Chapter 45

 

The next morning, Drake offered to help me finalize my new car purchase. I’d accessed the inventory online for the local dealership, chosen the Jeep I wanted and was now ready to talk deals. Well, okay, I wasn’t really ready to dicker with them, but with Drake at my side I figured we could get through it. We fortified ourselves with a decent breakfast at CeeCee’s and strode onto the car lot, full of confidence.

Two hours and a chunk of money later, I drove away in my new black Renegade. It wasn’t nearly as flashy as the red Corvette, but I liked the sort of ninja feel. Plus, it would be a whole lot more practical as we got closer to owning mountain property. Weekend gear and Freckles would fit right in, a fact that was a big plus.

Life settled down for a couple of days. Drake was handling details on our purchase of the tiny mountain cabin. While I was at the office this morning, he planned to meet a surveyor up there to establish the property lines. I’d hoped to run into Clover and take her to lunch as a thanks for the loan of her sister’s car, but I hadn’t seen her around. I should call—her cell number was right there in Zayne’s phone. I’d missed an easy opportunity to return it the night Clover passed out, so putting it back in their house in some sneaky manner was another item on my to-do list.

I called Donna Delaney and updated her with what I’d learned from Buddy, the tech guy from Innocent Times. She agreed that her nieces were probably pulling some scam on the parents.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about this. My guess is Zayne has gone away with a guy, and it’s probably someone she doesn’t want Rick and Jane to know about,” I said. “Clover is covering for her and has become very upset each time I’ve brought it up. I’ll get in touch with Clover and try again.”

I didn’t want to lose the girl’s trust, but the only way to get straight answers might be to present her with what I knew about the phone calls and texts.

“Whatever you think, Charlie. I’m sure it’s all right.” Donna hesitated a moment. “It’s just … I don’t have unlimited money to spend investigating.”

I assured her I wasn’t going to send a whopping invoice for my time. I’d just hung up the phone when I heard Ron’s booted feet clomping up the stairs. He peered in at my doorway.

“I just had lunch with a most interesting man,” he said.

“And here I thought you were completely devoted to Victoria.”

He rolled his eyes. “Why else would I have such a dweeb little sister, if not to make fun of me and twist my words.” He started to turn away but I called him back.

“Tell me about the lunch. I’m guessing this is a client?”

“A lead. I’m tying up loose ends on the Lorrento case and I happened across an old buddy of Jay Livingston’s from his high school days. I followed the friend-of-a-friend thread on Facebook and came up with Larry Vaso.”

He came into my office, sat on the sofa and took the end of a tug-toy Freckles brought to him.

“Larry told me Jay has been a con man since his earliest days. His dad used to fascinate the boys with stories of ways to make a quick buck by tricking people. They would laugh over his antics but, when Larry would go home and relate some hilarious episode to his own family over the dinner table, he’d get a stern lecture about right and wrong. He says he tried talking to Jay about it, but Jay just laughed it off.”

Freckles gave up tugging with Ron and went to chew quietly on a rubber bone.

“The Livingstons acted as if they were rich, Larry told me. They lived in the biggest house in the neighborhood, and Jay’s dad had a new car every year. Larry said it was hard for him to understand—if his friend’s dad was a crook, how did he become so successful. His own father kept telling him it would all come crashing down someday.”

“Well, Jay certainly wasn’t living the high life when we found him,” I said.

“No, and I guess that’s where the rest of the story comes in. The senior Livingston did eventually crash and burn. The boys were off to college by then. Jay had a flashy car and a high-limit credit card, and he didn’t take his studies seriously at all. He spent his time making money by selling fake term papers. Apparently, once, he sold a master’s thesis for thousands of dollars and it turned out he’d blatantly stolen it from the archives at another college.

“Back at home, the old man pulled a jewelry job—I’m guessing something like what Jay’s in trouble for now—and got caught. The whole house of cards came tumbling down when it turned out everything he owned was either mortgaged, rented or stolen. He showed up at his son’s dorm room, begging a place to hide out from the police.”

I felt my eyes go wide. Holy cow.

“This is where it gets interesting.”

It wasn’t interesting enough already?

“Larry and Jay watched his dad get hauled off to prison. For Larry, it validated everything his father had told him for years. He knew he would stick to the honest way of doing things, and never again would he believe in someone else’s appearances.”

“Jay obviously didn’t mend his ways, though.”

“Larry said Jay just got weirder and weirder. He didn’t stop scamming people. The liar’s mindset was deeply ingrained. But instead of spending his gains on a showy lifestyle, he started to hoard all of it. The cash, the jewelry—by the time the police caught him this week, he had trunks and boxes full of it.”

I remembered Detective McPeel’s comment about the tip of the iceberg.

“Yeah,” Ron said, “that crappy apartment where he lived held several million dollars worth of stuff.”

“Wasn’t he afraid of being robbed?”

“He wasn’t foolish. He’d rigged up the most sophisticated alarm system I’ve ever heard of, and not the kind that calls the police. The kind that traps the intruder. Without his codes, walking into that place could get you hit with a Taser or shot.”

“Seriously? Rigging something like that is illegal, isn’t it?”

He gave me a patient stare. “Pretty much everything Livingston did was illegal.”

Well, true. From stealing jewelry and borrowing other people’s houses, to sleeping with married women, his life consisted of unethical and illegal activities. I pondered the impact parents have on their children, and it was fairly mind-boggling. I felt a sense of relief I’d never had kids of my own.

I must have remained lost in that pensive mood quite awhile; when I looked up again, Ron had left the room. Maybe he was thinking of the extra time and attention he needed to give his own boys, especially as they approached their teens.