Tides of Truth [03] Greater Love (39 page)

Maggie turned to the inspector. “What do you make of it, Al?”

Houghton shrugged. “He went to a lot of trouble for a laptop. What was it worth?”

“About two thousand dollars,” Maggie replied.

“Are you going to check for fingerprints?” I asked.

“Only if this is a TV show,” Houghton replied dryly. “The front door will have hundreds of prints jumbled together.”

“What about in here?” I persisted. “Only a few people have been in my office.”

Houghton moved some of the papers on the floor with his shoe and picked up a latex glove.

“People who wear these don’t leave fingerprints. Your thief was polite enough to let me know that I don’t need to send out a fingerprint crew. The extra glove shows us he knew what he was doing.”

“That may be one of the gloves he was wearing,” I said. “It’s one of the few things I saw when I scared him off.”

Houghton looked at Maggie. “Do you want me to dust the room for fingerprints?”

Maggie turned to me. “Al’s right. They probably won’t find anything, and the crew will have wasted time that could be better spent on a more serious case.”

“Sort through the mess and try to determine if anything else is missing. I’m sure you’ll want to install a security system.”

“I was going to call Rick Fain’s company,” Maggie replied.

“Good choice.” Houghton nodded. “If you can locate the serial number for the computer, send it to me so I can include it in my report and notify the local pawnshops.”

“Will do,” Maggie said. “Thanks for coming. And I appreciate you not spitting on my carpet.”

Houghton patted his empty left cheek and smiled. “You know I don’t get started until after ten thirty in the morning.”

Shannon, her eyes wide, was entering the office as Houghton and the uniformed officer walked out. I left Maggie to bring her up to date and returned to my office. Thirty minutes later I was sitting on the floor surrounded by papers when Julie walked in.

“Tammy Lynn Taylor, I leave town for a few days and you can’t keep your room clean!” she exclaimed.

I jumped up from the floor and gave her a big hug.

“How’s your father?”

“Talking to his broker on the phone the last time I saw him and discussing long-term investment goals. Once I heard that, I knew I could leave town. Then, when Maggie called and told me what happened, I knew I had to get back here to hold your hand.” Julie gestured to the mess. “I thought you scared him off.”

“I screamed. He ran away. But not very far.”

“Anything missing besides the laptop?”

“Not that I can tell.”

“Was access to your computer password-protected?”

“Yes.”

“What’s your password?”

“I can’t tell you. It’s confidential.”

Julie chuckled. “I’m glad to see you haven’t lost your razor-sharp wit.”

“The reminder clue was ‘favorite city.’”

“San Francisco?”

“No, Powell Station.”

“Powell Station isn’t a city.”

“It is if you live on Beaver Ruin Road.” I picked up some papers that belonged in Jessie’s file and looked for the folder. “Is that Jessie Whitewater’s folder?” I asked, pointing to a red expandable folder at Julie’s feet.

“Yeah,” she said, bending over to pick it up and hand it to me.

I put the papers in the folder.

“How are you doing?” she asked.

“Much better than I deserve,” I answered, thinking again about my morning with Zach.

Julie gave me a strange look. I kept rummaging through the papers.

It took a couple of hours to restore everything to its proper place. Nothing was broken, and I couldn’t find anything else amiss. Except for the empty space where my computer should have been, the office looked the same. Shannon walked in with a box in her arm and put it on my desk.

“Here’s your replacement laptop,” she said. “It’s the same model.”

I’d not expected a new one so soon but realized there was no reason not to immediately replace it. Without a laptop, a lawyer in the twenty-first century was worse off than an eighteenth-century lawyer without a quill pen. By noon, my office was the same as before. The phone buzzed. It was Shannon.

“Line two. It’s your preacher friend.”

“Did she say anything to you?”

“Yeah, then asked for you.”

Before I could ask what Shannon meant, she put the call through.

“I’ve found something you should see,” Sister Dabney said. “It belonged to Jessie.”

“What is it?”

“Some papers, but I can’t read them.”

“Are they illegible?”

“No. One’s in a foreign language and the other doesn’t make sense. When can you come?”

I checked my calendar. I had a meeting with Maggie and one of her clients in an hour and a half.

“Right now.”

“I’ll meet you at the church.”

I passed Shannon’s office on the way out. She stopped me as I reached the reception area.

“Do you have a Bible in your office?” she asked.

“Yes, the thief didn’t steal it, although I wish he had. Reading it would be good for him.”

“May I borrow it? The Dabney woman told me something I want to check out for myself.”

I stepped closer to the waist-high opening between the reception room and Shannon’s work area.

“What verses did she give you?”

Shannon looked down at a slip of paper but kept it hidden. “I just want to check it out.”

“The Bible is in the upper right-hand drawer of my desk. If you have any questions about what you read, let me know. I’ll help if I can.”

“This is all so new to me,” Shannon said.

WHEN I ENTERED THE SANCTUARY, SISTER DABNEY WAS SITTING
in the purple chair on the platform. She called out to me.

“Come up here.”

I walked down the aisle and onto the platform that contained the rocker and rickety podium Sister Dabney used to hold her Bible. She pushed herself out of the rocker.

“Sit down,” she commanded.

I sat in the rocker, glad we were alone.

“We’re not alone,” she said in quick response to my thoughts.

“Who’s here?” I asked, quickly looking around but seeing no one.

Sister Dabney pointed up. “He is.”

She handed me a hymnbook.

“Turn to page 456,” she said.

I turned to the page.

“That’s where I found them,” she said. “Is there anything about the songs on those two pages that contains a message?”

Page 456 was an old-time song we occasionally sang at my home church; the song on the opposite page was unfamiliar to me. There wasn’t anything in the title of either song that grabbed me.

“No, ma’am.”

Sister Dabney grunted. “This paper was in the back of the book.”

She handed me a ragged sheet of paper that had been folded so many times the crease lines had become part of the paper. Opening it, I saw rows of columns containing letters and numbers. None of the letters formed recognizable words. The numbers were random sequences of ten numbers. There were geometric scribbles in green ink along one edge and an ornate flower drawn in several colors of ink on the back. The numbers and letters were written in pencil.

“How do you know this belonged to Jessie?” I asked.

“That’s the hymnbook she used when she came to the church.” Sister Dabney pointed to a spot at the end of the second row. “I came in here to pray for her early this morning, and the Lord directed me to pray from the place where she sat. Sometimes I sing as I pray, and when I opened the hymnbook, I found that sheet of paper. Once, when she should have been listening to the preaching, I saw her writing on a sheet of paper with a green pen I’d let her borrow.”

“Okay,” I said slowly. “But what would Jessie be doing with a sheet of paper like this? It doesn’t make any sense.”

“That’s why you’re here. To interpret it.” Sister Dabney took the hymnbook from me and opened it to another place. “After I found that piece, I looked through the rest of the book and found this.”

Still nestled in the fold of the hymnbook was another sheet of paper. I took it and opened it.

“It’s some kind of certificate, perhaps for stocks or bonds,” I said, then pointed to the printed words. “This is German, but I can’t read it.”

Sister Dabney turned around and slowly descended the steps.

“I’ll be at the house. Come by before you leave and let me know what they mean.”

“Wait, can I take these to the office and ask Maggie and Julie to help?”

Sister Dabney stopped at the bottom of the steps. “That’s what a threefold cord is all about. I’ll wait to hear from you.”

R
ETURNING TO THE OFFICE,
I
QUICKLY BROUGHT
M
AGGIE AND
Julie into the conference room.

“What’s going on?” Julie asked. “Do you know how many phone calls I have to return before I leave this afternoon?”

“I need your help,” I replied, laying the pieces of paper on the table. “Sister Dabney found these in a hymnbook at the church. She believes they belong to Jessie. I think this one is written in German.”

“I took German in high school,” Julie replied. “With a name like Feldman it came easily for me; must have been from a repressed gene.”

“Can you read this?” I asked, shoving the certificate toward her.

Julie picked it up. I watched her eyes widen.

“Do you know what this is?” she asked.

“No.”

“It’s a bond. And if Mrs. Heidelberg did her job teaching me, it’s for one hundred thousand euros.”

“What company?”

“No company.” Julie shook her head. “It’s a government-issued bearer bond.”

I didn’t know what she meant. Maggie gasped.

“Are you sure?” Maggie asked, leaning forward.

Julie pointed to a phrase that appeared several times on the certificate. “If that means what I think it does, this is as negotiable as a check with your name written on it for one hundred thousand euros.”

“I don’t understand,” I said.

Maggie spoke. “Ownership of this bond is based totally on possession. That’s why it’s called a bearer bond.” She picked up the certificate. “Whoever has this bond in his or her possession can redeem it. Nothing could be simpler.”

“And receive one hundred thousand euros?” I asked, my mouth dropping open.

“More than enough for Jessie to pay your attorney fee and buy as many donuts as she wants,” Julie said. “What makes this one extra special is that it wasn’t issued by a private company; it came directly from the German government.”

“Congress outlawed U.S. government–issued bearer bonds in 1982 because they were being used for money laundering,” Maggie said. “Without a name on the certificate, bonds like this one are ideally suited for money transfers where the parties don’t want anyone to know who paid who. Congress wanted to put a stop to that practice. But many foreign governments, including several in Europe, allow them. I learned about this type of thing in a drug case I prosecuted a few years ago.”

“What should we do with it?” I asked.

“That’s easy,” Julie replied. “I’ll fly to Munich and redeem it. I’ve had a recent unexplained craving for German sausage. Thirty-three thousand euros and change is a nice day’s work for each of us.”

“No, it goes in a safe-deposit box,” Maggie responded. “My question is how Jessie got it.”

I felt the blood rush from my face. “It has something to do with Clay Hackney. That’s why she was so terrified of him.”

“After seeing this, I have to admit that’s possible,” Maggie said slowly.

“Jessie’s gone,” Julie said. “And we can’t run an ad in the paper— ‘Bearer Bond Found. Call to Claim.’ I think we should—”

“Put it in the safe-deposit box,” Maggie interrupted. “Besides, legal possession of the bond lies with the Dabney woman. She only gave it to Tami to figure out what it is.”

Julie winced. “Yeah, I got carried away. If Sister Dabney redeems the bond, she could afford a desperately needed upgrade to her wardrobe.”

“And there’s this,” I said, tapping the other sheet of paper with my hand. “What do you make of it?”

Julie picked it up. “It’s not in German. And the doodling isn’t that bad. This flower has some good detail.”

“And this looks like the edge of the bond certificate,” Maggie said, pointing to the green ink design.

There was no doubt about the similarity.

“But the rest of it is nonsense,” Julie said.

The three of us peered at the columns of letters and numbers.

“Maybe it’s written in code,” I suggested.

Julie glanced at me. “I left my decoder ring in my other purse. Do you want me to get it?”

“No, wait a minute,” Maggie said. “Let’s assume Tami is right. How would it work?”

“My first cousin Mary and I wrote letters to each other in code after she moved to Florida when we were about twelve years old,” I said.

“A sneaky way for you to communicate without your parents finding out,” Julie interjected. “I can see you doing that.”

“It was a simple code,” I said, ignoring Julie. “Each letter of the alphabet became the following letter—
a
as
b
,
b
as
c
, and so on.”

Julie ripped a couple of sheets of paper from a legal pad. “Let’s divide up a few lines and see if it works.”

Within less than a minute, it was obvious the code used by Mary and me didn’t fit. The new letters were as jumbled as before.

“I thought it was a good idea,” Julie said as we slid our sheets to the center of the table. “But now it feels kind of silly.”

“Try advancing each letter two spaces,” Maggie replied.

The results were still incomprehensible.

“Go three spaces,” Maggie said.

“It won’t hurt my feelings if my idea doesn’t pan out,” I said.

“Let’s give it a try,” Maggie replied.

Within a minute a new line of unreadable text took its place. Julie looked up.

“How many letters are there in the alphabet? Are we going to try this twenty-six times? If somebody offered to sell us a computer program to do this, I’d put it on my credit card right now.”

“Four letters,” Maggie replied.

Julie sighed. We bowed our heads and began counting letters and writing replacements. After less than a minute, Julie gasped.