Financial Investigation

Over dinner that evening I told Mandy and her mother what had happened and for the second time that day the look on Mandy's face was priceless. John produced a bottle of champagne and we celebrated our engagement and my good fortune. The rest of the evening was spent in pleasant conversation about the wedding plans and discussing possible honeymoon destinations.

On Friday the weather turned nasty as a front swept through down from Canada bringing overcast skies and snow. By Saturday the snow had stopped and was replaced by very cold temperatures never getting above the low teens. Mandy and I spent a great deal if time together in front of the fireplace. I managed to finish my adaptation of an old program I had developed and burned a set of disks for use next week.

Sunday evening I logged on to John's company's mainframe computer. I was checking the Purchasing Department's records when I spotted it. "Gotcha, you son-of-a-bitch," I mumbled to myself.

I shut down my laptop and walked downstairs to find John sitting at his desk in the library. "I know who the embezzler is," I said. "It's Chad Jacobs, the department head. He got greedy and embezzled another quarter of a million dollars. I know how to get the money back. All of it."

"Jacobs, huh," John replied. "I would never have guessed it would be him. He's been working for me for over fifteen years."

I told him what I had discovered. "He used his company laptop to send an e-mail to his accomplice. Surprise, surprise. Guess who? None other than your good for nothing son-in-law, Larry Sanders."

"You're kidding," he responded.

"Nope," I exclaimed. "This is what I am going to do with those new laptops and cases you allowed me to order . . ." I went on to explain my plan to recover the stolen money and at the same time to turn Larry and Chad against each other. With any luck not only would we be able to put them both away for the theft but also gather evidence of Larry's involvement in Mandy's accident.

The laptops and cases were to being shipped by FedEx directly to John's office Monday morning and on Tuesday the fun would begin. At least for John and me but not so much for Chad and Larry.

Chapter Seven

We left early Monday morning for John's office. He and I sat in the back seat of his Mercedes SUV and two of the ten security agents assigned to protect John and his family sat in front. When we arrived, sometime after nine-thirty, the agent in the front passenger seat got out, opened the rear door and accompanied us inside. The driver parked the car and joined us while we waited for the elevator taking us to John's office on the top floor.

John placed his and my brief case on his office desk and then took me around introducing me to his staff and colleagues. He made it a point to introduce me as his grand daughter's fiance, particularly when meeting with Chad Jacobs. When we returned to his office the FedEx delivery had arrived and the laptops had been placed in the conference room adjacent to his office.

I began unpacking the laptops, collecting the serial numbers and entering them onto the documents each department head would have to sign when we exchanged their old one for their new one. After all, the laptops were company property and had to be accounted for as they were not considered personal gifts. Before connecting them to their respective battery chargers I opened each case and installed a GPS tracking chip. I would be now able to pin point the location of each laptop if the need arose. I doubled checked the carrying cases and they were just as I had ordered. Each had the company name and logo stitched into the outside leather cover with each department head's name and title below. They really looked great.

By now it was almost two in the afternoon and John entered the conference room and asked, "Hey, let's get some lunch in the company dining room." Once there he, again, made a big deal talking about my up coming marriage to his grand daughter. Around four o'clock we left the office for home accompanied by the same two security agents.

As we were leaving in the SUV he turned to me and with a wink said, "That ought to get the pot boiling. I bet Jacobs was on the phone to Larry before lunch was over with the news. Oh yeah, I also had my secretary email each department head notifying him of the laptop exchange tomorrow at ten o'clock in the conference room."

Tuesday morning at ten all the department heads were assembled in the conference room with their old laptops. John announced, "if you don't know, Eric has his Ph.D in computers and will be assisting you in the transfer of data from your old laptop to your new one. Also, the leather laptop cases are my gift to you for your years of loyal service to me and this organization."

"Gentlemen", I began. "Please sign the two documents before you. The first acknowledging the return of your old company laptop and the second one for the issuance of your new company laptop. Mrs. Johnson, Mr. Martin's secretary, will collect them and return copies of them for your records in just a few minutes."

After the two documents were collected I continued. "Along with your new laptop you will find two additional items, a firewire cable and a computer disk. At this time please connect the fire wire to the appropriate ports on your old laptop and your new one. Then boot up both laptops. Turn off any security applications you may have running and this will enable you to transfer your data from your old laptop to your new one. Also, please transfer any additional applications you may have installed in addition to the ones that came with your computer. Updated versions of these older applications have already been pre-installed for you on your new one. The transfer of data may take several minutes depending on the amount of data to be transferred. Double check that you are transferring all the data files and additional applications you may have installed. The next step will be to reformat your old laptop hard drive erasing it completely so that we may safely donate the old computers to a worthy charity and not give away company information."

Five minutes later after all the department heads indicated that they had transferred everything they wanted, I continued. "Now disconnect your firewire connection and put the computer disk in front of you in your old laptop. Double click in the icon labeled 'Wipe Clean' that appears on your screen and follow the directions. When the program finishes you will be instructed to re-start your laptop. You should see a screen that states 'hard drive contains no applications or data'. When this happens the computer disk will automatically be ejected. Please return this disk to me when you are finished."

As I collected these disks I was careful to place the one Chad Jacobs had on the bottom of the stack. After the conference room had been cleared I took Chad Jacobs' old laptop and his copy of the 'Wipe Clean' program back to John's office.

"These go home with us this evening. It will be very interesting to see what I find out. But, I want to work on them away from prying eyes," I told John.

Putting them in John's office safe I returned to the conference room to pack up the other laptops in preparation for donation to a local school. I re-installed an operating system and a few simple applications that children would be able to use.

Chapter Eight

Later that evening, after dinner, I told Elizabeth, Mandy and John I was going to work on Jacobs' computer in the library and they were welcomed to join me and watch. I booted up his laptop, installed the 'Wipe Clean' disk and typed the command 'discover'. The program worked just as I had programed it to do several nights ago. All of Chad's files re-appeared.

I turned to John and stated, "This computer is your company's property and legally, therefore, you are entitled to see anything that may be stored on its hard drive. Now let's see what secrets it holds."

Glancing through the file directory I opened one particular file. When it appeared on the screen, I exclaimed, "Perfect, just what I was hoping to find."

I explained to the two girls and John that when people sit in front of a computer screen they have an unrealistic expectation of privacy. They believe no one will ever see what they are doing. Chad Jacobs was no exception.

The file that I opened contained a list of off-shore bank accounts along with the passwords to access them. Each account listed Chad Jacobs and Larry Sanders as co-owners. I quickly went on line and opened each account using the passwords Chad had so thoughtfully provided.

"Look at this. He made his last deposit last night," I said. "I think it's time to make some withdrawals."

It took me no time at all to set up a secret account for John and transfer all the money to him. I then changed the passwords to each of those accounts guaranteeing that neither Chad or Larry would be able to access the empty account records. There would be no way either Jacobs or Sanders would be able to track the lost funds from their accounts.

"Now the fun really begins", I said. I sent an email to both Jacobs and Sanders from each of these off shore banks notifying them that their accounts had been closed and the money transferred as per their instructions.

"Each of them will believe the other one is responsible for emptying the accounts and we get to sit back and watch the fur fly", I said with a chuckle.

Sure enough when we arrived at John's office Wednesday the local police were all over the place conducting interviews and taking statements from everybody there. We were told that Sanders had showed up at Jacobs' home late last night. There was a violent argument and Larry Sanders shot and killed Chad Jacobs. Larry was caught trying to escape, foolishly produced the gun and waved it at the officers. He was shot and killed before he could fire his weapon.

An investigation uncovered the fact that Jacobs had been embezzling money from John Martin's business for several years. He and Larry Sanders were partners in the scheme and there had been a falling out over the stolen money. The money trail went cold when it was discovered the funds from the off shore bank had been withdrawn and transferred by Jacobs. It was assumed he had set up another account some where else. The money had been transferred so many times that it eventually became lost in cyber space and the investigation was closed.

Epilogue

Five months later on June 21st Mandy and I were married in the rose garden on John's estate. Elizabeth was her matron of honor and John was my best man. For our honeymoon we went on a six month cruise around the world. After all money was of no concern.