Needless to say, they aren't in the Yellow Pages either."
Travis looked away toward the view of the canyon framed in the deck's glass doors.
"We can find them."
"Could be tough. My guess is, it's a dummy corporation." "That's my guess too," Travis said softly, still staring into the distance, and then he felt Abby's gaze on him.
"You know something," she whispered.
"I might. Follow me."
He led her to the rear of the house, detouring to pick up his notebook computer from the study. When he ushered her into the master bedroom, Abby shook her head in mock dismay.
"You've got a one-track mind."
"Not today. This is all business." Travis opened the hinged double doors of a walnut entertainment center, revealing a TV set with a thirty-inch screen.
"There's nothing good on at this hour," Abby said.
"Watch and learn." He picked up the remote control and pressed the channel buttons in a seven-digit sequence.
With a metallic snick, the front of the TV swung a few inches ajar on hidden hinges.
"A safe," he explained unnecessarily.
"State of the art."
"Very clever, but what if you want to watch Letterman?"
"The TV is fully functional. It's a flat-panel screen, four inches thick, with the circuitry imbedded in the frame. The rest of the unit is hollow."
"So what've you got in there? The family jewels?"
"I believe you know where I keep those." Travis opened the safe door fully, revealing racks of CDS in plastic sleeves.
"What I store here are files. Highly confidential files." "Background checks," Abby said quietly.
"How'd you guess?"
"I wondered about it sometimes. It seemed like a reasonable precaution.
TPS is hired to protect people from a variety of threats.
Not all stalkers are strangers.
Routine background checks might come in handy in some cases. Anyway, it seemed plausible to me that you would cover that angle. Why not?
You cover everything else." She smiled slyly.
"You're basically an obsessive-compulsive, anal-retentive perfectionist."
"Flattery is cheap."
"So TPS digs up dirt on its own clients and the people in their lives."
"We prefer to think of it as gathering intelligence."
"Whatever. You investigate a client's spouse, business partners, personal trainer-anybody in a position to deliver harm. But you never tell them, because they wouldn't appreciate having their pals and loved ones put under a microscope."
"That's why these files are confidential and why they're kept in my home."
Abby approached the safe and peered inside.
"CDS," she said.
"Four dozen or so. That's, what, thirty gigs of data?"
"Not all the disks are filled to capacity."
"Even so, it's a lot of info."
"As you said, I'm thorough." "Actually, what I said was that you're an obsessive compulsive anal-retentive-"
"I think thorough captures it adequately." He thumbed through the disks until he found one labeled BAR WOOD which he lifted from its sleeve.
"You're right, though. You can store a lot of information on a CD.
All seventy-five thousand articles in the Encyclope for instance."
Abby nodded.
"Or every detail of Kris Barwood's life and the lives of her friends, her relatives… her husband."
"Yes."
"Good old Howard." Her voice was low and thoughtful.
Travis frowned.
"Once again you don't sound surprised."
"I was up most of the night reviewing the possibilities.
And the husband is always a possibility. Please tell me that Howard Barwood set up a company called Western Regional Resources."
"I wish I could. That would make everything easy."
"And things are never easy. It would take all the challenge out of life. If he doesn't own that company, what made you think of him?"
"Let me show you." Travis placed his notebook computer on the bed and inserted the CD, bringing up its contents on the screen. A series of folder icons appeared.
The first was labeled BAR WOOD HOWARD." Others bore the names of various people connected to Kris-friends, coworkers, attorneys and managers, even her housekeeper.
He accessed Howard Barwood's folder. Inside were more folders, arranged alphabetically: BANK ACCOUNTS, CLIENT LIST, CREDIT HISTORY, FINANCES,
INSURANCE, MEDICAL RECORDS, MOTOR VEHICLES, REAL PROPERTY, TAXES,
Abby sat on the bed beside him, looking over his shoulder. She sighed.
"There aren't any secrets anymore, are there?"
"Not many. It takes some effort to uncover all this, of course. A surname scan delivers the basic info: driver's license, vehicle registration, voter registration, and real estate holdings. The Lexis-Nexis property database supplies previous or secondary residences.
We check employment history with an executive name search.
Most of our information comes from the subject's credit history. It tells us where he travels, what he does for entertainment, where he likes to shop. Then there are insurance policies, medical records, phone bills, property tax filings, financial statements…"
"All technically off-limits to snoops and hackers."
"But accessible to those in the know." He opened the ASSETS folder.
"When I first investigated Howard, the Barwoods' net worth was twenty-four million dollars.
That was in 1994. Recently we took another look. This is the figure now."
Abby leaned close to the screen.
"Twenty million," she said.
"So either they've made some lousy investments or there's something funny going on."
"It's something funny." Travis scrolled through pages of spreadsheets, highlighting figures in the Date Sold column.
"Howard has begun liquidating his assets."
"If the assets are held jointly, wouldn't he need Kris's approval?"
"Most of these accounts were set up so as not to require a co-signatory.
It makes it more convenient for either asset holder to write a check."
"And also more convenient for one asset holder to move funds around without the other's knowledge.
Where did the profits from the asset sales go?"
"Into a local bank account set up in Howard's name."
"His name alone. No Kris?"
"No Kris."
The bed creaked as Abby tucked her legs under her in a swami pose.
"I'm beginning to see where this is going.
The money didn't stay in that bank account, did it?"
"No, it didn't." Travis found Howard Barwood's statements in the BANK ACCOUNTS folder. Cash withdrawals had been made at irregular intervals.
"Cashier's checks," he explained.
"Fifty or a hundred grand at a pop. After that, the money trail runs cold."
"You have no idea where all that cash is going?"
"Yes and no."
"I thought you might say something like that."
"Did you? Why?"
"Because you still haven't explained how dummy corporations fit into all this."
"Good point. I haven't. There is another factor." He opened the REAL PROPERTY folder.
"When we ran a property search on Howard Barwood, we found a house in Culver City." An address came up on the screen.
"At first glance there's nothing odd about that.
Howard owns a number of properties, small and large.
But recently he sold this house, taking a loss. The buyer was something called Trendline Investments.
They're incorporated in the Netherlands Antilles, if that means anything to you."
"A haven for offshore banking. Airtight secrecy laws."
"Very good. Now look at Howard's credit card statements."
Travis opened the CREDIT HISTORY folder.