I’ll do that. Thanks.”

With that, he hung up. And for some reason, a chill ran down my spine.

I
turned off the phone, and Reggie and Manu looked at me expectantly.

“He . . . said he’ll . . . he’ll check it out,” I told them.

Manu nodded. “That’s good. In the meantime, I’ll give this ledger to the chief.”

I was relieved when Manu and Reggie stood up to leave. They thanked me for dinner, and we exchanged good-byes with promises to keep one another posted on any progress we made deciphering the ledger information.

I locked the door, turned off the lights, and headed upstairs as soon as the Singhs left. I ran a tub filled with foamy, aromatic bubbles. As I sank into the tub, I thought about Mr. Trelawney. He’d seemed like such a sweet old guy. I hated the thought of him stealing my identity.

I placed a warm washcloth over my face and lay back against the tub.

Why had Blake acted so strangely? Was it possible he’d been making dinner or attending to his sick wife, and my call had simply caught him off guard? But then why had he asked about Manu? And why did I have the horrible suspicion that he’d done something he didn’t want Manu to know about? Had he, in fact, acted as a straw buyer for Mr. Trelawney?

I’d trusted Sadie with the financial information she needed to act on my behalf so I wouldn’t have to make numerous visits to and from Tallulah Falls until everything was finalized. Had Blake used that information to my detriment? That thought was even more disturbing than the thought of Mr. Trelawney misusing my financial information.

The phone rang, but I was too comfortable to get out of the tub and race to the bedroom to answer it. Whoever it was could leave a message. It was probably Mom. I only hoped Alfred hadn’t told her about the identity theft. It would worry her silly, and there wasn’t a thing that could be done at this time that Alfred wasn’t already doing. Alfred could fix anything . . . well, almost.

When I got out of the bathtub, I put on my robe and slippers and padded to the bedroom. Angus had already commandeered the bed. I nudged him slightly to make him give me some room, and he moved aside.

I pressed the button on the answering machine.

A harsh voice whispered, “What does Margaret Trelawney know?” I couldn’t be sure, but it sounded as if a man had made the call.

I grabbed the phone and dialed the number required to see where the call had originated.

The mechanical voice informed me, “The last number that called your line is not known.”

When the phone rang again, I was hesitant to answer it. But part of me knew that if I didn’t answer and it was the same person who had called before, he’d just keep calling. Besides, maybe I could reason with him.

After the third ring, I picked up the receiver. “Hello.” I tried not to sound afraid.

“What does Margaret Trelawney know?” the voice asked in a gruff whisper.

“Excuse me?” I asked. “Who’s calling?”

“What does she know?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said, proud that I was able to keep the tremor out of my voice.

The line went dead.

I hung up the phone and realized I was shaking. Angus whimpered.

“Come here, baby,” I said. “Come here.”

He crawled around until the top half of his body was lying across my lap. I wrapped my arms around his neck and buried my face in his fur.

“It’s okay,” I said softly. “It’s okay.”

I wasn’t sure if I was trying to reassure him or myself.

It hadn’t been five minutes before the phone rang again. Once again, I hesitated, then answered.

“Hello.” My voice wasn’t as confident as it had been before.

“Hey, Marcy, it’s Blake. Still got company?”

“No.”

“Great, have you got a sec?”

“Sure. Is everything okay with Sadie?”

“Oh yeah. She’s home—went to bed early. I’m out running a couple errands for the shop.”

I digested this in silence.

“Anyway, I just wanted to call and thank you for letting me know about the stolen-identity thing. I’m sorry that happened to you, but our credit is fine.”

“Oh. That’s good.”

“Yeah. Um . . . about that ledger . . . Do you still have it?”

“No. Manu took it with him. He’s going to pass it along to Chief Myers.”

“Huh. Did you guys come to any conclusions about it?”

“Not yet.”

“Look, Marcy, I know why my name is on that list.”

“Then please explain it to me, because my name is in there, too.”

“Please don’t say anything to Sadie, okay? Promise?”

I paused, a bad feeling settling in my stomach. “Okay.”

“Or Manu, either. Seriously, Marcy, promise me.”

“All right. I promise.”

“See, a while back, I was behind in my rent. I’d been renovating the house—you know, now that Sadie and I are ready to start a family, right?”

“Right.”

“And I asked Mr. Trelawney to cut me a break on that month’s rent because we’d be getting our income-tax refund soon and I’d pay him then.”

“What did Sadie think about that?” I asked.

“She didn’t know. She thought I was able to spend money on the house because we’d had a really good month at the shop. That was partly true, but as I suspect you know, a few hundred bucks doesn’t go very far when you’re renovating your house.”

“So you used your rent money.”

“And some money from savings. I kept intending to put it all back as soon as that refund money came in. But when our accountant prepared our returns, we wound up owing money. We hadn’t paid enough on our estimated tax payments.”

“What did you tell Mr. Trelawney?”

Blake blew out a long breath. “See, that’s the thing. By the time I found out we owed money to the government, I was more than one month behind in the rent.”

“How much more?”

“Three months. So I went to Mr. Trelawney and explained the situation . . . and he was really cool about it. He said he’d wipe the past three months’ debt out altogether and we’d start over fresh on one condition.”

“That you become a straw buyer for Four Square,” I said.

“Not even that,” he said. “He just asked if he could use my financial information to make a transaction. I asked if I’d get in any trouble over it, and he promised I wouldn’t. And I didn’t.”

“You didn’t even ask what kind of transaction?”

“The man was offering to wipe out three months’ rent, Marcy. If I wasn’t getting in trouble over it, I didn’t care.”

“Then how do you know that isn’t on your credit history?”

“Because it was never filed,” Blake said. “It never came up, and I never questioned it.”

“Not even after the Four Square people went to jail?”

“This happened after that. Look, Marcy, I’m counting on you not to tell Sadie or Manu or Chief Myers about any of this. It’s not that a big a deal. The old man wanted to use my financial information for some reason and was willing to wipe out a substantial debt for the privilege. As long as I wouldn’t get in trouble, I didn’t care what he did with it.”

“So what about me? Why am I in the ledger?”

“I don’t know. Maybe he needed someone else’s information and borrowed yours, not thinking it would get out of hand or that you’d ever know.” He blew out another breath. “I’m sorry you got in the middle of this. Can I count on you to keep my name out of it?”

“As far as I’m concerned, you can. But Manu has already seen your name in the ledger. He might question you about it.”

“Well, at least I’ll be prepared if that does happen.”

“You might want to talk it over with Sadie before that happens,” I said. “She’ll be awfully hurt if she finds it out from Manu.”