Page 49 of The Grave Artist
“Exactly.”
“What do you want to do?”
“Get financial statements from back then. See who lost money in the bad fund, and how much.”
“Well, I’m sorry, honey. But I have a fiduciary responsibility. I could lose my license, and get sued, by revealing confidential client details without a subpoena. If I were served with papers, I’d have cover for turning over sensitive information.”
She countered: “But I don’t think there’s enough evidence for that. Just some phone calls I’ve gotten. Some mean comments on social media. Posted from anonymous accounts.”
“Well, I can’t give you records. I’d get in really hot water.” A wan smile. “As hot as the tea your dad used to drink.”
She plastered on a smile that matched his. Hiding the fresh surge of anger that someone had killed her father.
And Carmen’s refusal to do anything about it. She was certain her hard-charging sister could finagle a subpoena if she really wanted to, with only the thinnest of evidence.
“Well, Mr. Overton, what about just a list of names? Then I could go online and see if any of them had records. Previous stalking. Abuse. Anything violent.”
Or had a history of goddamn money laundering.
Which, of course, she did not add.
Carl Overton had been like an uncle to her and Carmen. Not immediate-family close, but he’d always treated them kindly and been generous with presents at birthdays and around holidays. He’d put together the funeral reception, which was held at one of the fanciest restaurants in the city—and was attended by CEOs of major companies and even some Los Angeles city officials.
It appeared he really did want to help but could not quite reconcile the legal and ethical issues.
She tried another approach to push him over those hurdles. “It’s like what happened with that guy, Bernie Madoff. He lost all his clients’ money, and they came after his family, even if they hadn’t done anything wrong. There was a TV special on him.”
He nodded in understanding, but clearly still wasn’t convinced.
Selina sat forward and lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, as if government regulators lurked nearby. “You know, my dad probably still has some of his own files in the effects Carmen and I have.”
Though they had nothing to do with his work. His financial advisory files had all disappeared—and she now knew why.
But she continued, “And if anybody asked, well, I could just tell people that I found them there. On his old laptop at home.”
Would he understand that she was giving him cover?
“Probably,” he said uncertainly.
“And they’d never know.” She waved a hand at his computer. Finishing the sentence with a silent “where any files you gave me came from.”
“Hm.” His dark eyes swiveled from her to the computer and back again.
Her older sister had taught her that when you were interrogating a suspect, silence could be your friend. Shut up until they feel compelled to fill the awkward pauses.
Overton hesitated for a long minute and then, apparently coming to a decision, began typing on his keyboard. “It’ll take a while. And there’ll be gaps. Roberto’s clients all moved on—those who still have money to invest, anyway.” He grimaced. “Sorry. That came out badly.”
“It’s okay,” she said. “It’s simply the truth.”
He turned to his computer.
Overton had been referring to the bum investment her father had persuaded people to sink their money into. Normally he wouldn’t havecounseled such a lopsided portfolio, but this fund had been vastly outperforming the market for several years.
Roberto had done nothing illegal, and he wasn’t the only adviser who’d been stung by the choice. The disaster could be traced to the fickleness of the stock market—and by the stroke of terrible coincidence that the three largest companies in the portfolio had all suffered financial disasters simultaneously. Two went bankrupt and the government sued the third for unfair trade practices.
But that knowledge had been of zero comfort to those who had lost their life savings and were too old to earn it back.
Yet the tragedy now worked to Selina’s advantage, creating the basis for the fiction that a resentful stalker had targeted her. A fiction that Overton had apparently bought.
