Page 53 of Little Hidden Fears

“Oh, yeah. He’s loaded. We’re talking millions.”

“Wouldn’t the rest of the family benefit from his millions?”

Annie laughed, saying, “Owen had a nickname for his uncle—The Grinch. He said his uncle believed everyone needed to find their own way. He was willing to give people in the family an opportunity to work their way up, but he believed they had to start at the bottom, proving themselves first.”

“Do you happen to know his uncle’s name?”

“It’s a name you can’t forget—Alexander Beaumont.”

A fitting name, indeed.

I reached for a pen, scribbling the name in my notebook.

“Aside from Owen wearing flashy jewelry, is there any other proof you have that he was stealing company money?” I asked.

“I caught him once ... well, that is to say, I walked in on him when he was tearing one of the checks out of the book—a blank check. There’s no doubt I’d caught him off guard. He thought I was at lunch, because I’d told him as much. My plan was to circle back to say I’d forgotten my purse, see if anything nefarious was going on, and it worked.”

“What did Owen do when he saw you?”

“He made a strange comment about how he’d torn the check out to reimburse one of our clients who’d canceled their membership and complained they were still being charged dues. I knew of no such client, and even if what he said were true, it would have been my job to sort it out, not his.”

“My guess is Owen didn’t know what else to say in the moment, so he told you the first thing that sprung to mind. How did you respond?”

“I offered to handle the client myself so he didn’t have to bother with it. He gave me a firm no, and I didn’t press it any further. Ever since, Owen has been far more careful.”

As expected.

“Any embezzler, even one who isn’t smart, knows enough to not leave an evidence trail,” I said. “You said there were missing checks, but unless he’s a complete imbecile, and maybe he is, I imagine he would have gone to great lengths to cover his tracks after you caught him red-handed with a blank check.”

She nodded. “You’re right. I believe he’s hidden or destroyed any evidence about what he’s been doing.”

“How do you know?”

“I haven’t seen the checkbook for a while, or the book containing the company bank statements. Can’t find them anywhere in the office, and believe me, I’ve looked.”

“When you went to Noelle about what you thought was happening, I’m guessing she tried to get you to do the right thing and report him.”

“She did. She encouraged me to talk to Clark about my suspicions. I said no. It’s like I said before, I don’t know him well enough to know how aligned he is with Owen’s uncle. For all I knew, he could have fired me and covered it all up.”

There was some sense to her statement. If Alexander found out his nephew was stealing money, Owen might not have been the only person in his crosshairs.”

“What was Noelle’s relationship with Clark?” I asked.

“They seemed friendly. I always thought he was nicer to her than he was to most people. I’m sure it’s because he knew the family she married into had money. He’s a suck-up when it comes to people with deep pockets.”

“When you refused to talk to Clark, how did Noelle respond?”

“She was polite but adamant that Owen should have to come clean about what he’d done.”

“Did Noelle suggest an alternative way to handle the situation—besides bringing the uncle into it?”

Annie tapped a finger to the table, thinking. “Noelle knew I was worried about my job. And though I didn’t think Owen should get away with it, I didn’t want to be the whistleblower. Noelle said she understood the predicament I was in. She suggested I keep going to work, act like it was business as usual, and to do what I could to stay under the radar.”

As I assessed the story Annie had just told me, it made sense ... in some ways.

In others, it didn’t.

Why would Noelle, being as angry as Annie said she was about Owen’s misdeeds, drop it just because Annie was frightened over keeping her job?

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