Chapter 7 – Lynn Preston, Private Investigator
Dave Cramer stood and came around his desk to welcome Lynn. He reached out to shake her hand but Lynn pushed past it and gave him a long hug. Dave looked a little uncomfortable, especially with some of his staff watching through the glass wall of his office. When he pulled away she said “O.K Dave, I get the message. It’s not cool to hug the boss in front of other employees. I just thought with all we’ve been through in the past several months, we’re all – you, me, Harriet, Rick and Tom – like family.”
“We are Lynn, but I have to maintain my cold-hearted boss image in front of them so they’ll think I know what I’m doing. Margaret and I will have you over for dinner next week and you’ll get the hugging you can stand.”
Lynn stood there in awkward silence, not knowing what to say next. Dave pulled out a chair for her and sat on the front edge of his desk. “So, are you all settled into the company apartment? How do you like it?”
“It’s absolutely fantastic. I have never in my life lived in a place that fancy. I’m afraid I’ll get used to it and never want to go back to Jack’s cabin. I hope when they have an apartment ready for me it’s not so luxurious . . . or so huge.”
“It won’t be. We rented the biggest apartment in the building and then brought in our own decorator to make it as impressive as possible for our clients. I’ve asked them to furnish your place when it’s ready so you won’t have to go shopping for furniture and accessories. They’ll work with you on that so there won’t be any surprises. Margaret would like to help if that’s all right with you.”
“That will be great. It will give us a chance to get to know each other.”
“With that settled, let’s talk about your job – what I would like to start you out with. I have a good idea of your skills, both with computers and with a gun, but I’ll keep you away from any cases where a gun might be necessary for now.”
Dave pulled out a thick file folder and laid it in front of Lynn. “This divorce case needs a little internet detective work to find out of either party has some undeclared income or assets. Both parties have submitted financial asset declarations that the judge will use to rule on who gets what. The problem is that sometimes the husband, or the wife, has other assets they don’t declare, like a secret bank account. In this case the wife hired us because she suspects the husband is hiding an investment account. She says he’s been renting an expensive condo for his mistress, but their joint bank account doesn’t show any suspicious charges. He’s a financial manager for an investment broker company, so he wouldn’t have any trouble opening his own account.”
“Where should I start looking?”
“He might have opened the account with his own firm, although that would be foolish because it might be discovered. So start with a search on his name and his Social Security number and see what comes up.”
“What about chasing it from the other end – where the money is going? He might have his monthly statements sent to the woman’s condo. A little prying into the apartment rental company’s records might show us the source of the money.”
“That’s a good idea, Lynn, but the wife doesn’t know where the condo is located. Do the best you can and try not to do anything illegal, like hacking into financial accounts.”
“You’re tying my hands here, Dave. Using the hacking techniques I learned from Jack is the best option.”
“Well . . . try the legal methods first before you jump into hacking. But if you do, make certain that it can’t be traced back to us.”
“When do you need the information?”
“The court hearing is three days away. I know that’s pushing you, but we need to get it to the judge before then.”
Lynn answered “Okay, I’ll have it for you by tomorrow afternoon” as she rose and left.
It was 3 a.m. and Lynn was back at her apartment working on Dave’s case. She really wanted to be following up on the Dr. Hogue investigation, but that would have to wait. She had spent the afternoon and evening looking for legal sources of information about the husband, Barry Claussen. She started with an online address database but found dozens of men by that name. She could check the addresses to see which ones were condos, but he was probably renting it in the woman’s name. By the end of the workday she had tried all the legal approaches she could think of without any luck. She picked up some fast food for dinner and started working on hacking approaches as soon as she got back. She logged in to the Darknet and looked for anything with Barry’s name tied to it. She found his email address, his bank records, and the account number of his credit cards, but those were all in his financial declaration.
After several other approaches she decided it might be hopeless – like looking for a needle in a haystack. She was about to give up for the night when she thought about taxes. If he had a secret account somewhere, his income would have to be reported to the IRS and he would have filed a tax return with them. Hacking into the IRS was very risky, but she had watched Jack do it so she knew the secret was to get in and out quickly, before their computers detected the intrusion. Lynn got up from the desk and rummaged through the boxes of her belongings until she found Jack’s laptop. She turned it on and opened up his encrypted records of past work.
Lynn had a conversation with herself – she did that a lot now that she was alone. “Let’s see, what was his password for this library? I knew them all, before . . . before Jack was killed, but I’ve been through so much since then that my memory isn’t working. Maybe I’m blocking parts of my memory from before he died. Come on, Lynn, think back to when Jack made you memorize all of his passwords. . .”
She closed her eyes and tried to conjure up an image of the list, of her studying it, of Jack quizzing her about it. She saw him pointing to one line – and there it was! She broke through the mental blockage. Lynn quickly entered the password and was rewarded with the step-by-step procedure Jack used the last time he broke into the IRS records. She turned back to her computer and began the attack. Ninty seconds later she had what she was looking for and shut down the link. She pushed her chair back and did a little victory dance, singing “I hacked the IRS and they didn’t even know I was there.” Lynn was bubbling over with excitement. This was the most alive she had felt in a long time. She had downloaded Claussen’s tax returns for the past three years.
She quickly sat back down to study it. She knew where to look. If Claussen had income from a hidden bank or investment account, he had to list the income and the source on his 1099-B. There were three different accounts listed. Lynn opened up his financial disclosure document for the divorce and saw that he had only named two accounts. The third one on his tax form wasn’t mentioned. “So that’s where he’s hiding his financial stash – an account at Viscount Capital Management, Inc. in downtown Philadelphia. I’ll try to hack into there and see how much the account is worth.”
Cracking their computer was easier than the IRS hack – actually just about any hack was easier that the IRS. Five minutes later Lynn was printing out his account statement. She looked over some transactions, then went back online to do a little more research.
“It’s almost four in the morning. I can get three hours of sleep and show this to Dave as soon as he gets to work. I’ll take a quick shower and crawl between the sheets.”
As Lynn was drifting off to sleep she flashed back to the image of Jack pointing to the password she couldn’t remember. She thought Could he have really been there in my head helping me out? No, it was just a buried memory. It wasn’t you, was it Jack? Just before she dropped off the cliff to deep sleep she felt the now familiar form of Jack cozying up to her back. “Yup, it was me, sweetheart. Goodnight.”
Lynn got to work early, anxious to show Dave her success. Shortly after nine Donna called to say “He can see you now, Lynn.” She hurried to his office and barged in the door to see Dave and another man at his small conference table.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have bar
ged in like that.”
“No, it’s all right. Alan Rexford here is Mrs. Claussen’s attorney. He came by to talk about the case. Speaking of which, have you got something for us, Lynn?”
Lynn didn’t know if Rexford would be okay with how she got the information so she held the papers behind her back and recited what was in them from memory. “Mr. Claussen has an account at Viscount Capital Management that has a current worth of seventy-three million dollars. He has been transferring $3,200 a month to a real estate management firm for a luxury rental at the Ritter Apartments along the river. I did a little digging there and found that the resident in Apartment 875 is a Laura Berkman. She’s been there for the past 16 months.”
The lawyer’s eyebrows arched upwards. “$73 million? That’s several time his declared assets. He’s trying to shortchange his wife big time. . . . Where did you find this information? We haven’t uncovered any of that.”
“Well . . . I uh . . .”
Dave broke in; “Our sources and techniques are proprietary, Al. You understand.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean to pry, Dave. I was just amazed at what this woman came up with on such short notice. Hang onto her – she’s worth her weight in gold. When can you have a report ready for me, miss.”
“It’s missus – Missus Jack Preston. I’ll have it typed up within the hour if you want to wait.”
“No, have Dave call me when it’s ready and I’ll send over a courier.”
Lynn excused herself and went back to her office to get started on the report. True to her word, in just under an hour Lynn knocked on Dave’s door.
“Enter.”
“Here’s the report Dave, I mean Mr. Cramer.”
“Everyone calls me Dave. We’re very informal around here. . . . except when it comes to hugging.”
Dave paged through the report. “Well you have everything we need to nail Barry Claussen, including the mistresses name and address, which I didn’t expect you to find. I suspect you did a little hacking, but I don’t want to know the details – I need plausible deniability when I testify in court on this case.”
“Thank you for stepping in before I told Mr. Rexford something I shouldn’t have.”
“Even if I thought you came by the information legally, I still would have interrupted. I like to maintain a certain mystique with our clients so they think we’re wired into some master database of everything. It keeps them coming back.”
Lynn turned to leave, but Dave called her back.
“Don’t leave yet. Have a seat. . . . I am just as amazed as Rexford at how quickly and completely you did this, Lynn. I didn’t expect you to be very productive for the first month or two. You clearly have a gift for this kind of work.”
“It’s Jack’s gift. It just rubbed off on me when we were working together.”
“Don’t be modest. You have a real nose for figuring just where to look. I’ll have another case for you tomorrow. Take the rest of the day off – you earned it. And by the way, can you come over for dinner with me and the family Friday night?”
Lynn paused and thought about it. Dave and Jack had been such close friends that she was afraid that he’s all they would want to talk about. And she wasn’t sure she could handle it yet.
“I don’t want to intrude on your plans, Lynn. I mean, if you have a hot date or something . . .
Tears welled up in Lynn’s eyes. She would never get over loosing Jack, never want to get close to another man.
“I’m so sorry, Lynn. That was really stupid of me to say that. Please accept my apologies.”
“Apologies accepted. It’s just that any mention of Jack brings back the sadness of loosing him. That’s why I hesitated about accepting your offer for dinner. I was afraid his name would keep coming up.”
“If we promise not to mention Jack will you come to dinner?”
“That depends. . . What are you having?” Lynn answered with a smile.