She was trying to make a difference, and thieves who stole from everyday folks, the moms and dads who thought they were putting their money in a safe place, should pay. She didn’t think a minimum security prison for a few years was nearly enough, either. She thought they should have to paint the houses and mow the lawns for the people they’d ripped off and actually work off the debt. Someone like Joseph Wyndham III should be scrubbing toilets in public parks for ten years, and actually do something that improved the quality of other people’s lives.
Which was why she was an investigator and not a judge, she supposed.
She was nearly home when it came back to her with a clang of alarm that Buck was suggesting that “Tamara Sterling,” her boss’s boss’s boss, wasn’t a real person.
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Sitting at her kitchen table, in the chair Tamara had occupied only two nights earlier, she looked at the report he’d flagged.
Tamara’s passport application provided data but that information had no matching verification in the government files where it ought to have been. Buck was right about that—blocked from his access was one thing. But data actually missing was another.
One piece of missing data could perhaps be an oversight. But names of German birth parents missing? There were American adoptive parents listed, but their birth places and the office that had issued their Social Security cards was missing. Immigration departure point in Germany and arrival point in the U.S. was blank. No residences prior to the age of twelve recorded for Sterling, and looking in her adoptive parents’ records didn’t turn up that information either.
There could be a simple explanation. There probably was.
Given her work and how often defense attorneys would have loved to have cast doubt on Tamara Sterling’s credibility, it seemed improbable Buck was the first person to find these anomalies.
Perhaps they were a recent glitch of some kind.
It made no sense. She got more information on Google about Tamara Sterling, CEO of Sterling Fraud Investigations, than Buck had found about Tamara Sterling, native of Berlin, Germany, who had become an American citizen at twelve. It wasn’t odd that a child’s residence couldn’t be easily traced, but those American adoptive parents had no residences or credit histories before the adoption. The adoptive parents had no deceased flags with Social Security, so they ought to exist somewhere.
She flipped through the rest of the paperwork on Sterling.
Buck had not been able to discern what federal departments Tamara had worked for, though one of the few dates left indicated she’d had a government-paid physical exam while she was in college. But which agency authorized it—blank.
It was all simply bizarre. Instead of making her life simpler, this lack of information took her back to square one. Was Tamara Sterling the embezzler she was looking for? How could she prove she wasn’t if she didn’t know who Tamara Sterling actually was?
75
Chapter SeVeN
Tam was early to the office in spite of a night too late with a little too much wine, talking shop with Diane and uselessly spinning her wheels about the cancellations from clients that were plaguing all of their offices.
She knew the moment she opened the door to Mercedes’
sanctum that something was wrong. Mercedes had an odd look on her face as she spoke into her phone.
“There is no comment at this time. I will give Ms. Sterling your message. I’m not going to speculate on when that might be.” She listened as she gestured at Tam to linger. “I’m sorry, I’m not going to speculate on any of your questions. I must return to my work now. Yes, I wrote down the number.”
“What the heck was that about?” Tam watched as Mercedes mimed wiping her hands of something smelly.
“That was a reporter with that sleazy gossip show SLY. They 76
want confirmation that you flew all the way to New York to have breakfast with Wren Cantu.”
“Who?”
“I looked up the name while we talked.” Mercedes glanced at her monitor. “Some lesbian supermodel, all the hot topic in New York, I gather.”
Tam blinked. “Huh?” She looked at the door, Mercedes’
desk, the carpet. She appeared to be in the universe where she belonged. “I don’t get it.”
“Neither do I. But they knew you’d been on flights there and back and they knew which ones. Well, they knew the return flight you’d been booked on, but not the one you actually took.”
“I spent five hours in the Admiral Club at JFK waiting to jump flights, using the wireless.”
“I know.” Mercedes gestured at the phone. “Do you want me to call them back? This snotty guy said they tape in less than thirty minutes for tonight’s program. Haven’t you seen it—bunch of people with no life except chasing celebrities sit around and make snide comments they think are clever. The kind of people who see a celebrity woman eating a hot dog and joke about oral sex. And they call it journalism.”
“I don’t have a clue how my name has been linked into this.
This isn’t how I planned to start my day.”
“And Hank Jefferson called twice.”
Tam headed for her office. “I’ll take care of this reporter, then call him back. Would you let him know?”
She took a moment to compose her thoughts, then dialed the number Mercedes had written down. She introduced herself to the man who answered the phone, then asked, “Can you provide me with some assurance that you represent this program?”
He rattled off credentials and with a few quick Web searches she decided to believe he was who he said he was. Even if he wasn’t, she wasn’t going to tell him anything useful.
“So my source tells me that you flew to New York last Friday on a red-eye, had breakfast with Wren Cantu, then flew home later that day.”
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“Not to insult Ms. Cantu, but until my assistant gave me your message I’d not heard of her and to my knowledge I’ve never met her.”“So you deny that you flew to New York last Friday—”
“I deny knowing Ms. Cantu. Since that’s what you’re inquiring about, I’ve answered your question.”
“So you didn’t have breakfast with her?”
“I don’t know her.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“It does. It’s called a logical chain of events.”
“But I can still say you didn’t deny having breakfast with her.”
“Are you in the habit of having meals with people you don’t know and have never met? I’m not.”
“So that’s a denial of having breakfast with her?”
“Asked and answered. Unless you have a different question, I’ll go back to my work now.”
She had no sooner hung up than Mercedes buzzed to say that Nadia Langhorn was on the phone. Tam sighed and took the call.
“Ted’s got the flu,” Nadia said. “Since we were all together last night I thought I’d check on you. Thank goodness it’s the flu and not food poisoning.”
“Ouch—that’s a little cold, and from his wife, no less.”
She laughed. “Just being pragmatic. Can you imagine, all those clients sick from the food?”
“Okay, I grant you that. If Ted must be sick, I’m glad it’s the flu and not food poisoning too. I’m fine. Haven’t heard of anyone else with it, either.”
“That’s a relief then. Do you have time for dinner with me tonight? He’s such a bear when he’s sick and I could use a quiet meal. You don’t chatter. I’ve always liked that about you.”
“You make it sound tempting,” Tam said, recalling her after-work hope to meet with Kip. Even though Nadia could be wicked and fun, Kip was her first priority. Just business, she hastily added to herself. “I’ve got way too much work. A dinner meeting is tentatively scheduled on a new case. I couldn’t.”