A Case of Vineyard Poison (20 page)

There was a cafe not far from the dock, and we found a table in spite of the noon crowd. It took awhile for us to get sandwiches, beers for the guys, and white wine for Helen, but we didn't waste the time.

Matt Jung looked at me without unfriendliness, but without friendliness either. “Helen's told me about your interest in this business. She says you're a man who can be trusted.”

“Not to add two and two and get four every time. That's another reason why I'm not a banker. Balance is a word unknown to my checkbook.”

“I wasn't thinking about your abilities as a mathematician.”

“I'm just telling you that I can't always be trusted to be too bright. Still, you may have some information that will help us get to the bottom of whatever it is that's going on. If you do, we'd like to have it. If you're wondering whether you can trust me with it, maybe I should leave so you can talk to Helen alone. I don't mind doing that.”

He pursed his lips. “And later you can get it from Helen.”

“If she wants to give it to me. I don't plan on beating it out of her with a rubber hose.”

Helen gave him her winning smile. “J.W. is just a little touchy because he's hungry, dear. He'll be much nicer when he gets his beer. I assure you that you can tell him anything you can tell me.”

I looked at her. “Touchy? Me, touchy till I get my beer?”

She patted my hand. “There, there, J.W. You probably just never noticed it. Who was it that said we are three people: the one we think we are, the one other people think we are, and the one we really are?”

“Pogo?”

“A Pogo fan, eh?” Matt Jung seemed to brighten, though he still looked neither unfriendly nor friendly. “The old Pogo or the new Pogo?”

“The old Pogo, of course. I inherited my father's collection of Pogo books—
Pogo, I Go Pogo, The Pogo Papers,
and all the rest.”

Matt leaned forward. “This is a test,” he said. “If you pass, I'll reveal all, since a true Pogo fan can be trusted with anything. What was the star in the wind?”

“Piece of cake: a word of white.”

Matt sat back and smiled first at Helen and then at me.

Helen frowned at us both. “What is this? A secret code? Do you both belong to one of those men's organizations or something? One of those clubs named after an animal, with passwords and handshakes?”

“ ‘The star is a word of white, of white. The star in the wind is a word,' ” I explained.

“Exactly.” Matt nodded. “Well, what do you folks want to know?”

“Everything you've found out,” said Helen. “J.W., I expect a full explanation of this star is a word stuff on the way home.”

“It's a literary allusion,” I said, looking at my nails.

“It's certainly eluded me.” She paused as our drinks and food arrived. “Ah. Now, gentlemen, let us devote our attentions to things I understand: vittles and banking.”

My beer and sandwich were not bad. Being smarter than some presidents of the United States, Helen and I could eat and listen at the same time, and Matt Jung could eat and talk.

“After we talked, Helen, I went over our files and found out that, yes, checks from your bank were deposited in our bank, in the account of the New Bedford, Woods Hole and Nantucket Salvage Company. The company address, by the way, is a P.O. box in Falmouth. The guy who opened the account is Cecil Jones, the company treasurer. He and his assistant, a woman named Marilyn Grimes, are authorized to make withdrawals. The account was opened in April with a five-hundred-dollar deposit, then stayed quiet until early June, when it began to get deposits mostly in nine-thousand-dollar amounts. Last week, though, it got a deposit of one hundred thousand dollars.

“Since we're required by law to report any transactions of ten thousand dollars or more to the government, we reported that last deposit.”

“But not the smaller ones?” asked Helen.

“No, because there wasn't any reason to be suspicious of them. A deposit or a withdrawal of several thousand dollars by a corporation is not unusual, as you know.” Matt paused to wash down some sandwich with some beer. “Now here's something more interesting. We've got bank branches in three other places on the Cape: Sandwich, Chatham, and Provincetown. About two weeks ago, the New Bedford, Woods Hole and Nantucket Salvage
Company started making withdrawals from their account. The withdrawals were from the various branches of the bank, and sometimes were made on the same day. They were always for several thousand dollars—pretty close to nine thousand dollars one way or the other, and always for cash. But since there was always enough money to cover the withdrawals, and Cecil Jones or his assistant never made more than one at any branch of the bank in a given Week, they never attracted anybody's attention. In fact, if you hadn't called me, Helen, we still wouldn't have any reason to pay any attention to the transactions.”

“They may be innocent as doves,” said Helen.

“Could be,” agreed Matt.

“How much money is still in the company account?” I asked.

“Of course that's confidential information,” said Matt. “But since you know that the star is a word, I'll tell you. About a thou over one hundred thousand dollars.”

“And there was about a hundred thousand in the account before last week's big hundred-thousand-dollar deposit . . .”

“Correct. Which means that the hundred thousand that was deposited earlier has now been withdrawn.”

“As cash.”

Matt nodded. “As cash.”

“And where did it go?”

“Who knows? To pay expenses for the New Bedford, Woods Hole and Nantucket Salvage Company, presumably.”

“Do you know many corporations that pay their bills in cash?”

Matt finished off his sandwich. “Not one.”

“Laundered money,” said Helen, sipping her wine.
“On the other hand, there's nothing illegal about paying debts in cash.”

“Nothing at all,” agreed Matt.

“Unusual, though.”

“What about the hundred thou that's still in the account?” I asked.

“What about it?”

“It sounds to me like Cecil is pretty apt to make a big cash withdrawal pretty soon.”

Matt shrugged. “It's his company's money. He can take it out whenever he wants to.”

“Do you have a picture of Cecil?”

“Better than that, I have him on video. We keep cameras going at all of our branches and they record all business transactions. A security precaution, in case somebody sticks up the joint. It'll take me some time to go through the film, but since we know when and where deposits and withdrawals were made, we can correlate those places and times with the film we have.”

“How soon do you think you can come up with a video?”

“Video is not my specialty. Tomorrow? Later today, maybe? I'll have to find somebody who knows more about video than I do.”

“Don't look at me,” I said. “I don't even have a TV.”

Helen finished her wine. “What have you found out about Frazier Information Systems?”

“Perfectly respectable firm. Branches all over the Northeast. New England, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey. Good reputation. You should know, Helen. Your bank has been doing business with them.”

“Yes, I know. Did you find out anything about the man named Glen Gordon?”

Matt reached into an inside pocket and pulled out a small notebook. He thumbed through the pages until he found the one he sought. “Glen Gordon,” he read. “Twenty-six, graduate of NYU, BA in math and computers, been with FIS for five years, reputation of being a hard worker, likes beach days off in the summer, so sometimes works clear through the night to get the free day time, single, but has girlfriends, well liked and competent.” Matt looked up from the notebook. “I got that from a secretary and again from one of the VP's. They both agree that Glen Gordon is just the kind of guy you'd want working for you. That work all night for a day off is the only thing that even looks half unusual, and even that works out well for the company because Gordon gets a lot done when he works alone.”

I looked at Helen. “Clotho is spinning-her web,” I said.

“First, the star is a word, and now Clotho is spinning her web.” She shook her head. “Everything's a mystery. I must have been culturally deprived as a child.”

“The star in the wind is an image in a Walt Kelly poem,” said Matt.

“And Clotho is one of the fates,” I said. “The one who spins the thread of our destiny before Lachesis measures how long it will be and Atropos cuts it off.”

“Oh,” said Helen. “Illiterate me.”

I patted her hand. “It's all a matter of having read
Pogo
and
Classic Comics.
Unlike Matt here, most bankers-to-be don't waste their time on such stuff. They're buried in
The Wall Street Journal
from the time they're in kindergarten. Don't blame yourself.”

“Don't worry,” said Helen. “I won't.” She turned to Matt. “I'd like to talk to somebody at Frazier Information Systems. They're here in town somewhere, aren't they? I've never met her, but in the past I've talked on the phone with a woman named Maple Appleyard.”

He nodded. “Their place is just beyond the big traffic circle, going toward Falmouth. My car, such as it is, is at your disposal.” He flipped again through his little notebook and tore out a page. “Here's the address. I've talked to Maple, too, by the way.” He looked at me. “I know it sounds like a made-up name, but it's real. Her parents gave her the first one, and she got the second one from her husband. She says she only married him so she could have the name. She runs FIS's Hyannis office.” He handed Helen a set of keys and pointed at a middle-aged Ford down the street.

“We'll leave the car in the lot behind the bank,” said Helen. “I'll lock it and put the keys on top of the left front tire.” She gestured to the waitress. “I'll get this bill.”

Neither gentleman at the table argued at all.

The big traffic circle is inland from downtown Hyannis. Highways sprout from it in various directions, and along Route 28 toward Falmouth we soon found Frazier Information Services housed in a large wooden building occupied by various businesses.

Inside, a secretary looked at Helen's card, made a call, and waved us into an office. A woman in her thirties, wearing a business suit and shoes with one-inch heels, came to meet us. Her hair was brown and thick, and was tucked up in some sort of bun.

For reasons which elude me, businesswomen seem to think that they have to do severe things with their hair and clothing in order to command respect. I tend to judge people by how they behave and what they say, rather than by how they dress.

On the other hand, even Zee, who is about as independent as they come, knots her hair up and wears a uniform when she's working, and I had worn chopped hair and a uniform while I was in the army and while I was a cop. So maybe I didn't have a case.

Such were my lofty thoughts as we sat down in front of Maple Appleyard's desk, and I tuned into the conversation that had already started.

“I'm afraid that I can't introduce you to Glen Gordon,” Maple was saying. “This is one of his beach days. Tomorrow is another one. He earned them by working nights last week. I think he said that there's some sort of a musical bash this coming weekend—a rock concert or some such thing up near Boston—so he's managed to get himself four days off in a row.”

“Isn't that a little unusual?” asked Helen.

“We try to be as flexible as we can, as far as scheduling is concerned. Women with small children—men, too, for that matter—can work unconventional hours so they can be home with the kids when they have to be. That sort of thing. We know that life doesn't happen on a schedule. Some people can work eight to five, and others can't. So we let people set their own schedules as much as possible.”

“Doesn't that make it difficult for a manager?”

“Maybe. On the other hand, I'm not always here between dawn and dusk myself. Sometimes I put in long shifts and sometimes I'm gone for a day and one of my assistants takes over. The secret is to have good people working for you.”

“I'd think your productivity might suffer.”

“It doesn't. Or if it does, then we have a talk with whoever isn't pulling his load. Usually we can work out a resolution. We change a shift, we adjust responsibilities, we try different solutions. If it's something we can work out, we work it out. Maybe the person just can't do full-time work here and full-time work at home. We might let him do part-time work until things at home get better, then bring him back full-time. If somebody needs more training, we try to see that he gets it.

“But if we decide that the person just can't do the work, we do what any business would do: we let him go. We're only going to stay in business as long as we can deliver the goods, so they have to be delivered. The biggest difference between us and most other businesses is that we really don't care where and exactly when our people do their job, as long as it gets done on time.”

Maple Appleyard made a small gesture with her hand. “As far as Glen Gordon is concerned, he's been with FIS for five years, ever since he got out of college,
and he's good at his work, so if he wants to work a few nights so he can get some days off, it's okay with us. He's got an excellent record, and he's very dependable.”

Helen nodded. “I'm glad to hear that flextime works well for you. You say Glen Gordon has been with you for five years?”

Maple Appleyard nodded. “Ever since he got out of NYU. He was with our New York office for four years, then transferred up here.” She allowed herself a smile. “I suspect it had something to do with a woman. Someone who lives in this area.”