I kicked off my shoes and climbed on the bed before I called Spidermonkey back. I wanted to be comfortable. Sometimes you just know you need to be.
Grandma and Moe helped Novak to his feet as he argued with his mother and they left me alone to see what ten texts and three calls were about. I’d missed a lot during the excitement and Spidermonkey was sure to tell me off with good reason.
“Sorry,” I said by way of an opening.
“You should be,” said Spidermonkey. “I was about to call the Polizei and report you missing.”
“Don’t do that. They’re not my biggest fans.”
“What did you do?”
“I was me and stuff happened around me.” I told him about the break-in attempt and the typing started, more frantic than usual. “It’s fine. We’re all fine.”
“I want that footage,” he said.
“Novak will send it.”
“I never thought The Klinefeld Group would make a play for you. Novak said the attempts to break his firewall were steady and still coming from Berlin. I should’ve known they’d send someone.”
“They might have someone here, but it’s not that guy.” I explained why and my favorite hacker calmed down.
“I almost had a heart attack,” he said. “How is your grandmother? It must’ve been a huge shock.”
“She’s calmer now, but it was.”
“Are you going to tell your parents?”
“You must be joking,” I said. “So did you get the Purcell’s financials?”
“I did,” said Spidermonkey. “Hold on to your hat.”
“Got my hat. We’re all good. Lay it on me.”
He paused for effect and then said, “Nothing.”
“What the…?”
“I know. No unusual activity in any of the accounts. Zippo. Nada.”
“How is that possible?” I asked. “Madison was taking that money from Anton. I know she was.”
“I believe you,” he said.
“Well, what’s she doing with it? Putting it under the mattress?”
He chuckled. “I wouldn’t be surprised. Her accounts are on USAA and they are all together with her mother’s and her brother’s. If Lisa Purcell opens her account, she can see everything. She’s co-signer on all the kids’ stuff.”
“Interesting,” I said. “I took my parents off my accounts the day after I turned eighteen.”
“You were always rebellious that way, not that I blame you,” said Spidermonkey. “Your father is a bit intrusive.”
“Ya think?”
“Still is. Morty’s all over your accounts.”
“I know. I’ve accepted it.”
“What other choice do you have?” he asked.
“None. Obviously,” I said. “I guess Madison and Jake don’t have those issues.”
“Not that I’ve seen. Very close and open.”
“Not that open.” I gave him a rundown on what Ethan Elbert had to say and Hobbes as well. “You never saw anything about an older boyfriend, so I doubt the mom knows.”
“When did Madison have that burner on the Wi-Fi?” Spidermonkey asked.
“June sixth. Why?”
“I didn’t look back that far for communications with the mother. Did Novak?”
“He didn’t mention it. He just said you were doing the money.”
“I am and there’s nothing there,” he said. “She could’ve handed it off to the boyfriend.”
“That’s a solid bet,” I said. “Maybe he’s blackmailing Madison.”
Spidermonkey kept typing furiously. “With what? The girl was completely normal until this all came up.”
“She couldn’t be. A normal girl doesn’t just start blackmailing people out of the blue.”
“It wasn’t out of the blue,” he said softly. “She met a man and he changed her.”
“Gimme a break. How weak is she?”
“You say that because you aren’t the gentle type.”
Am I being insulted?
“Oh, no?”
Spidermonkey told me a story about his daughter, the one that ended up being a physicist. She met a guy in sophomore year that had her shunning the family and doing pot at record levels. Before Spidermonkey and his wife Loretta knew it, she was off the rails. The guy had convinced her that he was the one that loved her and knew her. Her family was crap and her future could only be good by listening to him.
“What happened?” I asked. “You said she finished her degree and has a family. Not with him, I hope.”
“No, he’s long gone,” he said. “I’m not without skills and connections, as you well know.”
“I can’t wait to hear this,” I said. “My dad could take notes from you.”
“He could. From what my daughter did say about Horatio, yes that was his name, I surmised that his money wasn’t family money and that he was likely dealing drugs. This was during the crack epidemic, you see, and it was a big deal. A few well-placed calls, a tip here and there and Horatio ended up getting his upscale apartment raided. He went to prison and that was the end of Horatio. Good riddance.”
“To bad rubbish as my grandma would say. But…”
“What’s bothering you?” Spidermonkey asked.
“They haven’t fallen out. The family is strong. There’s love. I’m sure of it.”
He thought about it and said, “Yes, I see your point. But what’s another reason she could’ve done this, if not love?”
“Maybe it was love. We just don’t know where it was directed yet,” I said. “Do you have everything from Novak? All the phone stuff?”
“I have everything he has,” said Spidermonkey. “My money is still on Madison’s Horatio. That money is going somewhere and she wanted it for a reason.”
A reason…
My brain lit up and I grabbed my laptop to look at the money, all the sums Anton had taken out.
“Mercy?”
“Hold on.” I looked at everything, the crime scene photos, me in the trunk, Anton dead on the ground, the plane, the plants on Anton’s computer, all of it, and then I looked at her. Madison Purcell. That twenty-year-old sat in a café and took money from a teacher. A teacher, for God’s sake. It’s not like they’re loaded and she got small amounts.
“She bought that one purse,” I said.
“Yes?”
“It was a treat.”
Spidermonkey stopped typing. “So? She took her teacher’s money and bought herself a purse. Despicable, but so what?”
“Madison could do that. She had control of that money. I’ve been thinking of this as one thing. One crime.”
“It is,” he said. “A conspiracy to kidnap you.”
“That’s a big crime and that is not Madison. She’s twenty years old. Her big idea is treating herself to buy a purse. Kidnapping me is not purse money.”
“I agree. So…the second crime is the small sums?”
“Yes. That’s Madison’s speed. What does she make at Pizza Hut?”
He started typing. “Ten twenty-five an hour.”
“A hundred euro would seem like a lot to her. That was her idea. I bet Horatio doesn’t even know about it,” I said.
“Madison has to know about the big payday. She’s the point of contact,” said Spidermonkey. “But he’s the cause of all of this. I know it.”
“I agree, but let’s leave him alone for now. We don’t know him. We know her,” I said. “She’s the way in.”
“Okay. So both crimes are about money, big and small.”
“Madison is getting it every which way she can. If it was just greed, why not spend a bunch of it? The PX has all kinds of stuff. I saw signs for Lancôme and Michael Kors boots. She could’ve had a spending spree.”
“Maybe she did and the co-worker only knew about the purse,” he said. “There’s a mall in Sindelfingen and a luxury mall out in Metzingen. I checked when you mentioned the purse. It’s got Prada, Hugo Boss, the works.”
“I don’t think so. Madison wouldn’t brag about the purse and stay silent about everything else. It was her treat. The thing she gave herself and then…”
“She tried to sell it to her friend,” Spidermonkey said slowly.
“After the deal with Anton went bad. She needed the money and not for her Horatio. For herself. She was desperate for hours at work and suddenly she wasn’t.”
“When they hatched the plan to nab you, she didn’t need them, but now she’s asking again. What in the world could she need money for? She lives at home,” he said.
“College money?” I asked.
“I checked that. Madison and Jake have college funds. They got them after their father died. The mom funded them with the life insurance.”
Hold the phone.
“How much life insurance was there?”
“Let’s see,” said Spidermonkey. “SGLI in 2010. 400,000.”
“I assume that’s not in Lisa’s savings account,” I said. “Where’d it go?”
He typed away and then said, “She got the payout a few months after the father’s death. It did sit in the savings account for about two years. She didn’t touch it.”
“Grief. Makes sense,” I said. “Then what?”
“She took out fifty grand for each of the kids and put it in 529 plans for them. Not inventive, but she made solid choices for the funds invested. They made money. Madison has been dipping in every semester to pay for tuition and books. She’s living at home and the school’s online so it’s not super expensive. She’ll get through with no debt. Jake’s account is just sitting there. No withdrawals.”
“Everything is where it’s supposed to be for the college money, so where’s the rest?” I asked.
I held my breath while Spidermonkey worked. This was it. I just knew. Madison needed money. What for? College was all good. I’d seen her. Not a drug addict, unless she was hiding it super well. She looked healthy and fit. It was Mom. She needed it. Something about retirement coming up. The retirement money for enlisted couldn’t be a golden parachute, but still blackmail? What was up?
“Lisa Purcell took the money out in the form of a cashier’s check in 2012,” said Spidermonkey.
“Holy crap. The whole 300 thousand?”
“All of it. I didn’t see this before, but to be fair, I wasn’t looking at Mom hard.”
“What in the world did she do?” I asked.
“Nothing dramatic. She opened a brokerage account with a firm in Colorado Springs. She gets emails from them occasionally, but she’s not interested. She doesn’t open them. Probably doesn’t want to think about that money and how she got it.”
“Is it still there?”
“Working on it. The brokerage is tight. I’m going to have to be at this for a while,” said Spidermonkey. “But I can tell you she hasn’t opened an email from them in years. If I had to guess, she set it and forgot it.”
“Can you read the emails?” I asked.
“Sure, but they just say she should try new account structuring, shift her funds into different areas, or look into their retirement plans. They’re just mass emails. Nothing on Lisa’s account in particular.”
“Check Madison’s computer,” I said.
Spidermonkey paused and said, “You think she took it?”
“She needs money for something. I’ll bet the farm that account is empty.”
“Why?” he whispered as he worked.
“Just tell me it’s gone and then we’ll find out,” I said.
“Madison has the account on her computer.”
Wait for it.
“It’s gone,” he said with pain in his voice, dripping, angry fatherly pain. “She took it all.”