Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
Bright and early the next morning, I met Ewan at the pub. Abigail had rearranged my appointments at the clinic for later in the day, so I could join the investigators when they went to Donald Jacks’s office.
Ewan and Henry were finishing up what looked like a full Scottish breakfast.
“Ewan said you were coming,” Mara said as she handed me a bag. “I made you one of those egg and bagel sandwiches you like so much.” Then she handed over a paper cup. “And of course some coffee.”
I’d already had two cups, but I wasn’t about to turn down a third.
“You are a lifesaver,” I said.
“Can’t have our Doc going hungry,” she said.
“We have time if you want to eat here,” Ewan said.
Their plates were nearly clean. “I can eat in the car on the way up the mountain,” I said. “If it’s OK with you.”
“Aye, it tis,” Ewan said. He put several bills on the bar for Mara.
Henry laughed.
“What’s so funny?”
“You’re the only person he would allow to eat in his car,” Henry whispered.
I was certain that wasn’t true.
On the way up the mountain, Ewan and Henry told me what they’d learned so far.
“The forensic accountant is going through the files we found in Mr. Jacks’s home,” Henry said. “She dinnae have much to say yet, but she did mention that she would be comparing the files with what was found in the office.”
Ewan nodded. “She also mentioned that many of the investments appeared to be bad from the get-go. Almost like he’d planned to lose his clients’ money.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” I said. “He had to know if he continued to lose their money, he wouldn’t have any clients left. Why would anyone in his business make such dumb mistakes?”
Even as I said the word, something clicked in my brain. “Unless—he was trying to find ways to launder funds.”
“Did you see that on one of your detective series? This isn’t the sort of place that happens.” Ewan replied. He didn’t say it in a derisive way, more like he was curious how I came up with the idea.
“I mean, it’s not exactly a place where murder happens either, but it does sometimes. It’s possible. Bad people live everywhere. I don’t know much about laundering money, though. Seems like even then you’d need to be successful, or your clients would be less than happy with you.”
In truth, most of what I knew about laundering money came from that Ben Affleck movie The Accountant. But I was having a problem with the idea that the victim lost money on purpose, especially when his sister was involved.
“True,” Ewan said. “And you would be talking more about organized crime, and we haven’t seen any sort of link to that in our town. Maybe in one of the bigger cities, but not Sea Isle.”
“The ACC is right. That is something we keep a close eye on here.”
I took a bite of my sandwich. Mara had used thick Scottish bacon, which was so good.
The over-medium egg was perfectly done, though it dripped down my chin a bit.
I used the paper napkin in the bag to blot the mess.
The last thing I wanted to do was lose my eating privileges because I’d dropped egg in Ewan’s pristine vehicle.
“Do you have any solid suspects yet?” I asked. “I mean, anyone we should keep an eye out for while we’re going through Jacks’s files?”
“Other than the people he worked with, and those who were involved with the train event, no.” Ewan shifted the gears as we went up the mountain.
“What about his clients?” I repeated what the boat captain had told me the night before. “I don’t know if you heard everything he told me. We’ve said this before, but if he lost their money—and a lot of it—people have killed for less.”
“True. What isn’t clear at present was did he lose the money of just his clients, or was the whole firm involved?” Ewan said. “That would open up the suspect pool quite a bit. And would give us a reason why they are already under suspicion.”
I finished my sandwich as we pulled up in front of the accounting firm. Some of Ewan’s officers stood by the door leading into the offices.
After tossing my empty bag into the trashcan by the light pole, I followed Ewan and the others into the office.
The shock on Catherine’s face said it all. Her desk was piled high with boxes from Jasper’s bakery. Her eyes were wide, and she appeared terrified.
“You can’t be here,” she said. “We have important clients coming in this morning.”
“We have a warrant that says otherwise,” Ewan said as he held up a piece of paper. “We’re going to have to ask you to vacate the offices while we conduct a search.”
“What the blazes is all this commotion, I can’t hear myself think,” Jeremy Burns bustled out of his office. “What is all this? Why are you here, ACC? We’ve already answered your questions.”
“They have a warrant to search everything,” Catherine said, as she pointed to the paper in Ewan’s hand.
“Let me see that,” the other man said angrily.
He read it over, his frown deepening. “I’m calling my solicitor.”
“I’d highly suggest that,” Ewan said. “But the warrant means we can investigate all of your files without delay.”
“What does this have to do with Donald’s death? You can’t possibly believe one of us would harm him,” he said. “He was a trusted colleague and brought in a fair amount of business.”
“Then he lost some of his clients’ money,” Ewan said. “Well, not some—a great deal of money.”
“Markets go up and down,” Burns said. But his eyes had gone wide when Ewan had mentioned losing money. “That is the nature of the beast. When one is in the business, we understand that investing is for the long haul.”
He was doing that sort of double-speak people used to confuse others.
Burns glanced furtively at the door. “I have important clients coming in any minute,” he said. “This will have to wait.”
“I suggest you take your clients somewhere else or use your conference room across the hall. We will be here awhile.” Ewan pushed past the man and waved a hand for us to follow. Several of his officers held file boxes.
“Catherine, set up quickly across the hall.” Burns sounded exasperated but there was nothing he could do. Ewan wasn’t the sort to back down, no matter how he’d been challenged.
And if Burns fought too hard, he would look even guiltier.
I noticed that Ewan’s team were putting very little into the boxes in the way of files in Burns’s office, but they were taking several photos of the contents.
I sat down in Burns’s chair and went through his desk drawers with a pair of gloves on. There wasn’t much to find. A bottle of good Scotch in the bottom right drawer, and the assorted office supplies one might expect.
The bottom left drawer held several files, but the inside appeared shorter than the right side. Once again, my skills from watching too many mystery shows made me curious.
“That’s strange,” I said as I pulled out the files and set them on the desk.
“What’s that?” Ewan, who had been going through one of the file cabinets, walked over to me.
“There is something weird about this drawer. There was a small piece of fabric near the front of the drawer, and I pulled up on it. The false bottom lifted and there was a small laptop hidden underneath. Just as there was in Jacks’s desk.
I assumed it would be password protected, but I opened the lid just the same. Property of Donald Jacks flashed across the screen.
“Why would Burns be hiding his partner’s laptop?” I asked. “And how many laptops did our victim have? This is weird, right?”
Ewan’s eyebrows went up. “Definitely strange, and a very good question about the multiple computers.”
“It is password protected, but I have an idea,” I said.
“We have a specialist who can come in from Edinburgh.” Ewan frowned. “I dinnae want to chance getting locked out.”
“I’ll just try twice and then I’ll stop. I was able to open the other one, right? Let me give it a try.”
Ewan didn’t look happy, but he nodded.
I typed in, locomotive, but it didn’t work. It beeped loudly, which was annoying.
I glanced up to find Ewan smirking.
“One more and then I’ll stop.” I typed in trainspotting1, and it worked. I couldn’t believe my luck. I’d read in one of my investigative books that most people weren’t very clever when it came to their passwords. Of course, Jacks had chosen a different version of the same one.
“I’m in,” I said. I clicked on some of the files. They were spreadsheets with loads of numbers and what looked like accounts. But none of it made any sense to me.
I went to his email and, luckily, he was still signed in and had several unopened ones.
“Do you mind if I look through his email?”
“Flag any you think might be interesting.”
“Will do.”
I was surprised by how many unopened emails he had in the last week.
Some were ads, but many of them appeared to be from clients who wanted to know about their investments.
His clients sounded worried. If things in Scotland were like home, people usually received monthly or quarterly statements for their investments.
Some of the ones he’d already opened showed his clients were quite worried, and he hadn’t bothered responding.
One email had me raising my eyebrows. The note was from BlueBird320, and the client was not happy about a recent turn of events where they had lost more than a hundred thousand pounds in one of Jacks’s schemes.
One phrase stuck out. You will pay for what you’ve done. The problem was, there wasn’t any sort of name on it. Still, it would be easy for Ewan and his team to figure out.
Ewan had walked out of the office, so I flagged it as he mentioned. But I also took a picture of it with my phone.
A few emails down, I found another threatening one. This one from HighlandFarmer26. Again, no name, but threats about losing some of their retirement funds.
While I understood the ups and downs of the market, as I kept track of my own retirement investments, it seemed as though the dead man was more prone to losing his clients’ money than making it.
“He wasn’t very good at his job,” I said under my breath.