Dance for the Dead (19 page)

Jane drove along the Golden
State Freeway for three hours until she came to the Hollywood
Freeway, took the exit at Vermont, then swung south again for the few
blocks to Wilshire Boulevard, where the tall buildings that sheltered
corporations instead of people rose abruptly out of the pavement.

The things that had been
happening had a very impersonal quality to them: a respected
corporation had managed an account, and it had decided it was time to
file a petition to declare a client deceased. But somewhere behind
the opaque and anonymous veneer there was a person. Money was stolen
by human beings. Sometimes thieves worked together and sometimes
separately, but most successful embezzlers worked alone. It was time
to find the man.

In
the late afternoon, Jane began to watch the Hoffen-Bayne building
from the window of a restaurant across Wilshire Boulevard. It was
small for this part of Los Angeles, only five floors. The bottom
floor was rented out to a travel agency and a coffee shop, and the
second floor was a reception area for Hoffen-Bayne. After an hour she
moved to the upper tier of the parking ramp for the tall insurance
building beside Hoffen-Bayne and studied the upper windows to
determine which ones were small, functional offices for accountants,
brokers, and consultants, and which ones were big pools for
bookkeepers and secretaries. She paid special attention to the
desirable corner offices.

At six p.m. when she saw people
inside taking purses out of desk drawers and turning off computers
for the day, she strolled along the quiet side street near the
driveway and studied the men and women who came out and got into cars
in the reserved-for-employees spaces in the parking lot. She wrote
down the license numbers and makes and models, and matched the cars
to the people she had seen in the windows.

Tall-Thin-and-Bald wanted to be
noticed. He drove a gray Mercedes 320 two-door convertible that
retailed for about eighty-five thousand and was too sporty for him.
Woman-with-Eye-Trouble, who had the habit of putting on her
sunglasses while she was still inside the office, drove a
racing-green Jaguar XJ6, which was only about fifty thousand, but she
was still a possibility, as was Old Weight-Lifter, who drove a Lexus
LS 400, which sold for even less. Eye-Trouble might have chosen her
car because it was pretty, and Weight-Lifter might be the sort of
person who bought whatever the car magazines told him to.

Jane made four grids on a sheet
of paper to represent the windows of the upper floors, labeled them
“N,”

“S,”

“E,” and “W,”
and made notes on each window about who had appeared in it and what
went on when he did. A supervisor might pop in on a subordinate,
might even deliver sheets of paper to the subordinate’s desk,
but when several people met in an office, it was usually the office
of the ranking person.

An hour later, after the upper
windows were dim but there were still people in the coffee shop and
travel agency, she went into the lobby, took the elevator to the
second floor, and stood outside the locked glass doors to the
Hoffen-Bayne reception area. She was looking for a directory of
offices posted on the wall, but there was none. The reception area
was all smooth veneer and expensive furniture that made it look like
a doctor’s waiting room. There was no easy way into the
complex, and there was a small sticker on the glass door that said
“Protected By Intercontinental Security,” and under that,
“Armed Response.” She didn’t particularly want to
bet that she could fool the sort of security system a company that
handled money for a lot of rich people might consider a good
investment, so she turned and went back to the elevator and took it
to the basement of the building, on the level with the parking lot,
and found a door with a no admittance sign. The door had a knob with
a keyhole to lock it and it wasn’t wired, so she had little
trouble slipping her William Dunlavey MasterCard between the knob and
the jamb and pushing the catch in. Inside the room were circuit
breaker boxes and a telephone junction box. She opened it and studied
the chart pasted inside the door. It gave the extensions of the
various offices in the building, so she copied them and returned to
her car.

She checked into a hotel two
miles down Wilshire Boulevard and compared her office chart with the
telephone extensions. Some of the offices must be the big ones she
had seen through the third-floor windows, where people sat at
computers and worked telephones in a pool. Nobody important had a
single number with fifteen extensions. The offices she wanted were on
the fourth and fifth floors, so she concentrated on them. She dialed
each number and listened to a computerized voice-mail system telling
her what part of the company it belonged to – investment,
property management, billing, accounting – but not the name of
the person. She used the information to eliminate more of the
offices. The person who had been robbing the trust fund would have to
be in a position to exert power over where the money was placed and
how the company kept track of it. He didn’t share an office, or
send out bills for services, or manage real estate, or answer other
people’s phones. She consulted the resumes that Mr. Hanlon had
sent her, and filled out more of the chart before she went to sleep.

The next morning Jane went to
the Hollywood lot of the car-rental agency, told them Mr. Dunlavey
didn’t like the car he had rented in San Diego and that he had
instructed her to exchange it for a different model. She drove out
with a white Toyota Camry and sat on the side street watching the
west side of the building while the Hoffen-Bayne executives arrived
for work.

She watched and worked on her
chart of the company for three more days. Each morning she turned in
the car she had rented the day before and went to a different agency
to rent a new one under a new name. Each evening she would choose one
of the likely executives and follow him home when he left the office.
Each night she slept in a different hotel in a different part of the
city.

On the afternoon of the fifth
day, Jane was reasonably sure that the man she was after was Blond
Napoleon. His name was Alan Turner, and he had the office on the
southeast corner of the fifth floor. This afforded him the best view
of the city and made people walk a long way to get to him, past
secretaries and intermediaries. The car he drove, a dark blue BMW
7401, cost about sixty thousand dollars. It was not the most
expensive, but like only four others in the lot, it had a license
plate holder from Green Import Auto, a leasing company in Beverly
Hills. To Jane this meant that he was one of only five people who
were entitled to company cars.

Whoever had been robbing Timmy
would have needed to be high enough in the hierarchy seven years ago
to make decisions about the Phillips trust’s portfolio without
much fear of second-guessing. He would also need to remain in that
position long enough to see the cover-up through to the end. Of the
five people who drove company cars and occupied the right sort of
offices in the building, two had joined the firm within the past four
years. Of the others, one was a tax attorney and another the head of
the Property Management Division. There was nothing in either man’s
resume to suggest that he had ever served in another capacity or had
the background to handle a trust fund. The only one who had been with
the company long enough and who had a specialty that sounded
promising was Alan Turner, head of the Investment and Financial
Planning Division.

Jane decided to test-drive a car
from Green Import Auto. She selected a gray Mercedes with a telephone
in it and drove directly to the side street below the southeast
corner of the Hoffen-Bayne building. She waited until three o’clock,
when even the important people were back from lunch meetings and the
sun was on the west side of the building so that Turner’s
blinds would be open. She turned the corner off Wilshire and cruised
toward the building, dialed the number of Mr. Hanlon, the salesman,
and set the receiver in the cradle so she could use the speaker and
keep her hands free.

“Hanlon.” he said.
She knew he was at his desk on the other side of the building.

“This is Marcy Hungerford.
We spoke a few days ago, and you sent me some material.” She
pulled over and parked on the quiet, tree-lined street.

“Yes. Did you have a
chance to look it over?”

“I did, and I think yours
is one of the firms I should talk to.” She wanted to make it
clear there was no commitment. She was not in the bag yet.

“Good,” he said.
“I’ve been thinking about what you’ve told me, and
I think I’d like to get you together with one of our partners
for a talk.” Salesmen didn’t make decisions like that;
partners did. He had told his boss about her call. “Are you
back in Del Mar?”

“No,” she said. “I
won’t be back for another week. I just thought I should tell
you I got your information and am still considering it.”

Hanlon went on cheerfully as
though he hadn’t heard her. “The man I’d like you
to meet is very experienced. He’s been with the company for
twelve years, and he’s knowledgeable about all aspects of
personal management.”

Jane listened carefully. While
she had been investigating them, they had been investigating Marcy
Hungerford. The name had rung some bell or other. She had chosen
well, but from here on she had to be cautious. They knew more about
Marcy Hungerford than she did. She decided to stop flirting. It would
do her no good to convince people Marcy Hungerford was an idiot.
“Fine,” she said. “I’ll be happy to drive up
there and meet him as soon as I’m back in California. Can you
connect me with whoever keeps his calendar?”

“Let me see if he’s
free to talk to you himself right now. I know he’d like to if
he can.”

“Even better.”

She heard a cascade of annoying
music pour out of the speaker, and watched the man in the corner
window. She saw him pick up the receiver. He talked to Hanlon for a
few seconds, reached across his desk, picked up a file, opened it,
and then pushed a button on his telephone.

“Hello, Mrs. Hungerford,”
he said. “My name is Alan Turner.”

“Hello,” she said.
She started the car and pulled away from the curb.

“I understand you’re
considering us to manage your assets.”

“Yes, I am,” she
said. She drove up the street away from the building, turned right at
the corner, and kept going west. “I’m considering several
companies. I’d like to find someone who will take
responsibility for handling things.”

“Well, that’s what
we’re in business to offer,” said Turner. “We have
experts on the staff in every aspect of financial management, and –
”

“I know,” she
interrupted. “Mr. Hanlon said the same thing. But let me
explain. I want to know who would be the one person coordinating
everything. I don’t want to have to call thirty people every
time I have a question.”

“I understand perfectly.
With your approval, I would manage your account myself. I don’t
do much of that anymore, but I still have a few.”

“That’s very kind.”

“Here’s what I
propose. I’ll sit down with you when you return from Palm
Beach. We’ll take an inventory of your current assets. I’ll
examine what you have and come back with a hypothetical portfolio
that’s sufficiently diversified to ensure you a good income. We
can arrange to have it continue in perpetuity for your heirs, if you
wish.”

Jane had to be sure. “That
sounds like a trust fund.”

“That’s what it is,”
Turner said. “In my experience, people who are busy – as
I know you are, with your charity work and so on – don’t
want to waste their lives micromanaging their wealth. Over the years
I’ve helped quite a few of our clients establish trusts, and so
far we’ve done very well for them.”

Now she was sure that they’d
had Marcy Hungerford investigated. She had never mentioned charities.
“What do you charge for all this?”

“Our commission is five
percent of income,” he said. “Of course there would be
incidental fees from time to time for brokers, front-end loads on
certain purchases, and so on, but you’re familiar with those
and they don’t go to Hoffen-Bayne. They might be quite high in
the first year while we’re developing a group of haphazard
assets into a coordinated portfolio, and there will be legal fees if
you choose to establish a trust, but the costs taper off as the years
go by.”

“That all sounds good,”
said Jane. “What you’ve said in the last few minutes has
done a lot to convince me that you’re the one I’m looking
for. I’ll call you as soon as I’m back home.”

“Wonderful,” he
said. “I look forward to meeting you.”

“Goodbye,” she said,
and tapped the button to disconnect, then drove the Mercedes back to
the dealer’s lot. She looked at a few more models, then let the
salesman know that she hadn’t found anything she was really
comfortable in. She got back into her rented Honda Acura and drove
over the pass to the Hilton on the hill above Universal City and took
another room. It was a comfortable hotel, and she didn’t mind
staying there a few days while she did the paperwork. After she was
settled and had dinner she left instructions with the concierge to
have both the morning and evening editions of the
LA. Times
delivered to her room each day, and went for a walk.

She strolled around the complex
of buildings at the top of the hill and across the parking lots to a
row of pay telephones outside the gate of the Universal Studios tour.
She reviewed what she was about to do. There was no way anyone could
trace to Jane Whitefield a call made from a public telephone at a
place that had millions of visitors a year. It was safe. With the
three-hour time difference, she would catch him just after he had
come home. She felt a little uncomfortable. She had told herself that
she was doing it now because she was afraid of waking him up early in
the morning, and there was no point in calling while he was out. But
she also knew that if he had decided to do something other than come
home from work, this would be the time a person might call and find
out. She had no choice but to behave the way she would if she were
trying to check up on him, and she hated that. She pushed a quarter
into the slot and dialed Carey McKinnon’s number. The operator
came on to tell her how many more quarters were needed, and she
dropped them in.