A Fighting Chance

Diane still looked sad.

"But what about the checks. I saw the photocopies and it is my signature on the checks."

I was pretty sure I knew how that happened too.

"Who at the bank looks at the checks that come in and then cancels them if the account will cover the amount on the check?"

Julie shrugged.

"It varies. Usually it's Mae, the head teller, but if we're busy or one of us is out, Mr. Burke does it."

"What happens to the checks after they clear the bank? If it's like my bank, unless you specifically ask for the checks back, they make photocopies and then shred the checks. All Julie had to do was copy your signature, probably from something you signed when you were hired, and then use a printer to print the checks. The printed signature would be easy to identify, but if Mr. Burke processed them, he could just approve them, transfer the money, and then shred the checks. The signature on a photocopy would be fuzzy enough it would look like the check had been signed with a pen."

Diane gave me a questioning look.

"So they stole the money and made it look like I did it?"

I nodded.

"That's what I think happened. I can't think of any other reason why Julie would be at his house yesterday and this morning. That's where I took Julie's picture, when she walked out of the house and got into her car. That's where I took the other picture too, and I haven't figured that out yet. If Mrs. Burke's like you say she is, I can't imagine she's involved in the theft, but maybe she is.

"So we can call the police and have them arrested?"

"No, not yet. I think that's what happened, but I can't prove it, not yet, but I will. There's one other thing I need to ask you. Did Julie have any friends at the bank, someone who talks to her a lot?"

Diane nodded.

"Yes. She and Rosie seemed to be really good friends. They always ate lunch together, and Rosie told me Julie had been to her house for dinner a few times."

After Diane left, I sat down to figure out how I was going to get either Julie or Burke to give themselves away. After three years, they were probably feeling pretty sure they'd gotten away with it. If Rosie had called Julie and told her about a guy wanting to inspect her house, and Burke told her about the same guy coming to his house, Julie might have smelled a rat.

That was fine with me because I needed to convince them they hadn't gotten away with anything so they'd get nervous and fuck up in a way that would tie them to the theft. A little pressure goes a long way sometimes, and I intended to pressure them a lot.

The only thing that had me worried was that car with the blacked out windows and the note. Nine grand isn't enough to kill somebody over, but if that's what it was, pushing them hard was going to put a target on my chest. I'd have to stay alert and be ready to use the Smith if I had to.

One thing that can really shake up a person who feels guilty about something is if they think they're being followed. If I'm trying to find out what that person is doing, I'll try hard to make sure they don't see me. If they do, they'll stop whatever it was they were doing, like driving to a motel for an afternoon fuckfest with their secretary or going to a swinger's club.

What I was going to do was make it very clear I was following one of them, and I was going to start with Julie. My experience has been that women tend to see more things around them than men, and they're more apt to interpret what they see as being a threat.

The next morning at six, I was parked across from Julie's house. About eight, she walked out and got into the same blue Impala I'd seen at Burke's house on Saturday. I don't think she saw me there when she backed out of her drive because she just backed out onto the street and then started in the direction of the bank. I was on her tail by the time she turned the corner, and I stayed there.

After I'd made the same turn onto the Ellington she did, and then made the turn onto the Briley, I saw her looking in her rear view mirror. She started taking a really odd route then, turning down residential streets and circling that block only to end up back on the street she'd turned off of.

It took her almost an hour to drive the two miles from her house to the bank because of all the turns, and by the time she turned into the bank parking lot, I knew she was getting nervous. I pulled my car into a spot at the curb opposite the bank so she'd be sure to see me looking at her when she walked into the bank.

I knew she'd seen me after Burke drove into the parking lot in his BMW and then walked into the building. About five minutes later, he came back out and looked across the street at me, then went back inside. I grinned and imagined the conversation they were probably having.

I didn't stay there all day, but a little before the bank closed, I was parked on the street again and waiting for one or both of them to come out. Julie came out first, and when she drove out of the lot, I was on her ass again. She didn't try to shake me this time. She drove straight home, hopped out of the Impala and ran inside her house. I thought it was hilarious that she dropped her keys three times before she got the front door unlocked.

I parked across the street and sat there for the next four hours. From time to time, I'd see the drapes on the window that faced the street open slightly when Julie looked out to see if I was still there. On my way home, I was smiling to myself because I knew I'd shaken her up.

The next morning I followed her to work again and then parked and waited until Burke showed up. When he did, I saw him look at my car when he got out of the BMW, and he looked at me while he walked up to the door. He missed the door handle to the building the first time because he was still watching me, got it on the second try, and quickly stepped inside. Yeah, I had his sorry ass shook up too.

I hung around for a while to see if either one of them would do anything, but they didn't. I was getting ready to leave when a police cruiser pulled into the space behind me and the officer got out. I rolled down my window before he got there and then put both hands on my steering wheel. I hadn't planned on a cop showing up, but I figured that might work to my advantage if I played it right.

The cop, Officer Ted Robinson, asked for my license and registration. I told him I had to reach into my hip pocket to get the license and saw him let his right hand drop to the holster on his belt as he nodded and said, "go ahead".

I handed him both my driver's license and my PI license. He looked at the PI license and then smiled.

"We got a complaint some guy was stalking a woman at the bank. That's why I'm here."

I smiled again.

"Well, that would be me, and I guess it does look like stalking, but I'm on a case. One of the women who works in the bank has a husband who thinks she's fucking around on him. He hired me to watch her and see if she was or not. If you need more proof than my license, call Roger Ames down at Nashville police headquarters. He'll vouch for me."

Officer Robinson handed my two licenses back to me.

"Nah, no need to do that. I've heard your name a couple times before."

"Good things, I hope."

He grinned.

"Yeah, for the most part. Did you really catch that guy from Parks and Recreation fucking the Director's wife?"

"Yeah. He wasn't very happy about it and neither was she, but I had pictures to prove it."

He stuck out his hand and I shook it while he grinned again.

"They know you're out here, so you might not get anything to take pictures of this time. You be safe."

I saw the curtain on the bank window close just as he walked back to his patrol car.

I'd intended to leave, but decided to hang around for another hour. I wanted it to look like I might be a cop in a plain car. If they thought the police were involved, that would have them scared shitless. After that hour, I went back home to take care of little paperwork from another case, but I was parked back in front of the bank at four. By five, there were only two cars left in the lot, Burke's BMW and Julie's Impala.

I kept seeing that curtain on the bank window move from time to time and was congratulating my self for being so smart when in my rear view mirror I saw a black sedan with blacked out windows pull in to a space two cars behind me. It looked like the same black sedan that tried to run me down at the burger place.

I was hoping the driver would get out because I couldn't see him through the cars between us. The driver didn't, and I figured he was waiting until I got somewhere less public before he did. After another half hour, I decided neither Burke nor Julie was going to go anywhere as long as I was sitting there. I pulled out of my space and started down the street intending to stop a couple blocks away and wait for Julie to drive past on her way home.

The black sedan did to me the same thing I'd have been doing if I was following somebody. The driver wasn't very experienced at tailing somebody because the black sedan stayed too close to me, and after I'd made two turns I didn't have to make and the sedan followed me, there wasn't much doubt as to what was happening.

After another four turns, I was getting pissed. I thought I knew why I was being followed, and also thought I knew what would happen if I stopped, so that's what I did after turning into the parking lot of a high school and then driving around to the back of the building.

When the black sedan turned onto the drive behind the building, I was standing in the drive beside my car and waiting with my cell phone propped up on the rear deck behind me and pointing down the drive. I didn't have to wait more than a second. The tires on the sedan screamed as the driver accelerated and drove directly at me. It was about fifty feet away when I raised the Smith and pointed it at the sedan. The sedan didn't stop.

I let the sedan get to about thirty feet away and then fired three shots at the windshield on the driver's side. I dived behind my car then and ran up into a doorway of the school building for cover. The sedan swerved, sideswiped my car, and then plowed into the bleachers of the football field behind the school.

When I opened the driver's side door of the sedan, I saw a woman who matched the picture I had of Mrs. Burke. She had blood running out of a hole in her shoulder and a really nasty cut on her forehead where one of the angle irons from the bleachers had punched through the windshield. I saw a couple flames erupt from the buckled hood and yelled at her to get out, but she was pretty much out of it. After trying to get the seat belt unbuckled, I used my pocket knife to cut the belt and then pulled her out of the car.

When I had her on the other side of my car, I had pulled her blouse open and had a look at the bullet wound. Just like in the ballistics tests I'd seen in the ads for Hydro-shock bullets, there was an entry wound but no exit wound. I opened my trunk and pulled out the first aid kit I keep there, opened six gauze pads and started shoving them into the bullet hole. There was no way I was going to let this bitch bleed to death. I had a shitload of questions I wanted her to answer.

The gauze pads slowed down the bleeding a lot, so I retrieved my cell phone from where it landed after the sedan sideswiped my car and punched in the number for Captain Roger Ames, the commander of the local precinct. When he answered, he asked why I was calling him at home. I didn't mince words.

"Roger, I got a woman out behind Monroe High School with a bullet in her shoulder. I think I got the bleeding stopped, but I need the EMT's and a couple officers as soon as they can get here."

I was a little irked when Roger asked if I'd shot the woman.

"No, Roger, it was some fucking punk kid with a BB gun. Hell yes, I shot her. The goddamned bitch was trying to run over me with her car."

Five minutes later, two patrol cars drove up to where I sat with the woman, and I could hear the siren on the EMT truck. It pulled up to my car a minute later and the two EMT's pulled cases from the compartments on the side of the truck and then ran up to where I was sitting. While they were doing their examination of the woman, one of the patrol officers was trying to put out the fire in the sedan and I was explaining what happened to the other. Roger drove up and got out of his unmarked car and frowned when he walked up to where we stood.

"Harry, you better have a good explanation for this."

I smiled and handed him my cell phone.

"My explanation is right here."

Roger and the other officer watched and listened as the sedan accelerated toward me. They saw me pull the Smith from my ankle, and about two seconds later, heard my three shots and saw two holes appear in the windshield of the sedan, the first low and on the driver's side and the second about the middle and top of the windshield. They watched as the sedan swerved and hit my car. After that, the video was just what the cell phone recorded when it was knocked to the ground.

Roger replayed the video a couple more times and then looked at me.

"Know who she is and why she wanted to kill you?"

"Yeah, I know who she is, and I have a pretty good idea why she wanted me gone. I don't know all the details yet, but I think you're gonna want to talk to her and her husband and one of her husband's employees, a woman named Julie Mason."

I went on to explain my theory and when I finished, Roger frowned.

"It's pretty sketchy, Harry. I believe she tried to kill you, but it doesn't make sense she'd do that over such a small amount of money. Maybe we'll find out when we talk to her. I'll need to take your gun, and don't leave Nashville until we talk to all three of them, OK?"

I handed him my Smith and said all he had to do was call and I'd come down to the station any time he wanted.

Roger gave me the whole story three days later when I went down to pick up the Smith, and after he did, I called Diane. When she got to my office, she had another woman with her, a woman who looked a lot like Diane, but about my age. Well, she looked like Diane in the face anyway. The rest of her was just really sensuous and sexy woman. Diane had tits. This woman had jugs. Diane had an nice ass, but it wasn't nearly as nice as the older woman's. This woman had an ass that just begged to be fondled, and I had a vision of seeing that ass jiggle when my belly hit it.

Diane grinned when she saw me looking.

"Harry, this is my mom. She wanted to meet the man who's been helping me."

The woman held out her hand.

"My name is Vicky, Vicky Moss. Pleased to meet you, Harry. Now, what's happened?"

I grinned, partly because Vicky was grinning a little sexy grin, and partly because I was happy with what I'd heard from Roger.

"Well, Diane, I don't think you have to worry about going back to prison. Any decent lawyer should be able to get your conviction reversed and your record expunged. Julie told them you didn't do anything wrong and then told them the whole thing was a lot deeper than just you. The police have Burke and Julie in custody right now, and once Mrs. Burke gets out of the hospital she'll be charged too."

Diane looked bewildered.

"Hospital? Mrs. Burke is in the hospital? Why?"

"Well, I sort of shot her."

"You shot Mrs. Burke?"

"Well, yeah, but she was trying to run over me at the time. The car she used was one she bought for Julie that Julie kept in her garage and didn't drive very much. She'll be OK. She'll have a sore shoulder for about a year, and they're going to charge her with attempted homicide along with bank fraud, but other than that, she'll be OK. I'd bet she and Julie will end up in the same prison where you were. They'll probably enjoy their time together. It won't be quite the same as before, but they'll still be together."

Vicky cleared her throat.

"Do you always beat around the bush with your clients like this? I'd like to hear the story from start to finish if you don't mind."

I thought that was a little pushy, but her smile made me forget that.

"OK, here's the long version. Diane, you were just a test to see if their idea would work or not. It didn't because of the customer who complained about the overdraft, but their basic plan was OK. Like I thought, Julie was changing the account numbers after you recorded the deposits and then printing your signature on the checks. The computer forensics guys from the Nashville PD found the signature she used and the format she used for the printer.

"What they also found was the reason Mrs. Burke tried to run me down with the car she kept in Julie's garage. There's a lot more money involved than your nine thousand. After Burke had to do something when the customer complained, Julie made some changes to the bank's software. When one of the tellers recorded a deposit, the computer would then automatically change the account number to one of three fake bank accounts she'd set up.

The rest is pretty complicated, but evidently Julie is pretty sharp with software. What she set up was a system where every bank deposit went into one of her fake accounts. The computer system monitored all the real accounts, and if a check or debit transaction came in that would cause an overdraft on one of those accounts, the computer would automatically transfer money from a fake account to that one to cover it and then OK the transaction. That avoided anybody coming to the bank and asking why their debit card had been rejected like the customer in your case.

The computer also tracked bank balances and transactions and faked the monthly report to look like everything was OK, so nobody would complain about that either. All the valid transactions -- deposits, checks, debit charges and such - were on the report, but the transfer of funds to and from the fake accounts wasn't.

"It's hard to believe it was worth all that effort until you consider how many people and businesses use that bank and how Julie had set up the software. They weren't making money by stealing it from customers. They were just letting the money float in and out of their fake accounts and collecting the interest on it while it was there. The computer guys discovered between the three fake accounts, they were collecting interest on about thirty million and that interest amounted to somewhere around three quarters of a million a year."

Diane looked confused.

"You keep saying they, but it sounds like it was just Julie. How are Mr. and Mrs. Burke involved?"

I smiled because this was the really interesting part.

"Well, you were wrong about Mrs. Burke being quiet and shy. That's just the act she does when she's in public. In private life, well, to put it in plain terms, she's a selfish bitch who'll do about anything to get what she wants. She keeps Mr. Burke on a really short leash, and he doesn't do anything unless she tells him to. When the detectives questioned him, he said he'd have to ask her what he should say. It wasn't until they promised him if he pled guilty he wouldn't have to face her in court that he started talking.

Between the two of them, Julie and Mrs. Burke, they came up with the scheme. Mrs. Burke was a CPA before she married Mr. Burke, so she furnished the accounting knowledge and Julie did the software work. That was after they got to be, shall we say, very, very close friends. That rumor about Julie and Mr. Burke, well it wasn't Julie and Mr. Burke.

Julie was sleeping with Mrs. Burke except a few times when Mr. Burke needed to be convinced to keep his mouth shut. Julie told the detectives Mr. Burke was getting nervous about how much money they were stealing, so Mrs. Burke told her to convince him he should calm down and let them handle things. Apparently Julie is something of an exhibitionist, because she told the detectives it was fun watching what Mr. Burke did when she took off her clothes. Mrs. Burke was there too, and used her cell phone to take video of what happened each time.