Page 152 of Head Room
“Occam.That made me think about looking at this the most straightforward way.Start with the idea that Nance was the intended victim—”
“Didn’t know we weren’t starting there,” Diana said.
“We were keeping open minds.Okay, yes, the possibility that Frank Jardos was the intended victim was dwindling, but we hadn’t eliminated it.Anyway, we — at least, I was thinking that Nance had issues, mental health issues, that might be at the bottom of this.”
“Agreed,” Diana said.
“But there were other aspects to him—”
“The FMT stuff,” Jennifer said.
“Exactly.Financial.That directed us toward the group of vets again.Can’t help wondering if his involvement with the group soured, caused conflict.But there was another aspect of the financial set-up.”
“The registered agent business.”Triumph radiated from Jennifer.“I’ve got stuff to tell you.”
“Since we talked this morning?”
“Did research on the plane.”
“That wi-fi’s not safe,” Mike inserted.
She smirked.“Got safeguards.Let ’em try.I’d found a couple interesting things before I left and wanted to check more.From what Elizabeth said...well, I called Tom—”
“My Tom?”
“Yup.Called him while I was waiting to board.For more names of vets.”
“Why?”Diana asked.
“I’ll get to that.First, Sherman isn’t Sheridan, with hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of businesses listed with registered agents, but there’s been a big jump here lately.
“I found what Nance could have found, too.Especially with his finance background and going to the library and his vehement conversation with Sergeant Jardos, most likely trying to figure out if the sergeant knew about it, or—”
“Knew aboutwhat?”Diana demanded.
“Someone using the vets’ names as registered agents for multiple companies.”
****
I demanded.“How?”
That covered both how she found out and how it was done.
“You had me checking on the vets, remember, starting with Victor and Zeke.Was digging for last names and connections.I hadn’t found much.But then, when I switched over to looking into businesses registering in Sherman, pay dirt.
“Other than a few stray single ones, there was a streak of registrations to a guy named Victor, then another bunch to Zeke, and another bunch to a guy named Malden, and another to — yup — Ron Sam Preet.I didn’t recognize the other last names, but I sure did recognize that one.That’s why I called Tom.To see if the last names for these supposed registered agents matched the vets he knew and they did.
“Each name had ten companies listed.No more, no less.Exactly ten.”
“Avoiding even the modest scrutiny a commercial registered agent gets while maximizing each name,” I said.
“Yup.And I only had time to dig into a few of these companies that are registered under the vets’ names, but they arenotgood people.”
“You didn’t leave any cyber trail for them to follow back to you—”
“Of course not.”
I’d insulted her, but she rose above it.
