AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Tucked away somewhere safe for now. And that’s all I’ll say until I know if you’re going to help me.”
“Take me through what your accountant found,” Preston said.
For fifteen minutes Sandy laid out the complicated puzzle of the fraud taking place inside Margolis & Margolis.
Preston paged back through the documents.
“There’re no names on any of these pages. They’re all anonymous shell companies and numbered accounts.”
“There’s only one name in any of the documents. Guy Menendez.”
“Who?”
“Guy Menendez.”
“There’s no one by that name at Margolis and Margolis.”
Sandy nodded. “I figured that much already.”
“Tell me what this has to do with my wife.”
Sandy took a sip of beer. “It was a setup, Preston. Someone killed Baker and then made it look like he was hit by Annabelle’s car.”
“Why?”
“Your guess is as good as mine. But here’s what I’m stuck on. Your family has influence just about everywhere in Harrison County and much of Nevada. The Harrison County coroner’s office is under your family’s authority, and the coroner’s office literally stole Baker’s body from Reno in the dead of night and did their own autopsy. The only way that happens is if someone decided to meddle in the case. And when meddling happens around these parts, it usually has Margolis fingerprints on it.”
Preston opened his palms. “It obviously didn’t come from me.”
“That’s why you’re sitting here, counselor. I need you to help me figure out what’s going on. The Reno Medical Examiner’s Office came to a wholly different conclusion about how Baker Jauncey died than did the Harrison County coroner. According to the coroner, the official cause of death was head trauma sustained during the hit-and-run. Reno says Baker was hit by a baseball bat. So, best I can tell, someone didn’t like the idea that Baker’s death was going to be blamed on him being cracked by a baseball bat, and much preferred the official line stating that he died from being run over by Annabelle’s car.”
“So just to be clear, my wife is no longer a suspect in Baker’s death?”
“Not so long as I’m running the investigation.”
“What do you need from me?”
“I need you to figure out who’s behind the fraud at Margolis and Margolis.”
“And you think the answer lies somewhere in the files inside my law firm?”
“I do.”
Preston pushed the whiskey away and stood up. “Then I’ll go look.”
“When?”
“Right now.”
Cedar Creek, Nevada
Sunday, July 2, 1995 2 Days Prior . . .
PRESTON WAITED UNTIL NIGHTFALL TO GO TO THE OFFICES OF MARGOLIS & Margolis. Hours earlier he’d watched the cleaning staff exit the building, pack up their vans, and pull from the parking lot after leaving the offices immaculate for Monday morning. He drank coffee to keep himself alert as he bided his time. When he was certain the building was empty, without even an eager junior associate remaining, he climbed from his car and entered through the rear door. It was close to midnight.
His office was on the third floor, and he quickly sat behind the desk and fired up his computer. The firm was on the cutting edge of technology and had digitized all its files over the last twenty-four months. Margolis & Margolis had been using internal email for years, but had leaned fully into the new Internet age that was upon them. Preston was one of the young attorneys encouraging the transition to digitized files and electronic records, and was the point man for implementing the firm’s conversion into the technological era. Because of this, he was more than familiar with the inner workings of the firm’s digital files, and even without being a partner had easy access to everything.
It took just thirty minutes of sniffing to find the name Guy Menendez buried in the files. Once he was onto the scent, he never lost it. He spent hours digging through the firm’s files and diving deeply into the financial records. The tracks were covered well enough for the lazy snooper or casual observer to miss, but armed with the knowledge Sandy Stamos had provided, Preston knew what to look for, and found it easily. So obvious was the fraud and theft that Preston wondered how it had gone unnoticed for so long. Unless, he wondered, someone at the top was part of it.
