Baby Daddy (16 page)

Christopher’s eyes
widened.  He nodded.

“Dan Ward was a U
.S. Congressman in his fourth term when word got out that he was the father of illegitimate twin girls from when he was a student at UT.  The girls, both doctors here in Austin, hired Scandals to find out who their father was.”

“Sounds like the agency did what was asked of them,” I stated.

“We did exactly that,” Christopher agreed.  “But somehow word got out to the press that they were his daughters.  Anyone notice that the door that got blown out on Sunday was brand new?”

I shook my head and no one else spoke up.

Dallas pulled an 8” x 10” photo marked with a red stamp marking it as Austin Police Department evidence.  It was the front of the building with a hole that nearly eliminated the door.

“What happened?”
I asked.

“A couple of days after
the press learned about the scandal, the front door was blown up,” Christopher explained.

“Anyone hurt?” Liberty asked.

“No…just property damage.”

“So, who did this?”  Dallas asked.  “
Did anyone get arrested?  There wasn’t anything in the file.”

“I have my suspicions
,” Christopher answered.  “But there was no evidence other than the bomb, which, by the way, was not the same as the one in the warehouse, although both were pretty effective.”

“But someone leaked the information…just like
on Sunday,” I pointed out.  “Sounds like it might be an insider.”

“I agree,” Christopher nodded.  “We checked pretty thoroughly after the first bomb and didn’t find anything.  I haven’t had time to follow through with this new one.”

“What happened to the congressman?” Tulsa asked.

“Truly a sad story
,” Christopher explained.  “The congressman was being groomed for the governorship when this happened.  His response to being found out was odd…he kind of went off the deep end.  He refused to talk to his daughters.  His wife who had been engaged to him at the time of his infidelity all those years ago threw him out…as did the voters.  That’s one of the reasons that after the repairs to the front were completed, we didn’t put the Scandals sign back up.”

“
This one seems pretty serious to me,” Dallas stated.

We all nodded again and Christopher added the congressman’s name on the board.

Tulsa stood and found the file she was looking for.  “I’ve got a union leader, Ralph Tanner, who got put away for five years because of evidence found by Scandals.  The guy was released about a year before Roger died.”

“What happened
?” Reno asked.

“
There was a manufacturing company that had a lot of injury claims and disability payoffs.  Scandals went undercover and exposed the scam…the union leader…Mr. Tanner…was getting a kickback from the employees for helping them make phony claims.  There’s nothing in the file about where he’s at today.  But five years and a million dollars in fines ain’t no way to make friends.  Plus, I’ll bet he has plenty of connections on the dark side.”

“I remember that one now,” Christopher agreed.  “He’s a definite possibility.”  He wrote the guy’s name on the list.

“I think we need to not only find him but also figure out if there were any residual emotions among the employees who were part of this scam…maybe they’re still pissed at us, too,” Tulsa added.  “I’m sure some of them lost their workman’s comp benefits and probably their jobs.”

“I’m sure you’re right,” Christopher agreed, then turned to me and smiled…finally. 
“Killeen?”

“
This is a Bernie Madoff kind of deal,” I said after I found the file that was on the top of my list.  “A local investor, Lars McGinnis, scammed some old people out of their retirement with a guaranteed stock deal.  Roger…Scandals was able to uncover it as a pyramid scheme.  His evidence got the guy and his partners convicted and put away for ten-to-twenty years.  Lars and a couple of his associates got out earlier this year on good behavior.”

“This is one we have to pay attention to…we messed up a lot of lives with that conviction,” Christopher’s smile was smug.

“You enjoy messing people’s lives up?”  I questioned.

“No…unless what they’re doing is illegal, immoral or unethical.  Lars’ scam was all of those things.”

“Why wasn’t
it a police issue?  Why did those old folks have to hire a P.I. to get justice?” I asked.

“Yeah…
welcome to the ugly truth.  Unless there’s a body or public outcry, the police don’t have time to deal with issues of a few hundred thousand dollars or less.  Roger had a couple of musician friends who got nailed, so he took it on personally.”

“Did he do that often?”
Liberty asked.

“Ye
s, he did, especially when it was someone in the music or entertainment industry.  I think that’s why Scandals has done so well.  Roger earned a reputation for taking care of his friends, so whenever they were in trouble, they called him first.”

“Will they continue to call now that Roger’s gone?” Dallas asked.

“A lot of them made it to his funeral, and they assured me that Scandals would always be on their speed dial.”  Christopher chuckled.  “For some of them, that’s almost monthly.”

I had to admit that working with rock stars and actors would be a nice perk to this job. 

“Okay, any employees that raised red flags?” Christopher continued. 

“Employees…
we’ve got three…I think,” Dallas said.  He had sort of taken the lead on these because he had taken some business law classes that had included employer rights and obligations.  “All three were caught and fired for theft from us.  One was even arrested after he stole from another company.”

“Wh
o was the worst?” Christopher asked, then held up his hands.  “No wait, don’t tell me.  It was Gabe McDowell, right?

“
Right,” Dallas confirmed.  “He was selling valuables from the warehouse and got away with it until it was time to return something to a client, and it was gone.  A note in the file said it was worth about $100,000!”

Reno laughed.  “Some guys have big balls
.”

“Even worse,” Dallas continued, “h
e was using the computers here at the office and putting things up on eBay!  The photos were actually taken in the warehouse.”

“With the company camera
, too!”  Christopher wrote Gabe’s name under the
EMPLOYEES
column and underlined it.  “He wasn’t too happy about getting caught.”

“What about Joel?” I reminded him.  “Did you check out his excuse for coming in on Sunday and not telling anyone about the package?”

“I talked to him, and he seemed to be shocked,” Christopher told me.  “He was going on a stakeout, so his reasons for being here were legit.  I’m keeping my eye on him though.”  Christopher replaced the cap on the marker and placed it on the tray.  “I think we’ve got some good leads to start working on.  Since you’re new at this, we’re going to team up and see what we can find out.”

“If we’re going to go after these guys who bombed us and killed Roger, I think we’re going to need our own transportation,” Reno spoke up.  “I’ve got dibs on the Porsche”

“I had that on my list of things to do today,” Christopher said.  “But the Porsche…not gonna happen.”  He softened the blow with a smile.

“I want to keep the Mini,” I said.

“That would work.  The rest of you can fight over the Range Rover, the Ford Edge and the BMW Z-3 in Roger’s garage.  And for you, Liberty, after you get the cast off, there’s a Honda Prius.”

I was happy with my Mini, and I listened with amusement as Reno, Tulsa and Dallas argued over the three cars.

“I don’t have a driver’s license, but I learned how to drive on The Farm,” Liberty told us, and we all turned to stare at her.  She was like a time traveler, stepping out of another century.  Not having electricity or television was one thing, but none of us could imagine life without a driver’s license.

Christopher went to
his office and returned with key fobs and private security codes for Reno, Tulsa and Dallas.  Of course, I already had mine.  “These codes are personalized to you.  That allows us to see exactly who has used their code to come into the building.  Unfortunately, the fobs are interchangeable, so we couldn’t pin down whose fob was used to open the gate when the bomb was delivered.”

I noticed he didn’t tell any of the othe
rs not to lose their fobs.  “Was anyone’s fob missing?”

“I checked every employee, and they all still had theirs.  The only one not accounted for was Roger’s.”
  Christopher frowned.  “I’ll be right back.”  He hurried out of the room and we all exchanged confused glances.  A minute later he returned with a large baggie that he dumped onto the table.

A wallet, a guitar pick, a tube of Chapstick, a crumpled piece of paper with a phone number on it and a set of keys tumbled onto the wooden surface.  We looked at the items, then back at Christopher who had picked up the keys.

“This is what Roger had with him when he died.”  He flipped through the keys and held up an empty ring.  “His key fob is missing.  I hadn’t noticed that.”

“Whoever killed him must have taken it,” I commented, echoing what everyone else was probably thinking.

“Which gave him easy access to the back lot,” Reno added.

“So all we have to do is tell the police
, and they can…,” Dallas said.

“No,
we’re
going to find out who killed Roger and when we recover the key fob, it will be evidence,” Tulsa corrected him.

“Right,” Christopher agreed.  “Now let’s finish getting all of you equipped.”

“Phones?” Tulsa piped up.

“Phones
.”  Christopher nodded.  “I’ll call our phone guy and have some delivered.  Any preferences?”

That started a lively discussion of the merits and flaws of iPhones, Samsung and Nokia
.  As usual, we didn’t agree and ended up choosing different brands and models.  Christopher indulged us and made a list.

“Anything else?”

“Keys to the mansion?” Reno asked.

“I’ll make sure your gate codes also work for the mansion’s keypads,” Christopher said, adding that to his list.  “You’ll be issued a company credit card, but confine it to legitimate business expenses.  Our tax guy is a hard ass.”

No one said anything.

“Good.  Tomorrow we’ll break into teams and get going.  Tulsa, you already know where your office is. 
If the rest of you will follow me, I’ll show you to your offices,” Christopher continued.  “Liberty?  You need help?”

“
Could you take Eight for me?”  She turned to me.

“
Eight?” I asked.

“Cat’s have nine lives,” Liberty explained.  “This little girl has used one of those, so she’s Eight.”

I chuckled as I picked the sleeping kitten off her lap.

“
I’m getting pretty good with these.”  Liberty reached out to steady herself until she got her crutches under her, then smiled gamely.  “I’ve never had an office before.”

“Injured player…coming through,” I
called out as we followed Christopher down the hall.  The hallway was very wide and Liberty had no problem working her way to her office which was conveniently next to the conference room.  The walls of the hallway were covered with a mixture of old Austin photos…mainly bars and music venues and country singers.  I recognized Garth Brooks, Johnny Cash and George Strait.  Maybe some of the others were equally famous in their day, but I’d never heard of Hank Williams, Bill Monroe or Kitty Wells.  I noticed that each picture was signed personally to Roger.

“This is your office,
Liberty.” Christopher opened the door and held it wide for her to enter.

“Thanks…all I have to do now is get there.”  Liberty slowly made her way around Christopher and into
her office.  It was about ten-by-ten feet with no windows, but some colorful photos brightened up the walls.  The office chair was large, leather and comfortably stuffed and there were matching side chairs in front of the desk.

We helped Liberty get settled and made sure there was a chair for her to prop her leg up on. 
Pam had already set up a litter box in one corner and a bed and food and water in another for Eight.  I set the kitten back in Liberty’s lap, and the tiny animal immediately curled up and went back to sleep.

“What’s the red envelope for?” Liberty asked.

“Oh…yeah.  Pam put one on all of your desks.  It’s your company forms…you know, health and dental insurance, life insurance, W-4, I-9, your LexisNexis log-in registration, that kind of thing.”

I had to ask. “Lexi
s what?”

“Lexi
sNexis…it’s the on-line system we use to investigate people. Say, you have an address…just enter it in and the program will list all the vehicles that are registered there, the names and ages of everyone who lives at that address, and, if you go deeper, their employment and credit history.  We couldn’t live without it.  Anyway, fill out the forms and give them back to Pam sometime today…even if you’re not going to stay.  We’ll deal with that issue later.”