the Pallbearers (2010) by Cannell Stephen - Scully 09

Author:Cannell, Stephen - Scully 09 [09, Cannell, Stephen - Scully]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2011-01-05T05:41:46+00:00

Chapter 31

Nobody in the back booth at IHOP looked like they'd gotten any sleep either since we all split up five hours ago.

The restaurant was packed with a noisy breakfast crowd. As Alexa and I slipped onto the curved bench, I saw that Vicki had a calculator in front of her and work papers spread around. Vargas had started a file labeled Walter Dix. They had ordered coffee and rolls for six.

"Anybody seen or heard from our federal bank fugitive?" I asked as soon as I was seated.

They all shook their heads and looked at me with blank stares.

"What Jack did last night was a game breaker that could completely undermine everything" I said. "Even though the department hasn't made this a homicide yet, everything we do now still affects any eventual court case we might want to bring against Pops killer. We can't just be . . ."

"Stow it, Shane," Vicki interrupted. She was looking at me with hard gunfighter eyes. "We don't want to hear it, okay? Sabas told us until it becomes a murder case we aren't breaking any laws, so stop slapping everybody upside the head."

"You aren't breaking any laws, but you're very possibly trashing the end result," Alexa said, jumping to my defense. "Anything on that drive will be subject to a legal challenge should we ever attempt to use it."

"What's done is done," Seriana said. "I think it sucks that Jack went out and broke into those offices on his own, but Mr. Vargas has told us what we can do legally and what we can't. We've all agreed to follow his guidelines."

Vargas looked over at me and said, "Are you interested in any of the stuff we found out this morning, or are you just gonna sit there and bitch?"

"You've been running around doing more since I left you?" I said as my stomach sunk.

"Mostly Internet searches," Vicki said.

"Mostly?" Alexa had one eyebrow cocked, staring suspiciously over at her.

"Before I drove home, I went down to Kinney and Glass and ran a LexisNexis search on Creative Solutions. I came up with something interesting. We already knew that Creative Solutions owns Huntington House, but what we didn't know is it's also a holding corporation for six other nonprofits. They all have names that sound like new-age textbooks: Bridge to Tomorrow, Life Promises, Hopeful Journey. Each one of those nonprofits in turn controls its own foster-care facility. There's six group homes located all over L. A. that are part of the Creative Solutions family. There's gotta be almost a hundred kids in their network."

"At six thousand dollars per month per child, that comes to a lot of money," Sabas said.

"It sure does," Vicki confirmed. "It nets out at seven and a half million a year from the California Child Welfare Services."

"You think every one of these group homes is embezzling money?" Diamond asked.

"I don't know" Vicki said. "Sounds a little far-fetched. What do you think of this, Shane?"

"As long as you don't go over and

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.