Diane Davidson - The Main Corpse

“What did the bank manager say?”

“Oh, my dear, that’s the problem. The bank manager says they need to question Dottie, but she’s drinking pina coladas in parts unknown. Now they’re saying Dottie might have been in on the deal with Albert from the beginning.” She rolled her eyes. “I’m just waiting for someone to call me in and say, ‘You trained this woman? What in heaven’s name did you teach her?’ “

I swirled my coffee, hardly able to conceal my curiosity. “I wonder what makes people think they were in on it together?”

Blithely, Eileen waved a hand, scattering still more crumbs. “Because she didn’t call Prospect that day to confirm the check was valid. Still, I do believe the conspiracy theory is a rumor perpetuated by the bank so the teller won’t look quite so stupid. People will excuse crime before they dream of acquitting imbecility. My tellers, of course, are all spooked. They’re playing Mat would you do with a rich stranger until I am sick to death of it.” She frowned. Then she finished off the muffin.

“I wonder if Tony had insurance,” I said idly.

“For that type of account? No way. I mean, he’d be insured up to a hundred thousand if the bank collapsed, but that’s not what we’re talking about here. We’re talking about loss of cash, period. Maybe forgery. Serves Prospect Financial right, I say.”

Once again I found myself wondering about the precise origin of Eileen’s bitterness. Was she so triumphant because Prospect had lost the private placement money? Or because Tony had jilted her? We were interrupted by the arrival of the second gaggle of excited employees. I picked up our coffee cups while Eileen chatted with her people. After a few minutes, she wandered back to me to say she had to check her messages. I asked if she’d return to clarify Friday’s upcoming assignment. Of course, I didn’t give a hoot about next week’s gig; I wanted to know what else she knew about Albert and the missing millions. But as I served coffee and delicacies to first the tellers, then the loan officers, I became intrigued with their conversations.

Nobody ever thinks a caterer is listening. And you don’t mean to be eavesdropping, you’re just the invisible servant who hears people talk.

-Well, I’d go out to lunch with a stranger if he’d picked up three and a half million in cash. Even if he did go to the Citadel.

-Not me! Don’t forget, she refused to give him the cash the first day, and you know they keep lots more than that in the downtown branch.

-Maybe he was pissed off

-Maybe he was asking her how he could get his three and a half million without his partner knowing.

While I was cleaning up, Eileen came back in. She looked even more harried than she had when I arrived. “They’re going to have a big meeting in an hour about this missing-Lipscomb-and-Dottie predicament. Big meeting means long meeting, and I’m starving just thinking about it. Would you fix me a plate?” When I nodded, she went on: “The regional managers from all over are getting antsy for an internal investigation. And damage control is out of the question now. So many people know how much money was taken, it’s just a matter of time before investors start trying to bail out of Prospect, and the whole enterprise goes belly-up.” I expected her to frown again, but she snickered.

I handed her the covered plate. “Sounds as if you’re not too brokenhearted.”

Her reply was defiant. “Well, I’m not.” She paused, wormed her fingers under the wrapping of the plate, and pulled out a piece of cherry cake. She bit into it and made mm-mm noises.

I said, “You’re not brokenhearted because Tony had already broken your heart, maybe?”

She shrugged “Tony and I dated, yes. Off and on. He always acted as if he owned three-fourths of Denver. Plus, he seemed to know everybody. And 1 wanted to get to know everybody.” She finished her cake, licked her fingers, and put down the dish. Then she pulled a mirror out of her handbag, looked at herself; grimaced, and pulled out a silver lipstick container.

“You do know everybody,” I observed.

“Not in the Denver business community I don’t. Albert and Tony and I were in a network, very professional, called WorkNet. Costs a mint, as in a thousand a year to belong. But it’s for business leads. You scratch my back, et cetera. Very well organized. Very productive. You should join.”

“A thousand a year for business leads? They’d have to be pretty incredible leads.”

“But Goldy, they are. Say one guy in WorkNet does commercial leases. He knows months before anybody else that a company is coming into town. Now, the company coming in needs everything from telecommunications to decorating to a two-million-dollar pad for their CEO. So in WorkNet, we’ll have, of course, decorators, telecommunications executives, real estate agents, even caterers. The deal is that we all help each other. Say the real estate agent who sells the CEO the mansion finds out that the CEO’s daughter is getting married next summer. Our agent comments, ‘I know this great caterer, absolutely the perfect person to do your daughter’s reception.’ And of course, it’s going to be a twenty-five-thousand-dollar gig.”

“Tony and Albert were in WorkNet?”

“Oh, Tony and Albert were in it to the max, darling. This was about five years ago,” she said dreamily. “I simply loved going to those meetings with those guys. They were looking for rich investors right and left, and 1 basked in all that power, I must say. They wanted me to find wealthy people for them. You’re Marla’s friend. Doesn’t Tony do that with you?”

I nodded. “He does, all the time. He used to ask if I catered for any rich widows. Last month he wanted to know if I knew any rich doctors.”

Eileen reached back under the plastic wrapping to pull out another muffin. “Oh, jeez. Does he know your history? I mean, about your ex? I hope you told him off.”

“No,” I replied matter-of-factly, “I told him I tried to stay away from rich doctors as much as possible. So he asked me if I knew any rich dentists. I said no. Lawyers? Pilots? Plumbers? He said rich folks needed him.”

“Did you help him?” I smiled broadly. “I gave him a few names, but I’m not sure anybody had the kind of net worth he was looking for.”

Eileen took another bite of muffin and nodded appreciatively. “I didn’t bring Albert or Tony anybody, either. And no alarm bells went off when they wanted to invest my entire divorce settlement of two hundred thousand dollars. Make you a million in two years, they promised. I gave them forty thousand.” She paused. “Tell me, as a food person, would you have invested your divorce settlement in goats?”

“What? Goats? As in farm animals?”

She licked her pinky. “As in farm animals. Tony and Albert didn’t get caught, so maybe it was a genuine deal. Anyway, they said they only needed about five hundred thousand to get started. After they took my forty thou, they went out to meet people in churches. I’ll bet you Tony and Albert spent my money on Sunday clothes. Those guys went to more churches, I swear, they were like apostles of the ecumenical movement. The two of them convinced numerous devout folks that the climate in Morrison, Colorado, was the same as that of Kashmir, Pakistan. That’s where they raise the goats that provide the hair for cashmere yarn, in case you’re interested. Mountainous region, sound familiar?”

“Vaguely.”

“Well, I haven’t gotten to the food part.” She relipsticked her mouth and opened her eyes wide. “Goat cheese. Or che’vre, if you prefer. The Morrison cashmere goats were going to provide goat cheese and yarn. A double-barreled investment. Plus Albert said slaughtered goats would go to feed Denver’s hungry, and the skins would be sold to raise money to build shelters for the homeless. That’s how they got the church people. As I recall,” she stared at the ceiling, “they raised about four hundred thousand dollars on that one. Without so much as a single strand of goat hair or plate of cheese to show for it.”