“If what you’re saying is true,” Daniel noted, “then her boss could have found out about it. That could be the reason she was fired.”
“And that’s easy enough to confirm,” Eve said. “All we have to do is call him up tonight and ask him.”
Daniel shook his head.
“What?” she wanted to know.
“The manager is gone, right?”
Eve suddenly remembered the conversation they’d had at the Rio. The waitress had told them that the manager was away for a few days. “Well, we could call human resources,” she suggested.
“That will have to wait until Monday.”
Eve tried to think of another way to confirm her suspicions. “We could go back to the Rio and try asking around again.”
Daniel took the receipt still on the table between them and appeared to be studying it.
“This doesn’t really tell us anything.” He laid it back down. “There’s not a full card number on it, no personal information other than a name. I don’t see that this proves anything. I don’t see that this confirms she was stealing numbers.”
Eve glanced down at the receipt again. Daniel was right, she knew. But she still couldn’t understand why her sister would have kept a bill from a customer. It had to be something important; it had to be a clue, she told herself.
She drank her coffee and noticed that Daniel was once again eyeing the two men sitting at the table near the front of the bar.
“Do you recognize those guys?” she asked.
Daniel turned to her and smiled. “I’m not sure,” he replied. “I’ve seen them somewhere before.”
Eve glanced once again in their direction. One of the men was young, looked to be barely thirty, the other was older, mid-forties, she thought. They were dressed in shirts and ties, no sport coats, and they seemed interested in only the baseball game playing on the television. They were drinking beers, and as far as she knew, they had not looked at or appeared interested in Daniel or Eve since they walked into the bar. She wondered if she and Daniel were both starting to see things that weren’t there.
“Okay, let’s go over what we have,” she said, drinking the last of her coffee.
Daniel leaned back in his chair, waiting for her to start.
She nodded. “Dorisanne is missing.”
“Yes.” Daniel rested his arms on the table and clasped his hands together.
“We believe she left with Robbie, and Pauline and the manager of the apartments both seem to know when they left.” She closed her eyes, wanting to get the details straight. “She was fired from the Rio.”
“But for what, we don’t know,” Daniel interjected.
Eve opened her eyes. “Right. It could be that she missed too many shifts because of hurting her ankle or she could be stealing credit card numbers from customers.”
Daniel blew out a breath.
“Robbie is very likely involved in some sort of theft ring. The police knew that he had some connections with guys who are known for credit card theft. They assume he’s an active participant.” She looked at Daniel. “That is right, isn’t it?”
Daniel didn’t remark but finally nodded.
“So either Dorisanne knew about her husband’s activities, perhaps even participating in them with him, stealing names and numbers from her customers, and they both left town because they’ve done something to cause trouble, or she’s not involved, and she just ran away with him because he’s in trouble and told her that if he was in trouble then she was in trouble and needed to leave town as well.”
Daniel dropped his head into his hand and rubbed his brow. Eve thought he looked tired. Had he actually had any sleep since they’d arrived in Las Vegas? She looked at her watch. It was after ten o’clock. They ought to call it a night, just go to bed and work on things again in the morning. But first she wanted to make sure she was clear about everything they both knew or were guessing.
She glanced back down once more at the receipt she had found in Dorisanne’s belongings. “Okay, let’s try and see if she’s involved.” She studied every line on the bill but could see nothing that indicated Dorisanne was stealing.
“What would implicate her in this theft ring? How would she get the numbers? It doesn’t show up on the customer’s receipt.”
“Most of the thieves have a skimmer.”
“A skimmer?” Eve waited for an explanation.
Daniel placed his hands back together on the table. “It’s about the size of an ice cube and it stores information.”
An ice cube. Eve tried to think if she had seen anything like that in Dorisanne’s nightstand drawer.
Daniel continued. “They attach the skimmer to any credit card reader and it stores the numbers.” He reached over for his mug and took a drink of beer. “I’ve seen them attached to gas pumps, ATMs, even vending machines, anywhere people use cards.”
They both turned to the couple at the bar who had suddenly cheered loudly. Apparently one of the teams playing on television had just scored. Eve watched as they gave each other a high five. She then noticed that the men at the front table still seemed to be glued to the same game, but they were not enthusiastic about what had just occurred. She looked again at Daniel. “What do they do with the numbers then? What good are they once the person notices that the card is being charged for purchases they didn’t make?”
“There’s a couple of ways to make money. One is that these ringleaders gather more information from the card owners, open up new accounts, and create fraudulent cards using the stolen card owners’ information. You really only need an address, a phone number, maybe a date of birth. Or they sell the numbers to somebody who makes a lot of purchases real fast and then turns around to sell those items—all done before the theft is discovered.” He shrugged. “If Dorisanne was just gathering numbers, I would guess that somebody else was taking the numbers and buying and selling the merchandise.”
Eve nodded. It was making sense to her, but she still couldn’t understand why Dorisanne would keep the receipt of a customer. She studied the name but did not call it out. Marcus Winters, it looked like, but she wasn’t sure. And yet it was exactly as Daniel had said. There was no complete credit number listed and no personal information written about the customer. She suddenly had a thought and pulled out the small address book, turned to the back, and began searching the names that started with a W.
“What are you looking for?” Daniel wanted to know. “And what is that book, anyway?”
Eve glanced up, her finger pointing to a line. “I got it at Dorisanne’s,” she confessed. “When we were looking around.”
“You took something from the apartment?” he asked.
“It’s in here,” she said.
Daniel waited. He shook his head.
“The man who signed the receipt—his phone number is in here.”