“More,” said Beauvoir, and, after a small hesitation, she also nodded.
“Depending on how long this’s been going on, yes. It’ll take us a while to work it all out.”
“But wouldn’t people, his clients, realize? When there was no actual money in the account?”
“How?”
“When they asked for it.”
“But people don’t,” she said. “They give it to their investment dealer, and at best they cash in the dividends or take the profits. But the capital remains in the account. Weren’t you ever told by your parents never to touch the capital?”
“No. I was told not to touch my brother’s bike.”
She smiled. “Point taken. But a truism in investing is that people take the profits, the dividends, but leave the capital.”
“Is this a Ponzi scheme, then?” he asked.
“Not quite, but similar. This’s even harder to find, since he’s made it look like these clients were investing through Taylor and Ogilvy, but they weren’t. He’s used our letterhead, our statement format. Our address. Everything. Except our accounts. The money just went into Tony’s personal account.”
“Where?”
“I have no idea.”
“So you wouldn’t know it was happening?”
“Not at all. Our auditors would never catch it, because it’s not there to catch.”
Beauvoir was beginning to see the genius of this. The simplicity.
“So he had two sets of clients? There were the ones whose accounts he was legitimately working on, and then there were those he kept at home. The ones he was stealing from.”
“That’s what it looks like.”
“We’ll need to know if any of these clients also have legitimate accounts with Taylor and Ogilvy.”
“Of course. May I keep these?” She looked down at the offending statements.
“Yes.”
“You’ll be questioning them?”
“Yes,” he said again.
She nodded. Like mad Ruth in Clara’s painting, Bernice Ogilvy could see just the hint of something on the horizon. Far off, but approaching. And gathering speed. Something that had been there a very long time. Waiting. Inevitable.
But where Ruth saw the end of despair, Madame Ogilvy saw the beginning of it.
Once this got out, and it would, no one would trust Taylor and Ogilvy again. It might be unfair, but such was life, when everything depended on something as fragile as trust. And human nature. And a thin oak veneer.
“Is this why Tony was killed?” Madame Ogilvy asked.
“Possibly. We’ll need to interview everyone. Are you really so surprised that Monsieur Baumgartner was stealing?”
“I don’t know anymore.” She’d been so sure of herself, so in control of the room and her emotions. But now a crack appeared.
“Is it possible he was behind the original embezzlement, and not the assistant?”
She nodded, slowly. Thinking. “It’s possible.”
“It might’ve been a test run,” said Beauvoir. “And he learned from it.”
Now she was shaking her head. “I can’t believe it.”
“That he did it?”
“That, yes. But also that I didn’t see it. When I looked at Tony all I saw was a good, decent man.”
“That’s why it’s called a ‘confidence game,’” said Beauvoir. “It depends on confidence.”
“Suppose it isn’t true?” she asked.
“It’s true.”
“But just suppose, for a moment, that it isn’t. That Tony was telling the truth about the assistant and that he didn’t do this.” She laid her hand on the statements.
Beauvoir was silent. Not wanting to feed this delusion.
It was one of the many tragedies of a murder. That there was an inquiry, into the life of the dead person. And it often revealed things people wished they’d never known. Often things unrelated to the murder. But exposed nonetheless.
And when this happened, friends and family refused to believe it. The affair. The theft. The unsavory acquaintances. The pornography on the computer. The questionable emails.
It got messy. Emotional. Sometimes even violent, as they defended the honor of the dead. And their own delusions.
“Thank you for your time,” he said, getting up and walking to the door. “An agent Cloutier will be in touch, probably later today.”
She colored. Not used to having her statements ignored. “You asked for Bernard’s name and address? My assistant will give it to you as you leave.”
“Merci. You’ll cooperate?”
“Of course, Chief Inspector.”
She might as well cooperate, he thought. The damage was done. The deed was done. No amount of hiding, of wishful thinking, of lying, would stop, or even slow down, what was hurtling over the horizon.
Driving through Montréal, on his way to Lacoste’s home, he thought about Madame Ogilvy’s final question.
Suppose Anthony Baumgartner wasn’t stealing clients’ money.
That would mean someone else was.
Anthony Baumgartner’s name was on the statements. His signature was on the cover letters.
Beauvoir edged forward, through the snow-clogged, car-clogged streets.
It would have to be someone close to Baumgartner. Who knew the system. Who knew his clients. Who had access to his files and the letterhead. Who knew the man well.
Someone in Taylor and Ogilvy.
Now Beauvoir was seriously considering the question.
Suppose Anthony Baumgartner hadn’t done anything wrong. Hadn’t been stealing. Suppose those statements were in his study, overseen by mad Ruth, because he’d found out that someone else was. And he was poring over them, to figure out who at the company was stealing millions of dollars from clients.
Suppose, Jean-Guy thought as he turned in to Lacoste’s narrow street and looked for a parking spot amid the piles of snow still waiting to be cleared, suppose Anthony Baumgartner was exactly what Madame Ogilvy had described.
A good, decent man. An honorable man. Who’d offered to resign when someone else had done wrong. Who understood the value, and fragility, of trust.
What would a man like that do if he discovered corruption on that scale, or any?
He’d confront the person. Demand an explanation. Threaten exposure.
And what would that person do?
“Kill Anthony Baumgartner,” mumbled Beauvoir, backing carefully into a spot.
CHAPTER 29
“And what do you want from me?” asked Lucien as he looked at the two women in his office.
“I’d like to know why you said you’d never met the Baroness,” said Myrna, “when you had.”
She laid his father’s agenda on the desk.
Beside her, Clara tried not to fidget. All around them were towers of boxes. Each the same height. Six feet. Placed, it seemed, consciously, strategically, around the office. Like an obstacle course, she thought.
Though there was something else vaguely familiar about them. Were they meant to resemble those ancient rock formations? Like Stonehenge. Or the mysterious heads on Easter Island.
The boxes—files, she saw—were stacked one on top of the other and seemed far from secure. Why not just pile them along a wall, like any sensible person would?
But she could tell that Lucien Mercier was far from sensible. Rational, yes. In the extreme. But “sensible” demanded the person also be sensitive. In order to make good, sensible decisions.
This man was not.
Clara was all for creativity. But the precarious files looming around them were not works of art. They were, she felt, projections of something innate to Lucien. Something intimate, private. Unhappy.
It sounded almost silly to put it that way. Too simplistic. But how razor-sharp was that simple word? Unhappy.
“In fact,” Myrna went on, “you’d been at her house, with your father. You were there when the will was discussed. It’s in his notes.”
Lucien remained unmoving, except for his eyes. Which moved freely, from woman to woman. They flickered to a stack of boxes behind them. Then back.
He was like, Clara thought, a child who thinks that if his body is immobile, no one will notice his eyes moving. Or if he closes his eyes and sees no one, then he himself becomes invisible.